Trip Reports 2011
Ogof Dydd Byraf
Five members of the caving group spent 15th-17th April in North Wales. We stayed on a campsite within a mile of the centre of Llangollen and went walking on the Saturday and caving on the Sunday.
We had no formal plan for the Saturday walk and trustingly followed Matt and Gary as they devised a route up and down the surrounding hills and found their way around it by map without even momentary recourse to satellite navigation. The weather was ideal for walking and bits got added onto the route as the day progressed, so that by the time we arrived back at the campsite we had covered about fifteen miles. Quickly revived by hot showers, bottles of beer, and pieces of shortbread we regained the strength to walk along the towpath into Llangollen for an Indian meal.
A visit to Ogof Llyn Parc had been planned for Sunday but in the event the winch for the entrance pitch was not available. The alternative way up and down the one hundred metre shaft is on a rope. All of us had the experience to take that on, but with each person needing twenty-to-thirty minutes to climb the rope and with six members in the party it would have been a lengthy process. So we opted in favour of the alternative that had been offered to us of visiting Ogof Dydd Byraf (ODB). ODB involves a couple of slightly awkward ladder climbs but no long pitches. It contains some beautifully-decorated chambers and some entertaining crawls that verge on grovels but do not last for too long.
A digging project has been in progress for some time with the hope of finding a connection to an adjacent cave system. In past centuries, some cave passages became filled with sand and clay, and digging out the fill has led to many major finds around the country. The main dig in ODB is now long enough for artificial ventillation to be needed. Without it, exhaled carbon dioxide builds up and people working at the face run into breathing difficulties. The ventillation system in this case is a car heater fan powered by a car battery and connected to a long, lightweight, flexible pipe. Our two devoted diggers, Matt and Gary, did their bit by digging out ten big buckets of sand which the rest of us hauled up the slope to a spoil heap in the cavern from which the passage descends.
After we came out of the cave our guide, Mike, showed us an astonishingly large, oval lime kiln which had made continous processing possible – one of only two that still survive almost intact. All that remained thereafter were our drives home through beautiful countryside on a perfect spring evening.
An Excursive Journey from Providence to Cheese
GOC Caving Group shared a joint event with York Caving Club over the weekend of 19th-21st August 2011. We camped in Hardraw, close to Hawes, and on the Saturday some members of the group went to explore caves close by that are relatively short, not much visited, but full of interest. I went with five members of the group who decided instead to take on the challenge of a through trip from Providence Pot via Dowbergill Passage to Dow Cave, near to Kettlewell in Wharfedale.
We drove from Wensleydale to Wharfedale somewhat later in the morning than we had intended but that is, after all, normal practice for cavers. When we arrived at Kettlewell we found they were having a Scarecrow Festival. We parked in an overspill car park, got changed fairly discreetly in among the cars, and walked through the village to the path into Dowbergill valley, taking a look at scarecrows on the way. The best had to be Rapunzel, seated at the top of the church tower with her hair trailing to the ground.
The descent into Providence Pot requires no climbing apart from down the short, scaffolded entrance shaft, but it does involve some strange contortions as you squirm head-first down narrow passages. A final descent and crawl bring you into Dowbergill Passage – the main attraction of the day. It takes several hours to find your way along this narrow rift, even though it is fairly straight and there are no confusing side passages. A stream flows in the bottom and you splash along in it for a while before finding the way blocked by fallen boulders. There you have to climb up and traverse high above the boulders and the stream until you find a safe place to climb back down. Problems like this are repeated many times. The passage enjoys notoriety both for the difficulties of finding the way in a vertical maze and for the scariness of some of the traverses, but when water levels are low the problems are not great. Eventually, we ducked under a curtain of flowstone that comes down close to the water and found ourselves in Dow Cave. In fifteen minutes, or maybe less, we were outside again, something over a mile from where we had entered Providence Pot. The whole journey had taken a few minutes over four hours.
That evening we went for a meal in the pub in Hardraw where we sat right by the piano and were entertained by a pianist who seemed to know every tune written between 1890 and 1990 and beyond, and also had many interesting anecdotes to tell.
On Sunday morning we all opted to go for a walk – partly because we were tired from the day before and partly because it had rained hard all night and caves were likely to be flooded. We walked first to Hawes and had breakfast there, and then went on a circular walk, out along one path southwards and back along a stretch of the Pennine Way. The weather varied between sunny, cloudy, and drizzly but there was never enough rain to make us wet. We were back in Hawes before the creamery closed and took the opportunity to buy an assortment of cheeses. We had reached the right-hand end of the title of this article and it remained only to drink lots of tea, eat scones and cheese cake, and drive home.
It was a great and varied weekend. A special welcome to Sally-Anne and Bernie – new members who came along for the first time. A special thank you to Matt and Gary for arranging the weekend, and Richard and Nicky for their faultless navigation through Dowbergill Passage.
Return Visits to Excalibur and Bogg Hall Rising
GOC Caving Group made a return visit to Excalibur cave, near Hutton-le-Hole, in October. There are only two pitches, both short and so we decided to use a ladder on one and free climb the other, with the aid of a rope. The entrance, in effect, is three feet or so above the ground, the entrance shaft being walled at the top to protect it from flood water when there is heavy rain. This is not, you understand, for the comfort of those underground: it is to protect the scaffolded shaft from water damage – a not unreasonable consideration given the amount of work that went into digging and stabilising the shaft. So we climbed up and down into the cave.
The first part of the descent is a climb down the scaffolding. At the bottom of the shaft there is a narrow slot to one side through which you wriggle head first to come out on a narrow ledge above the next drop. You would have to try fairly hard to fall down it, though, because it is very restricted at the top. By the time I got there, Gary had already rigged a ladder and lifeline and I was posted down the narrow shaft. It was an easy climb to a step into a small chamber near the bottom, with a large hole in the middle of it down to a lower level. Once the others had joined us, we descended a narrow continuation of the shaft immediately below the ladder, and pushed through a squeeze to reach the level below the large hole safely. Some crawling and squeezing brought us to the top of a rift with a stream flowing in the bottom, and we climbed down to the stream with the aid of a length of rope.
We went both upstream and downstream, and explored one or two passages leading up from the rift, but the most adventurous bit was downstream. Eventually we came to a place where the stream disappeared and a dry passage continued, sloping upwards. Along that passage we found our way round a couple of awkward squeezes back down to the stream, and a short distance further on a clamber up and a wriggle round a tricky corner led to a tiny chamber. Beyond that it was possible to descend just a few feet, back to the water – the current limit of exploration in this direction. We are among only a handful of people to have been to this point in the cave.
When we got back to the surface an hour or so later, the day was yet young and so Matt and Angus donned wetsuits and went into Bogg Hall Rising cave. That involves wading in water up to the neck, and to reach the farthest point of exploration you have to take off your hat, stretch out on your side, and float through a narrow, water-filled passage with just enough air space at the top to allow you to breath. They said they enjoyed it: I am glad I did not go with them.
On the Sunday we went for a most enjoyable walk, partly in forest and partly in open country, close by.
