North Wales Weekend - Dudley goes 'Carry on Camping' - Day 3, ODB

Well we are a caving club after all and it can't all be fun and merriment, so day 3 was our proper caving trip into ODB with a local leader, Marc.
After the tents were down and the obligatory breakfast had been consumed, Mark, I, Chloe and Brendan met up with Keith, who had driven up for the day, and we descended on the quarry with Marc and his helper Mark. (Chloe was chuffed to discover that if she ran into difficulties there'd likely be a Mark close to hand.)
ODB starts off as a mine but soon breaks into natural cave, with tight rifts, huge chambers, very pretty formations, flat out crawls and climbs.
Marc took us through the impressively dug connection into Llyn Du 2, which the North Wales members dug by hand over many months. The sump was not open enough to go through, which Keith was relieved about, so Chloe insisted on getting soaked through exploring a little streamway instead, taking the 3 Marks with her.
Mark had been a little nervous about getting through the Lobster Pot choke  as he had got stuck there as a novice caver, but to Keith's disappointment he slipped through easily.
A great caving trip was rounded off with a drink at the pub and promises of reciprocal trips for Marc and Mark.

Present: Jess B., Mark B., Brendan M., Chloe B., Keith E.

North Wales Weekend - Dudley goes 'Carry on Camping' , Day 2 - Cwmorthin, Zip Wires and Trampolines

Having decided we were all going to leave camp at 9am and go for breakfast, Mark and I were rudely awakened by thumping on the van at quarter past 9.
A proper caving breakfast having been consumed, the majority of the group set off to meet Carl and his girlfriend Abby, who had offered to lead a trip into Cwmorthin.
Carl led the group on a really enjoyable round trip with lots of  ladders and traverses and impressive chambers, while Amy, Daniel and I went to Llechwydd Slate Caverns to throw ourselves down the zip wires there, which was great fun!
Once the others arrived, with glowing reports of Carl's trip, it was time to Bounce Below - 3 levels of trampolines with slides and climbs, inside the mountain itself. For an hour we all became 6 years old again, and emerged hot and sweaty and ready for a nice pub meal in Betys y Coed.
This was followed by an evening looking out at the campfire and the rain, from the shelter of the mess tent, where Loz proudly displayed her leopard print legs covered in 'caving' bruises from Crib Goch, and we told each other scary caving stories till bedtime.

Chloe climbing in Cwmorthin

Chloe climbing in Cwmorthin

Matthew in Cwmorthin

Matthew jumping down in Cwmorthin

Present: Jess B., Mark. B., Chloe B., Brendan M., Matt M., Amy S., Daniel, Laura A., Richard, Carl K., Abbey.

