Trip Reports

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

Ogof Gofan – trip 1

Team: Sophie, Darren, Gareth, Will

Some of you may remember back in January I did a solo recce trip to Ogof Gofan with a view to working it into the next meets list. I’m glad I did the recce trip, as beforehand I’d read through horror stories in other people’s trip reports saying how they’d scoured the cliffs for hours with no luck finding the entrance, or some had found the entrance and made it inside, but then could find the way in or were turned back by the squeezes on offer. On the recce, I took a selection of anchor supplies and rope protection, but none of which really sufficed and so I made a mental note of what I thought I needed to return with to make the pitch better suited. The cowboy in me wasn’t too bothered on the recce mission, I was more keen on getting in and seeing what was on offer! At times throughout both of our trip reports I’ll be pretty vague about locations and descriptions out of respect for the process of entry. Like many caves in Wales, you can’t just rock up whenever and enter Ogof Gofan, you must get in prior contact with the park ranger and conservation/access officer to arrange a permit. There’s pretty strict provisions in place to protect this little hidden beauty. Maximum of 4 cavers per trip, the highest standards of cave etiquette are expected, and lastly there’s a bit of an unwritten rule to not post or advertise the exact location of the entrance. Perhaps it’s to keep some air of mystery over the cave, more of an adventure come mini expedition style trip with some good old fashioned exploration. Or maybe it’s to again minimise the traffic this cave receives. There are some pretty good videos out there on YouTube and other places of Ogof Gofan, with researching these and looking on the Caves of South Wales website you can pretty quickly build a solid knowledge of the rough area to be in. I’m also more than happy for people to reach out to me for information, KCC members or not, and I’m happy to help you with planning your trip or joining you to show you the way!

After the long road trip down it was fair to say we were all raring to go, despite the wind and rain that had been hounding us all morning. It was that bad that on our walk in we’d decided to have a look and see the conditions cliff side, potentially having to abort should it look like we were going to be on for some horizontal abseiling! Luckily, the direction was ideal that the entrance was sheltered and only the odd gust now and then came our way. Whilst the others harnessed up at the top, I made my way down the cliff, walking at first, and then a small scramble before reaching the ledge. I guess there’s loads of ways you could rig the entrance pitch really, but I went with my mental list following the recce trip and thankfully it worked a treat and it wasn’t long before I’d rigged and swung into the entrance – the first time on my own I didn’t have the balls to try the swing, this time I was a bit more confident! Or maybe I was trying to prove my worth to the calibre of cavers following me! Once in, I quickly located ‘the spot’ to get the famous entrance pitch photos and snapped away whilst I watched Gareth, Darren and Soph work their way to join me. The clouds opened with a hail storm during this process, Darren being the first to join a dry Gareth and I quickly by an even more soaked and hail battered Sophie. After stripping our SRT kits, I lead the way through the first squeeze immediately in front of you – not the worst squeeze of the trip but clearly had turned people away in the past! It wasn’t long before the four of us had made it to ‘the window’ which is another none accessible opening to system that can be spotted from the sea cliff if you walk further around the bay to the ledge. This is where a lot of people go wrong, they spot the window from the other side of the bay and think it’s the entrance, and then struggle to access it and give up. It’s not actually possible to sea the entrance to Ogof Gofan until your on rope above the rebelay, or if you have a drone and feel brave enough to fly it over the sea. The window chamber is notoriously greasy and care must be taken when traversing from the entrance crawl to the upper ledge. The further into the system you go the more you begin to see formations appearing, in larger quantities and quality as you go also. Another squeeze through the back of a pool means an unavoidable wellie fill next before a very short flat out crawl to the next decorated chamber. A few more smaller decorated chambers and crawling sections and you find yourself slotting into a tight upwards climb. When you step up, the refreshing breeze hits your head and you instantly get the feeling something good is coming up. A little scrambled is required to get out of the tighter top section of the many 2-3m climb, and you emerge in the top of mini crater shaped room with 3 incredible formation in the middle below you, surrounded by a stunning deep blue pool. Everywhere you look the formations just leave you in awe as they display such a variety of colours, shapes, variations not seen elsewhere where, and they’re everywhere! A traverse around the room and you pass through a couple of mites that reminds me of passing through a gateway. To left, the crawling continues down a rocky shaft, which emerges in another chamber with a download climb in the floor, the way on is to the right although I did explore the down climb that goes for maybe 4-5 metres before choking up. A little more crawling over some puddles and you reach the last chamber, which again is very nicely decorated, perhaps a little less wow factor than the previous but still stunning in its own right! Again, a few more little off passages to explore with more formations to admire, but ultimately they choke up and this is the end of the cave. It’s around 120m in length, but the combination of the entrance requirements to get inside, plus the squeezes/crawls, and then the formations and variety of formations, in my opinion makes this well worth the slog down the country to visit. I’ll definitely be back again and I’ll happily lead some future club trips here in coming years.

