A coffee break in Ogof Marros

It had been a long wet winter and as the entrance series can flood to the roof we had been hampered from visiting the newly discovered Ogof Marros.

 I had first met Phil Knight a few years ago when he joined the SWCC where on one of our regular jaunts in to OFD he decided to join us and not long after this Brendan had enlisted his help locating and exploring the caves of Carmarthenshire.

It was during one of these visits to that Phil first mentioned about his passion for a particular dig area near Greenbridge and 2 years later we were back with him to take photo's of his pride and joy.

I should mention a few other names at this point as over the summer of 2015 Phil was joined by a full team of dedicated diggers including: Fred Cook, Emily Ivens, Storm Morris, Ashley Pursglove, Antonia Freem, Andy Freem, Claire Vivian, Duncan Hornby and Michael Perryman.

 Brendan, Myself, Jess and Mags arrived at the SWCC on the Friday night to ensure we would get a descent start the following day. The SWCC is about a 2 1/2hr journey for us and Pendine a further hour and half.

 We arrived in Greenbridge to a fine sunny day and met with Phil, Andy & a handful of others for a full tour of the surrounding area and before heading to the entrance.

 Above a rather gloopy sink we entered a hands and knees crawl and were soon making our way down a 4m climb. At this point Andy asked Phil if he was planning on going ahead 'just incase'........'Just incase' turned out to be for my benefit as our first obstacle would be a letterbox squeeze in to the cave named 'Freds Despair', fortunately this turned out to be more awkward than tight and didn't stop my journey in to the newly discovered 300m of cave.

We then made our way through stooping passage to '3 Man Chamber' and on through boulder choke to emerge over the top of the original way in to the cave to emerge at 'Wildest Dreams Stream Way.' Here I stuck my head in to the original crawl which looked pretty dire with bits of scaffold and wooden blocks holding the boulder choke above you at bay. Andy cheerfully pointed out that the grovel through hanging death was normally accompanied by a thorough soaking as you made your way through the flat out crawls and that more than once boulders had moved and only luck had intervened to stop more than one of the diggers being badly injured. I was grateful the alternative route had been found a couple of weeks earlier which now meant that the route in to the cave was accessible in all but the wettest conditions.
 After a brief look in to 'Crystal Carpet Chamber' , we made our way in to the Main Stream Way where Phil proudly showed us his Barista skills before heading off to dig with the others whilst Andy took us on a tour of the rest if cave. On we went through a loop route past Jimmy the trout, who was hiding in a static pool, to take in the rest of the passage way. Back in Stream Way we headed toward through a couple of crawls to start taking some photo's of the '3 Tier Rifts', whilst Andy re-joined the diggers.  Brendan and I snapped away happily whilst our models got colder and colder.
Mags has only been on a couple of trips with us and leaned over to Jess on the first shot of the day and asked her if Brendan and I aways took our cameras with us.... 'Oh yes', Jess smirked. As we continued to take snaps we heard what sounded like formations being broken and left our cameras to find out what had happened. As we emerged over boulders a strong smell of coffee rose from the stream and it turned out that one of the digging crew had had an unfortunate incident with the jar!

As there was no further coffee to be had our models both revolted and insisted we exit in time for ice-cream & cake at the nearby beaches in Pendine......Well who was I to argue!

Crystal Carpet Chamber

Phil before the unfortunate coffee incident (Photo Mark Burkey)

Back to work (Photo Brendan Marris)

Marros Stream Way (Photo Mark Burkey)

3 Tiers Rifts

Marros Main Stream Way (Photo Mark Burkey)

Present: Mark, Jess, Brendan & Magdalena

Ogof Pant Y Llyn the quest for the grail

On our second day we decided to head out west from our base at SWCC. Our target was Ogof Pant Y Llyn located above the only turlough in the UK at the Carmel woods in Glan Gwenlais. Although only a little over 20 miles from SWCC the drive was quite long and we arrived on a gloriously sunny day. We changed and headed to the cave, our first aim to locate all the entrances in the immediate area. There are six cave entrances with three of them connecting into Ogof Pant Y Llyn, each linking into a different level in the cave. We started with the top entrance which has a cosy squeeze at the bottom of a steeply descending entrance passage. Mark tried to enter this feet first but could not make it past the tightest spot. We decided to go in via the most straightforward entrance, the large Lower Entrance. At the back of the short section of large passage a duck is found, formed in the u bend produced by the digging out of the mud to gain entry to the cave. Once through the duck a clamber over boulders this led into the top of a steeply descending bedding chamber, with much loose rock on the upper slopes. We descended following the obvious route until we reached the bottom of this chamber. Here a climb up of about 3m took us to a higher level where a passage headed down dip past some formations to a climb up to a dig. Going the other was we ascended a very muddy steep tube to reach an area of breakdown and a horizontal slot with a half tube in the roof above giving us access to the Upper chamber above. Although very muddy in the lower section, as we headed upwards this chamber became more pleasant. We headed to the left through the appropriately named Totem Passage and then descended into a section of massive phreatic passage out of character with the rest of the cave. A low silted crawl at the end had to be dug out to get into Disappointment Chamber that had a tall aven leading off. We took photos on the way out and then looked for the Upper Entrance connecting with the Upper Chamber this was easily found and Mark decided that he preferred to go out the horrible squeeze than retrace our steps through the rest of the cave. Once above ground we headed to the new entrance and Mark followed this to connect to the main route in.