North Wales Weekend - Dudley goes 'Carry on Camping' - Day 1, Snowden

After a month of multiple emailings in which every possible permutation of events had been covered in minute detail, including contingency plans,  I got home from work on Friday to a flurry of emails and texts asking when, where, how, and if.
Such a simple plan - drive to North Wales,  and meet up at the camp site,  what could possibly go wrong?
We arrived at the camp site at 10.30pm. It was pitch dark, the site was packed, and we had no phone signal. Enquiries at the gate about dodgy looking people from Dudley Caving Club drew a blank.
After driving round a bit looking for the others we gave up and found a parking space. Suddenly Amy pulled up next to us, followed by Brendan, followed by Chloe! The only one we mislaid was Matt, who we found asleep in his car next morning.
After pitching the tents and a cuppa in the mess tent lent by Ian, we retired to bed,  Mark and I having to slum it in our 4-poster-bedded van.
Next morning Loz and her better half joined us and we all set off to walk from the site up to the summit of Snowden. Half an hour from camp the rain started. We also discovered our route took us across several streams, so by the time we arrived at the Pen Y Pass cafe we were all slightly moist, and Amy was saying "I'd rather have paid the £10 parking fee and driven up!!" Not as much as she wished she had later though...
We didn't actually leave the cafe till about 1pm, suitably fortified, and the rain held off for the rest of the day, which was helpful. We set off up the PYG track and then some of us split off to climb over Crib Goch. Loz and Chloe particularly enjoyed the scramble up and over the knife edge arete - Loz enjoying it so much she was fairly hugging the rock in places - and we arrived at the summit to find Brendan and the others turning a fetching shade of blue in the minus temperatures.
Fortified again in the cafe we set off down the Watkins path towards the campsite,  with promises of on-site pizzas and drinks around the campfire. It was actually quite a long way back to camp. A really, really long way. Chloe, Matt, Loz and Richard sped on ahead, and the rest of us weren't far behind, until a few things happened -
a) the soles of Daniels boots, which had been loose all day, finally turned into flip flops and had to be bound up with tape and bits of cord.
b) it started getting dark
c) we took a short cut back to the camp.
We really don't need to go into details of the muddy track that went on deeper and deeper into the woods, not enough torches, Mark slipping down a bank...suffice to say that by the time we reached the campsite there were no pizzas and the others had been combing the countryside for us! Anyhow, we just managed to catch a Balti house in Llanberis before it shut and finally dropped into bed about 1am.

Present: Jess B., Mark B., Brendan M., Chloe B., Amy S., Daniel, Laura A., Richard, Matt M.

Successful Routefinding in OFD 2

OFD Top Entrance, Navigation Exercise Sunday 10 August 2014.
Jess had very kindly offered to ride shotgun for me on this navigation exercise and in doing so sacrificed a far more adventurous trip with Mark and Brendan & Carl, feigning 'It wasn't her favourite cave'Mark had provided a survey of the system from Top Entrance and highlighted a suitable route for me to follow. After the usual breakfast formalities at Luigis we arrived at a near empty SWCC.With the paperwork completed and us changed we set off with key to the entrance, but struggled for a while  with the lock, a goodly dose of WD40 might be efficacious!   Having secured the door from the inside we set off, the first couple of hundred yards or so were fine but l struggled with the scale of the survey, reaching some points sooner than expected and others seemed to take longer than implied. Some of the passages had obviously moved since my last visit and thereby hangs a cautionary tale. Previous trips in here had covered a variety of the popular sights and routes from different directions and it is easy to get them muddled in your mind, fortunately Jess was on hand providing the occasional hint to stop and review the situation.
Undaunted we carried on past the 'Wedding Cake' swerved around the end of 'Gnome Passage' and eventually found the 'Corkscrew' and down to the stream way in 'Salubrious Passage' where we indulged in some 'Traversing'. We turned on this occasion left to visit 'The Trident' and just beyond 'The Judge.' Retracing our steps we again followed the main passage way via 'The Crossroads' & 'Presidents Leap', into the 'Selenite Tunnels' to emerge at 'Shatter Pillar' a most aptly named landmark.Our return was a 'simple' reverse of the route in, simple it may seem but there are lessons to be learned here, main landmarks are helpful but junctions don't look the same in reverse and it pays to study them on the way in looking back as well as forward. Likewise good lamps are essential main beams can pick up the detail but miss the bigger picture, such as the Archway, a real land mark with flood but missable on main.

 We made it back to the entrance with relative ease and the occasional steer from Jess and emerged into brilliant sunshine after 4 hours underground. Having showered and indulged in the compulsory tea/coffee and cakes we observed from inside the cottages the most ferocious hail storm l have ever seen before setting off to meet Mark, Brendan & Carl at Abergavenny.So what was learnt? Well leading a trip is nowhere as easy as it looks, so my Thanks to Jess and maximum respect to her and all the experienced members of D.C.C. who give so much of their time to assist new members in becoming better cavers. There is some reconciliation work to be done with the survey, landmarks and my mental positioning of them and then probably another trip to fix them in my mind.Present Jess Burkey & Ian Millward,          

Wet Sink

After a busy Saturday the Dudley group set off  to explore Wet Sink on the Sunday - after the obligatory breakfast and faffing of course!