Once back on the surface, we were lucky to make it back to the vehicles avoiding the rain before heading off to fill the afternoon with wet weather activities and later gathered again at the St Govan’s Inn for a fantastic evening of food, drinks and socialising. An excellent day by all accounts!

(write up by Will, photos by everyone)

By Tom C In Day Trips

Lost Johns – Centipede

Dave T, Josh, Tom

On the meets list was an explore of the newly-opened AKA, but given that there’d been a fair bit of rain and with the description mentioning it filling to the roof, we erred on the side of caution with this new ‘un and rescheduled to a nice little Lost Johns trip. This was Josh’s third trip with the club, and new (but experienced) club recruit Dave’s first KCC trip. 

LJs was bone dry at the entrance so we needn’t have worried about water levels in AKA, but we were here now and the classic roadside trip beckoned. A few dribbles of water appeared on the way down the entrance series, but still by the time we reached the roof traverse, it was eerily quiet. We made our way over No.s 1, 2, and 3 holes and quickly got to Hammer pitch. We zipped down these first two pitches and onto the main Centipede pitch. While Josh had done pitches this size before, he seemed to enjoy this one. With the fog of burning rope smell hanging in the air from our descenders, we headed on for a quick scout down to Dome Junction, and onwards to the top of Candle and Shistol.

Sadly we hadn’t brought any more rope and it was time to head back up. Dave regaled us with tales of caving in Borneo and original exploration, and we made our way up Centipede, always a muscle-pumping flatterer. Dave de-rigged us handsomely out and we made it back to surface with light still in the sky, maybe the first daylight Wednesday trip of the year?

By Scott In Day Trips

Buckden Gavel Mine

 

I’d been curious about this mine for a few years, and didn’t know much about it apart from the story of Buckden Bill:

(https://vetch.co.uk/buckden_archive/ThemysteryofBuckdenBill.pdf)

I was met at the village car park by Damian (who was a true local, having grown up in the shadow of Buckden Pike), Jason and his daughter Rosa. Together we took on the steep path beside Buckden Gill, which had some polished scrambly bits, and finally reached the adit entrance after a good walk.
After some initial sticky mud – nearly, but not quite high enough to inundate the wellies – we were into the mine proper. There were still a few small bats hibernating, which were definitely a different species from the Lesser Horseshoes that I’d seen in South Wales. We carefully set about exploring the various offshoots of the main passage.
There’s a lot of mine to explore here. We didn’t see that much in the way of artefacts – a few tools, the remains of a clog, and plenty of iron rail. There are obviously levels above and below, which presumably must be accessed by sketchy mud climbs (up) and unbolted shafts (down). Our survey seemed to have been compiled in the 1970s to show a safe route for novice groups, but we sensed that there was plenty more passage off the printed page… This mine would be a good option for a wet day in the winter, maybe with a scaffold pole and ladder to get into some of the higher bits.
After a good stomp around, we headed back down the hill. Damian and I wandered around the flank of Buckden Pike to walk down the easy rake, while Jason and Rosa opted for the gillside path. This trek to and from the adit would have been yet another hardship for the original miners, but it was pleasant enough for us on a dry Spring day.
Thanks to Jason, Rosa and Damian for a great trip!

By James Benson In Day Trips

Hazel grove cave

Meeting in the woods in the relatively flat area of Hale Moss seemed an unlikely place for some caving. Picking an unknown cave seemed a risky proposition but the description seemed good and the length of the cave was promising for an evening’s adventure. The entrance had been found by numerous searches on the way back from work (just round the corner). 

So 6 of us (me, Tom, Josh, Pete, Maz and Nat) set off through the woods, across a little bridge and into a field. The ponies in this field seemed unusually frisky and galloped around. I wondered, are they trying to ward us off, but maybe it was the sight of these unusually dressed individuals in full ready for action caving. In the corner of the field, which borders an area of marshland there is a slight rise and very small rocky outcrop. A gryke in this is just big enough to slip down. I led the way, hoping that everyone else was going to fit after me! A few awkward movements took us into a 45 degree sloped passageway filled with massive spiders. Ii moved these carefully out the way as i didn’t want anyone freaking out! Part of the trepidation was a last minute warning email from Helen that they almost encountered a fox down a cave in the area. She couldn’t remember which cave but I certainly didn’t want to encounter one head first down a narrow passageway. Fortunately the passageway didn’t get any tighter and opened up into a head height chamber. Wow. I was amazed this was here. Things were looking up! 

To the left a passageway led to the sump. To the right the passageway led to another sump. Oh dear. According to the description this should be a crawl!! Oh but on the survey map there is a bypass. Acutely aware of having led all these enthusiastic cavers into this cave I decided in a moment of madness to throw myself into this obstacle with massive enthusiasm. So after much maneuvering I climbed up and then slid down this high level bypass which was very tight!! And downwards. And incredibly awkward. Is anyone else going to follow me? No way. 

