Ogof Llyn Parc, North Wales

Heather and I went to Pool Park near Wrexham on Sunday 14 June, a very pleasant warm and sunny summer day. I was late meeting Heather, as the road at Much Wenlock was closed due to a rock fall. A winch trip had been organised for Cambridge CC by North Wales CC, to avoid the 100m climb in the entrance shaft. We did the round trip in the cave below the mine workings, including a detour up a small streamway which bypassed the "knotted rope" climb up a mud bank. The caves are reasonably well decorated with straws in many places and some stalactites.

The team: AnCr & HeSi

Blaen Onneu Quarry Pot, Llangynidr Mountain, South Wales

Because of poor weather at the weekend we selected this cave as it was relatively near, not affected by heavy rain and only a short walk from the parking spot. Unusually for South Wales this cave system has four pitches in it, two in the northern section and two in the southern section. The tackle coupled with camera box and video box made for some entertainment passing some of the squeezes and dug out sections which are tight enough even for the unencumbered. An interesting and challenging cave.

Keith Edwards at the Twin Peaks Pitch

Keith in the Northern Section of the cave

The team: KeEd & BrMa

More photos of Little Neath River Cave can be viewed here

Little Neath River Cave, Upper Nedd Valley, South Wales

This was a second caving trip for Dean and a chance to take some photos and video in one of the most sporting caves in South Wales. We took a standard route into the cave, through The Canal and down to Sump 2. Our return was through the canal Bypass and then to fight our way against the flow of the water through the entrance passages. Although the helmet camera experiment failed some stunning video was taken with the waterproof camcorder.

Dean in the Canal

Dean in the Little Neath Streamway

Jessica Harding in the Little Neath Streamway

The team: KeEd, JeHa, BrMa & ChWe + new member Dean

More photos of Little Neath River Cave can be viewed here

Big Sink, Symonds Yat, Ross-on-Wye

Another major engineering feat in the Forest area. Lots of scaffolded climbs through tons of loose rocks lead to a nice SRT pitch into a big chamber, but after this the streamway in tight and rifty throughout. One for the cavers of slimmer stature.

The team: KeEd & BrMa + others

Pwll Y Pasg, Llangattock Escarpment, South Wales

A trip to explore some of the lesser visited caves. The cave is located in a shakehole and is formed just below the gritstone cover. Most passages are wide and flat so most of the progress involved crawling. The passage runs below an adjacent shakehole where we had to dig our way around the run in to find the further passages. We aborted our visit to the lower passages due to the sharp nature of the rock and our desire to protect our ropes.

Keith in the bedding plane crawls

Keith in Lost Pasage

The team: KeEd & BrMa

More photos of Pwll Y Pasg can be viewed here

Brickworks Dig, Penwyllt, South Wales

A very successful weekend. The dig is now almost 3 metres longer and about a metre deeper.
More details on the dig page.

Heather - a sunstroke casualty

Del being rescued by Steve

The dig team: KeEd, BrMa, DeRo, HeSi, JoSm, GrSm & StWa (Sat. only) + Roger as tea-maker

Llanelly Quarry Pot, Clydach Gorge, South Wales

Well our first obstacle was to remove all the boulders from the entrance so that we could get in, even with the boulders removed I knew I was going to struggle to get in, but I rigged a hand line and eased my way down the rift followed by Mel. Then we came to a chamber with a large shaft which is where I was sure we had to go, but the guide book confused us a little and we decided the way on was around a tricky traverse on the left hand wall, which isn’t for the faint hearted and Mel was heard saying she needed longer arms and legs. Well we got it wrong, and the way on isn’t to follow the traverse, but to go down the large shaft as you enter the chamber, but it isn’t obvious, as you can't easily see the P hangers to rig from. Once at the bottom of the pitch we went upstream to Midsummer Nights Dream, which is well decorated before continuing on until we came to the Ryan's Duck where we turned back to go down stream as far as we could, before turning around to head out. Now getting out for me was a bit of a challenge to say the least, and take my advice – don’t try to climb up the rift wearing your SRT kit as you will only get stuck, and trying to remove it in the rift is somewhat awkward!!! 

See photos of Llanelly Quarry Pot here 

The Team: AnGr & MeWa