There's nothing more dangerous than sunbathing! A trip in to Longwood Swallet

Jess and I had offered to help man the bars for this year's Priddy folk festival and so put out an email asking if anyone fancied a trip down mendips way on Saturday.
We had a good number of takers and were joined by Keith,  Tony, liz, Mark and Chloe. Chloe asked for a trip on to Longwood, I remembered the entrance series as being tight and as I've put on a bit of weight over the summer months put thoughts of the squeeze to the back of my mind. The gang met for the usual breakfast stop at the priddy café, with Chloe and Mark joining a little later. Permits and keys were obtained and we headed off. Due to numbers I would head in with a group of 3 first  and the others would form a separate party. The lid lock was as awkward as usual and it took Mark's dodgey lock picking skills to coax the thing open.  With the squeeze at the forefront of my mind I dove in first to get it out of the way and found the entrance series more awkward than I remembered. Soon I was diving head first down to the letterbox and found it as snug as I'd feared. I exhaled and wriggled to find the widest part, exhaled pushed, wriggled and popped gratefully through. I was soon joined by Jess and then Tony. As Tony is a skinny whippet and could comfortably lie in the squeeze he had the honour of being my model for a quick photo before we thrutched on to the first pitch. Here I called for the ladder only to find logistics had gone our the window and both ladders had been left with the other party! I could hear the others coming down behind us and called to Keith that we'd need a bag moving forward. There were some mutterings and swearing but eventually the bag appeared and the first obstacle was rigged. Our group descended and we're soon joined by Keith,  Liz and Kay.......we had already lost Mark and Chloe who weren't 'feeling it'. As we were now 6 the group elected to stay together for the rest of the trip. We headed straight to and down Swing Pitch and first headed up stream to check out the choked passage and take a couple more photos and video before following get the crawls and cascades down stream to the sump. On our way back I popped in the inlets passage but gave up after ten minutes of samey hands and knees crawling to rejoin the others. Whilst the gang made their way back up swing pitch I grabbed another photo opportunity before joining them at the head of the pitch. We dumped the cameras at this point to do the August route out and headed through a surprisingly dry series back to the foot of the pitch in. At this point Kay and I went back to grab the camera boxes and tackle bag and regretted it most of the way back as everything caught and snagged as we heaved it back towards the entrance. Once again I wanted to get the squeeze out of the way and so shoved through a tackle bag ahead of me and then dove in to join it. I made the mistake of not finding the widest part and instead pushed on wedging myself completely, face full of tackle bag and legs flailing unable to find purchase to push. Jess had a go at pulling me back out but it was obvious there was only one way to go and so braced herself for me to push off. It took a lot more effort to get through than it had on the way in but with relief I gradually felt the constricted grip of the rock release me. The dog leg proved bloody awkward with a tackle bag ahead of me and Jess and Kay would also find the same as they exited. All that was left was to have the usual 5 minutes play trying to coax the lock before heading back to the vehicles. As Jess changed I noticed a large bruise on her side and asked what she'd done....."what I've done" she snorted, "that was you flapping your boots about trying to push off of me!" Karma would get its own back the next morning. I rolled out of the van on the hall green to the sound of church bells. Popped a towel on the grass and sun bathed and had a snooze.  10 minuted later I thought I felt someone stepping on my arm and opened my eyes to find an elderly lady just run me over as she had reverse parked! Who'd have thought of all the hobbies I have that sun bathing would be by far the most dangerous!

Tony in the letterbox squeeze

Tony and Liz at the upstream chokes

Keith and Jess at Swing Pitch

Jess sports a boot shaped bruise....ooops sorry honey!

Present: Jess, Keith, Liz, Tony, Kay, Mark Burkey & Fleetingly Chloe and Mark Burgess ;)

A Video of the Trip

Mendip Cave Photography Competition 2015

The Wells Museum hosts the now annual Mendip Cave Photography Competition. The field is open to all cave photographers who submit photos of Mendip Caves. This year saw about 20 photographers enter a total of around 100 photos that have been displayed at the Wells Museum. On the evening of Friday 5th June the great and good of Mendips caving scene (and a trio of reprobates from the Midlands) gathered in the Wells Museum to view the photos and see the presentation of the winning entries.