I’d dropped into a pool of water almost waist deep. The tube I had come down had almost no footholds at the bottom of it. I could hear the others chatting on the other side of it but suddenly I felt like this was gonna be a problem. I could stand but the passageway ahead was flooded but passable with alot of wet ducks. I didn’t fancy it and would have to go on alone. There was apparently another entrance found in the 60’s when it was surveyed but subsequently there has been a whole caravan site built upon where this comes out. Who knows if this other entrance still exists! It could have been filled or come out under a caravan. Also there was a lot more cave to go and the water levels were a lot higher now than whenever the description was compiled. In my mind there were two possible ways to get out, back up the tube or to dive down through the stinking muddy waters through the sump. But that could be tight and very risky and maybe not even passable due to mud build up. I tried to see if it was passable by reaching down in desperation into the cold mucky stinking waters. This soaked me as I went head level deep feeling for the way back. I couldn’t find the way but found a bit of wood. This was a square cut plank of wood. Another mystery. I used this to probe the underwater passageway. I prodded the mud and found a way through. Josh and Tom could see the water moving on the other side of the sump. In fact the end of the wood could be felt but deep into the water. And the passageway was obviously tight and possibly even needing digging to pass. No chance as this would all have to happen whilst underwater!

So the only option was to pass up through the tube. I tried to squeeze up it. There was no room for leg movement apart from a slight desperate scrabble. Both arms had to be extended upwards in order to fit the shoulders through. Because they were held upwards this in itself was knackering. It was easy enough to start up the tube but any progress was next to impossible. It wasn’t possible to even see what the legs were doing as i could hardly move my head and the feet were still in the mirky depths of the pool. I had many tries but kept sliding back down. Finally I’ve gone too far!! I was meant to go on holiday early the next morning. Maybe i’d still be stuck down here then.

I reasoned with myself to stay calm. Logically I could fit through the hole as I had on the way down. If it had been horizontal, it would be awkward but doable but gravity was the main challenge here. If I had some way of pushing up it would help. I tried using the plank of wood which I now suspected was used by the last person who got trapped in here. Still no help. I briefly considered stripping off most of my clothes in order to fit easier but I was already soaked and didn’t think it would help with the trickiest problem which was upward force. Josh kindly offered to get a rope from the back of my pickup. Tom tried to help pull me up by the arms but the space above the tube was really awkward anyhow for serious pulling. After a few more tries Josh returned with the rope and a pulled system was devised. This allowed a foot loop to go down past me. Then by hauling on this and small leg movements everyone gradually hauled me up through the tube as I desperately tried to wriggle upwards. It was like removing a cork from inside a wine bottle. By a miracle this eventually succeeded and I was beyond relief in fact overjoyed by the apparently unlikely recovery. 

Surprisingly nobody else was up for this experience and we slithered out the cave. The trip was short but hopefully entertaining. Amazingly it was high water levels that really stopped us from getting further but we were in some of the driest levels for years outside. My theory is that when Hazel grove was originally explored the Hale mosses were a lot drier. They were much more intensively farmed back then. Now the value of wetlands is much more recognized and much of the drainage on the moss is intentionally left blocked in order to keep it marshy and flooded. Thus water levels are high. Or has the building of the caravan site on top has affected the drainage somehow? Anyhow i’d still really like to explore the cave and am currently considering ways to pump out the water. We’d barely started it so there is so much more to see down there! 

As a little aside we then went through neighboring Brackenthwaite Cave which is a short little through trip in a outcrop near Leighton beck. This was enjoyable and so at least a bit more caving was achieved! Many thanks to all that turned up.

By Scott In Day Trips

Alum Pot, President’s Meet and AGM

by Scott

Cracking conditions for our annual bash. Alum Pot was the place to be this year, with multiple routes being rigged in the sunshine, and lots of fun was had by all. Sophie, Matilda, Nic, Bumper, Fred and Andy G went for a romp around the Churns. Will, Chris A, Paddy and Jasmine descended via Dolly Tubs and the Bridge. Pete and myself took on NW route, and Ray rigged Diccan (soon to be joined by Darren, Andy B and myself after I’d nipped back up NW). Much exchanging took place at the sump. Special mention must go to Paddy and Jasmine -both new members this year – who valiantly derigged Diccan as a pair. That’s a lot of wet rope for two people on a technical route!
The caving fun was followed by a good feed and natter at the Helwith Bridge Inn, with more members joining for the AGM. It’s been a very good year for the Kendal, with new faces, trips abroad and lots of caving-related hi jinks. Long may it continue!

By Will Burnett In Expeditions

Grotte de Gournier


Ardèche trip, Day 7 – Grotte de Gournier (Vercors)

Team: Maz, Scott, Jasmine, Kate & Will

Scott suggested for our final trip together of the holiday that we should dart over to the Vercors region and visit Grotte de Gournier that he previously visited last year with the club. With promise of plenty of pretties, huge strolling passageway, a fun traverse, and more importantly a voyage on the club dinghy the S.S.Gournier (named after this grotte that it was purchased for), the rest of the team were quick to agree including Kate despite the lengthy drive over.

