Ogof Pen Eryr - the day after the cave before

Jess recommended this small cave of only 420m length for me and Daz on Sunday, as she thought we would enjoy its squirrely nature. Mel joined us as she was looking for a short outing and an early bath to get back to West Mids for the evening.
It is basically a straight line, and obviously accessible to local kids judging by the graffiti (including direction arrows!) and glow stick that we spotted on our way in. It's also popular for novices, as it gives a taste of lots of different caving aspects on a mini scale. This means that the way is very smooth in many places, so easy to spot. Yet we all still found it extremely enjoyable.

Early on there is a challenging squeeze, which all three of us agreed was tighter than the infamous Daren Cilau entrance we had been through the previous day. The description told us to thrutch though it which we had a good laugh about as we had no idea what this meant. Whatever it was we had a damn good try and hopefully some thrutching was involved. Some parts were harder going up than down due to the lack of friction and gravity.

The Corkscrew was another nice twisty challenge about two thirds along the cave. At the far end a bedding plane is reached, and passing under this, near to a dig, and then up through some boulders takes you to the final chamber which was well decorated with calcite formations. They are all now completely brown apart from a few patches, but still cool. The cave feels snug overall.

We rested in the final chamber and turned off our lights for a good few minutes to experience what Mel called 'the true dark' together. After that, feeling happy, there was nothing left to do but to turn round and make our exit. This took us much less time than we expected and in something like 40 minutes we had reached the fresh air and the solitary sleeping bat at the cave entrance.

Photo of formations in Pen Eryr by Becca

Trip report: Becca

Present: Becca, Daz and Mel

Eglwys Faen & Pen Eryr: Caving's too tight to mention

Not having any work this week, and we'd had a txt from Chloe asking to let her know if anyone was caving on Tuesday, Jess fancied a play in Eglwys Faen. I mentioned to Brendan we were doing this and he said he'd be available and we could combine it with a jaunt around Ogof Pen Eryr.
We met at the very sociable time of 10am for a Luigi breakfast before heading off for the Car park.
We quickly found the entrance in the cliff face and followed Brendan through. After trying the Corkscrew Squeeze on both sides Brendan decided it was easiest done on his left and slid through. I followed with a fair bit more grunting, to be followed by Chloe who had 'a moment' getting her hips through, and then Jess.
After this the cave opened out to easier passage before reaching a boulder choke, then a slide over an awkward boulder. Brendan led the way, I tried a couple of times and couldn't get an angle that would allow me over. Chloe slid through to the one side with ease so I copied her example and slipped down to join them followed by Jess. After this it was easy caving with crawling and a corkscrew choke leading to larger passage and finally the terminal chambers where we paused for pictures. In reverse the slide over the boulder was much easier, but Chloe and I found the drop back through the entrance squeeze far more interesting. Jess led the way, making it look easy, followed by Chloe who again really struggled getting her hips through.
Time for the chunky caver next.... I tried every angle before realising there just wasn't going to be an easy way to do this. Coming up I'd been able to push off with my feet to get through, but going back gravity wasn't going to give the same umph. Jessica tried pulling on my wellies, Brendan tried stamping on my head. Jess wrapped my boots with a sling which just added to the feeling of being trussed like a hog for roasting and I realised I was going to have to do this myself. Trying my best to relax (which involved a slight quivering lip whilst breathing in followed by manic wriggling when all air had been expelled from my lungs) I gradually moved millimetre by millimetre until after a week or so I finally popped through. Brendan exclaimed that he was starting to get worried for a minute there....not for my sake....he would have been stuck on the wrong side and didn't fancy having to eat his way out! ;)

Jess and myself at the corkscrew squeeze

Jess in the corkscrew squeeze

Chloe crawling in to the final calcite chambers

Me in the final calcite chamber

Finally freed from the cave we all skipped down the hillside to the cars which we jumped in to drive up to White Walls and the second cave of the day Eglwys Faen. We entered via the large entrance and paused for a couple of pictures before heading off right in to the wet crawls to Glump Sump. After a poke around the passages we headed back to the main chamber and on through to the climb up to 'The Warren' where Brendan and I shot down the passage exploring with Jess and Chloe bringing up the rear. After a good poke around some of the interesting digs at the end of the passage we headed back with no sign of Jess or Chloe. There were only a couple of alternatives, both of which would dead end, so I wasn't too worried and decided to head back to the ladder to see if they were there. Arriving back at the entrance to 'The Warren' Jess gave me a stern telling off for shooting off. Chloe was complaining of her shoulder hurting and Jess had been worried that they may have needed to head out before us. Fortunately we had arrived back to re-group just minutes after them so it hadn't been necessary. I was given some evil looks when I suggested going out via the waterfall to take more pictures so we made our exit via the more straight forward main chamber.
Changing back at the car, whilst being eaten by midges, Chloe showed off the bruises she'd sustained whilst doing the earlier squeezes to her hip and shoulder which I have to admit were quite impressive and I could see why she had been in discomfort!

Main Chamber Eglwys Faen

Present: Chloe Burney, Brendan Marris, Jessica Harding & Mark Burkey

Ogof Pen Eryr, Llangattock

West Brecon CRT rescue practice. Brendan was the casualty! For those who have visited this cave you will appreciate that getting a stretcher through the system is a real challenge. We started at the second corkscrew but abandoned the practice before getting to the first one - this would have been very interesting!

Attended by: Keith (report) & Brendan
Viedo of Pen Eryr trip from 29th Aug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4o1lawojRsQ

Ogof Pen Eryr, Llangattock Escarpment, South Wales

This had been arranged for some time as a Christmas trip for some of the newer members of the Club and the chosen cave was Craig A Ffynonn, but extremely wet weather on the day meant that we had to look for an alternative. We spent a highly amusing few minutes listening to Andy unsuccessfully trying to lead through the corkscrew squeeze before being shown the correct way to do it by Mel. Afterwards several members of the team spent a few minutes proving that it is possible to turn round within the few few metres of the Daren Cilau entrance crawl.

Chris negotiating the calcite corkscrew squeeze in Pen Eryr.

See more Ogof Pen Eryr photos here 

The Team: KeEd, AnGr, BrMa, CaNo, MaRo, MeWa & ChWe