What Amy is down to in the UK

[self-deleted_user]

I thought I'd make a topic...I have computer/internet access at various points throughout my 2 weeks here in the UK and thought maybe people would like to follow it some? Since it says for posting trip reports...why not a trip "blog" so to speak, yeah? If mods feel it's not ok then I guess just remove the topic. I'll be posting some photos and jazz too as I go.

I am successfully in London right now...it does not look like I will have a chance to meet up with London-based cavers who I won't see caving (or, as apparently many around he call it, potholing! To me...potholes are the things in the roads that give you a jolty bump while driving and sometimes break various suspension parts on your vehicle - sorry auto - but I guess here...they are both!).

Tomorrow does not start caving quite yet, that starts Saturday.

If anyone has any particular questions you'd like me to ask, or any particular photos/photo types you'd want to see, let me know and I will try and oblige!

[Phil Winkler]

Keep it up. Sounds interesting to me.

[wyandottecaver]

Amy, are u using UK based gear or did u bring your own?

[self-deleted_user]

I brought my own. I am comfortable with my own, I have used it for up to 4 hours in the cave up north in Michigan which has temps (both air and water) similar to what will be here. It took a while to figure out what helmet didn't hurt to wear, what light worked the best for my weird night vision, etc. I wasn't going to risk not being able to do trips due to that. I'm not trained for SRT yet (working on it, have some training that went well! gonna keep working on it) so we aren't doing any vertical caving hence that whole style/compatibility issue isn't actually a problem. Apparently most peeps here use a undersuit/oversuit combo (check out Bernie's shop to see what I mean) though for a lot of the caves. And yeah, a stop at Bernie's cafe & shop is hoped for I just need to find a fellow caver hanging out in the Dales with a car to drive the 12 miles there from the hut.

Oh and huts. We should like, make those things, yo. Maybe I'm just a no0b and haven't heard of such things in the US yet, but dang, these folks have it covered! I'll post pictures of those once I get to my first one (seeing it tomorrow night). Apparently most clubs have one. Smart cookies. Places to wash gear and person, warm place to sleep, kitchens. BYO bedding/towel/food sort of thing. But fantastic idea I think. I'll let you know how in love I am with the idea of it after I see the Wessex club hut though tomorrow. Wessex one even has wifi!

Back to gear - yeah if I am underequiped somehow, I can borrow...I'll find out soon I guess. I think I'll be good. I will be looking at the oversuits (coveralls, to us) at Bernie's though...they look nice and even currency conversion seem cheaper here than in the states. I still maintain my hatred of coveralls though - So. Damn. Restricting. GAH CANT MOVE in them. And I'm not claustrophobic - however, it does freak me out when I am limited in mobility in areas where I should /not/ be limited. I.e. damnit I know I can (almost) do the splits - the coverall should allow this. If it can't, it's restricting. Sorry, I still (while getting lots better, dude, my arms have some shape? and what are these faint indents on my tummy forming? 0.o) don't have great strength and I use agility/flexibility in so many situations when buddies use muscle. I *need* that. It's how I cave. But yeah, gonna try on a Bernie oversuit if I get there. Maybe those will do better than American designs. I like the idea of them, I just don't like being restricted in my caving abilities by wearing one. Kinda defeats the purpose.

[wyandottecaver]

ahh well my main point was vis a vis WNS. I.e. if you chose to decon or borrow.

[self-deleted_user]

Ohhhhhhhhhh well uh you should've asked that then :P

No one here has asked me or batted an eye about me bringing my own gear. But yes, I do follow decon protocol whenever I go caving just to be on the safe side, so yes, all this is deconed (and, on top of that, none of this gear has been in WNS confirmed caves).

[self-deleted_user]

Club Hut: very awesome we need to make these in the US guys. I don't know why I've never heard of them. At least near TAG and other cavey areas it'd make sense for clubs to make huts. Well, other than drunk dude earlier tonight hitting on me that I almost punched and would have if he hadn't have been drunk (it's common to drink in the evenings after the trips here...this one guy got a litttttle too much IMPO but whatever floats your boat I guess :/) But the hug is cool, I'm making this post from there (yes, they have wifi!)

Ogof Ffynnon Ddu 1 (OFD1 for short) - South Wales - http://www.ogof.net/ofd1/ofd1_000.html
First cave trip, courtesy of Les from the UK cave forum for this trip. He is a very good caver and he's pretty much a buttered cat (which it has been explained to me toast with butter when dropped always lands butter side down. A cat however lands on its feet...hence a buttered cat levitates...and seeing him climb...yeah he levitates).