We all met in the car park for Grotte de Choranche (the neighbouring showcave to Gournier) and after a quick team photo with the S.S.Gournier, more obligatory than a sump photo, we set off on our way. A quick skirmish around the admission booth (not necessary to pay for Gournier) and a friendly wave to the staff – who gave the look you’d expect to see from a French local watching 5 Yorkshire cavers bumble through with an inflatable dinghy and oar! A brief walk with some well signposted footpaths brings you to the entrance to the Gournier, where you’re quickly met with water and the journey commences.

From here you either swim, or boat to the small ledge 40m in along the left hand wall. Jasmine and Scott pioneered the first voyage with ease and set the bar for the rest of us. After they’d both sprung from the dinghy, Scott quickly made his way up the 5/6m climb aided by some iron steps, before rigging the traverse along the wall, around the corner and off onto the first of many enormous flowstone formations. Jasmine gave us the call that the boat was free, and we retrieved it with the extra 40m rope we’d brought with us. Kate and Maz were next to load up in the dinghy, and off they went in pursuit of the others. Again once clear, I got the call, retrieved the dinghy and made my crossing hoping my seamanship was up to par as I now had the rope with me and no one able to retrieve me! Winging it well, I moored the vessel, making sure to tie it on well and avoid a swim back later on. As I said earlier, it is perfectly achievable to swim this distance if you don’t have a dinghy, but it is quite a distance and the bottom cannot be touched after 5m or so from the shore, so commitment is essential and your trip ahead will be a wet one. Some of our team had donned wetsuits, and others the usual attire, so we had mixed opinions on getting fully saturated!

Now on the ledge, I watched Kate and Maz navigate the climb up to the traverse, whilst Scott was trailblazing across the traverse with Jasmine in tow, just about rounding the corner to the last bolt – or our last bolt. We brought a 40m for the traverse, where it would have been better with a 45/50m as we were short for the last couple of bolts meaning we shuffled over the top of a Gour pool at the edge of a drop where we could have had a cows tail attached. Perhaps it was the adventurous nature of the KCC team that didn’t deter us here, or maybe the stunningly blue deep pool at the bottom of the ‘fairly high but not treacherous – perhaps almost fun to try’ drop was more inviting than scary, either way we pushed on and it wasn’t long before we’d all navigated the travers and were now free strolling through huge open passageway. Initially, we navigated huge boulders and piles of breakdown, with the odd formation here and there. A few bats dotted about again, before a big group of 30-40 were found, like in Saint-Marcel. A great send off for Maz! Some more strolling through huge gour pools and formations, scrambles up slopes and down the other side to reveal more passageway – it really was colossal. A section walking through huge 10-15m columns with mushroom tops or perhaps resembling something else if Scott is describing! The most incredible gigantic penis’s I’ve ever seen. A small 5m in situ handline got us up a climb over some boulders, and before long Scott was eagerly scouting in between boulders looking for the way down to the stream way. Maz, Kate and I took the opportunity for a quick drink and snack break and promptly finished in time for Scott’s call that he found the way down. Unsure as to whether we would even be able to explore further due to current conditions with us being a few months early for the proper caving season, Scott headed down the boulder scramble towards the noisy stream way before shortly returning, giving it the all clear. Maz followed, and Jasmine too, Kate and I had a little look at the scramble down and decided that Kate wanted to quit whilst she was ahead and having a fantastic caving experience (for a change!). We told the others we’d head back here, but we wouldn’t leave the car park until we knew they were out and safe. We had a gentle stroll back through the colossal passageway to the entrance traverse, often Kate asking “are you sure you know the way?!” Perhaps it’s just me she doesn’t trust in a cave?! Maybe the silence of two of us compared to five of us is a little more daunting?! Either way, we passed a few landmarks along the way that restored her confidence in me, and it wasn’t too long before I told her to turn her torch off as we could see the light beaming in the entrance. As we approached, we could hear another team working their way across the traverse, so hung around to marvel at the formations for a little longer allowing them to clear before continuing on. Before long we were boarding our vessel, whilst admiring the French team’s boat, docked next to ours that was clearly the dinghy you would want for exploring these sort of places! After making sure we’d attached the dinghy rope in a fashion so that the others could retrieve it, we said a little prayer hoping we’d make it the 40m to shore, and pushed off the dock. With Kate gazing straight down through the incredibly clear blue water at the floor who knows how many metres below, it wasn’t long until we could see that distance reducing and Kate was reaching in to bump us off rocks to ensure the vessel remained sea worthy for the others! We hopped out, put the boat back in the boat, and then spent half an hour or so cleaning off our kit before the long haul back home. As the cold started to creep in, we opted to head back to the vehicles to get dry and changed, before walking back to the entrance with empty hands and Lenny. As we arrived, we could see the dinghy had been pulled back to the dock and Maz was just boarding. He had a couple of bags on board with him, so Jasmine and Scott opted for the bomb and swim back to shore. Arriving in succession, we unburdened them off the rope bags, and head back to the vehicles whilst they deflated the dinghy.

