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THE BULLETINJournal of the Westminster Spelæological Group

Volume 9, Number 9January 2007

ContentsPage

Diggers’ Delights - the 18th and 19th Holes Toby Clark 1

A Tale of WSG Activities in a Bygone Age Len Dawes 5

How to Build your Own Light for £25 Graham Adcock 11

The 1999 Cuban Expedition Expedition Members 19

France 1998 - Four Course Caving Martin McGowan 39

Chartreuse - WSG’s 50th Anniversary Trip Matthew Setchfield 41

Slovenia 1998 - Caving the Imperial Way Martin McGowan 53

Slovenia 2001 - the IC3 Expedition Martin McGowan 59

Ethiopia 98 - ‘a little more than a caving expedition’ Bob Kynaston 65

Buses, Dragons and Churches - Ethiopia 1998 James Hooper 71

Dreaming of Caves in East Africa Peter Judd 75

A Short History of Caerllwyn Duncan Minty 77

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Editorial

It’s nearly ten years since the last Bulletin wasproduced. That’s too long a gap and not one that theclub wants to repeat again. It’s been not so much aquestion of gathering in the articles - the range anddates of what follows testifies to both members’willingness to get out there and cave and then writeabout it - but to earlier editors having too many thingsto juggle and the club being focussed on moreimportant things - resolving our ownership ofCaerllwyn and bringing in a new generation of cavers.

Since writing the editorial for the last Bulletin in 1997,the publication of sporting and technical journals hasbeen revolutionised by the internet. It’s clear from thewebsites of the UK’s leading caving clubs that only afew have absorbed those changes in how they publishtheir equivalent of this Bulletin. Yet WSG’s renewed

vigour would have been a much greater challengewithout the accessibility and connectivity provided bythe club website.

There’s no inevitability about the internet - you makeof it what you want. What it can help you do howeveris revisit why you publish journals like this in the firstplace, and it then allows you to reform how you goabout publishing it, without necessarily departing fromyour core purpose, which I take to be the serving ofthe club’s members and the wider caving communityin their pursuit of good caves and new finds, both inthe UK and abroad. The Bulletin has changed before,sometimes radically; it may well do so again.

Duncan Minty

This Bulletin has been edited by Duncan Minty, ChrisWood and Martin McGowan.

© Westminster Spelælogical Group

Opinions expressed in this Bulletin are the contributors’own and not those of the editor or the WestminsterSpelælogical Group.

AcknowledgementsMark Baker for help with certain computer files;Len Dawes for the cover survey;UBSS for the survey around the Afon Nedd Fechan;Cave Books (St Louis) for the Dent de Crolles survey;ICCC for the Migovec and Gardeners’ World surveys;Mapquest for the Slovenian and Ethiopian maps;Ordnance Survey for the 1830 survey of Caerllwyn.

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Hole 18 or Productus Pot was so named as thearbitrary 18th feature of speleological significance in asurvey carried out by University of BristolSpeleological Society in 19711. It appears on theCambrian Cave Registry (1992) at NGR 8991 1383 asa sink at an altitude of 400m and both of these piecesof data are significantly wrong! The NGR is 90251402, but more importantly the 18th is at an altitudeof 350m. These errors have been carried forward intoDuncan Minty's database 2.

The 18th Hole is a relatively recent geological feature,caused by the capture of a local stream. The waterruns downhill off gritstone to the west, and hasdowncut through the millstone grit until it found aplace to sink at the base of a small cliff which is about8m high. From this point the water was dye traced in1984 to the R1 rising (2.2km away in the Little NeathValley) in less than 25 hours by Bill Gascoine of theCwmbran CC and Jon Young of Croydon CC. 3

Between 1972 and 1975, the 18th Hole was dug bySimon Meade-King et al 4, who used vast amounts ofexplosives in attempts to penetrate into the cliff, butwere always thwarted by the stream itself filling up thedig with horrible gloopy mud/water.

On visiting the site one day, they were surprised tofind that the 18th had turned into a pond followingheavy rain and was entering a hitherto unknown floodoverflow about 3m higher up. This they named ‘theadit’ and pursued it for a commendable 7m beforeroof instability eventually deterred them. A majorcollapse in the floor of the valley in 1975 spurred afurther frenzy of activity there but, with no furtherprogress being made, Simon's team finally moved on.

It was not until April 1997 that the WSG VeteranDiggers (Toby Clark, Jeremy Complin and BillBrooks) set out to dig the 18th Hole. At that timethere was nothing to suggest that anyone had evertouched the site, apart from the adit and associatedspoil heap in the north bank. The stream bed was dry,so that 2.4m of vertical progress through infill andboulders was made in a single day, working against thecliff face. On the next visit, the stream had reappearedat the bottom of the dig and was flowing back awayfrom the cliff face towards the collapsed feature whichSimon had observed. A scaffold cage was installed tostabilise the boulders and an attempt made to followthe stream directly away from the cliff face, towardsSimon’s collapsed feature.

It seemed now as though the valley floor had beenreached because we found ourselves in welly-deepwater above a clay layer. Jerry Complin was able toinsert his arm and a shovel full length horizontally inthat direction but attempts to push this becameprogressively more difficult amongst loose spoil andwas eventually abandoned.

Attention was again turned to the adit which showedevidence of recent flooding. Pieces of wood from thenearby dig had been washed into it and a sackcontaining heavy materials had been washed to the farend of it, indicating a powerful flow.

Inspection of the adit revealed that a minor roof fallhad stabilised it; the breakdown was cleared out,revealing a streamway maybe a metre wide and about10cm high. By drilling shotholes with a drill rentedfrom Dudley’s shop and blasting with detonating cord,good progress was made to 10m assisted by thediscovery of a higher horizon 70cm above which gaveus a much more stable roof (even allowing for thepiece which fell on Toby Hamnett's back!).

The 18th adit could well have taken the original flowwhich now sinks in the valley floor, hence it looks tobe an older feature. It trends north-west across thestrike and not down dip, which is about 5° to thesouth. Apart from the fact that it took water, the aditalso draughted air which was observed to be inresponse to barometric pressure change. However, itsbehaviour was extraordinary, in that when the pressurerose, it carried an outdraught and when pressure wentdown, it carried an indraught. This was the exactopposite of what would be expected for a closed cavewhich was breathing. The most likely inference was alink between Productus and Pwll Pindar, located atNGR 9027 1435 at an altitude of 370m, 20m higherup and 330m almost due north of the 18th. PwllPindar had been noticed to powerfully breathe in asthe pressure rose and out as it fell. The extent of thebreathing indicated a very large volume beneath thepresent known cave.

Meanwhile, in an attempt to control the water flowinginto the 18th Hole valley, the stream was divertedaway to the north on what we perceived to be itsformer direction. It flowed into an existing pond andthen the water overflowed downslope, mostly into asmall swallow hole, which did just that! A measured 3litres per second disappeared here amongst loosestones but a quantity continued on by and sank a fewmetres beyond. WSG has named these features the

Diggers Delights - the 18th and 19th Holes

Toby Clark________________________________________________________________

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UBSS’s original map from their 1971 publication, showing sites of speleological interest on the west and east banks of the AfonNedd Fechan, from the moors to the north down to the risings around Pwll Ddu and R2.

The locationof 18th Hole

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19th and 20th Holes, although they are not shown onthe UBSS map. The 19th feature of speleologicalinterest according to the UBSS survey is Cwm Bub.This is a sink on the gritstone - limestone boundaryNGR 9093 1316, altitude 134m. The 20th site ofspeleological interest is Pwll Derwen.

In the year following the water’s diversion, the 19thbecame a large feature, perhaps a metre deep and 5min diameter. The water sank at the south end of it in amixture of sandstone and gritstone boulders. In thepreliminary digging of the southern end of the site, nolimestone was found, but Martin McGowan did find awashed limestone wall at the northern end andinserted his whole arm into a void. More in hope thananger, two slabs of gelignite were lowered in anddetonated, causing an impressive eruption of mud andstones but not revealing anything at all.

Puffs of smoke were captured on camera, whichseemed to be arising from small surface features,suggesting voids below the surface. A quantity oftimber (by courtesy of Dudley) and some Post Officesacks were moved on site in preparation for furtherwork. At the same time, four stalwarts fromNorthampton were persuaded to look at the 20th andthey dug about a metre down in what became a holewith eroded limestone sides and an undercut at thenorth and south ends. This was close boarded overuntil we could give it further attention.

It is evident from the topography that the originalflow of the stream was around a low hill in the centreand down a shallow valley into where the 18th is now(but didn't exist then) and continuing over where SarnHelen Sink (South) is and beyond. Thus the

postulated succession is this: the 19th and 20th areolder than 18th Adit, which is older than the 18thitself.

All this drainage would have been off the millstonegrit to the west. A similar feature to the north createdPwll Pindar. And all of this is a part of the greaterdrainage of the Pant Mawr area. That there is a PantMawr Master System, there can be no doubt. That the18th Hole complex is one way into it, there can also beno doubt !

References1 Standing, P. A., Newson, M. D., Wilkins, A. G.:The Little Neath River Cave, Proceedings of UBSS1971, Vol. 12 No. 3 P3322 Minty, D.: Hydrological Investigations in theCentral Brecons Beacons, WSG Bulletin Vol. 9 No. 8P. 8 & P. 153 Oldham, T.: The Caves of the Little Neath Valley,Anne Oldham, 19934 Meade King, S.: WSG Bulletin Vol. 7 No. 8 P.107

AcknowledgmentsDragon Caving ( Dudley Thorpe) for all their supportand the donation of digging materials. WBCRO andBrian Bowell for the loan of the drill.

Rough Panorama of 18th Hole showing the Locations of the Main Features

Adit entrance Spoil heap from adit First dig site (now filled in) Central outcrop Main dig site

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Location of Various Features around Ogof Llyn Fach

20th Hole 19th Hole Ogof Llyn Fach 18th Hole

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The period was the first half of the nineteen fifties. Itwas a very different world from that in which we livetoday. Let me try to give you a flavour of the times.

The average price of a pint of beer was one shillingand thruppence. That’s 6 pence in today’s money!

It was rare for married women to go to work; if theydid, it was nearly always part time. Some caving clubs,particularly in Yorkshire, would not allow women asmembers.

Only one in twenty houses had a fridge and meat wasstill on ration. A wide screen TV was nine inches wide,with only one channel available and that was onlybroadcast part time. The Pope declared that watchingTV was a threat to family life.

Very few people owned cars, although petrol was onlytwo shilling and sixpence a gallon: that’s twelve and ahalf pence in today’s money. The more affluent caversran motorbikes. Some privately owned transport, likeDennis Kemp’s Landrover trips, were run on a semi-commercial basis and went most weekends to venuesall around the country for caving, rock climbing,mountaineering and sailing.

There were no specialist caving shops because therewas no commercially made specialist cavingequipment. Most cavers had a mental block aboutspending money on anything to take caving. Wet suits,dry suits, woolly bears and enduro/curdura type over-suits had not been invented. The common choice ofclothing was any old rags no longer fit to wear. For themore serious wet trips, lots of layers of woollensweaters worn under a canvas boiler suit was the mostcommon preference. The lighting used was, onMendip, mostly old “Stinky” carbide lamps,sometimes backed up with a home made electricmounted on a type of compressed cardboard helmetthat distorted when it got wet. In Yorkshire, lightsmade from cycle lamps or torches were common;carbide lamps were not very reliable on wet ladderpitches.

The public at large had very little understanding ofcaving, or potholing as it was more commonly calledin the north. On occasions when fire service pumpswere brought into use to assist in a flood rescuesituation, the general public was outraged; I wasrepeatedly told that the Government should takeaction and “fill in” all these caves and pot holes tostop these irresponsible lunatics from putting our

brave firemen’s lives at risk when they had to rescuecavers who got into difficulties!

My own grandmother thought that “pot-holing wastaking a shovel and digging yourself into the nearestlawn”. “A very funny sort of hobby that!” she said.

What is now “The Docklands” with supermarkets,high rise luxury apartments, office blocks and a lightrailway; was in those days, one of the busiest ports inthe world. Ships would come up the Thames into themany wharfs and docks to unload or be loaded withcargoes. The port of London had the fastest turn-a-round of shipping in the world. The dockers andstevedores who did this work were employed on acasual job-by-job basis. The foreman or ‘ganger’ chosethe men he wanted. If your face fitted, you went towork; if not, you didn’t. It was 100% piece work; yougot paid for what you achieved with only a nominalbackup when there was no work available. It wasextremely dangerous, with a very high accident rate.Yes, you have guessed. That was where I earned myliving. The significance of this will become apparent asyou read on.

At this time I was a young caver in my twenties,footloose free and unattached. I had been introducedto potholing as a National Serviceman several yearsearlier and was quite experienced by this time.

Swildons Hole

Swildons Hole was in fact a different cave to what it isnow, in several aspects. It had only been explored asfar as sump 2. The Swildons 1 streamway was a moredifficult undertaking then, for two reasons. Thepumping station that takes water from the Swildonsstream had not been built, so water levels in the cavewere on average higher then than they are today.There was also a formidable obstacle that no longerexists- the 40ft pot. This wet pitch was the only way inand out of the cave. At times of even moderate waterlevels, many cavers got into difficulties when they wereunable to climb out against the force of the water andhad to be rescued. The 40ft pot was eliminated by thegreat flood of the 10th and 11th July 1968, whichwashed out the rift under the pitch allowing access at alower level.

The Black Hole was considered to be a hard trip, as itinvolved diving sump 1. No big deal by today’sstandards, but a serious undertaking at that time. TheWessex had been successful in exploring the St. Paul’s

A Tale of WSG Activities in a Bygone Age

Len Dawes________________________________________________________________

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series and had finally succeeded in bailing the MudSump and entering Paradise Regained.

Dennis Kemp who was a member of both the Wessexand the WSG, was a major player in this exploration.Both he and I were members of the WSG committee.I listened totally fascinated as he related tales of theworking trips that he and Tom Andrews were makingto the end of Paradise Regained, where he haddiscovered a horrendously difficult and torturous,sharply descending little passage. He’d named it “BluePencil Passage”. At the bottom it became a slit onlyinches wide and this could be seen to turn at rightangles after a short distance. What was reallyinteresting was the noise that issued from this passage- the roar of an unmistakably large stream that was nottoo far away! The stuff every caver’s dreams weremade of! Mine certainly were. I offered to assistDennis on his working trips and after several visits, Iwas keener than ever to get on with it.