In Third Place was Stu Gardiner with a shot in the entrance series of GB Cavern where he caught a great reflection of Lucy Greenwood in a puddle she was crawling through.

Link to Stu's photo in GB Cavern


In Second Place was a new caver - Duncan Simey who had a great set of photos from Swildons Hole, with this fantastic shot of the Landing scooping him the runners up prize.

Link to Duncan's photo in Swildons Hole

And the winner is.....

Mark Burkey Who stole the show with his very atmospheric shot of Loz climbing up the lower section of the Swing Pitch.

Swing Pitch - Longwood Swallet - August Hole

The judges were looking for well composed, technically perfect shots, but more importantly photos taken that gave a different perspective on all too familiar parts of the Mendip caves. The photo of the landing and Mark's winning shot both ticked this box.

Congratulations Mark.

Longwood Swallet / August Hole & We Didn't Drown Or Nuffink!

Saturday saw us having a typical start to the day......faffing and feeding..... After breakfast at Waitrose we continued on to the Wessex to collect a key for our first cave of the weekend, Longwood Swallet.

With all the faff we managed to surpass ourselves and arrived at the entrance just before midday!

As the old system of locking the lid had been difficult for most people to open, it has now been changed to make it almost impossible for all people to open!

An epic struggle ensued between Brendan and said lock. Finally Brendan was victorious and led the way ahead down the tight rifts and letterbox squeeze to rig the head of the first climb.
We were soon down this and the next climb and popped to take a look at the very aqueous August Hole route before continuing on to an exposed climb down to the Great Chamber. Here we rigged a hand line and again all were soon down and traversing around to the head of Swing Pitch.
The last time we were here we tried doing this with a hand line, turns out it is much easier and less life threatening with a ladder!
With this rigged we all made our way down through rift chamber and headed upstream to the boulder chokes before continuing downstream to the sump. Jess and I headed off down a crawl before the sump and continued on to Fanny's rift. We both thought we could probably get down through this rift, but neither of us were sure that without a hand line we would be able to get back out so re-joined the others.

On the way out the group split, with Brendan volunteering to de-rig the climb to the Great Chamber and the rest of us exiting via the tight wet crawls and squeezes of August hole. This proved to be a challenging and sporting piece of cave, especially when carrying kit!
At one point we had the choice of squeezing up through a torrent of water in to a vertical body sized rift or a nice polished dry passage. The nice dry passage choked after 20m (Of course) and we returned to the less inviting option.
After struggling up through this with kit bags and boxes catching on everything we were rewarded with a further tight rift to slot through in to a wet dog leg tube before finally emerging to re-join with Brendan and reverse the awkward entrance rift. Myself, Jess and Chloe led the way and were just beginning to worry about the other two when we heard Brendan's curses as he and Loz struggled back through the rift with a full kit bag. We finally emerged in to darkness before heading back to the Wessex for a quick shower and then finished our day with an excellent meal in Cheddar and planned our next days adventures.

Jess and Chloe make their way up the rifts

Loz climbing up to the Swing Pitch

Present: Loz Appleby, Jess Burkey, Chloe Burney, Brendan Marris & Mark Burkey

Hanging around and chillin out in Longwood Swallet

Jess and I were awoken by a gentle rocking of our van…..Oh crap is it an earthquake, perhaps fracking had begun in the Mendips…….nope we had overslept and Brendan was eager for breakfast so was shoulder barging the van in an effort to wake us!

As it turned out we still managed to get everything cooked and served up before everyone arrived.

After quite a bit of faffing we had finally managed to sort all the permits and grab a couple of keys. Splitting in to two teams we headed off. The other group were off to GB whilst Brendan, myself, Mel, Carl, Tony and Rob headed off to Longwood Swallet.

After a slight smirk when the others got their kit out of the car and asked where they changed we kitted up at the side of the road and followed the stream down to the entrance. Brendan led with Mel diving in behind, but shortly Mel popped back out as another group were exiting and there was not enough room in the entrance rift for people to pass.