Another incredible outing for the team, and a fantastic choice from Scott to end what has been an incredible first trip away with club for myself and Kate! That’s 2 trips in the bag now, do we think maybe the women that hates caving will possibly end up with a membership?! Perhaps she will only have a crave for the more continental outings! Massive thank you to Tom for the pre trip planning, the riggers, photographers, cavers, and volunteers for call outs and ground support. Holiday blues have now officially set in!

Write up and pic by Will

By Will Burnett In Expeditions

Grotte de Midroi

Day 6, Ardèche Trip – Midroi/Rochas/Guigonne

Team: Will, Kate, Damian, Maz, Jasmine & Scott

You may have noticed from the Ardèche reports that we are missing days 4 & 5. Kate and myself have been road tripping this holiday in our van and splintered off from the rest of the group for a couple of days to take a very slow and scenic drive through the Gorges de l’Ardeche and to take Lenny for his ‘return to the UK’ appointment with a French vet. The others caved on both days, trying a couple of different routes into Foussoubie on one day and Champclos on another -you’ll have to await the reports and images from someone else I’m afraid!

Whilst travelling through the gorges, Kate and I saw that we were going to pass the area of Midroi-Rochas-Guigonne, the fifth largest system at 7700m of passageway and the deepest trip around 175m. Rochas is the vertical side of the cave, where you can do the through trip, however it is essential (as you’ll see further in this report!) to ensure that water levels are low enough for the connection to be made as it is a crawl that can become flooded. Midroi is the more common horizontal entrance and Guigonne is another along with vers les Aments, however I’m not sure if either of these last 2 are passable for cavers at all, potentially Guigonne gets wet towards the exit from looking at the survey. With what is described in many reports as an interesting and challenging hike in/out, Kate and I loaded up and head out with Lenny on a recce mission. After some serious descent down a single track that we knew would be brutal to hike back up (not too brutal though as we ended up doing it two days in a row!), it wasn’t long before we were passing through Refuge de Gournier in the bottom of the valley and onwards to the Great Gour. This is a limestone pavement carved into the bottom of the cliff that gives you a nice walk above river level, before becoming steeper and iron handrails introduced to help the scramble across at the end. Just before the end of the scramble, the way on slants off to river level, and we were unable to continue due to not having wellies and the river levels being pretty high – at this point, you must step into the violently flowing Ardèche river with not many holds at all and hope the water doesn’t carry you off! As we had Lenny, and neither of us had wellies, this was were we turned around although unknowingly we were only a couple of hundred metres or so from the Midroi entrance. We regathered Lenny, he was tethered to a small shrub on the Grand Gour whilst we looked at the traverse, and then began our hike back out up the valley. We planned to return on the next day with the rest of the team to try again.

We were a little kit heavy as we had a tackle bag with ropes and crabs, and another with the emergency kit and an additional bit of rope just in case (we were learning from our previous outings!). Due to the hike in and out, all but Jasmine opted to hike in clothing and change into cave kit river side. Kate was feeling brave enough to join us for her first KCC trip, and she instantly proved her worth carrying her own kit and the rescue kit all the way, and juggling 2 bags along the traverse – I had the other 2 bags. We’d discussed bringing the S.S.Gournier also, but as we’d already packed the ropes to traverse le Grand Lac, we opted to leave it as a) it was additional kit to carry in and out, and negotiate across the traverse, and b) it may be required again before the end of the holiday! Hint, hint! (Where was it last used?) A wise decision definitely, as the hike back out is not the most pleasant, but this is where I proved my worth and loaded up with my bag, kit bag, and rescue bag to give the others a bit of relief on the way up! Kate often refers to me as her ‘mountain Yak’! Damian had volunteered to be our call out and not cave, but joined us on our hike in and then he continued along the river bank whilst we were entertaining ourselves.