As the Land Rover trips that Dennis ran tookprecedence, those working trips were only taking place

infrequently; an average of around one a month, ifthat. I soon became frustrated by the slow progress;clearly there were “caverns measureless to man” justwaiting to be entered.

Dennis’s priority remained his semi-commercial LandRover trips, which were often to the Norfolk Broadsfor sailing, to Snowdonia for climbing and walking, orother such non-caving venues. My feelings at that timewere: “We are a caving club, for heavens sake! Whatare we doing spending our time running these kinds ofactivities when there are major discoveries to be madeand new original explorations to go at?”

It came to a head when at one committee meeting, Imade my feelings plain and told the committee that Ihad no wish to poach Dennis’s dig, that I would gladlywork as his labourer and personal assistant; that I feltthe club was losing its direction and that if Dennis didnot get on with it and push this dig to a conclusion,then I would!

Jim Denyer, Len Dawes and John Lasham at Bar Pot in the summer of 1954

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WSG’s original survey of Swildons 4, drawn up shortly after the breakthrough in Blue Pencil Passage

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After much discussion and at times acrimoniousargument, Dennis and I reached agreement. I wouldtake over the digging trips so that Dennis couldconcentrate on running the Land Rover trips. This wasconditional on me agreeing not to enter any newdiscoveries before Dennis. I had to concede this, forDennis held the “bang” licence and supplied the bang.With this agreement, we were now “all systems go” -Jim Denyer, Frank Darbon, George Tonkin and themany other people who worked with me, whosenames I have forgotten, could now get on with thejob.

Without blasting, it was impossible to make anyprogress at all. As it was, by the standards of the day,this was a slow process. We had no portable powerdrills that would touch limestone. Drilling by hand wasso time consuming as to be simply not practicable.The only option was plaster charges, tamped with bagsof mud that had to be collected from other parts ofthe cave and laboriously carted to Blue Pencil Passage.Our methods were crude and we took risks thatnobody in their right mind would take today. We usedgelignite that was very prone to “sweating”, in whichcase it became unstable and even a small bump couldmake it explode! Romping through a cave with half-a-dozen sticks in a cocoa tin swinging around in a smallpack was a bit scary!

The electric detonators we used were also verysensitive to rough handling and temperature; we weretold that the heat from your hand could be enough toset them off. It was necessary to push a detonator intoa stick of gelignite; rap this up together with howevermany sticks you wished to use and then work thewhole shooting match along the tight flat-out crawl inorder to place the charge. We did not have the benefitof modern cortex detonation cord, which enables youto place the explosive in an awkward place without theneed to have the detonator plugged into the charge.This is a very much safer procedure I think.

Sometimes, instead of being over sensitive, thegelignite could present the opposite problem. Therewere times when only part of a charge would detonate;this had the effect of blasting the sticks that did notdetonate into the atmosphere in very fine particles!This was the main cause of the headaches that almostalways resulted from those working trips.

Another problem was that the wires for detonating thecharge had to be run back up the whole length of BluePencil Passage. These were left in place permanentlyand great care had to be taken in order not to causedamage while moving through this bit of cave,otherwise a misfire would result. We did in fact haveproblems with detonating charges on severaloccasions, due mostly to our lack of purpose madedetonating equipment. We used batteries to do the joband this on occasions proved to be insufficient to firea particular detonator. When this happened, it led to aserious situation. By this time we had spent manyhours working in this arduous bit of cave, wearingonly woolly grots and were wet cold and weary. Wewere expecting to fire the charge and then leave thecave. Instead of this we were faced with once againdescending B.P.P. to sort the problem out! Most ofthe time this was due not to faulty electricalconnections, but to insufficient current to fire thecharge. We had to check this however. We were awarethat if current had been passed through a detonator,but not enough to fire it, it could make the detonatorhyper-sensitive and it could go off at the slightestmovement or even without any warning at all! A very“hairy” situation! Sometimes we were unable to solvethe problem on the day and left it until the followingweek. In those days very few people ever went to theend of Paradise Regained, let alone descended B.P.P.so we hoped nobody would visit the site before ourreturn.

This is why something that with today’s technologycould be achieved in two or three weekends, took ustwo years of hard work! However there came a daywhen we were able to look around that right-anglebend and to our delight, the passage opened up tonegotiable size, be it only just. It was still very tightindeed, but for a midget or anorexic ferret, it was ago’er!

Frank Darbon on WSG’s Yugoslavian Expedition in1957

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The following weekend, Dennis and his Land Roverparty arrived on Mendip, on the Friday evening.Because it was the busiest time of the year in theLondon docks and Saturday morning working wasnormal, I couldn’t get time off and was not able to setoff for Mendip until after mid-day on Saturday. Thismeant that I wasn’t able to enter the cave until Sundaymorning.

Dennis was not prepared to wait for me; he said hewould have to enter the cave on Saturday because ofgetting the Land Rover party back to London at theirnormal time on Sunday. He did however agree to onlyexplore the main stream passage and leave any sidepassages un-entered for me and my party thefollowing day.

The exploration of the main streamway by Dennis’sparty on that Saturday was written up at the time andhas been republished since - there is an account in the‘History of Swildons Hole’ currently being puttogether by the Wessex. However, details of the tripon the Sunday to explore any side passages have neverbeen published. This was because during the followingweek when I started to write it up, I was workingovertime and never completed the account. Eventsmoved on and it was pushed aside. There seemed tobe more important things to concentrate on, likecontinuing the explorations. I still have the roughnotes that I made at the time, although they werenever completed. I think they still make interestingreading. This is what I wrote during the weekfollowing that Sunday trip in June 1957.

An Account of the Exploration of the Side Passages ofSwildons 4

At 08-00 hours on the morning of Sunday the 16th June 1957a party consisting of Frank Darbon, Jim Denyer, and myself setoff down Swildons Hole .We were all in a highly excited state ofmind. Full of expectation about the explorations we wereconfident we were going to carry out.

We were hardly awake that morning before Dennis Kemp, DeeWalker, Tom Andrews, Phyllis Davey and David Rob? cameto us, almost falling over themselves to tell us about the previousdays explorations (whether this was to encourage us or put usoff, I am not quite sure)

We listened to several hair-raising accounts of the notorioussqueeze with the right angle bend in the middle. Of how Denniswho is not exactly a large caver had to remove his overalls to getout; and how Tom Andrews, not exactly a giant either, found itimpossibly tight! They told us how they were all sick withgelignite fumes! We learned of the 300yds of magnificent streampassage which was a continuation of the main Swildonsstreamway and then what we really wanted to hear, of the manylarge side passages that lead off the main streamway. Dennis,true to his word, had left them entirely for us to explore.

After what seemed an eternity but was in fact only an hour anda half we arrived at base camp. Without any further delay, we

set off down Blue Pencil Passage. I could not wait to get to gripswith the squeeze; rather like anticipating waiting for the dentistto operate; simply to get the agony over with. I crawled down thelast bit of passage before the first right angle bend, round thecorner and stuck solid! From here I could see around the nextbend; the passage was obviously tighter still. To be stuck in asqueeze at any time is nasty; but in this particular bit of cave itwould be disastrous. So with a great effort I backed out while Iwas still able to.

I returned to the 8 foot pot and removed a couple of sweaters andmy rubber suit. This made a tremendous difference. I didn’t haveany difficulty at all with the bit where I had previously stucksolid. I managed the right angle bend and the bit beyond withoutany great delay. Frank came through next, bringing the linenecessary to climb down into the main stream passage. Wesecured this to the crowbar and wedged it as best we could andthen climbed down into the new stream passage where we waitedfor Jim Denyer.

Jim is somewhat taller than Frank or myself and hadconsiderable difficulty in getting his thighs around the rightangled bend. As Frank and I waited impatient to continue theexploration; I realized how foolish I had been to leave half of myclothes back at the 8 foot pot. I had got very wet in the poolbeyond the squeeze and was beginning to shiver. From the tinypipe-like passage above our heads issued forth many sighs,grunts, groans and whizzes, as Jim came to grips with thesqueeze or rather the squeeze came to grips with Jim. At last wewere all through and proceeding up stream...

That was as far as I got with the write up back in June1957, before events overtook me and there were moreup-to-date explorations to write about.

I remember it today as if it were only yesterday. Wemade our way down stream, awe struck by the sheerbeauty of the virgin rock all around us, totally unspoiltor contaminated by human contact. The rocksculpture was magnificent, just breathtaking. I hadnever seen anything quite like it before.

We entered a large passage off to the right, only tofind it closed down after a few feet, but there was apossible dig. Continuing down the streamway wearrived at sump 4. There were candles floating on thewater, obviously washed down from higher up thecave! Who brought them in, we wondered; could ithave been Herbert Balch or a contemporary of his?

As I was wearing only my underwear, boots andhelmet, we did not linger too long but started back upstream. We passed the place where we had entered thenew streamway and continued on to where a large sidepassage went off to the left. Full of hope andanticipation, we set off into this new and un-troddenpassage hoping that it would lead us into a whole newseries! Sadly this was not to be. After only about fiftyfeet it came to an end. However there was a passagegoing off at roof level. To get into this required aclimb up the left hand wall of around fifteen feet. Thiswas not particularly difficult and we all got up there.

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Unfortunately this was as far as we could get.The passage sloped upwards at a steep angle andwas covered in soft mud. It was impossiblyslippery. Any attempt to climb into it wouldhave resulted in a fall onto the rocks below! In asituation where any rescue of a seriously injuredcaver from Swildons 4 at this time would havebeen virtually impossible, we wisely decided toleave this lead for another day. We did succeedin getting into this passage at a later date, but itwas disappointing as it proved to be only anoxbow leading back into the main streampassage.

After this disappointment, we quickly made ourway upstream to sump 3. This we found to beclear, but looked to be deep. By this time I wasvery cold indeed and I think Frank and Jim weretoo. We all agreed that it was time to head out. Ihave little recollection of the journey out, otherthan the feeling of enormous relief when wewere all safely through the squeezes and back inthe 8ft pot. I don’t remember putting on thecold and wet sweaters and overalls which I hadtaken off in order to get through the squeezeson the way in, but I bet it must have been“character building” at the time.

We made our way out through the airless crawlsof Paradise Regained and the horrors of theliquid mud in the Mud Sump and emerged withgreat relief back into the clean and refreshingstreamway of Swildons 1. The 40ft pot had beena fearsome wet pitch on many previous workingtrips, but on this occasion was not a problem.

It was with a great sense of excitement of wherefuture explorations would lead us that we finallyemerged into daylight and the sweet air, scented by thevegetation all around the entrance of Swildons Hole.This was something we always found to be a delightafter many hour working down the cave.

It only remains perhaps to mention that that weekendset the pattern of my life for years to come. Before weall returned to London, Dennis Kemp introduced meto one of the two women who had made it throughinto Swildons 4 the previous day - Phyllis Davey. Hesaid that she had proved to be a good reliable caverand that she wanted to be involved with the ongoingexplorations. She did indeed become a member of ourteam from thereonin. I later married her. She was oneof the finest female cavers of her generation. Sadly in1989, after a long and debilitating illness, she died apremature death from smoking related emphysema.Throughout our married life, she constantly remindedme that she had entered Swildons 4 before I did. Thatman Dennis Kemp has a lot to answer for!

Dennis and I remained good friends up until hisuntimely death in April 1990, at the age of 67. He diedin a rock-climbing accident in Australia.

Len Dawes at the entrance to Swildons Hole, November 2005

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LED Power Voltage Current1W 3.1v 350mA3W 3.3v 1A5W 7v 700mA

Lighting technology has changed in the past few years.Light Emitting Diode (LED) development is now at astage where there is a real choice betweenconventional incandescent lamps and solid stateemitters. More importantly, the technology is availableto the punter who wants to have a go.

The standard tool when I started caving back in themid ‘70s was the Oldham cap lamp (or one of itsvariants). Mine consisted of a lead-acid battery ofabout 20Ah capacity that would run the main lamp fora good 16 hours on a full charge – enough for aweekend of caving. The belt mounted battery weighedin at an impressive 7lb and being designed for mining,it was tough. The alternatives were ex- ministry NiFe(Nickel Iron) or wet NiCd (Nickel Cadmium) cellsfitted into a hollowed out Oldham casing. Theyinvariably used incandescent lamps of varying powerin an Oldham type headset.

A number of embarrassing light failures as my NickelCadmium replacement Oldham lamp came to the endof its 15-year life made obtaining a new lamp apriority. Rather than simply replace my lamp with anOldham look-alike or, mainly due to price, considerone of the Kirby/Speleotechnics offerings, Iembarked on a project to build something that suitedmy requirements. These may be summarised thus:• Last up to 8 hours on a single battery.• Allow batteries to be changed such that ‘spares’

may be carried for longer trips.• Light enough to be fully helmet mounted.• Produce a good light.• Rugged enough to meet the rigours of caving.• Cost less than an equivalent commercially

available model.

LEDs

Light Emitting Diodes are an attractive alternative toincandescent lamps. They are available in variouscolours, although white is clearly the viable choice fora caving lamp. White LEDs can vary in colour from‘warm white’ through to the brighter variants withlittle red in their spectrums that give an ‘interesting’colour to the surroundings as well as the pallor of yourcaving colleagues’ faces.

I’ve worked with Osram and Luxeon types, althoughthere are many others, but until recently, the Luxeontypes have come in more user-friendly embodiments,

some with optional collimating lenses that project thelight forward making a compact and adaptablecomponent.

The Luxeon LED+Optic alongside a regulator

LEDs also vary in energy and brightness ratings.Generally, the brighter LEDs will consume the energyin your battery faster. LEDs are dimmable;Speleotechnics’ ‘Nova’ uses a 5W LED supplied froma regulator with switchable pre-set power levels (andbattery consumption rates). This flexible ifcomplicated solution utilises a rugged and waterproofswitch and a system of button pushes to select thelevel required. At 5W, it is a battery guzzler andSpeleotechnics presently appear to be moving awayfrom the 5W Nova in favour of a 3W version with acheaper Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH) battery.

I’ve experimented with 1, 3 and 5W LEDs and cometo the conclusion that the most recent 1W‘superbright’ Luxeon offers a good compromisebetween complexity, battery duration and light output.For reference, the parameters of the three types arepresented here.

