Saturday 10th August 2013 – Reservoir Hole to The Frozen Deep!

Group: Aubrey Newport, Wayne, Will and me.
Duration: About three hours.

After trying repeatedly to execute a successful trip down Dan Yr Ogof, and getting rained off every single time, it was a very pleasant surprise to receive an email from Aubrey, offering me two places on a short-notice trip down the Frozen Deep (another of my wishlist caves) on Saturday. That weekend also conveniently being the weekend of Paul, Ellen and Mike’s (informally known as Paumillen) joint birthday weekend at *shudder* the Belfry.

I resolved to drink only a small amount on Friday night in order to arrive bright-eyed at the Wessex at 10am Saturday morning, and so of course what happened was that I drank a horrific amount of cider and went to bed at 3am. It was an…odd sort of night, possibly topped by Saturday night but really I can’t remember or even distinguish between my memories of the two nights any more.

Anyhow, 10am at the Wessex rolled around and Will and I miraculously weren’t late! We met up with Aubrey and Wayne, and headed down the hill via Martin Grass’ house to collect the key. We kitted up in the Gorge, attracting the usual curious looks from the grockles, and headed up to the entrance. The gate is very unusual, sort of like a re-purposed bear trap. The beginning of the cave is a small-ish downhill passage, populated by a large family of even larger spiders. At the T-Junction, the right hand turn is taken, doubling back in the direction of the road.

I remember a little bit of downhill passage, none of it particularly large or particularly small, before the climbs start. These are a series (3 or 4?) of dug chimneys, bricked and concreted in a fairly hap-hazardous way in order to facilitate easyish climbing. I think Aubrey said there were 40 metres in total but I can’t really remember. Either way, there is a handline on at least two of them, that is definitely helpful if not essential. They are simple enough climbing but pretty exposed and one does bell out a bit at the bottom. Will said he didn’t love that particular bit, so I think there must be an ‘easy route’ down that bit that he missed because I didn’t think it was that bad.

After that, the crawling starts. We weren’t sure we were going the right way until we saw the sign reading “Glanville’s Grotto. All hope abandon, yea who enter here”. What an cheering thought! Although it’s not particularly long, to be fair, and not too small either. There’s one pinch point of about 7 or 8 ft flat out but it’s not a squeeze by any means. It’s just all so sharp and spiky, presumably because it’s newish passage. I took one of the ladders just before the crawl, which I think was the first time I’ve ever been permitted by Will to carry a bit of kit in a cave!

Shortly after that we emerged into what would be a fairly impressive chamber, were it not for the knowledge of what lies just beyond. We climbed up some rocky steps and up to the roof. At the end of the chamber, there is a rock fall just where the walls narrow, the other side of which forms the pitch down into the Frozen Deep, and the face of this is what we were climbing up. Up the easier-than-it-looks overhanging boulder and you’re at the pitch! It was at this point that I realised my hangover, and the accompanying urge to chunder, had finally left me. Happy days!

We rigged the pitch, with a couple of worries over whether the belay rope was long enough to be used from the bottom (it was). We were leaving the kit for Estelle’s trip on Sunday, so we didn’t even have to carry it out. The pitch itself was very pleasant and simple, and I very much appreciated the luxury of a scaffolding platform halfway down. And there it was, the Frozen Deep.

There’s not much point me describing the actual chamber except to say that it’s really big and really pretty. Like, bigger than you think and SO pretty. Sorry, I can’t really be more coherent than that. It’s huge. And the pretty…there is much pretty. I particularly liked the crystal pool on the far right hand side of the chamber that looked like it had been lifted straight out of a Swarovski Christmas window display. We wandered around for really quite some time because – did I mention? It’s big.

We didn’t bother taking any photos, Will and myself, because frankly there are more than enough amateur photos, that totally fail to do justice to this space, floating around online. If you want to see some actual good photos, check out the magnum opus that is this thread on UK Caving.

The trip back out was fairly uneventful although I’m not sure which genius let me be the first person out of the cave. Because I decided that couldn’t lift the gate (excuses, excuses?), I cleverly decided to just push it out of the entrance hole where it would lie on the floor waiting to be re-fitted. Except it rolled all the way down the hill and, if it wasn’t for the reservoir enclosure wall, might well have taken out some grockle in the gorge. Oops. Cue a jog down the hill and back up again for me, carting the extremely heavy gate.

This was fantastic trip and I’m really grateful to Aubrey for remembering that I had mentioned wanting to go and thinking of us, and to both Aubrey and Wayne for being great caving company.