The weather was lovely, and the walk in was quickly accomplished, finding ourselves on the Grand Gour in no time gearing up for the traverse that turned Kate and I away the day prior. It was immediately obvious that, overnight, river levels had dropped some what and the crossing wasn’t looking anywhere near as treacherous as the day before! The team all made light work of the crossing, and quickly scrambled between the boulders to gain the shore on the other side. Following the various descriptions we had, it wasn’t long before we found a large entrance that we thought to be Midroi, only one issue, totally flooded waist to chest deep from the get go. Jasmine was super keen and donning a wetsuit, so she was nominated/volunteered and took off into the flooded entrance, fully swimming from 10/15 metres in. It wasn’t long before she returned to inform us that the ceiling becomes very low and sump’s not far in. Surely this can’t be Midroi?! Where is the the Grand Lac?! Where are the ridiculous number of bolt/anchors along the right wall to traverse the Grand Lac?! Surely this can’t really be that flooded?! As we quickly revised the descriptions again, looking for any key detail we may have missed, we were certain this must be the place. Some previous trips from other clubs reported that they found the cave to be sumped and had to retreat, but all had spoke of finding the Grand Lac not far inside the entrance, its supposedly some 30m across and can be crossed by swimming, by boat, or by rigging a ridiculously long traverse along the right hand side – which being the rope geek I am I opted for! A few descriptions had said it can be difficult to spot the entrance to Midroi (which we hadn’t experienced) and that it was 250m from the end of the iron handrails at the boulder, and at an elevation of 85m. Scott, Maz and I set off back retracing our steps to pace out the distance, and scour the side of the cliff for any other possibilities. Luckily, I had my Garmin watch on so could very accurately walk 250m then climb to exactly 85m in that location, although it did take me about an hour before realising! After almost 2 hours, we’d found nothing at all and had searched from the start of the boulder, right along the shore to around 350/400m and up to an elevation of 95m. There was only the one entrance, it had to be this. As I returned, I’d found the others already back together, and whilst we were away Jasmine and tried to dig out around the large boulders at the entrance that were causing a dam. Actually, she’d made some really good progress and looking along the walls inside the cave you could see it had dropped around a foot whilst we’d been out searching. After some further digging with the aid of Scott and Maz, Jasmine again set off inside to see if we could make more progress. Keen to wash my oversuit from the previous trips and being teased by Kate with the “if you will I will” phrase, I followed, and then the others followed me. We all made it roughly around 100m, getting fully drenched, before the passageway splits with a high level branching off to the left that quickly becomes a crawl and didn’t look like it went very far, with the lower level leading onwards into a smaller passageway. Before now it was possible to avoid swimming, but the floor of the cave was so slippy with mud/silt that it was impossible to hold your footing and you may as well swim! From here on, the water temperature changed and you could tell it was much deeper, and unable to touch the bottom. On Jasmine’s first swim in, this way on was almost flooded to the ceiling, leaving only a couple of inches air space at the top, and as she was already fully swimming with no knowledge of the bottom Jasmine opted to retreat to us and no push into the space – a wise choice as only a couple of metres inside and it was fully sumped. When we all returned together, the water here had dropped around a foot and a half and again Jasmine swam over this time into the opening, whilst I’d scrambled around the edge in an attempt to remain somewhat dry to support her onward attempts with words of wisdom. Again, still sumped. We retreated a little and explored what we could before exiting for another change riverside followed by the hike back out. Damian was ahead of us making it back to the vehicles first and kindly waited to ensure we all got back safely. It must have been some sight for him on his return down the river to where he’d left us, as the Midroi entrance was promptly spewing out cave water that’s been trapped for who knows how long, down and along the river bank into the stunningly coloured Ardèche river!

As we were walking back through the Refuge de Gournier, Maz took some time to explore and reminisce on his years here with groups as a teacher. He found some information boards, and wooden markers to indicate the previous flood levels, some very recently. Everything suddenly made sense! It’s no secret that the Ardèche floods through winter, in fact on this exact trip at the end of March we’d experienced some horrific rain when travelling over and in the first few days, so knew the water levels were up. Where Maz was now stood, holding his hand above his head saying “this is where it flooded in 19** and here in 18**” we were probably about 10 metres ish above the Grand Gour and in turn also above the level of the entrance to Midroi. So when this area floods, and it doesn’t need to be catastrophic, the traverse on the Grand Gour (and probably the Gour itself!) completely disappears. The entrance to Midroi will flood and sump to the ceiling, washing in a load of sand, silt, and flood debris carried down the river. When the levels drop, the Midroi remains completely flooded until the entrance has had a good old digging out to make it somewhat friendly again before normal service can resume in the active months, maybe by a local speleology club or guides that use the cave? Perhaps they’ll be relieved this year to see that, thanks to Jasmine and other KCC helpers, the works already been started! We certainly need to visit again in peak season to see if our theories are correct.

Write up and pics by Will

By Jason Clements In Day Trips

Crystal Cave

James, Ami, Monica (Ami’s friend), Pete (prospective member), Jason

(Just to prove that proper Dales caving continues whilst the rest of the club are in exotic foreign destinations).

This was supposed to be Steve’s trip, but work got in the way for him, so it fell to me to lead, having been here before (albeit 15 years ago).  The cave is apt to be impassable in wet weather, but March had been dry so far, so it looked promising.

The entrance is close to the road, and easy to find – just follow the stream up into where it emerges from the scar.  Starting with a crawl, we soon came to the First Duck, which wasn’t really a duck at all, with the water being low, but you can’t avoid getting fairly well soaked.  Never mind, we could soon stand and follow the streamway upright.  Better than that, we climbed up to the Gallery, a decorated passage following at a higher level.  There were some nice little gour pools with crystalline deposits (the origin of the cave’s name, perhaps?).

This brought us to Spout Chamber and a climb up the First Waterfall (which was barely a trickle).  The rock is lumpy and knobbly, but this made the climbing easy, with plenty of generous hand- and foot-holds.