LED parametric table

LEDs work best as lamps with a constant currentpassed through them. This will require some kind ofelectronic regulator. (Do NOT connect your LED

How to Build your Own Lamp for £25

Graham Adcock________________________________________________________________

30

directly to a battery!). For low power circuits, a resistorprovides a simple solution but as power consumptionincreases and battery duration is considered, efficiencybecomes an issue not least because of the heatgenerated.

The regulator compares the voltage across a low valueresistor in series with the LED current against areference voltage to maintain the current. Changingthe reference or the feedback fraction varies thecurrent through the LED and therefore the brightness.Regulators take various forms but operate in one oftwo basic ways.

Linear regulators sense the required parameter (currentor voltage) and adjust a series resistive element (usuallya transistor) to maintain the desired conditions. As theseries element passes current all the time, power isdissipated, resulting in heat and a loss in overallefficiency.

The second type is the switching regulator. In order toreduce the losses, the pass element is rapidly switchedeither fully on or fully off, in which states minimumpower is dissipated. The resultant pulses of energy are

smoothed by reactive components and used inconjunction with the feedback circuit. The efficiencyof this type of circuit can exceed 90% but they aregenerally more complex and costly. They alsointroduce another factor – electromagnetic emissions– not a problem unless you’re involved in a rescue andnear a Heyphone!

The choice of regulator is also governed by otherelements such as the difference between battery andLED voltage. Where there is a greater difference, theswitching regulator may be preferred. Switchingregulators may also increase as well as decrease thebattery voltage.

Decisions Decisions

Trials have shown that a 1W LED is more thanadequate for general caving. The Luxeon superbright1W LED with included optic makes a good choiceand a battery with 8 hours duration is now possiblewith the introduction of 2.5Ah NiMH cells, three ofwhich weigh in at a helmet mountable 100g.

The Regulator

The terminal voltage of three series ‘AA’ cells isnominally 3.6v. In reality, the charged battery will beas high as 4.2v open circuit and 3.9v on load. Whendischarged to 1.1v/cell, the battery will give 3.3v.

As the battery voltage is close to that required by theLED, I’ve used a linear regulator. There are manyintegrated circuits that would do the job but I foundnothing that met my needs exactly so I designed asimple series regulator (see below) with a lowreference voltage to maintain efficiency and a low VCE

(SAT) transistor to enable that last drop to be wrungfrom the battery.

I used surface mounted components to make it assmall as possible (17 x 18mm) consistent with suitableheat sinking, but conventional components could justas easily have been used. The ‘sense’ resistor developsabout 30mv when the regulator is running at 300mA.This is compared to the divided output from thevoltage reference (30mv) in the comparator – a singlesupply low power rail-to-rail input and outputoperational amplifier.

The series pass element works hardest (dissipates mostpower) when the battery is fully charged. At this point,there is about 3.9v supply and 3.1v across the diode.

Regulator Circuit Diagram

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I’ve used 300mA regulation current although thediode should handle 350mA. Therefore, the passtransistor dissipation is (3.9v – 3.1v – 30mv) x 0.3A =231mW. As the battery discharges, the powerdissipation drops until a point is reached where thebattery voltage plus the voltage across the regulator arenot enough to drive 300mA through the LED. Fromthis point onward, the LED starts to reduce inbrilliance but the rate of battery consumption alsoreduces. This gives a softer warning that the battery isbecoming exhausted. The LED continues to giveuseful light output to below 40mA.

Should you wish to explore a switching regulator,there’s a neat SEPIC converter solution using theLT1512 – see the references section. This circuit hasthe advantage of operating from a wide range ofbattery voltages and has three distinct ‘brightness’levels at a claimed 78% efficiency. Will Miners usedthis circuit in his LED headset.

The Headset

Perhaps the simplest way to construct a headset is touse an Oldham casing. They are robust, can be madewaterproof, have the correct mounting bracket andangle, are available cheaply and although a little largefor what’s strictly necessary, will perform the taskadequately.

Prepare the headset by removing the reflector, bulbs,bulb holders, switch and cable. Clean the years ofgrime from the inside and fill the hole left by theswitch mechanism with hot melt glue or silicon bathcaulking. Mount the headset in a vice (be careful notto crack it!). Take a sharp wood chisel (not your bestone!), and slice off the mound that supported the pilotlamp holder to leave a large flat area on which tomount the LED and regulator.

Mount the aluminium backed LED and opticassembly on the ‘floor’ of the headset where the mainbulb terminal used to be. Some minor trimming of thealuminium may be required but it should be possibleto line the hole/slot on the LED heatsink with theupper switch screw hole in the base. Fix the LED withone of the screws you removed. The LED may beglued down as well to ensure it is firmly mounted.

The regulator PCB should be fitted alongside theoptic. Add suitably sealed and strain relieved cablingout through the original cable entry - 2 core mains flexworks well. The brass block below the LED (held inby the original charging pip) can be used to secure thecable. A large Ty-Rap around the cable just inside thehousing increases the strain relief. Add self-amalgamating tape to the cable joint to seal it. Tackthe cables down with hot melt glue or caulking toprevent them vibrating and breaking, then re-use theoriginal glass, seal and bezel.

Unmodified Oldham Headset

LED and regulator mounted in headset

Oldham Headset ready for modification

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The Battery Pack

You’ll need three AA or AF cells (see componentsources). Tagged versions are best, allowing easyinterconnection of the cells. Connect the cut off leadfrom a PC power supply – red lead to positive, and theblack next to it to negative. The other two (yellow andblack) leads should be removed from the connector.Dress the wires into the grooves between the batteriesand use a small amount of hot melt or cyanoacrylateadhesive to form a flat pack of three cells. Use hotmelt to make sure the wires stay in place and positionthe connector centrally at the end of the pack.

2.5Ah battery pack with connector

Slide the pack into a suitable length of heat-shrinktubing, ensuring there is about 15mm over at eachend. Apply a bead of hot melt around the base of theconnector taking care not to get any on the matingpart. Apply heat to shrink the tubing, which shouldseal (with the hot melt) around the base of theconnector. Trim any excess heat-shrink tubing.

At the other end, inject hot melt glue into the smallaperture formed by the shrunk tube. Fill to the brimand allow to cool. Trim this end off about 5mm fromthe base of the batteries. This should also form a seal,resulting in a tightly compacted block of 3 cells with aconnector at one end.

Battery Charging

Ideally, batteries are charged using a custom built‘intelligent’ charger that will detect ‘full charge’ andensure that whatever the state of the battery you are

charging, it will not be overcharged. This requires anelectronic circuit and is really beyond the scope of thisarticle. A simpler system will suffice.

Batteries are generally rated in Ampere-hours; a figuredesigned to give an indication of the battery’sdischarge capacity (how long a fully charged batterymight a particular current before it is exhausted). TheAmpere-hour figure is often referred to as ‘C’ – thecapacity of the battery. Using the aforementionedcustom charger, some types of battery may be ‘rapidcharged’ at their ‘C’ rate, e.g. a 2.5Ah battery chargingat 2.5A will take about an hour to fully charge from adischarged state. Charging at a lower rate is quitepossible (it just takes longer). A commonly usedmethod is to ‘constant current’ charge at C/10 - 0.25Afor a 2.5Ah battery with a charge time of 10 hours. Inpractice the battery should be fully discharged andthen charged for up to 14 hours due to losses in theenergy conversion process. Although not ideal, a pro-rata time reduction may be applied to a partlydischarged battery as long as you know how muchdischarge it has had.

Batteries naturally experience a temperature rise duringcharging but it becomes more pronounced when thebattery is fully charged and no more electrical energycan be converted into chemical energy. At this point,the excess is given off as heat and it is thereforeimportant to keep an eye on the battery temperature –a rise to anything above warm and the battery shouldbe disconnected.

RS components stock a suitable constant currentcharger. Their part number 250-1252 costs £22.79 +vat and delivery and should be set to deliver 250mA.Alternatively, your mobile phone charge adaptor witha suitable series resistor or preferably a simple currentregulator will do the job.

Putting it to use

The finished lamp is mounted in the conventionalfashion on a ‘caving lamp helmet mount’. The cableruns around the side of the helmet to the battery,conveniently mounted on the rear but it could just aseasily be on the side. I attached my battery with arubber band – Heath-Robinson but very effective. Awebbing strap or Ty-Rap® also work well. Plan thecable length, connector fitting and battery position tosuit your application. If you’re planning some tightcaving, some gaffer tape over the connector joint or alocking connector might be advisable, as the ‘PCconnectors’ do not lock.

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So, How Bright is it?

The LXHL-NWE8 enhanced LED with optic is ratedat 45 Lumens (typical) and 500cd on axis with a 10°beam. (The earlier white LEDs were rated at 22Lm).The only figures I’ve been able to find for cavinglamps are published by Speleotechnics. They rate theFX3 at 39Lumens with 9.5h duration, the FX5 (with a2.4W lamp) at 38 Lumens with 17.5h duration and theFX2 at 20 Lumens and just over 10 hours duration.Hawker, makers of the Oldham Caplamp quote 48Lumens from their T5 and T6 lamps, 16 hoursduration.

Backup Lighting

The lamp I’ve described has only a single light source.Should the lamp, regulator, battery or connector fail,you would be in the dark. Consequently one ought tocarry a second independent source of lighting.

In the days of the incandescent Oldham lamps, the‘pilot’ light could be used provided it was only thebulb that had blown. If it was the battery, you wereagain, in the dark. A spare bulb was often carried in a35mm film container, taped to the headset cable. Inrecent years, second sources have often taken the formof a ‘Maglite’ or similarly sized torch that could besecreted about one’s person or ‘rubber banded’ onto

the side of the helmet. These are quite adequate butsomewhat vulnerable if exposed.

The light output from an Oldham ‘pilot’ light wasnotoriously feeble and yet drew 300mA from thebattery – the same as the main light described above.The concept here borrows from the film containeridea. A good backup lamp can be built using threesingle white 5mm LEDs. These, combined with a trioof NiMH AAA cells plus a simple regulator, switchand helmet clip can be coaxed into the 35mm filmcontainer.

As the power is low, a simple resistor current regulatoris used. The LEDs are run at about 25mA and

Backup lamp

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consume under 100mW each. With a little ingenuity,(two switches) a lamp that has the option of 1, 2 or 3LEDs can be built. The batteries I used were 600mAhcells giving a duration of 600/75 = 8 hours. Reducingto 2 LEDs gives 12 hours and a single LED awhopping 24 hours – long enough to get you out ofmost systems or give you some light whilst you sit itout waiting for the rescue (…you did put the trip onthe board, didn’t you?).

Backup lamp circuit

Resistor values in the circuit are all (3.9v – 3.3v) /25mA = 24Ω, power rating is 0.0252 x 24Ω = 15mW.A small printed circuit or ‘stripboard’ and 0603 sizesurface mount resistors are ideal. The LED’s areavailable from various sources but e-Bay is worth alook. Go for 14,000mcd (or greater) types in 5mmwith 20° beam angles. The LED’s need to be angleddown at about 30° so that they shine light toward thefloor when mounted on the helmet. If you notice,Oldham headsets already have this lowering of thebeam angle built in to their design.

A single switch bringing all three LEDs on at the sametime simplifies the operation. I’ve built a few of these,two using AAA cells and one using an ex-mobilephone Li-Ion battery of 900mAh capacity and smallerthan the AAA cells.

Charging presents a similar problem to the main lampbut if the RS Components charger is used the currentcan be reduced to 60mA. Discharge the lamp firstthen charge for 14 hours with typical 600mAh AAAcells.Costs

An accurate costing is not easy as it depends uponwhich bits you already have. Ignoring the cost of aknackered Oldham or similar headset…

Batteries.You’ll need three NiMH 2.5Ah cells. RS Components512-7879 tagged AA cell at £3.49 each, FarnellComponents 604550 - slightly larger AF size, 17mmdia. £5.64 each. See also the Vapextech site – mostlikely cheaper but their stock changes frequently.

The LED.Luxeon LXHL-NWE8 enhanced white 1 Watt LEDwith heatsink and collimating optic. RS Components467-7519, £5.56 or Farnell 110-6646 £5.70.

The RegulatorTrickier to price but I could supply a built-up 300mAregulator for 3xNiMH or a single Li-Ion cell on an18mm PCB for £7.

Cables, connectors, HeadsetAll very low cost and ‘scavengable’ making the totalcost for the lamp under £25. To this you need to addyour chosen charger.

Notes and other ideas

I’ve also experimented with leaded 5mm white LEDsas used in the backup lamp. This was the firstembodiment and consisted of 12 LEDs arrangedaround the circumference of the headset with anincandescent lamp and modified diving torch reflectormounted centrally. The early 5mm LEDs were notbright enough for general caving but more recently,LEDs up to (and probably beyond) 14,000 mcd havemade this lamp quite useable. The LEDs are run at 25– 30mA and consequently consume about 1W total.I’ve not measured the light output.

Conclusion

In use, the lamp has proven bright enough andreliable. The helmet mounted battery is light and freesthe user from the restrictions and mass of a beltmounted cell. Duration exceeding the 8-hour targethas been achieved and the unit has proved to berugged enough for caving, including the moistureencountered on a Swildons Hole round trip.

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View of lamp internals

References and Further Reading

Cave Radio and Electronics Group – http://www.caves.org.uk/led/ - see the ‘furtherreading’ sections.

LED Dimmers -http://radiolocation.tripod.com/LEDdimmer/LEDlampDimmer.html

Linear Technology’s LT1215 – Used in Will Miners’ lamp.http://www.speleogroup.org/lt1512a.html

Luxeon Datasheet for the LXHL-NWE8 LED –http://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/DS23.pdf orhttp://www.lumileds.com/pdfs/ds25.pdf

Luxeon Star general info. http://www.lumileds.com/products/family.cfm?familyId=2

WSG newsletter April 2003 p7 – “A bit more on LED lamps for caving” – GA.

Speleotechnics website. http://www.speleo.co.uk/

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Above. My original version of the lamp, battery, reserve lampand custom chargerTop right. 5 of the 6 experimental lamps – Fumpa has theother.Lower Right. Close-up of the headsets.

Comparable Lamp Costs

Kirby Kidney Pack £88.00Speleotechnics FX2 £83.84Speleotechnics FX3 £104.44Speleotechnics FX5 £149.44Speleotechnics Nova 3 £85.90(plus battery and charger)Speleotechnics Nova 3 £248.50(with Lithium battery and charger)Oldham T5/T6 £83.70

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Background

Building on the success of the 1997 expedition to PanDe Azucar, the club once again returned to Cuba fortwo weeks at Easter.