We did the through trip. We went in the OFD-1 entrance which is near the resurgance and we followed the main streamway up and continued out of the stream to boulder choke (which right past that is OFD 1.5) and from there we reversed back down part of the streamway and went up the flood escape route. Eventually we end up on the traverses which is about 30-40 meters and most of it is very exposed 20-30 meter drop back down to the streamway (which originally we had come up through) all on a tiny slippery ledge. There is a steel traverse line though to hook into, luckily :P (sadly no photos of me doing that, not bad for ms. hates exposed climbs, yeah? haha). As far as what was in the cave...everything from various pretties to breakdown to...well..I'd call the stream a RIVER and there are spots that you have to walk across potholes on a metal pole so you don't fall in!

**okay i had photos stuck all through this but they were more than 600 pixels wide and i'm too lazy to re-resize them even smaller so go look at my facebook to find t he photos :P

[self-deleted_user]

Again, photos are too big to post here >_< yeah just check out my fb or I'll post a flickr link once i get 'em up there.

SO today was GB cave in Mendip. Fantastic. Like, sorry TAG, you ain't got /nothing/ on this. Or OFD either, really. At least not that I've seen. Ya'all are gonna have to come up with some preeeeeeetty sweet caves to beat what I've seen past two days. It's like 600-700 feet deep (it's a lot of down climbing...and yay for the upclimb on the way back HAHA). It also boasts the largest cavern (aka room) in the UK. We're talking serious huge, an APEX wouldn't light up the opposite wall huge. HUGE. I have a photo that *kinda* shows it...like half of it. Ish. Actually it turned out pretty durn cool but it still does not give an idea for the monstrosity of the room. Visually to me it seemed bigger than the rooms I saw in Cathedral Caverns, tbh. Although not sure how they *really* compare and since CC is show and all lit up maybe that makes it seem smaller or such. ANYWAY. Lots of pretties all over the place too. Flowstone, curtains, stalagmites, stalactites, pillars, helictites...kinda name it you got it. Some areas so many things it was almost impossible to stay off them (luckily they were large and you wouldn't hurt 'em really). So there was a climb down down down down down into the streamway. Mostly like breakdown-type climbing, but in a few spots drops that were more chimneyish wedgeyourselfandstradleyourwaydown. Remember my posts about not liking exposed climbs? HAHAH well the last two trips I've kinda had to get used to it...luckily Les is very good spotter and once I started to figure that out it got easier and I was suprrising myself sometimes...I think I'm getting better :) There was still a spot though that we tied the rope around my waist so I was, like, belayed, at one spot. See, there is a HUGE waterfall ;) and after you climb up it about 15-20 feet on the side you have to cross over under the falls! And that's the hairy bit, unless you're more confident in climbing or just know where the holds are (you can't see a damn thing, Les was right it wasn't really that hard, more just freaky stradeling like 30 feet up in the air water pouring down on you can't see your holds!) Then you climb back up and out of the stream eventually and hook back up in the main HUGGGGGGGE room and then out is the same way in from there.

[self-deleted_user]

Photos up on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunguramy/ ... 270506891/

[sjphill]

Very cool pics! Thanks

[EricPopoff]

WOW!

Looks like a fantastic trip - I've been talking to my son about a caving trip to Great Britain. Looks like we'll have to go now!

[Phil Winkler]

Amy, Paul Hadfield, back in 1976, told me stories of the Wessex Cave Hut, but I had no idea it had such luxury. It's beautiful.

[Footleg]

Amy, Paul Hadfield, back in 1976, told me stories of the Wessex Cave Hut, but I had no idea it had such luxury. It's beautiful.

I suspect back in 1976 it did not have such luxury! But it does have a reputation here in the UK for being one of the more comfortable club huts these days.

[self-deleted_user]

Yeah, I really don't understand why we don't have huts in TAG or in WV or other common caving areas. Such a great idea!! I really don't get it.

I took more photos they are up on fb now and I'll post stuffs here....

Wessex Hut:



(the scaffolding is for SRT training, brilliant, eh?)