Knowing that most of the caves in the Forest are small and muddy, and with Brendan trying to scare us with tales of sewage strewn streamways, we really didn't know what to expect from Wet Sink, but we were in for a very pleasant surprise.

Efficiently dropping down the entrance series of ladders and pitches, we soon met the streamway, which was low and sewage-free. We headed upstream, hoping to be able to find our way around the round trip which would bring us back to the stream downstream. A series of sandy crawls and roomy passages, including the impressive Chunnel, showed us that the cave is really very extensive. When we stopped to look at the survey we found that although we had been trotting along at some speed, we had hardly visited any of the 13km cave system.

Brendan and Mark successfully navigated us along the round trip and we popped out above the streamway, which we then followed downstream to the sump. It was hard going, with the floor determined to trip us up and squeeze our feet, but beautifully sculptured rock. Climbing back out of the streamway we made our way under a rather smelly but very picturesque shower inlet back towards the entrance series, and were soon all out in the sunshine.

Matthew Maylin - The Chunnel - Wet Sink Cave

Chloe, Mel and Jess consulting the survey - The Chunnel - Wet Sink Cave

Loz in the Lower Streamway - Wet Sink Cave

Mel in the Showerbath - Wet Sink Cave

Jess in the Showerbath - Wet Sink Cave

Well worth a return visit here I think!

Present: Brendan M., Mark B., Jess B., Mel B., Chloe B., Loz A., Matt

4 out of 6 ain't bad...

The Dig Weekend at the Brickworks Dig was so popular that the exercise needed some careful planning. It was decided that while one team was down the dig, I would take one group into Top Entrance for a quick trip, then we would return to take our turn at digging, while Brendan would take a group into Pant Mawr and return later to take over digging from our team.

In spite of having been caving for the last 9 years, this was my first try at leading a trip into OFD (something to do with being navigationally challenged) so I decided to keep thing simple by doing a short 'tourist trip' to the Trident and Judge, taking in the Corkscrew, Swamp Creek, Shatter Pillar, President's Leap, Selenite Tunnel and Salubrious Streamway. With a group comprised of Helen, Phil, Becca, Loz and Darren, we soon found ourselves at the Corkscrew climb down. Phil's shoulder had been playing up as soon as we got into the entrance, and he felt that relying on his dodgy shoulder to support him through the Corkscrew would not be sensible, so he decided to head back. As Helen knows Top Entrance well, I asked her to accompany him back to the entrance while the rest of us made our way slowly down the sand crawls towards Swamp Creek.

We met up with Helen again at the Trident and Judge and continued with the trip. All went well - 9 years of Keith and Brendan tutting in despair every time I failed to identify areas of the cave was finally vindicated. The most difficult part was tearing Darren away from all the 'pretties' - stals, curtains, helictites, and the roof of Selenite Tunnel being just a few. It's so lovely to go caving with people who are overwhelmed by how beautiful the caves are!

Once back at the entrance Helen left us and went off to squirrel around down a muddy tunnel and the rest of us went back to the club ready for our turn to dig.

Keith was waiting for us at the club, and for some reason didn't seem too impressed that I had set off with a group of 6, and come back with 4! I later found out that Phil and I had our wires crossed earlier, and that he had thought Helen was taking him an alternative route to join up with us, so had waited at the entrance and even wandered around some of the passages looking for us, before he gave up and went back to the club! Just goes to show how important it is to make sure we all understand the same thing.

Helen wasn't long in joining us, and although we were all ready to dig, there was no digging to be had, as one of the pumps had failed and there was a problem with bad air, so we were forced to drink tea in the sunshine for the rest of the afternoon.

Present: Jess B., Becca K., Loz A., Phil L. Darren, Helen N.