In 1998 Bob Wilkins had been out to the area anddiscovered Cueva Jaiba with Lynn Harrington andEvelio Balado. This seem to indicate that the area stillhad good potential for further discoveries.

Our initial objectives were to try some dye testing ofthe Dark Horse Streamway in Cueva Chiquita and toinvestigate the sumps in Hale Bopp and Campamentoto see if there was a way past them. We also decided toextend the surface survey of the area going north tothe edge of the mogote where Bob had reported somecaves. The China Canyon also was thought to holdsome key to the area.

When we arrived in Cuba, we found that a Spanishexpedition had visited the area. They had revisited andresurveyed Cueva Grande, and partially resurveyedCueva Chiquita. This proved very interesting as theCuban contact Pedro Luis Hernandez already knewthat WSG had been in these caves. Nevertheless theSpanish did survey several small caves to the north ofCueva Grande including one with Native Indianpictograms which Bob had been told about by Cocoon his last visit.

Despite this, the group decided to continue with theobjectives of pushing the surface survey further north.It was also decided to push westwards along the edgeof the mogote looking for any obvious streambeds orcave entrances.

Cueva Chiquita

A team was sent to investigate the water levels for thepossibility of carrying out dye testing. Unfortunatelythe weather conditions had been so dry during theprevious months that barely a trickle was flowing inthe streamway. It was decided that it would beimpractical to carry out any dye testing. A groupinvestigated the Hale Bopp sump and found thatalthough it extended another ten metres in low crawlwith shallow water it gradually became deeper untilone could stand waist deep in the water. It looked asthough this was indeed a sump and not a mere duck aswe had hoped.

Meanwhile Toby Clark, Jan Evett and Andy Sewellhad investigated the Unprincipled Crawl and found itto be dry. They continued in a flat out crawl with the

occasional hands and knees bit, until they reached aduck. Once through the duck, they broke into achamber with a large steep muddy slope. Near thetop of this greasy slab it became very exposed, soAndy and Jan, having no proper equipment, decidedto survey out and return the next day to tackle theslope.

"I knew there was going to be a fair amount of waterand it was warm. But the flat out ducks which filledyour boots with gravel and were succeeded by thickgloopy mud, grit and gravel, leaving you encased in amuddy conglomerate, were very interestingexperiences" - Jan

The following morning, Martin McGowan joined theteam to help with the assault. Martin climbed the slopeto the crux and was followed up by Jan. After severalattempts a large stal boss was lassoed. This enabledMartin to slither and slide his way to the top. Lookingaround at the rift, Martin saw a profusion of calcitedcrabs, helictites, and crystal growth, but the way onwas blocked by stal. After whacking in a piton Jancame up as well to have a look. In the end, theyabseiled back down and left Chiquita.

The 1999 Cuban Expedition

Expedition Members________________________________________________________________

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The China Canyon

Martin, Chris “Beaker” Wood, Gary “Fumpa”Cockburn, Geraint, Enrique, and Coco headed off tothe China Canyon on the first day. They clambered upthe steep vegetated cliff by the local hunting path anddescended into the lost world of the gorge.

Enclosed by the cliffs and the encroaching plants, theypushed their way to the cascade. This canyonreminded Martin of cheap sci-fi films which talked oflost worlds and dinosaurs. At least the group wasshielded from the sun, a blissful escape from itssearing heat.

The assault on the cascade began, with Martinclimbing up about 15m. He attempted to traverse outonto the slab, but worries over the lack of protection,heat and the greasy nature of the rock led to awithdrawal. Enrique then took the lead and in a pair ofold wellingtons stormed up the climb. They all stoodin awe as they wondered: is he ever going to placesome protection in or deck out ? Hitting the overhangwith vigour and style, he conquered it and was at thetop.

They were soon prussikking up a fixed line. At the topthere were remnants of caves which the cascade hadcut through. A large bedding plane at about 70 degreeswas chocked full of mud and stones. Any cave in thisarea would soon be filled in with debris and detrituscarried by the river during the wet season. In fact laterthat day they discovered that Cueva China wasblocked.

Walking out of the cascade canyon, they met a largeconfluence of three streams. It was decided to followthe more active and scoured streambed. Beaker andMartin were surveying while the others searched thearea for possible caves. The wind blew gently throughthe trees in the dappled sunlight and provided gentlerelief from the heat. Unfortunately for the surveyteam, the midges were feasting on their blood.

Geraint came back with the news that he had found ashaft. A closer inspection of it revealed a 15m dropjust off the main stream. This had potential and was inthe right place. They had found the Gee’s Pot.Unfortunately it was late in the afternoon, so thegroup went back to celebrate the first day. The nextday, most of the team plus Evelio returned. Using onlynatural belay points and ladders, plus the odd bit ofSRT, they bottomed Gee’s pot. It was 60m deep - agood start.

For a few days the top of the mogote was neglected,mainly because of the time it took to slog up to thetop in the heat. Eventually Fumpa and Martin decidedto pay a return visit to find another gorge that Fumpahad seen on the first day. Tramping around from thelast survey point, they reached a bluff separating thedry riverbed running into the known canyon from the

unknown. Crossing this boundary they gained the top,soon hit another canyon, but this time the rock wasnot limestone. They had found the lost canyon. Thebirds fluttered in the trees while wild pigs snuffledthrough the undergrowth looking for roots. Memoriesof the meal from the other day came back.

Following the stream down there were clear signs offaulting and thrusting. At one point half the streamwas limestone and the other half was a black marlyrock. Then they crossed the boundary andimmediately stumbled into a shakehole.

Cueva Titanic

The first cave they found was Cueva Contacto(Boundary Cave). This was a fossil cave with the onlyinteresting feature being the large arachnids withclaws. In the shakehole several holes connected witheach other. Then they saw a large cave 10m across, inthe next shakehole, going down at about 70 degrees.After 40m they encountered a pitch.

Throwing stones down the pitch caused a loudbooming echo of empty space, followed by therumbling of bats wings. The darkness beckoned. So itwas called Cueva Titanic, partly because it was largeand going down fast; also because they were beingsubjected by the Cubans to that bloody song from thefilm.

Going on down the gorge, they soon hit the ChinaCascade - Fumpa and Martin had just gone in onemassive loop. Ah well, at least they knew where theywere. Heading back down, their hearts sang and headsbuzzed with excitement.

Roberto and Evelio did confirm the idea that therewas a contact area. Unfortunately, the expedition hadalready planned a day off for the next day (Saturday),so we all trundled off in the knackered school bus.Eventually we did return at four in the morning,swinging from the rafters and settled into a drunkenstupor. On Sunday, no one could face the idea ofhauling gear up the hill for two hours in the heat.Dehydration from the night before had set in.

On Monday, Alfredo told Martin about another caveon top, so Martin headed off to see this, armed with aGPS. Meanwhile, Fumpa, Andy, Evelio and Tobyheaded off to do Cueva Titanic. Martin’s trip involvedfollowing the path up to Titanic and then reaching thetop of the mogote before heading down yet anothersedimentary streambed.

Down and down he went into one hoyo, which wouldhave an impressive cascade in the wet season, andthen into another hoyo. To pass this they climbed upand then down the sheer sides of the hoyo. How thetrees clung onto the side of the rock wall was amazing,but more importantly, they provide a series of essentialhandholds.

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After climbing down and out of two hoyos, the threeof them reached the cave. After a short drop, it was aclean washed hands and knee crawl in a straight lineand after a few kinks the river went down a pitch. Theworst point was finding out that in a straight line, thedistance from the entrance to Alfredo’s house was amere 400m, but it had taken nearly three hours toreach the cave. In honour of Alfredo’s hospitality, itwas decided to name the cave after him and his wife,who always gave us coffee when we passed theirhouse.

Eventually Martin got back to Titanic and found thatthe cave had gone deep and needed more gear. Therewere three ways on - two of them were shafts, but themost promising was a rift. The next day saw a massassault as the expedition was running out of time.

Consequently, two survey teams and a photographicteam slogged their way up the hill. Martin, Fumpa, andAndy were the bottoming team. Beaker lugging theblack pelicase up the hill.

Although the expedition was not very well equippedfor a vertical cave, several ingenious solutions werethought up to overcome the series of small pitcheswhich were in the cave. We piled down the pitch,using hand over hand on the rope. It was thrilling, asexploration fever reached boiling point. Luckilynatural belay points and handholds were six to adozen.

After the series of pitches, the cave hit a horizontalbedding plane. Here the water was undercutting aformation and we had to crawl into a chamber. Acalcited mud bank took up most of the room. Fumpasqueezed by. Then he beckoned the others to follow.

Once through the squeeze, the cave regained itsmajestic proportions. The bottoming team clambereddown flowstone and gour pools at an angle of aboutsixty degrees. Using a flake in the roof to secure ahandline Fumpa and Martin descended the steepsection of shaft which like a helter-skelter swirledround on itself. It was a great rope slide to a sumppool, although Fumpa thought it could be a low duck.

At this point it was decided to survey out. Going outback up the whirled shaft was an unbelievablyenthralling climb, water cascading down your armswhilst slapping your hands into jugs, standing in waistdeep gour pools, plus a flowstone squeeze thrown infor good measure. Jan and Matthew joined thebottoming team and were told to send thephotographic team down to do some snaps. But thesqueeze had other plans and despite his best attempts,Beaker could not get his large pelicase to fit throughthe squeeze. Well, that is what he told the club and weall believed him, so the squeeze was named FatPelican. The next day Martin drew up the survey andfound that the cave was 140m deep, making it thedeepest in Western Cuba.

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Cueva Alfredo y Teresa

On the day of the mass assault on Titanic, JamesHooper, Steve Weston and Coco went to investigateCueva Alfredo y Teresa. Armed with just a ladder andsome slings, they set off. On reaching the cave, it soonbecame clear that Martin had lied just a little bit aboutthe size of the pitch. Even so they descended to aledge where James placed another bolt to get furtherdown.

The ladder was passed down and they went on. Theythen entered another hands and knees crawl which hitanother pitch. They got down by repeating the processonce again, but then decided they had pushed theirluck enough and it was getting late. So with thepossibility of afternoon rain, they quit.

On the last day, no one could be encouraged to climbup the mogote as it involved a three hour walk, soCueva Alfredo y Teresa was never surveyed. Instead,people spent the day pushing the leads in the recentfinds along the base of the mogote. We believe thatCueva Alfredo y Teresa takes a lot of water and maylink to Cueva Chiquita.

Matthew on the last pitch in Cueva Titanic

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Caves to the West of the Camp

On the first day, Matthew Setchfield, John“Jumbo” Heale, and James set off toinvestigate the caves between the climbover to the China Canyon and the camp.These young dudes in their sunglasses andbandannas sauntered round the headland,while the others struggled up the climb.They were poking into every nook andcranny, hoping to find that elusive newsystem.

Starting at the obvious gaping hole in thecliff, which had been previously markedon the surface survey, the tres amigoscommenced their search and recordmission. Jumbo adopted the role ofdirector of operations, pointing out theleads from the fields for his troops.

Shortly after the entrance to the cave,James and Matthew found a chamber withtwo ways on. Although the passagesheaded off into the hill, the two intrepidexplorers soon found themselves at theedge of the mogote, although higher upthe cliff. El Capitan Jumbo pointed outmore nearby holes for the two to inspect.Ducking and diving James and Matthewweaved their way to one side of a stalblockage. They forced their way throughand squeezed into a crawl which in severalmetres ended.

Back at the entrance chamber, daylightfiltered in from skylight/aven some 9mabove. Out on the surface, James foughthis way through the jungle to get on topof the plateau and soon found the pitch.Unfortunately, he was then unable to findhis way back down. We could hear himquite plainly and tried to direct his voiceto safety.

Ostensibly off to survey Cueva TresAmigo’s, Bob, Beaker, Matthew andJumbo walked past the known entrance ofCueva Campamento to an entrance a littlefurther round the mogote. Here, Bobknew of a small pool in which he wasgoing to dive into to cool off. Of course,Bob then called out that it was “going”and that a draft could be felt. They wadedin and entered a muddy chamber. Overthe other side of a mud bank, the watercontinued and a sump was reached. Anascending passage on the right lead up andover and back to the same muddychamber, at which point Bob revealed thathe already knew that this was a round trip

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and that he wanted to see if the sump was open! Theywere all now soaked for no apparent reason.

On the way out, another rising and drafting passagewas spotted and Beaker went for a ‘quick look’. Hewas gone ages. Bob followed and also vanished.Jumbo waited for them whilst Matthew went out andclimbed the cliff to where a complex of entrancescould be seen, on the off-chance that a vocalconnection could be established. It wasn’t to be, soMatthew took a quite hairy climbing route back down,rejoining Jumbo. The two of them then went up thedrafting tube. Crawling brought them to a smallchamber beyond which they could hear voices.

Another narrow rift lead them to Beaker and Bob andshortly after they all popped out into daylight.in theentrance of the original Cueva Campamento. Thus anew through trip was established and a significantextension was made to the known cave.

During the evenings and early in the mornings, manyof the small caves beside the camp were investigated.Everybody poked their heads into a variety of holes,even maypoling one entrance to gain a shelf whichturned into a small tube and ended quickly. The onlyfind of any length was about 20m. It was on thecorner of the mogote near the camp and soon cameout about 10 m up the cliff. Cueva de las Abejas (Caveof the Bees) was investigated by Jan, Toby and Martinin the evening. Planning a dusk raid when all theresidents would be in their hives for the night andinactive they found that the site was just an overhangwith assorted boulders making up a pseudo cave.

At the end of the first week, they started to extendtheir search of the mogote westward from the base ofthe China climb. The first trip by Toby and othersshowed that there were several obvious caves alongthe edge of the limestone. Some of these had beencharted by the Cubans and were marked with theprefix C for Cueva. The trip rediscovered C19 andC10 but where were all the other caves?

The next day Andy, Martin, Jan and Toby went backto visit and survey a cave that had been found. Theentrance was along a dry river bed and in the wetseason the cave clearly acted as a resurgence. Theentrance itself was lower than the streambed and afterabout 100 m the cave ended in a sump. But it hadbeen noticed that a rift went over the top so Martinstarted to climb this muddy greasy slab. It clearly wenton, then Martin noticed that he had cut his leg openon the way in. Although nothing serious, he decidedto leave and sent Jan up to do the dirty work.