Brendan in Ogof Pant Y Llyn - Photo Mark Burkey

Mark in Ogof Pant Y Llyn - Photo Brendan Marris

Mark in Ogof Pant Y Llyn - Photo Brendan Marris

Mark in Ogof Pant Y Llyn - Photo Brendan Marris

Present: Mark Burkey and Brendan Marris

Rocking around Carmarthenshire

Bank holiday Monday saw us taking a drive to Crwbin Carmarthenshire to meet up with Phil and Emily for the second day of finding and photographing some of the less visited caves of South Wales.

Brendan had skipped breakfast and wasn't feeling 100% after walking the Black Mountain the day before in the blazing sunshine, so it was just as well that our objectives were only a ten minute walk from the parking spot where we met up.

Ogof Nant Hyfryd

After kitting up Phil led us to the quarry where an impressively unstable looking quarry face awaited us.

The entrance was clearly visible from across the quarry 16m above a shelf with a further 10m drop below the shelf. 

We ascended the loose slope to the face where the final 4m looked almost impossible. We looked this way and that trying to find a way up until a metal stake was spotted up a loose looking climb. As I ascended large chunks of rock came away as I gardened my way up the face. Finally I reached the last awkward move and reached for the metal stake only to find this also come away in my hand!

Finally I scrambled in to the entrance and begun to look for a suitable place to tie off the rope for the others to ascend. Phil came next and found the climb harder than he had expected, even with a hand line.
Brendan and Emily watched nervously as again Phil found good chunks of the face give way as he climbed & decided it would probably be wise for them to continue the search for other cave entrances Brendan had tagged for finding.
We arranged to meet back up at 3pm and Phil and I headed in to the cave.

Brendan and I had read the description and I had some survey which described a linear rift passage with route names such as the Double Totem poles & Pete's paradise, so we were expecting something rather pretty.
As phil and I rounded Curtain Corner we found the rift begin to close down until after 15 minutes we were forced to crawl through the phreatic passageway.
There were a couple of respites butr the rest of the cave proved to be mostly crawling and flat out crawling with the occasional squeeze.
The formations were quite pretty, but not quite what I'd been expecting and near impossible to photograph due to the constricted nature of the passage.

After flat out crawling around White Corner we reached a chamber with a squeeze which took us in to an unstable choke and here we could go no further.
A few photographs were taken on exit where we found the other two waiting in the sunshine. Phil had another good chunk of the quarried face give way as he made his way down and this echoed impressively around the quarry as it went.
I managed my way down without issue and was very happy to arrive safely with the others to continue the hunt for the couple of remaining entrances.

Phil at Curtain Corner

Phil in passage just before Pete's Paradise

Phil in the final chamber before the choke

Crwbin Cave

The van was parked en route so we stopped off for a drink and snack before continuing. Emily had to get off, so it would just be the three of us continuing.
We were soon in a confusing wooded area with different levels of 'steps' from the old quarrying.
Phil led us to the obvious entrance, but Brendan was looking rather pale. He was pretty sure that it was dehydration from the long walk in the sun the previous day and so elected to sit in the shade whilst Phil and I had a quick dive in to the cave. 

After a short crawl we were in a tight rift marked as a squeeze on the survey. This is an awkward piece of passage that exits in to a right angle bend.
After this the passage gained in size and entered a sand floored chamber with an impressive ceiling sloping down before us to meet the floor. To the right of this we entered some steeply descending mud filled phreatic passages which pass a couple of avens and passage way which all end in deep pools of water except in the driest of weather. The entire cave took only 25min's even stopping for a quick photo in sand floored chamber before heading out to meet Brendan.

Phil in the Sand Floored Chamber

Ogof Capel Dyddgen

With Brendan now looking almost human again we continued through the wooded area to an impressive 3m cave mouth in the quarried face. It was obviously a favourite for locals with beer cans, garden chair and even a BBQ area around the front. What was unexpected was the sheer size of passageway in this interesting cave. We were immediately greeted by a 9m high passage which would not be out of place in the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu system. Brendan took a couple of photographs and Phil and I went to take a look at the duck, which was sumped, before we made our way back to the cars. We said our good byes to Phil and took the hours drive back to Penwyllt stopping off for a well earned meal on the way.

Phil in the Main Passage

Phil in the Main Passage

Present: Brendan Marris & Mark Burkey, with thanks to our guides Phil and Emily