The guys exiting looked soaked to the skin and they explained that the water had been diverted after the floods in Cheddar and that August was now taking all the stream and it was a little more than sporting via that route at the moment.

After thanking them we made our way in through the 12m entrance chimney to a narrow rift. At the letter box squeeze Rob hadn’t positioned himself very well and struggled a little to push through, first removing his helmet, then his belt, then a drink and then a single glove?!?!?

Being a larger caver myself I know exactly what its like to be confronted by chest crushing rock and I have to say Rob did admirably, there wasn’t a single lip quiver or whimper to be seen or heard.

Next Brendan rigged the ladder and line from a stal for the awkward 5m pitch and everyone made short work of the awkward take off before climbing down the second climb to Water Chamber. Here we popped for a look at the start of August Hole and there was indeed a roar of water hurtling down the passageway. Continuing on we headed along a rift through an awkward chimney down to emerge on a balcony overlooking Great Chamber. At this point we decided a hand line may be in order so I popped back to the ladder and grabbed our belay line. Mel rigged this and again we were soon all down safely and hunting for the way on. Brendan and Carl led us through Wet Way, but found the passage choked with too tight rifts, we then began hunting around until Brendan and I found Christmas Crawl and the other end of August Hole. There was a single ‘P’ bolt in place and Brendan was pretty sure this was a climb down to continue to the Stream way, so I popped back for the hand line once more whilst Brendan gathered the others. Putting an Italian Hitch through my belt Krab I descended the climb through a torrent of water to find I couldn’t find any further hand or foot holds. No problem, I’d just AB’ in using my Italian Hitch and spot people down once I could see the holds I’d missed because of the waterfall I’d been descending through. The only problem was that upon reaching the lower ledge I still couldn’t see any holds. Communication was difficult because of the fast flowing waterfall, but I eventually managed to convey to Brendan that I didn’t think this was actually free climbable and was there another way out? Unfortunately Brendan wasn’t sure, he was last in Longwood 9 years ago and his memory of the system at this point was failing him…. well he is knocking on a bit now!

Reversing the Italian Hitch I began to belay myself with one hand and try climbing out with the other. I had climbed as far as I could and the next move would be somewhat dynamic, so I decided to tie off my Italian hitch just in case. 123…. lunge, miss, drop in to the main flow of the waterfall. I yanked the knot free to abseil out of the water but nothing happened. The water was fierce and my hands were getting numb quickly, the freezing flow was everywhere and I couldn’t open my eyes. I began to pendulum myself out of the water and kick off of the rock till I could look down and see; because I was using an oval krab rather than a pear shaped one, the Italian Hitch had caught and not flipped to allow descent. Rectifying this I abseiled down and out of the water, but this had given me quite a ‘moment’.

When I looked up I saw that Brendan had the same experience watching me from above.

He called down to ask if he should go back for the ladder and I nodded.

Looking at the impossible climb the spray of water was chilling me and I could see how you can loose strength quickly in these conditions.  Shouting for Rob to come to the head of the climb I had an idea. I again climbed as high as I could, but this time passed the tail of the rope to Rob and told him to take in as I climbed and that he could lower me down if something went wrong.

Again I got to the dynamic move, this time having two hands I managed to lunge across, slip, recover and get up on to the ledge with Rob.

Brendan meanwhile had met another party coming in and was on his way with their ladder to assist me and was quite relieved when he saw I was already out and ok.
It was at this point we discovered what we had thought was a free climb with hand line was actually the 5m Swing Pitch to the stream way!

The other group rigged their ladder to continue to the steam way and offered us the use of it but they were not using a lifeline and we figured it would take quite some time to set up and lifeline a group of our size and so the decision was made to saunter back out and see how the other team had faired under the guidance of Becca.

No-one had any troubles with the awkward passageways and squeezes on the way back up and we were soon dry, sipping tea and eating cake awaiting the others return :)

Main Chamber - Longwood Swallet

Present: Mark Burkey, Brendan Marris, Carl Knott, Mel Bell, Tony Ferrun and Rob Campbell