While struggling on the way out to keep the cut cleanMartin saw yet another rift. Plenty of potential in thiscave. After evacuating Martin, Toby returned to findthat Jan and Andy were now up the 70 degree rift, atabout 15 metres. They kept going, Jan leading up thegreasy rift and then placing a bolt to hold a ladder sothe others could follow. At 45 metres, Jan decided thathe had had enough of playing silly climbing games anddecided to head out. Meanwhile Martin had returnedto the entrance planning to surface survey back withToby when he noticed some pencil markings on thewall. The markings clearly said C16 - ah well, so muchfor discovery.

Toby. Andy, Martin and Jan after their surveying trip

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Caves of the North of Camp

Early on in the expedition, our aim to expand our areaand our range of knowledge led us to investigate thelimestone to the north of Cueva Grande and its outletCueva del Agua. We were interested in both the extentof the karst and, of course, unexplored caves. Weknew that a Spanish expedition had found severalsmall caves, so there was clearly potential in thisregion.

Steve and Evelio spent a long day surface surveying inthe heat and locating entrances. During the followingweek, James and Steve were then often seen headingnorth, working on the above ground survey andresurveying the Spanish caves. Here the mogote risesup from the valley at a much shallower angle thanaround camp.

They were amused to find that the Spanish hadrotated, seemingly randomly, the orientation of severalpassages, often by as much as ninety degrees.Unfortunately, no new caves were found, nor anyextensions to existing ones, but an intriguing hole thatdropped down to a static pool was noted. It wasinteresting because Steve thought he’d felt a strongdraught coming out of it when he first saw it; also,considerable amounts of water must flow out of it attimes.

Cueva Desperados

One hot day, Steve and James had just completed thesurvey as far as the boundary between limestone andmetamorphic rock, when Steve got the call. Not froma Deity but from the bowels. He knew there wassomething he had to do so he squatted down amongstsome undergrowth and felt the urge. Jamesimmediately, and almost as frantically, searched forcave entrances. An obscure hole between boulders hada strong draught blowing out of it. Squeezing through,perhaps foolishly, as no one knew where he was, butlike Steve, James was unable to resist the call. Hequickly found himself walking in large cave passage.Cueva Desperados had been found.

The cave has passages of big, comfortable dimensions,with several junctions and a pretty chamberilluminated by a hole to daylight. It also containedseveral frogs (like all the caves to the north of camp),as well as a snake. There was evidence that this wasonce part of a major cave - oxbows, tall ceiling,scallops, etc. were seen, together with evidence thatthe Spanish had been there before. A confusing,labyrinthine boulder choke at the end of the cave wasthen thoroughly explored and an unexplored way onwas found.

The next day, Fumpa, Steve and James headed off toinvestigate the sound of a screaming pig’s final minuteof life. Laughing and joking, they were excited to beexploring at last. In Cueva Desperados, a high,

draughting rift led on to even more extensions and adark, blue sump guarded diligently by a sizeable crab.Several hundred metres were found and surveyed but,alas, no further way on was discovered, passages beingblocked by calcite. The cave has a total length of about450 metres.

Near the end of the expedition, Steve and Jamesreturned to the previously noted water holeresurgence. This time it was draughting and the waterlevel was about twenty centimetres lower. They lookedat it, knowing they had no caving kit with them, butalso knowing what they had to do. It had to be done.So, James stripped off his clothes, climbed down thehole and waded in, wearing only boxer shorts andclenching a torch in his mouth. The water was not toocold but a chilly draught blew along the small air gap.

An enticing echo encouraged him on. After twenty orso metres he gained a small chamber with a sump. Aslippery climb could lead to a bypass, however. Unable to climb up the walls in bare feet and landingunceremoniously in the water on one attempt, hereturned towards Steve and shouted to him to follow.James, who had had to overcome a psychologicalbarrier before exploring in boxer shorts alone, wasalarmed to find Steve come in with nothing on at all.The thoughts of using combined tactics to get up theclimb were, frankly, horrifying, especially when Steveoffered the use of an extra foothold. The cave wasthus left for another expedition.

Cueva De La Resurrección

The Easter Sunday began with a treat as followingbreakfast, Steve produced a load of Cadbury’s CreamEggs; well, it was Pascua de Resurrección after all!Again, we were off to view another “Cueva del Agua”that Coco had been told about.

A party consisting of Matthew, Bob, Fumpa, Jan,Martin, Coco, and Enrique set off. They wandereddown the road, carbide slung over their shoulders andboiler suits tied up around their waist. Crossing thefield, going around a mogote outcrop and turning intoa hidden valley, they saw the entrance. Through thewonders of GPS, the cave was found to be 1.7kmfrom Alfredo’s farm. The entrance was clearly going tobe hard to reach, as it was some 10m up a cliff face.

Coco, Fumpa and Enrique entertained us with displaysof their climbing abilities, while Bob, Martin and Janinvestigated various other entrances in the mogote.Coco was eventually rewarded with a new cave, as heclimbed to another entrance containing a smallpassage leading to the main entrance that we werelooking up at. Fumpa, Enrique and Matthew followedCoco’s route and soon found themselves in a largedrafting passage heading off into the hillside.

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Through a decorated chamber, the cave descendedamidst silt banks and terminated at a pool, from whicha howling gale blew. Enrique forced his way through asqueeze and dropped into the pool and announcedthat a 5cm airspace duck confronted him. Fumpajoined Enrique and pondered the situation in his owninimitable style. Enrique was not going to get anywetter! Therefore, tearing himself away from“Mmmmmmm” and “Arrrrgggghhhhhh”, Matthewmade a quick sketch survey back to the entrance.From the vantage point over the mogote, Matthewchatted to Bob, Martin and Jan. Jan decided to comeup for a look. Coco went out.

Jan joined Matthew and began a proper survey intothe cave. They passed Enrique, sleeping in the mainpassage, and continued to the duck. When Fumpa told

them tales of massive echoing chambers, they simplyhad to go for a look. Matthew went through first andfound he was sharing the water with a small cave-crayfish. On the other side, there was a large crabclinging to the wall. They surveyed through the duck

and then on through a muddy passage in to the largechamber that Fumpa had found, where they stoppedthe survey. They poked around at various heights andlocations, all on slippery mud banks and then tried tofollow Jan, who had found a possible way on, to whathe suspected to be an even larger chamber.

Matthew made the decision to return to camp - a slipwould be awkward and he felt a rope or ladder wouldbe far more sensible equipment with which to explorethis site. The other two agreed, so they returned to theduck, washed off and made their way back to theentrance climb. The climb looked a hell of a lot moredaunting from above and a careful descent had to bemade.

Returning the next day, they quickly found a low crawl

emerging into another sizeable chamber. There was adifficult climb to a higher level passage of about 3mon the right which needed laddering. A long narrowgour pool which completely flooded the passage floorneeded to be traversed before quickly reaching a drop

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of about 10ft (which required 2/3 slings to reascend)below a chamber.

This stooping passage dipped down to a pool andcontinued as a crawl, then a rift until a small chamberwas reached on the right. The chamber sloped up towhere a mudslope came in from a window about 5mup. Climbing the slope straight up through thewindow brought you into the bottom of a bigchamber. On the opposite side of the chamber thepassage seemed to continue, but dropped quickly to atight sump.

The chamber was interesting, like a large rift, 20-30mhigh, 50m long and 5-10m wide. On the right, a steepcalcite slope appeared to come from a higher levelpassage. On the left, a larger but more shallow calciteslope ascended in a series of steps to a passage at thefar end of the chamber. Clambering up the slopeabout 15-20m brought you to a high chamber. In frontwas a large mud formation in the roof which appearedto have collapsed, and a big rubble pile sloped downabout 10m to the left partially filling a chamber. Ateasing passage seemed to enter from the roof abovethe collapsed mud formation; unfortunately it wasabout 15m up. Also on the left, a passage lead to twowide and well decorated bedding-plane chamberssloping down for 10-20m. There were no otherobvious ways on.

Cueva de la Resurrección is unusual mainly because ofthe massive amount of mud build up straight after theduck. Before the duck, it is completely dry and clean.It also appears to be generally rising upwards, into themogote. On occasion, probably in the rainy season, itmust back up massively with water washed downthrough the mogote.

The duck is the tightest section of the cave and fromthere inwards the water probably deposits its loadbefore draining. The large number of mud stal thoughindicate that it can't back up too frequently.

Cueva Grande

Once again WSG gave some attention to CuevaGrande, in the hope of gaining the much dreamedabout Master System. Armed with car inner tubes andtins of Cristal beer, Mathew, Bob and Jumbo trottedover to the cave and promptly buried the tins of beerin the river. They then inflated their buoyancy aids andslipped into the first lake. Given that this was a trip toinvestigate a lead at the end of the cave, they quicklymade their way through the lakes and then took thehigh level route through the cave to the pitch riggedby Bob.

Below the pitch, a brief rest was had until Matthewand Jumbo thought they could hear the sound of aflowing streamlet. Alas no - "sorry, lads" came thepiteous call as they turned toward Bob to find himchucking up. While Bob blamed this incident on a

rogue gherkin consumed at breakfast, Jumbo andMatthew were of the opinion that the bottle of rumconsumed by the protagonist the previous night mayhave had something to do with it!

They then continued through the whirlwind of bats(which to all intents and purposes sounded like theroar of a huge river) to the unexplored passage.Having produced the survey gear, Bob indicated thathe was happy to start, only to be rudely interruptedshortly after by another burst of gherkin stew.

"Shit" called Jumbo, "I've just been hit by a bat". Thesurvey led up a rising passage to a low crawl, whichJumbo filled. On the other side, Matthew had to moveaside as a bat belted past and headed straight forJumbo - Matthew knew what the only outcome of thiskamikaze flight was to be. Beyond the squeeze, a largewhite stal column was proudly standing in the centreof the passage, to be named ‘the little blond in thepark of attractions’ by Matthew. Beyond the stal werea couple of decorated chambers filled with a few batsdarting about. Sadly there was no noticeable draft,despite the fact that the bats kept disappearingthrough various small holes in the floor.

On the way out, they attempted to complete the roundtrip. After Jumbo and Matthew had nipped up to seethe huge upstream sump, the three of then dippedgently into the azure blue water and basically paddledfor home. The duck/sump was open, though it took awhile to find the correct route through, the way onbeing a devious series of air-pockets between blades ofrock. Soon back to the entrance and the welcome tinsof beer. Back at camp, they found Raul and Nicholashad prepared a huge bowl of delicious chips to go withthe Hutia.

Toby was also interested in Cueva Grande and couldnot believe that no one had investigated the sumppool. So off he set to plumb the depth of the sump.For once the pool was crystal clear and floatingaround the edge Toby found the pool was 10m deepand the pheratic going off the pool was of a similardimension. A good lead for a diving trip to return to.

On one trip, Toby investigated the entrance of CuevaGrande and stumbled on what was an unbelievablefind. Just in sight of the main entrance was a smallchamber which normally lead down to a small pool.For years it had been ignored as it did not lead on tonew passage. Nevertheless, Toby decided toinvestigate it and was amazed to see some etchings onthe wall. Could these be aboriginal art? He toddledback to the camp and announced his find. Most of thegroup were bit sceptical, despite knowing that theSpanish had found some pictograph in caves furthernorth. Roberto Gonzalez from the InstitutionGeologia Y Paleontologia confirmed Toby’s find as anexample of Indian aboriginal art. This site wouldrequire further investigation by an archaeologist.

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Medical Problems

Most expedition members didn’t suffer from anycondition apart from withdrawal when they ran out ofbeer, or sickness brought on by excess beerconsumption. A few people did suffer fromdehydration, due to hiking up to the top of mogotes inthe heat and not taking enough water with them. Themain worries of the trip were the minor cuts andgrazes that took several days to heal up and neededdaily attention to prevent infection.

Final Thoughts

Considering most caves on the top of the mogotewere discovered in the second week and there werealso demands placed on resources by exploration inthe other caves along the base of the mogote, finding a140m deep cave is a good success. We believe it to bethe deepest cave in the western part of Cuba. Theexpedition produced many leads for futureexpeditions to follow up and was thoroughly enjoyedby all the members who took part.

ReferencesBarter, T., Hooper, J., McGowan, M.; The 1997Expedition to Cuba, WSG Bulletin Vol. 9 No. 8, P.49 - 64. 1997 Hooper, J.; Cuba 97, Caves and CavingIssue 78, Winter 97 , BCRA P.16 -20Minty, D.; Some Notes About Dehydration, WSGBulletin Vol. 9 No. 7 P.32-34 1994Wilkins, B.; Cuba Contact Update, WSG Bulletin, Vol.9 No. 7 P. 1-311994Wilkins, B.(Editor); WSG Cuba Contact, WSGBulletin Vol. 9 No. 5 1989

AcknowledgementsWSG would like to thank Dragon Caving Equipmentand St. Dominic's Sixth Form College.

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PostScript

The above segment from the survey drawn up afterWSG’s 2002 expedition shows how Cueva Alfredowas subsequently linked in to Cueva China and theextension of the Unprincipled Crawl through to CastleChamber.

That same year, under drier conditions than those in1999, the pool at the end of Cueva Titanic was foundto have disappeared. At the bottom of it was abedding plane too tight to pass, into which went thesmall amount of water flowing that day.

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In 1998, WSG got an invitation to go over to Francethat Easter and visit a new cave that the Paris SpeleoClub were involved in pushing with the Lyon CavingClub. Previously Andy Sewell had been down the cavewith Wilfred Farabolni and ended up being trappedfor a few hours until the ducks became passable. So allfired up with stories of caverns measureless to caversthe “Famous Five” (Andy Sewell, Jerry Complin,Martin McGowan, Phil Mack and Olive the Car) setout on a new adventure.

It all started in Sainsbury’s in New Cross (but thendon’t all good caving trips start there), where Martin (Ihaven’t got a real job) was getting the food andemergency supplies. He was soon joined by the othersand they slowly made their way out of London in bankholiday traffic. At this point, we discovered that onlyPhil and Martin possessed CDs for the car stereo,Jerry Complin was too cultured for such new fangledtechnology and Andy hadn’t found a CD player yet ina car boot sale. The strange thing was that the CDsconsisted of a bizarre collection of Irish folk musicand stuff from the ‘70s. Jerry at this point thought hewas trapped in the car from hell.

