Ogof Tee - Stuck in the 19th Hole

Our second cave for the day was just across the valley from the first. We headed up the track onto the hillside adjacent to the Merthyr Tydfil golf course. After a short distance we arrived at the shakehole and made our way down through the massive and loose boulder choke to arrive after a few minutes in a rather shaky gritstone collapse chamber. From here we followed some low crawls, often over fallen boulders to make our way to the end of Ogof Tee, where a strong draught beaconed us down a route through boulders.

Low crawl in Ogof Tee - Photo by Mark

Loz in a small alcove in Ogof Tee - Photo by Mark

Loz in a small chamber in Ogof Tee - Photo by Mark

The route was very tight at first and the belled out, so a line was rigged and then we started to descend. The climb was not as bad as first looked and soon Loz and Brendan were awaiting the arrival of Mark. The squeeze through the boulders was far to tight for him so a few minutes of rock bashing took place to take off the sharp pointy edge of the one boulder that was stopping his descent. Soon Mark was able to just squeeze through and we prayed that this would be a one way trip. We were now in Ogof Cil Sanws and we followed the strong draught through some boulder digs and tight sections to meet a trickle of water entering a low wide section. We could see plenty of airspace and so we went through to and area where we could see daylight. Some frantic digging through snady sediment allowed us to reach daylight at the Ogof Cil Sanws entrance high up in the side of the Danydarren quarry.

Low wet crawl near the entrance to Ogof Cil Sanws - Photo by Mark

Present: Loz Appleby, Mark Burkey and Brendan Marris