Our Leader, Marc, mentioned he was hoping to go to South Wales and we offered to lead some trips for him as a thank you.
Saturday saw us do the classic OFD 1 to OFD II through trip.
To continue Marc’s weekend tour of South Wales, we decided it wouldn’t be complete without a round trip in Dan Yr Ogof. I had been in twice previously so Mark decided to let me lead (without any survey!) to see how much I could remember.
I managed to flawlessly navigate through the show cave…….. Whoever said this leading malarkey was hard work!?
At the Lakes we found the water was at a surprisingly low level and we were soon through to Straw Chamber, where we took a short diversion into Corbel’s Chamber. Marc isn’t particularly keen on small spaces but the long crawl proved to be far less of a challenge than he was expecting and we made it through to the fixed ladder without incident.
Once at the Crystal Pool we stopped to take a few photos, and while Mark packed the camera away, I took Marc along Flabbergasm to show him the straw formations. We then continued through the Grand Canyon to Cloud Chamber and the Green Canal. As always, I was the first to grab a rubber ring and go whizzing off through the clear water. Once we had emptied the ponds from our wellies on the far side, we took a diversion down Go Faster and Go Slower Passage to the Rising. After a photo at the Battleship we retraced our steps and headed to the top of the Abyss. The climb down was far less intimidating than I remembered and in fact was almost fun!
Once under the Camel and through Thixotropic Passage, Mark was very pleased to find the sump to Mazeways open as he had been waiting a while to explore this short but interesting area of the cave. We split up and spent a short while running up the converging and diverging passages, and of course Mark wanted a few more photos. We completed the round trip by making our way back to the crawl via Bakerloo and retraced our steps to the Lakes where Mark decided he really really wanted a photo. Being the ‘water baby’ he explained that my job was to walk out to the centre of the lake, hands full of flash guns, until I was only just holding my head above the water so I could backlight Marc, but of course remembering not to fall in and get the equipment wet! So after what seemed like an eternity teetering on my tiptoes in freezing water trying not to drown either myself or the flash guns, Mark finally had the photo he wanted, and I raced out to the van to get warm.
All in all an excellent trip in a beautiful cave, and a route I am keen to do again soon to cement the navigation in my head.
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| Marc In Lake 2 |
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| Chloe In Mazeways |
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| The Crystal Pool |
Trip Report: Chloe Burney
Present: Chloe Burney, Mark Burkey and Guest Marc (N Wales)
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