As we were standing on the deck of the ferry,watching the white cliffs fade away, a bunch of Frenchschool kids were showing what they thought ofEngland. On the other hand, I couldn’t blame themwhen I saw the standard of cuisine being served onthe ferry. At least in France you could get a decentmeal and alcohol (for the non drivers) at a motorwaystop. A quick run around the duty free and a minorpanic when we realised that Phil had forgotten theheadlight gear (to stop others being blinded by ourlights). All too soon we were zooming down the peageto the sounds of Bowie and seventies' rock. The restof the night was a hedonistic blur of rain, coffee, tollbooths and music. Just before 5:00am, we pulled overand got a kip.

Phil was back in the driving seat and as we headedfurther south, the weather got worse. In Calais we hadlight rain, in Reims driving rain, and just as wereached the Jura, snow! There seemed little possibilityof going caving and we were all regretting our decisionto pack the minimum of gear. Andy was going onabout the several tons of equipment he could havebrought with him. As we got nearer the hut theweather situation became more serious. We slowlycrept up a snow covered lane with steep drops off tothe side. Were we ever going to reach the hut or werewe going to tumble to our deaths over the side of theravine?

Suddenly it was all too much for Phil as Olivewobbled and slid all over the road. So the old lag Jerrywas put into the driving seat to smooth and calm thenerves of everyone. At this moment the snow wasfalling very heavily and we were wondering if we wereever going to make it back down the mountain. Isuppose there were worse things in life than beingsnow bound in France. On reaching the village wecalled in at the pub and our first gastronomicexperience began. We were served a four course mealconsisting of soup, chicken, creme brulee (but morelike creme anglais - i.e. custard) and cheese. Twocarafes of wine and beer were consumed as well, so weambled back to the hut to sleep it off.

That afternoon we were woken by a mad French cavediver called Jean Michael Vallon coming into the hut.We found out that the rest of the Lyon club were notcoming because the weather was too bad to dig in theGrotte de Mongols (Cave of the Down’s Syndrome).The reason for the name we later learnt was becauseyou had to be bloody soft in the head to go down it,according to the locals. At this point we tended toagree with them as there was a lake of slushy watersitting over the entrance. So that evening we hit thebar for yet another 60 franc or £6 four course meal.Then it was back to the hut for whisky (a greatuniversal translator) and chat about caving in general,in pigeon Franglais.

The next day, we were taken caving by Jean Michael.The first cave, la Grotte du Pettie Lapin Blanche (Caveof the Little White Rabbit) was a rather small cavewith several blasted sections connecting natural voids.In total, it was a series of three fourteen metre pitchesleading to a dig. It reminded me of the Mendips. Ofcourse we used SRT to go down a series of smallpitches which in Britain would have been laddered. Atthis point I wondered why I had come all this way tosit in a small unnatural hole of a cave. A tramp in thesnow through a sylvan landscape to the car and wewent back to the hut. A quick huddle round the Aga,some coffee and food, then we head off for thesecond cave La Moegneo.

It was a total contrast to the previous cave, a largeentrance dropped down a ten metre shaft to achamber with flowstone bosses. In the chamber weresome cave salamanders seeking refuge from the cold.They caused Phil to jump backwards as he landed onthe ground.

From this point we abseiled down a flowstoneformation and had to deal with a tight rebelay with a

France 1998 - Four Course Caving

Martin McGowan________________________________________________________________

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dodgy bolt. Andy impressed us all by doing a superquick changeover. I nearly died of hypothermia whilehe untangled himself. The final pitch has a profusionof bolts whacked into the calcite; none of them lookedvery appealing or safe so we called it a day and headedout. So with a failing light I was left to derig the cave.I had to run around just to keep warm while theothers exited. At the top I was meet by Jerry who’dbeen out and got changed, so he quickly hustled medown to the car and a nice warm hut. Yet again wewere forced to eat another four course meal. It isa hard life - “c’est la vie.”

The following morning saw Jean Michael heading offto do a cave dive down some dodgy cave; especiallyconsidering how much water was lying around. Wedeliberated and contemplated which cave we shoulddo. The decision was that it was too warm (+1C) withtoo much snow lying around and too little rope andenthusiasm to go caving, so we headed off for a walkin wellingtons in the snow. After the walk, we packedup and hit the road, aiming to stop at a Formula 1 (thehotel chain).

Near Reims we found one and it was an experience inmodernity and utilitarianism. The shower and looautomatically cleaned themselves after you have usedthem. The shower had a hot air blower to dry yourselfand your towel. Maybe we should buy one for thecottage. The room was so small that as soon as youopen the door you fell into the bed; always a handything when you’ve been drinking. In the town wefound a creperie and gorged ourselves on a delectablemix of sweet and savoury pancakes. Then it was to theubiquitous “Irish Bar” for beer, though they did haveMurphys.

The next day we stopped at Reims, visiting a WW1fort for Andy and Jerry (older members probably therein 1914). The Cathedral of Reims has a magnificentstained glass rose window and a smiling angel. Thenwe rushed across the square to buy lashings andlashings of champagne, as unfortunately the shop didnot sell ginger beer. Just outside Reims, we had curedduck, our final gastronomic experience before headingback to England for curry and chips

AcknowledgementsWSG would like to thank both the Paris Speleo Cluband the Lyon Caving Club for their hospitality and forinviting us to the Grotte de Mongols.

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Background

Following on from WSG's successful 40th anniversarytrip to the bottom of the Gouffre Berger in 1990, itwas felt at the 1999 and 2000 AGMs that a similarevent should be held to commemorate the club’s half-century. French caving is always a good bet, beingclose, relatively cheap, easy to get to and containing awide variety of trips. I'd always fancied the Trou-du-Glaz to Guiers Mort through trip and this was an idealoccasion to ‘do’ this, being nowhere as deep or ascommitting as the Berger, had a more familyorientated campsite available and was open to a vastarray of trips.

Getting our Act Together

After the AGM in 2000, many weeks went by whenthere seemed to be no way of establishing the overallnumbers who were committed enough to put theirnames forward to enable me to make a firm bookingat a campsite. However, once a very rough indicationwas known, campsite booking began in earnest, well,in France in fact.

Having read many reports of other UK clubs’ trips(one advantage of having the whole of the club'sLibrary in one's loft!), it was apparent that there wasonly one place to stay and this had generally veryfavourable reports, namely ‘Camping du Martinière’(see reference for full details). This, as it transpired, isa superb campsite based a little south of St.Pierre deChartreuse and only some 15 minutes drive from theGuiers Mort parking area at Perquelin; it is also onlyabout half an hour to the Col du Coc (parking for theTrou du Glaz).

Once I'd located the campsite in the Michelin guideand through the very useful French websitewww.campingfrance.com, Jacqui Westcott kindlytranslated a letter for us and we wrote off requestingprices and availability details. From here, a deposit wassent off and with further contact being made over thephone from my French colleague at work (thanksEric!), a booking was confirmed.

As for Steve Weston, Jeanette, Elliot and myself, weacted on the recommendation from my local travelagent and took by far the easiest way to get to theChartreuse - by train. Eurostar now offer a greatscheme called ‘Beyond Eurostar’ whereby you canbook all the way through on connecting trains. Ouritinerary was simply great: depart London Waterloo at12:27, arrive at Lille at 15:29 (French time), change

there (well, walking 4m from one platform to thenext!) for the 16:10 to arrive in Lyon at 19:13, for the19:31 to Grenoble; which arrived at 21:00).

It should be noted that all trains left dead on time andthis was a really good way to travel, as you basicallyrelax, make countless visits to the bar and drink yourway to the Alps! All in all, just about as long as itsometimes takes to get from the Dales back to Essex!

Insurance was arranged through the BCRA as normal.

Tackle was quite easy to sort out, once I'd assessed therope lengths from an amalgamation of tackle lists invarious journals and bulletins (see references). Ahearty supply of maillons was ordered, together withsome new tackle bags and carbide. Dudley (Dragon)did us a super deal on this lot (thanks Dudley).

It may be strange to buy carbide in the UK and take itto a region inhabited by carbide-using Frenchman, buttry as I might, there was no easy way nor obviousplace to get hold of carbide locally. Anyway, we gotsuch a good price from Dudley that it was just as easyto take it with us; and we could arrive in France andgo caving immediately rather than going on a carbidehunt.

We took tents with us, those that were driving tookthe stoves and other cooking utensils so that betweenus, we'd have enough facilities. Besides, the campsite,as it turned out, provided an excellent continentalbreakfast (fantastic coffee!). A limited supply of foodcould be bought in their shop (fresh bread, milk,cheese, eggs etc.) and more fresh produce was readilyavailable in St.Pierre, together of course with manycafes and bars.

The campsite facilities are worth a mention. It wasequipped with a heated swimming pool (Oohhhh, bigword of warning: French law dictates that men areonly allowed in the pool if wearing trunks - shorts aresimply NOT allowed!), bar (sells eurofizz of coursebut also Pelforth brune and Chimay), shop (sells foodas mentioned, plus postcards, maps, wine, beer, etc.),hot showers, games room, boules court, plus a goodrestaurant located adjacent to the campsite (with agorgeous hippy-chick waitress who stole a couple ofhearts, mine included!).

The Journey Out

We left Waterloo at 12:30 and arrived in Grenobledead on 21:00. Here the plan started to fall apart, but

Chartreuse - WSG’s 50th Anniversary Trip - August 2000

Matthew Setchfield________________________________________________________________

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we had a sneaking suspicion this would happen! Ourlift had not arrived (still stuck somewhere in Slovenia,actually no, not stuck, just still enjoying caving therebut that's another story). Question, do we get foodnow, being surrounded by a veritable plethora ofrestaurants, or take a chance on getting to thecampsite and finding the restaurant still open.

Campsite, we reckoned. At least we'd be there andcould get the tents up, so we simply jumped in a cab(why on earth the cabbies put us in the first car (aLaguna) and drove us up to the campsite with theboot held down with some rope, rather than in thelarge "Espace" two cars behind was a bit of amystery!). Anyway, we drove up the mountains in thedark, often illuminated by the lightning storms furtherup the valleys, to arrive at the campsite for the meagrefair of only £30 in total.

We were greeted by Bill, the owner who somehowmust have known we were cavers, for he approachedus and asked "Ah, are you English speleologists?" Weanswered in the affirmative, to which he added "Yourfriends are at the bar"! We were very surprised andpleased to find Martin Creavin, Jumbo and AndySewell settling into an evening of Pelforth. We wereeven more pleased to hear Bill ask "Would you likesome frites?". Now, was this the way to arrive in acampsite or what! We sat outside in the heat for acouple hours, dining on our chips, watching the

amazing lightning display, sinking a few beers, anddiscovering that the Craven P.C. were on the nexttable!

What happened next could have been a disaster, butturned out better than we dared hope. Once the barclosed around 23:30, we were about to pitch our tentswhen the rain started, and it chucked it down! Wewere all sheltering under the side of the barn with ourrucksacks when good old Bill saved the day again byoffering us the games room. This was great - likeBrackenbottom's bunk room, only 4 to 5 times aslarge, airy, dry and comfortable.

Rigging the Guiers Mort I (as far as Balcony Pitch)Sunday 13th August 2000:

This IS the way to go caving - continental breakfast inthe campsite bar, erect tents in the sun after the pitchhad dried out, have a swim, grab a little gear, lazy driveto Perquelin, and set off for the entrance in the earlyafternoon. We met the CPC on the walk, which tookabout an hour. Despite what some clubs claim, it wassimply too hot to walk quickly and it was relentlesslyuphill for most of the way. What was phenomenal wasthat the cold air from the cave got dragged down thevalley with the stream, so you could feel it many tensof meters away, and boy, was it a welcome breeze.

Bill Brooks

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Inside the cave, it was only a short stroll up into theGrande Salle, down into the short crawl "vire hors crue"where the breeze was indeed strong enough to blowout your carbide. This had been mentioned in manyother trip reports, but what none of them mentionedwas the noise! It was not only a veritable gale, but alsoincredible noisy. Just beyond was Climbers Gallery,where the "only way is up", up the fixed rope whichyou had no choice but to trust. I went to find thesiphon below the pitch and this was open, asdemonstrated again by a howling and "loud" galeblasting across the water, but we chose to follow thetraditional route, as there was no need to get wetunnecessarily.

Once up the fixed rope, you rig your own rope intothe bolt belays at the top. The pitch was only short,one rebelay and a simple traverse at the top led into ashort walking rifty passage before diminishing to thecrawls en-route to Balcony Pitch. The crawls took a littlewhile to get through, but route finding was easy, as allthe side crawls were visually blocked off by dry-stonewalls. Just remember to turn immediately left after theboulders in La Tremie, or you end up in a blindchamber.

Balcony Pitch followed immediately after the crawls andwas a simple task of rigging (there was another tattyold SRT rope in situ). Rig round a bollard, y-hang,over the edge (rope protector required), rebelay (on anice little "that'll do nicely" ledge) and abseilALMOST to the bottom, step off onto the boulderbridge and up the slope where there was a handy boltto tie of to.

Down the other side to the easy but wide-ish shorttraverse and trot to Elizabeth Cascade. Actually if you'rereally keen and on your first trip, you would have beenallowed to make it to Elizabeth, rather than beingcalled back by your mates, who were not so keen tokeep going and got scared of the dark (See Jerry, youwere right when you said "I bet that get'll writtenup"!!). Anyway, a trip to here and out took us aboutthree hours, but there was a lot of hanging around andchecking routes.

Now here's a tip - when we were back in Grande Salle,rather than lug all our caving kit back down to the car,we simply changed here and left our wellies and SRTkit on a big ledge. We only took our oversuits andundersuits out to dry. This turned out to be such agood idea, as we left all the heavy stuff behind fortomorrow's walk.

Rigging the Guiers Mort II (as far as Chevalier Pitch II -Trou du Glaz)Monday 14th August 2000

Big trip this - around 7 to 8 hours. Continuing fromwhere we left off at Elizabeth Cascade, I nearly letJerry crawl though the duck in revenge for theprevious trip’s premature termination, but pointed out

the nice, tatty, fixed SRT rope hanging in the waterand suggested to him that it would be prudent toascend such a conveniently placed rope and drop ournice bit of new rope down the same drop, after firstsecuring it to the multitude of bolts at the top! This hedid and we found to our delight that never was a moreaccurate piece of rope cut in England on theamalgamation of several tackle lists, for it dangledtantalisingly close to the streamway; only occasionallykissing the crest of waves as they danced past.

Anyhow, up this we went, along the streamway,hopped across a short, bold step (ropes in place),continued to an easily missed junction and turnedsharp right, basically stepping up into an inlet. A shortwalk brought us to Siphon Galleries Bypass, where theway up was at the third rock bridge - there are acouple of large carbide arrows on the walls here.