Quite soon, we reached the Second Duck.  On my previous visit, this was quite serious, and necessitated going through on one’s back.  This time there seemed plenty of airspace, and the duck is very short, so didn’t present a problem, other than giving us another soaking.  Two more waterfalls follow soon after, and again the climbing is easy although there’s a bit of an awkward wriggle at the top.

This was as far as I’d got the last time, and as far as I’d expected to get.  Northern Caves says “the stream issues from a duck that can be passed in dry conditions to a low crawl into Monsoon Chamber in Dog Hole.”  Well, conditions were dry, and before anyone could stop her, Monica was off through the duck, so we felt obliged to follow.

This was a proper duck, not long, but you have to take a route around a gravel bank (thanks to James and Pete for giving directions) and I for one spluttered a bit before getting through.  Fired up by the prospect of getting to Monsoon Chamber, Monica and Ami were already well along the low crawl.  It was indeed low (flat-out in wet gravel) and went on, and on.  We were committed though, turning round would have been nigh impossible, but eventually there were encouraging cries from ahead.

We had triumphantly reached Monsoon Chamber, but what next?  My guide notes had run out, but James had a survey and thought we could get back to Crystal via Barker’s Passage – nobody relished repeating the crawl and duck.  Just two questions: could we find Barker’s Passage, and if we did, could we get through it?  Northern Caves says it’s only passable by thin cavers.  Not me, then.  But the others were keen, so we had a good poke around The Jungle, which is a confusing section of muddy boulders, climbs and crawls, with a side-line in loose rocks.  After a while, I took on the role of wet blanket and suggested that it was time to retrace our steps (slithers?), which we did.

The crawl didn’t seem quite as long on the way back (to me; Ami thought it was worse!) and we switched opinions on the duck: she thought ‘not so bad’, whereas I felt compelled to go on my back this time.

We were all thoroughly soaked by now (except Pete, the only one smart enough to wear a wetsuit) and getting cold, so we made haste to exit.  So much so in my case that I slipped climbing down the First Waterfall, and landed hard against a rock.  A cracked rib is a great reminder to take more care in future!  Anyway, it was a memorable trip and left us all keen to explore Dog Hole – and maybe even do a through trip if the weather stays dry?

By Tom C In Expeditions

Event de Foussoubie & Rieussec

Chris, Damian, Jasmine, Maz, Scott, Tom

Day 4 and our initial plan of Midroi was thwarted after reading in a French guidebook that the sump just inside the entrance is closed October to June and we realised all the trip reports we’d read were from the blazing summertime. Not fancying travelling too far, we decided on a trip to the bottom entrance of Foussoubie and a play around the area, especially as Chris and Damian were keen on a gorge hike and seeing the Pont d’Arc. 

A short 15 minute drive got us to the Blachas campsite entrance, right at the start of the gorge, and we parked below some nauseating overhanging cliffs and donned our neoprene for an aquatic day. The rock is Swiss-cheesey here with little entrances everywhere. We wandered through the campsite along the river, with the gorge’s walls reaching up, and Maz told us about the huge ‘post office rock’ in the middle of the river – in his paddling guide seasons over here he used to tell the kids it was the Ardeche’s sorting office.

The path continued past the campsite and before long we were at a series of entrances in the cliff face. The first was a shelter, and the lower one a gloopy walking height arch where we bumped into Chris and Damian who’d had a quick scout already before heading onwards with their hike.

We first headed into the obvious main continuation heading down to the water, where an atmospheric little swim got us to a sump – and at first thought this would be the end of our adventure. But on the way back out we spotted another obvious passage heading up through some mud which headed to a chamber. From here a branch spat us out at the top of a 10m scramble down – Jasmine and Scott headed down to a watery chamber with no real way on. Back up the scramble and we tried the other branch, which led via a series of waist-deep wades through different chambers and eventually to the aven at the bottom of the Foussoubie through-trip – good to know for the future. onwards from here a series of wades brought us to a nice low-roofed swim that was good easy ceiling-sucking to get us through to the end of this branch. 

We headed back out, taking a tiny oxbow full of sulphorous mud to stink everything up, before a dip back in the main passage to clean off. After returning to sunlight, we headed a bit further along the path to where it turned into via along a rock wall. With the ropes incomplete we turned back, Jasmine and Scott having a few quick leaps into the fast-flowing Ardeche and having a mess around in the eddies. We clambered back and headed back to the campsite to begin hiking up for the Rieussec, a supposedly easygoing bit of canyoning fun. We began following a path up but quickly realised it was continuing up the mountain rather than up into the valley, and turned back taking a different branch down to the Rieussec stream. 

This was rugged progress before we finally started to reach the odd pool where we had a bit of a jump and drifted in the flow. A little higher up and the grassy banks turned into high solid walls and it seemed we’d reached the bottom of the canyoning section. A line of pools and short pitches stretched above us, with sporting amounts of water chucking down them. The guide we’d read said ‘This canyon only flows a few days a year…but if it flows, given the size of the potholes and the violence of the water movements, it can be extremely dangerous’. Obstacles that would’ve been climbs down into still pools were now churning pitches, and Scott couldn’t spot any bolts. 