(painting in the girls bathroom! awesome! - yeah there is a womens-only room if you prefer that, which has their own shower and toilet)

(this is the room to come into after a trip. Muck it up and it's cool. 3 showers, 1 toilet, drying room, changing area)

(Drying room w/dehumidifier)

(upper bunks, co-ed room, this is nonmembers side, the other side behind the photo is for Wessex members)

(kitchen, everything you need, byo food)

Swildon's:
Burt took me through it. We didn't do the short round...it gets tiring caving 3 days in a row! ha! Yeah we just went down to Sump 1 and then turned around and came back. Time became an issue...I was a bit slow and there was a lot of climbing in that cave...that big rift area is not fun, the hardest thing I've done yet for things not on belay or anything. Climbing down the ladder at the 20 foot falls was actually not that hard. I was on belay but I didn't need it at all. Coming back up that was holyheckimpossible though. Actually not really - it was just fine until got up to the top 6 feet or so and that flowstone comes over and you can't freakin' use the ladder anymore since it's pressed against it. Also the rungs were really far apart. I couldn't reach up to the next one without moving my lowest foot off the rung, and you can't put more than one foot/hand per rung since it's so narrow. So...I could only use half strength at a time, and once I couldn't even get to the rungs because of it pressed against the flowstone...esh. Impossible prettymuch. If I twisted my weight to get a hand behind it...bad idea because I almost crushed my fingers that way. Cut off the circulation to my fingers for about 30sec or so while I struggled to get them out from it. which by then I'm getting exhausted of course and I slip (luckily, on belay so I stopped and didn't fall of course) but right about that same time there was just /nothing/ left in my arms at all. and my feet while on the ladder and under me how they should be (i wasn't leaning off of it) I didn't have enough left in my legs to power up legs alone because I couldn't lift my arms up. Burt hung a second short..webbing? ladder I could grab the bottom one which got me up about another foot but those rungs were even further apart and I coudln't make it to the next so he got a 2:1 pulley system on and managed to with his pulling while I pushed with my legs and just lifted my arms up to loop my hands around the next webbing rung got up. Hardest thing ever done right there. It took a good 10 min for me to even feel my arms again. I mean, he had me hold the bag open to put the rope back into it after I was up, I couldn't hold up the empty bag, I kept dropping it. Which, being so weak then (my legs were okay, my arms were numb) made any other climbing horribly hard especially when a migraine started kicking in and making me dizzy on top of it (i need a better pill bottle...my migraine med I had with me was crushed >_<) But yeah made it out just fine and back to the hut with 45 min to spare until the callout time set up (or whatever you call the "we are parked here going there on such and such trip if we aren't out by x time something is wrong call rescue!).

It was a fun trip though, that ladder climb though...nevar again! haha well I say that now but you know I'll end up doing them again at some point haha. Hey, maybe that'd be a good srt spot, that would have been sooooooooo much easier than that stupid lader. I kept thinking as I climbed that I'd rather be doing that!

It was a cool cave though. Next time I'm here we'll have to do the round trip :)

I did fall into one of the double pots though, so I am a true "baptized son of Mendip" now The one I jumped into since Burt said to so I knew that was happening (i couldn't find a foothold to go around ha!) and on the way back up, I avoided the first and the second I asked "Is this the deep one?" (I couldn't tell) and Burt said "Nope it's fine" and so I steped in...and fell not expecting it to be so deep xD looked up at him and he had this huge Cheshire grin and I stuck my tounge out at him and we both laughed. hahaha.

Me


Burt


20' falls



Me again


Sump 1


SCOTLAND: Edinburgh (well, nearby) - Alan took me to an abandoned limestone mine. I didn't do much of it...sore, tired, and forgot some of my caving clothes as I was in a rush as my train was late in so trying to grab stuff to meet him...yeah. I'm a bad caver to forget my own cavepants, huh? :P well he had extra coveralls but it didn't fit at all, I was waddleing and couldn't even get my knee to a 90 deg bend haha. But, a mine. You walk in it. Got to the crawling part and was "eh had enough let's leave". So I can say I've been "caving" in Scotland but I didn't do much of it haha. Honestly, after the first few feet it was like you saw it all. We were both bad and didn't bring a camera so no photos of it. (no offense, not missing much, especially i mean I just came from Mendip...just no comparison).

[Phil Winkler]

Amy, we do have such things in the US. There is the Homestead at the Butler Cave in western Virginia and I think a cabin in West Virginia somewhere. In TAG so many of the caves are so close that a hut isn't really necessary. Canadian cavers and others use to use the Myrick Hotel near Huntsville as sort of a cave hut. 20 people in a room kind of thing. :)