Actually these arrows are confusing as if you followthem religiously - the path of righteousness will leadyou to a baptism in the sump itself! Look up to heavenand climb the holy boulders of exposed’ness andfollow the calling of the cold draught of “St.Trou”, upanother fixed rope (as stiff as wire this one!) and into ashort walking passage to the top of Siphon GalleriesPitch itself.

This was more of a slope than a pitch, but was stillsufficiently adorned with decent bolts. I went downfirst, to have my carbide promptly die on me. Jerryshot on past whilst I furgled away. We followed the icycold zephyr (this is probably the coldest part of thecave) and very soon arrived at the start of thehorizontal traverse out to the head of La Plage Pitch.

It was at this point that we took a very serious look atthe time and decided that three should go out fromhere, leaving three to push on. Frankly, three seemedto be the optimum number of people. It was one ofthose tripswhere at the outset many sherpas are required to ferrygear, but this then makes the party size somewhatcumbersome.

What fun Jerry had on this pitch. The traverse led to asort of rock bridge/window straddling two pitches,both fitted with bolts. We were drawn to the shaftcontaining a tatty old rope in situ and so Jerry wentdown on our rope, expecting this to land on thebeach, next to the La Plage sump itself. However, Icould simply not make out what Jerry was going onabout, when he referred to traverses, rebelays andcrawls. The other pitch seems to drop straight into astreamway. As Jerry was now off the rope and forcinghis way along some muddy, grotty grovel, I wentstraight down the rope and found myself on the beachnext to La Plage sump! When Jerry and Steve joinedme, Jerry showed me an unpleasant little tube a littleway upstream of the sump; this was where he cameout from his explorations, not knowing that this waswhere he wanted to be!

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Anyway, we furgled out lamps, topped up the watersupply, set off upstream and shortly stepped up on theright into Bivouac Gallery. This was pretty tough going,being a gently upstream traverse whose very natureforces you to support a lot of your body weight onyour hands, whilst tackle bags play their nasty game ofswinging under your chest and getting caught underyour knees. This went on for a fair bit, but was actuallyquite an interesting passage, as it was liberally adornedwith stal.

I was looking for the big shaft to be traversed around,Les Nimois, and was somewhat surprised to find a boltstep up with a fixed rope. We continued, not entirelyhappy that we were on the correct route, until shortlyafter, a BIG hold appeared and we knew we were atlast at Les Nimois. This was quite a bold step, but onelittle stal provided the perfect handhold, right in thecrux of the move. Over this and past the passage onthe left marked "EST", which I assumed means"L'Escalier de service", and soon we were peering down a40-50' drop. I realised that this was the end ofStalactite Traverse.

Up the easy climb on the left and onto the fixed ropesthrough the stal on the ledge above the streamwayquietly babbling below. Again, distracted by thedescription, we were looking for a "place to stepacross to where an easy free climb leads down". Again,we were confused by an SRT rope dropping into thedepths and whilst I ruminated on this, we set Steve offfurther along the ledges. I rigged our last rope(oohhhhh, I was getting excited now!), descended theshort pitch into the streamway and called for Jerry andSteve to join me - there was simply no need to find aneasy free climb down. From here, we removed most ofour SRT kit and set off up a rather fine streamway,liberally strewn with potholes and pebbles to catch theunwary. Sooner than expected, we arrived at “LaPiscine”, which was an odd sensation, as I'd read aboutthe incident here in Chevalier’s book, where he fell in!It felt strangely familiar.

Easily over this and more streamway beckoned us on.It seemed to go on for ages and again, I wondered ifwe'd missed a route or junction. We stopped at anawkward little climb up, which Jerry recalled featuredin the description as a "teasing climb with a handlineabove which the character of the streamway changes".So, up he went, said "the character of this streamwayis changing" and then bellowed out "GLAZ"!!! He'dfound the connection crawl.

Steve and I rushed to join him and sure enough, inlarge carbide letters on the wall, was the Holy Grail ofthe connection. I shot off down and dropped into amiserable little streamway, which I pursued upstream.It rapidly grew into a large rift and suddenly openedout at the base of a large aven, very reminiscent of thebottom of Bar Pot. Here, strung from a dirty stalformation, was the famous cardboard helmet, slings,rope and tape, and I knew we were at Chevalier Pitch

II - the final pitch in the Trou du Glaz on the throughtrip! We were over the moon. It was now 18:10. Aquick drink from the wall of the pitch (NOTrecommended, as I'm sure it was this water that gaveme a bout of the shits later!), then about turn.

We made good progress and moved much faster nowthat we were unencumbered with gear. We got lostbriefly on Bivouac Gallery, which looks vastly differentwhen you're going down it! I found a nice littlechamber with a waterfall that none of us remembered,but soon found the right route again. At the top of LaPlage pitch, I waited for Jerry, who proudly let off acouple of farts. Now the wind here blows out and Isoon discovered that sitting on the downstream end ofJerry was definitely unwise.

It really was so cold and windy here that we were gladto get on and up Siphon Galleries Pitch and drop downthe other side, back to the third rock bridge, whichagain looked wildly different from above. So much sothat Jerry traversed most of the passage not realisinghe could walk along the floor!Jerry and I abseiled down Elizabeth Cascade in tandem,as there were now two ropes rigged. Jerry prussikedBalcony Pitch first and lost one of his gloves. He wasfortunate to have it land on the ledge where we stepon to the rope, so that I could salvage it for him. Ijoined him as Steve began his ascent and removed mySRT kit for the crawls. Asking why he was not doinglikewise, Jerry told me his tale of woe, in that he was aprisoner in his SRT kit, being locked in by a maillonthat could be only tamed with a spanner. "My SRT kitis an integral part of me" he ruminated. That was it,"Integral Jerry" became his new nickname!

From here we made rapid progress back to ClimbersGallery and an amazing sight welcomed us, a lonecandle burning on the wall by our clothes. Left by theothers, it cast a haunting and beautiful light. It wasalso bloody handy to get changed next to! From here,out to the entrance, arriving at precisely 21:00. It wasvery odd, as immediately out of the draught it was stilluncomfortably warm and humid.

Quickly changed and off back down to the cars in thedark, where we found poor old Martin waiting for usin his car, all alone. He really is a hero sometimes. Wefound one place left in St.Pierre still open for food andwe were the only people in here. Poor Martin againwas unlucky, in that he felt he should not have anotherbeer, as he'd had a few earlier and still had to drive usback to the campsite. By the time we'd returned to thecampsite, sorted the gear out, showered and had theobligatory "beer before bedtime", it was 3am. It was agood day. We'd achieved a lot and had covered mostof the walking passage contained in the through trip. Itwas now quite easy to visualise what was left in storefor us at the Trou du Glaz end.

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Swimming pool day (Trou du Glaz tackle ferrying)Tuesday 15th August 2000

We awoke to find that "Cookie" (Wessex) and JoWhistler (O.U.C.C.) had arrived from Slovenia withtales of our missing Chairman, Martin McGowan. Notthat we really cared about our missing Chairman, andpromptly went to the pool!

Some were industrious however, as Martin Creavin,Steve Weston, Andy Sewell and Phil Mack drove overto the Col du Coc and carried several tackle bags ofrope up to the Trou du Glaz and dumped them wellinside the entrance. Meanwhile, the rest of us had abeer and frites break before returning to the pool.Another beer break was taken where we took turnstying caving knots in Jumbo's shoe-laces.

….this was a caving holiday after all!

Trou du Glaz to Guiers Mort through trip. Wednesday16th August 2000

This was it. The big one. And wow, people actuallytook this seriously, getting out of bed (to find SimonFroude and family had arrived during the night),breakfasting and packed, ready to leave the campsite at09:30!!

Well, 09:30 was when the support team of Jerry,Cookie and Phil set off to rig the Trou du Glaz as faras Lantern Pitch IV, to save some time and gear for thethrough trippers. At 11:30, Martin drove Andy, Jo,Steve, Jumbo and myself to the Col du Coc. We took aslow paced walk up to the Trou du Glaz, and changed;well, except for Steve, who owing to a skippingaccident en-route, had rendered himself out of thegame through injury! Andy, Jo, Jumbo, Martin andmyself set off underground at 13:50 and soon met upwith Phil, Jerry and Cookie at the head of Lantern PitchI. Jumbo abseiled the pitch, then prussiked back up forpractise, then went out with Phil and Jerry. Cookiedecided to do the through trip with us.

So, off we went, quickly descending Lantern pitches I-III, through the low, muddy crawls and off to P36.This was an extraordinary piece of passage, as it wasbasically an aerial traverse on a rock ridge with a 30'shaft on one side and a 130' pitch on the other. Greatstuff. Up the calcite slope immediately beyond (thereis a muddy rope in situ, easily used as a hand-line andmade all the easier if ascenders are used). Cookie andJo had ascended this first and marched on. I waitedfor Andy and Martin before setting off again.

We soon traversed passed Lake Shaft and found thestone slab inscribed by Dubost in 1941, at the start ofthe Meanders, but no sign of Jo and Cookie. Ieventually spotted them on the far side of the P60,

Jerry and Martin near the Guiers Mort entrance

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peering down (and up!) Labour Shaft. Back to anddown into the Meanders and progress was immediatelyhalted at the 2m drop, as Andy had got himselfwedged in the rift above. Once we'd freed him, Jo ledthe way to Pendulum Pitch. I helped her rig from theairy ledge perched opposite the belay.

Jo set off down first, with a running commentary of"Is this a new rope….its ever so fast" and "It's aloooong way down, I still can't see the bottom"…."This rope is ever so fast!"…………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….."I''m down".

I followed Jo down and the rope was fast, but seemedto run fine through my ‘Stop’. I had a lovely descent,taking my time, enjoying the splendour of this vastcylinder. My ‘Stop’ had never been so hot! At thebottom, Jo set off immediately with the tackle for thenext pitch, whilst I removed my SRT kit and waitedfor the others. Their descent from below was also anamazing sight to see.

I set off in hot pursuit of Jo, once Andy, Martin andCookie were down. However, not before hearingAndy's tale of woe…his spare carbide had explodedinside his tackle bag at the head of the pitch! That wasnot all - while telling this tale, he somehow burnt ahole in his carbide pipe on his helmet and was now onfire. Once we’d extinguished him, the Meandersbeckoned, but once again, an incident befell ourgallant party. Announced by Martin’s cry of “I seem tohave a bit of a situation here lads”, the ‘tinkle, tinkle,crash, plop’ said it all. The bottom of his Fismagenerator had leapt into the depths of the meander.

Some 45 minutes later, Jo and I arrived at Petzl Pitch.Jo rigged this, a lovely cylindrical and bone dry shaft.At the bottom, I took over rigging and started on PiegePitch, immediately following. As the others arrived andchatted, I was swinging in space looking for a rebelaybolt, but settled on a sling over a flake. And yes, toconfirm all the reports I'd read of this particularrebelay, it is indeed in the stream and water doesdribble down your sleeve!

This was actually quite a large, airy shaft, and I wascareful to aim for the ridge 20’ off the floor and thusstep over into the continuation of the shaft, ratherthan end up in Dubost Halt, the blind pot at thebottom. Chevalier Pitch I again followed straight awayand was easily rigged from a large chain and severalbolts. Another impressive abseil, landing on very largeledge containing fixed ropes, slings, unfixed ropes andbits of tat.

It took a little while to work out where the best pointwas to rig Chevalier Pitch II from, as some of the ropeslead away to Galerie des Champignons. A couple ofrebelays later and I was on my way. This was a truly

memorable abseil, as firstly, I knew I was nowbasically at the point reached on our mammoth riggingtrip of the other day, and secondly, Jo was singing aneclectic collection of folk songs and Elizabethan songsand her beautiful tones wafted down the shaft pastme. At the bottom, I went over and touched thecardboard helmet. The connection had been made.

The others came down, also accompanied by Jo’ssongs and Andy was intrigued by the helmet. (HeyAndy, it’s just a cardboard helmet!). Altogether, oncemore with a great sense of achievement, we chargedour carbides and set off once more toward the GuiersMort. It was 20:00. The caving was now, to my mind,relaxed, enjoyable and fun, which I put down to thefact that I was now in familiar territory.

Soon back at the connection squeeze and up I went,popping out back in the Guiers Mort. We all gotthrough still wearing SRT kit and then stomped alongthe Grand Collecteur. This was fantastic caving. Mycarbide was giving the best light ever and I could seeeverything for a change. We romped along thestreamway, scrambling down the climbs and hoppingover the pots. Fantastic caving. Andy was gettingnoticeably slower and was always at the back. Cookieand Jo ascended La Plage pitch first and shot up. Ifollowed and had a stunning view of Martin below andAndy illuminating the streamway behind. We gropedour way across Stalactite Traverse and dropped downinto Bivouac Gallery, where I pointed out the easiestway to cross Nimois Pitch - Jo was a little apprehensivecrossing this bold step.

Back down the awkward ledges, I seemed to find my‘awkward ledges legs’ and soon found myself wayahead of the others. Andy still concerned me, as hewas still stumbling along at the back. We had a briefstop for a carbide change, then continued back to thestreamway at La Plage. Foolishly, I prussiked up thisfirst, as I then had to endure the cold again, sitting inthe incredibly draughty passage at the top of the pitch.Cookie and Jo came to join me and the three of ussuffered together. There was a brief respite when wemoved off and up Siphon Galleries Pitch, but again at thetop we had to wait in the wind. Cookie and Jo huddledtogether in a pot in the floor which permitted somerelief, as the bulk of the cold breeze blew across thetop of their helmets.

Down the fixed rope and then everyone seemed totake a different route down to Siphon Gallery itself. Nothanging around, conscious of the time, we ploughedon, over the old step and arrived at Elizabeth Cascade.Rapidly down this, we came to Balcony Pitch and I wentup first and removed most of my SRT kit as the otherscame up. Cookie shared a pot of nuts and raisins withJo and me (what a bloody good idea as a food source,I mused to myself), then Cookie entered the crawls. Ifound my carbide started to go out everytime Iknocked it, which was so annoying. Back at ClimbersPitch (no candle this time) and down into Climbers

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Gallery, where it was a relief to finally remove SRT kitfor good.

After ensuring that Martin and Andy were behind us,Cookie, Jo and I left for the entrance, which wereached at exactly midnight. The through trip hadtaken 11 hours.