Nevertheless we followed a path up the steep valley side hoping to reach the top end, but this finished at an exposed cliff scramble. At this point we’d already had a fair adventure and with the lemons stacking up we decided to just turn back and make a gorge walk of the river back down to the campsite, exploring a couple of small riverside caves along the way. 

Back at the cars, sunburnt and itchy from riverwater, we dekitted and headed to Intermarche for goodies.

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By Will Burnett In Expeditions

Aven des Pebres

Ardèche trip, Day 3 – Aven des Pebres

Team: Damian, Chris, Tom, Maz, Scott, Jasmine & Will (write up by Will, photos by Will & Tom)

This one was a little harder to find but our convoy of 3 vehicles navigated the rocky roads of rural Ardèche without much difficulty and found where we needed to be. A quick kit up and off we went, following the description. It was evident by now that descriptions and more importantly topo’s were very vague and often distances and rope lengths were just ball park figures. It wasn’t long before we’d come to a halt at a crossroads and cavers dispersed down the off shoots around us on a hunt for the entrance. Tom was first to holla up, so we all regathered and made for the sound of his voice. Entrance found, day 3 begins.

After yesterday’s retreat, I’d come prepared and so set off leading, straight onto a couple of slides which we rigged but later realised wasn’t necessary and would have made our day a bit easier but when at the top of the slides, it’s not totally convincing that you’ll get back up – they’re that slick. After a couple of easy down climbs and short passageway, we soon came upon the 31m pitch, which worked down through a series of re-belays that required some problem solving. In total, we used resin’d anchors for the most (a nice reminder of home for the team!), spits, slinged naturals, bolts, and threads. A true continental adventure! Initially, the decent can seem a little daunting and exposed, but confidence is restored as you work down and find options a plenty for rigging and all solid. I guess this is why the route descriptions and topo’s are so vague, because people take what they take and use what they use to get down. Going from the info Tom had, we’d over packed on rope length, but still found ourselves short on occasion. One of our previous pitches had some length left over, so Tom went with his knife to shorten it and repurpose the spare on another pitch further down. After the main pitch, again, we found ourselves short at the final pitch so as we were still spread out along the many re-belays on the main pitch we passed the message up for someone to go for the rope we’d used back on the entrance slides that we didn’t necessarily need. Damian and Chris were bringing up the rear and so retreated for the rope, and after ensuring we’d got it and that we would be able to climb the slide safely, they opted to exit early. Tom and I set to conjuring our very make shift last pitch set up, and then passed back the best way to work through it. Only small, around 5-6m, but awkward if you don’t have the right length of rope! After touching down, I set off to find the way on, a short scramble up into a decorated chamber, then a low crawl to the left down and through a large gour pool that I could only just about star fish across to stay dry, a slide down some flowstone, squeeze through some stals, low crawl over a deeper gour pool through a small opening and… WOW! I stood up, headtorch on full, quick look around, and then set off back as fast as I could to the others shouting its the best one of the trip yet! Possibly an early statement to make, as in reality each of our trips so far have been equally incredible but very different. Jasmine was next to touch down and she was instantly infected with my excitement and told me to take her to what I’d found. We worked through the crawls and squeezes and into the main chamber at the bottom. There was an in situ rope to the right leading up to a ledge so I quickly jumped on it and gained the view point. By now the others had made their way to the main chamber and some began to follow up behind me, others exploring the chamber. After the first ledge, there’s more ropes leading up around and through the calcite formations to a higher balcony over looking the whole chamber. I climbed a couple more pitches to another ledge, where I could just about see Tom and Maz walking amongst the huge formations. Tom translated from the description that the climb was to not much else and the view wasn’t going to beat my current positioning. I ab’d back down to the first ledge, where Jasmine and Scott overtook me and Maz was just gaining. Maz took some time here to admire the place whilst I descended, and Tom climbed to join Maz. Scott climbed to where I had been, and Jasmine began to work her way all the way to the top balcony. I started to explore the rest of the chamber whilst Tom and Maz ab’d down to join me. Before long, Scott was with us also and we watched Jasmine work her way back down through the in situ ropes. The whole cave is roughly 90m deep, and at the bottom is just huge chamber ceiling roughly 30m high filled with massive formations, floor to ceiling columns, and then it slopes down to the left which can be scrambled some way until you come to a ledge with view to a huge pool with crystal clear water in the bottom some 15 metres below. Tom and I searched for a way down, and whilst we were certain you could jump in the pool and survive, there didn’t appear to be a way down or up. The description says there’s another pitch, which we couldn’t obviously find, but had no rope left even if we had.

Once we’d had our fill, we headed out as we’d entered, with Scott de-rigging. Soon enough we were back on the surface without too many dramas, and hiking up the hill back to the vehicles. Day 3 completed, I think we’ll all sleep tonight!