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.

Saturday 29th June 2013 – Spider Hole

Our second trip assisting the digging team down Spider Hole.

Group: Will, Jude, Adrian VDP, Pete Hann, NikNak (unsure of real name), Aubrey, John, me.
Duration: Four and a half hours, approximately.

This was another great trip down Spider, once again hauling sand for the diggers. We brought SRT kits at Judes suggestion and, although I was rather dubious about whether it was a good idea, SRT’d the pitches. Spider has two notable pitches (plus one small one that has a ladder) in a rift called Hazelnut Rift. The first, Hazel Pitch, is 26 ft approx, and the second, Nut Pitch, is 40 ft approx. They are basically one pitch but are done as two ladders, with some jammed boulders providing a change over point. When on SRT, they are generally done as a rebelay.

Saturday 18th May 2013 – Spider Hole

Lending the usual Spider Digging team a hand taking bags of sand down the cave. First experience of an active dig.

I’ve since been down again, and there is a more thorough write-up here. We did it on ladders for this first time, but SRT the next 🙂