Quickly changing, the three of us set off down to thecars, just in case the others were getting concerned asto our whereabouts. We agreed to meet Andy andMartin at the bottom of the path. Sure enough, wewere met by a slightly apprehensive crowd of Jeanette,Jumbo, Phil, Ian and Jerry. I got a lift back to thecampsite still wearing my undersuit, with Ian, Jumbo,Ian and Phil. A fine meal of tinned sausages and bakedbeans was heartily scoffed, together with a very wellearned beer. Bed was finally reached once more at02:50. One of my most satisfying trips for a very longtime.

Cuves de SassenageThurdsay 17th August 2000

A day off from "real" caving, but a cave nonetheless.Martin drove Jumbo, Steve and myself down toGrenoble and across the motorway to the tiny hamletof Sassenage. Now a warning to anyone contemplatingthis trip - it takes bloody ages to find the cave. Thereare simply no signs to show you where it is! Basically, atiny alleyway off the main mini-roundabout in thecentre of the ville leads to a car park from where afootpath leads up to the ticket office. We had to waitabout 50 minutes for the next tour, but were happy towait when we’d discovered the shop sold beer!

One of the guides we got chatting to, upon hearing wewere cavers and having to explain several times that“No, we were not caving in the Vercors”, showed ussome of the postcards they had for sale actually hadphoto’s taken by the Jo Berger. It was something of apilgrimage to ‘do’ this cave, as we’d ‘done’ the Bergerback in 1990 and now, ten years on, we were basicallyentering the same system to ‘do’ the resurgence; in away, completing another through trip.

We were fortunate in having the guide all to ourselvesand one that spoke a little English; also, photographywas permitted for a change. We were also given awritten summary, in English, to take with us. The tourwasn’t bad and okay for Fr29. It took about 40minutes, though we did have to endure the customarysound and light sequence in the final chamber.

We returned to the campsite only after extractingourselves from an industrial estate in the middle ofGrenoble after Steve's navigational skills deserted him!

Back at the campsite, well, there was nothing else todo but hit the bar. Simon and ‘Tell joined us with thekids and then the bar staff bought us all a beer. Wecould hardly refuse, could we! But now we were on

the slippery slope. Beer begat beer begat beer and thenwe discovered they’d had a delivery of Pelforth. Theentertainment was provided by that great band“Mother Nature”, whose thunderstorm track wasaccompanied by a stunning lightshow! Frankly, wewere in a bit of a mess when we fell into the restaurantaround 19:45. Still, the lovely waitress was there, whichbrought forth a feeling of well being inside of Martinand myself. The meal was rounded off with a greatpudding - Green Chartreuse ice-cream. Lovely. Theice-cream was very nice too!

After this, I seem to recall we went all wibbly-wobblyback to our tents, fell into our sleeping bags andpassed out.

Trou du Glaz deriggingFriday 18th August 2000

Starting the day at 06:30 with a raging hangover wasdefinitely not the way to prepare for a caving trip.Sadly, Simon slipped out of the trip owing to an excessof alcohol the previous night. This left the through-tripper-deriggers of Jerry, Phil and Cookie. Martin,Jumbo and myself followed them up to the Trou duGlaz and we all set off together. Martin, Jumbo andmyself felt soooo rough! Somehow we got down thefirst four Lantern Pitches, well behind the other three.Jumbo gave up at the P36 traverse and Martin and melumbered on to the start of the Meanders.

I went in behind Phil, Jerry and Cookie, whilst Martinremained in the main passage, fearful of getting stuckat the 2m drop. At the 2m drop, I tried to see what theclimb out was like before committing myself and washappy to find that this was actually no big deal.Assembled at Pendulum Pitch and amused ourselves withthe remnants of Andy’s destroyed carbide container! Iwatched as Cookie and Phil disappeared into thedepths. Jerry then set off with the comment “Don’tstart derigging until I’m down”!! I then put our planinto action. I removed the rope from the belays andlet it drop. The noise of 220' of falling rope was weird.It went whoooooosh, then,……silence. “Is that it”?called Jerry from below.

They then set off, and I returned to Martin and we inturn made our way back to J Jumbo Esq. Above thefourth Lantern Shaft, Martin and I were very pleasantlysurprised to find inscribed on the wall the names ofChevalier, Petzl, Dubost and Guillemin, with areference to the connection of the Trou du Glaz tothe Guiers Mort: “8-9 Aout 1941”. We had a slowishtrip back up the rest of the Lantern Shafts, as I wastaking photos and Jumbo seemed to have forgottenhow to prussik. I mean, there was really no need totake the rebelays out to pass them, was there?

Anyway, once de-rigged, we hauled out the ropes,tackle bags and personal gear of the others and then,to our amazement, bumped into Steve and Andyinside the entrance passage. This was very fortuitous

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as they could help us lug all this gear down to the cars.Jumbo carried so much that I renamed him “SherpaFat Thing”! He even wore a tackle bag on his head;what a star. We were now in desperate need of a beer,the hangovers having long since departed. I droveMartin’s car, whilst he drove Cookies truck, back toSaint Hughes where we sat ourselves at a table toenjoy a couple of ice cold Weissbeers. Magic.

When we drove into the campsite, who did we spy inthe pool but none other than Martin McGowan, ourelusive Chairman. He tried to redeem himself later bygoing to St.Pierre to buy some beer and was ratherpleased with himself for buying five crates of beer at aknockdown price…..until we pointed out to him thathe just bought five crates of shandy!! But the storydoesn’t end here, for he then returned to St.Pierre tochange them for “real” beer and when he returned, heseemed to have picked up Toby and Irene, who he’dfound wandering around St.Pierre! Later that night,Bill and Christine Brooks arrived too. Now we werecomplete and understandably, another heavy drinkingsession ensued.

The through trip de-riggers arrived back around 9'ishfrom memory.

Just another pool daySaturday 19th August 2000

Jeanette and Elliot had to leave for home and MartinMcGowan provided the taxi services to Grenoble. Billcaught a lift to find a Rover garage, as his car haddeveloped a fault such that he basically had a gearboxcompletely devoid of oil! Jumbo, Simon and myselfnipped into Saint Laurent du Pont, ostensibly to buy abook on canyoning. None was found, so we boughtlunch instead and then returned to La Martinière todine, have a beer, have a swim, wash the gear, havemore beer and have some more beer.

Dinner was taken in the bar in Saint Hughes, wherethere was no problem seating all fourteen of us. Werounded off the evening with a Green Chartreuseliquor; well those of us who liked this magic elixir.

Dent du Crolles walkSunday 20th August 2000

Ostensibly, this was intended to be a walk and shortcaving trip in the Grotte Annette Bouchacourt and theChevalier Grotte, but best laid plans and all that…..

Martin Creavin drove Bill, Andy, Steve and myself toCol du Coc and once again, we trudged up the steeppath in the hot sun. Continuing up the path after thejunction with the path to the Trou du Glaz, the routebecame still steeper and the views became all the moremagnificent. Not entirely sure of the spot where wehad to cross the scree slope to find the path that leadsto the caves, we paused at an old wooden sign postwhich said "vers la Terrux"; which we foolishy

ignored, I suppose because it didn't say “to the caves”!So on and up went the brave compadres and uponarrival at a "via ferrata", somehow decided that thepath veering off across the hillside was our path. I wasnot convinced. We were far too high by now; therewere gliders circling beneath us!

So, off we went, Steve and myself in the lead. Weneared a bend and I felt sure that just around thecorner, we would see where the path went. But afterthe corner, there was no more path! We were on aprecipice on the south eastern face, now far below thesummit of the Dent du Crolles. Beneath our feet was asheer drop of 6000' to the Isere river. Needless to say,we quickly backed away from the edge.

Now, to make the best of this "snafu", it made senseto enjoy the walk for its own sake and head for thesummit plateau. Rejoining the main path, we weresoon pulling ourselves up wire ropes betweentowering cliffs and huge boulders. Arriving at theplateau, we followed the final slope up to the summitcairn at 2,026m and found ourselves buffeted by anincredible wind. The view was absolutely spectacular.Grenoble and the Isere river were immediately belowus. The Vercor was opposite and we could see skiresorts in the far distance at the same altitude asourselves. In the very far distance, seen easier ifwearing sunglasses, was Mont Blanc. We felt slightlyincongruous, sitting there with tackle bags full ofcaving gear, no food and very little water!

The next objective had to be to find the P40. Thisproved to be just as difficult as finding the GrotteChevalier, for, well, we didn’t find it! There werehundreds of pits, pots, shakeholes, rifts crevices andgrykes, so Lord knows where it was. We started off inthe right area, but ended up too far down the hillside.It was interesting nevertheless and we were ratherhappy to follow one immense rift down, to find a carsized snowball/ice-cube nestling in the shade. In thegloom, we’d taken this to be a pitch, owing to the darkpatches of ice!

Onward and downward, and in the lapiaz we werefortunate to see a marmot. Through the trees andsoon we were in the bottleneck of tourists pickingtheir way down the via ferrata. Steve overtook a few,despite being encumbered by a walking stick he wasnow forced to use, owing to his “skipping accident” afew days ago!

Arriving at the Trou du Glaz, we’d finally found acave. Steve and Bill went for a womble with their Petzlzooms. I went to catch them up, secretly to ensurethey didn’t go wandering off for hours, as it was nowdefinitely time to hot foot it to the pub! I found themat Pas Dessus, just beyond Puits Martel. I took advantageof this mini trip to find the way up in the large butloose floored Salle de Chartreux, above the LanternPitches, before we made our way out, then down to thecar.

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Again, we called in for a beer at the bar at SaintHughes and sat outside under the shade of the tree.This really was a lovely spot, situated in the middle ofthe valley, surrounded by immense limestonemountains.

As was now standard practise, as soon as we wereback at the campsite, we headed for the bar; well, wehad to work out where to go for our last evening’smeal, didn't we! Martin and I were drawn to therestaurant adjacent to the campsite, well, we had to see‘her’ once more before we left, didn't we! But oh no,disaster, they were shut on a Sunday. So, Le Diat itwas. Steve had found a good restaurant the nightbefore, so we went on his recommendation, which,contrary to his navigational skills, was actually verygood. Here we discovered Chartreuse tonic, which wasa lovely drink, in fact, I am enjoying one now as I typethis and reminisce at the same time!

The journey homeMonday 21st August 2000

Much the same as the journey out, really. Martin droveSteve, Jumbo, Andy and myself to the train station inGrenoble, where Steve and I were booked on the10:34 TGV to Paris (Gare de Lyon). This came in ontime of course and we sped off through thecountryside, while the others went to visit the GouffreBerger entrance. We arrived in Paris at 13:45 andrather than use the Metro, decided to see a little moreof Paris and took a cab to the Eurostar station, Garedu Nord. Steve paid the Ff41, DOWN TO HEREthen much to his horror, discovered he’d lost hiswallet when he went to produce his train ticket! Hethought he’d left it in the cab. So, after a few minutesfrantic telephoning various credit card companies wejoined the check-in queue and were soon boarding the15:19 train bound for Waterloo.

We crawled into Waterloo, went to our respective tubestations for the onward journey home and I arrived inmy station at 18:57; again it had only taken some eighthours travelling. Train is certainly the quickest andmost relaxed way to get to Grenoble!

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References and useful contacts:

Camping de Martinièrec/o Bill GaudeRoute du Col de Porte -D51238380 - ST.PIERRE DE CHARTREUSEFrance

Tel. (33) / (0)4 76 88 60 36Fax (33) / (0)4 76 88 69 10Mobile 06 83 04 11 14

Tourism office (St.Pierre de Chartreuse):Place de Mairie38380 St-Pierre-de-ChartreuseFrance

Tel. (33) / (0)4 76 88 62 08Fax (33) / (0)4 76 88 75 10 / (33) / (0)4 76 88 68 78E-mail OT.St-Pierre-de-Chartreuse@wanadoo.frwww http://perso.wanadoo.fr/OT.st-pierre-de-chartreuse

Local caver:Bruno Talourwww http://www.alpesgeoconseil.com/Chartreuse/Speleo/ESpeleo.html

Tackle list:75 Maillons and about 30 hangers (The hangers were hardly used as most pitches have bolts in place.)

Grotte du Guiers Mort (to the "U" tube connection to the Trou du Glaz):

Name of pitch Depth SRT rope requirement & notes

Puits de l'Escalade (Climbers Pitch) 8m up! 12m Normally rope in situ. 1 rebelayLe Balcon (Balcony Pitch) 12m 17m 1 or 2 rebelays, and don't abseil to thebottom-get off

on the obvious ledge!Elizabeth Cascade 6m up! 9m If there ain't a rope in situ already someonewill have

to get wet going up through the duck to reach thetop of the pitch-head round the back route!

Siphon Galleries Pitch 8m 10m No rebelays but cold as a howling draftwhistles through here.

Puits la Plage 12m 17m Preceded by a traverse then go either straight downor down through the window on the left.

Nimois Pitch n/a 10m Handline required to traverse across the top of this.10m should be more than adequate though it mayalready have a rope in situ. Great stal finger holdhalf-way across!

Puits du Grand Collecteur 10m 14m Rigged from the roof. Free hang

Total 56m 79m

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Trou du Glaz (to the "U"-tube connection in the Guiers Mort):

Name of pitch Depth SRT rope requirement & notes

Puits de Lanterne I 10m 17m Free hang.Puits de Lanterne II 11m 12m One rebelay, I think!Puits de Lanterne III 15m 30m Again just one rebelay, I think!Puits de Lanterne IV 10m 18m Muddy traverse out on left wall to main hang point.P36 n/a 20m Handline. A rope was in situ when we were here.

Acrobatic in parts!Puits du Lac n/a 20m Handline. Again a handline was in situ.Puits du Pendule 60m 70m Short traverse up into an alcove to a Y-hang with a

distinct lack of bolts! A good natural jug handle maybe used though. A fantastic free hang in an immensecylinder. Impressive!

Puits Petzl 18m 25m All I remember is that whilst Jo rigged, Cookie andme discussed Pink Floyd! I think there was onerebelay though.

Puits due Piege 15m 24m Bolts at the start then a rebelay from a flake where asling was used and don't forget to swing onto theledge before hitting the very bottom or you'llwonder why there are no more pitches!

Puits Chevalier I 35m 41m In situ chains were utilised as part of the rigging. Free hang from memory.

Puits Chevalier II 20m 32m A lot of rope is used as there is a series of steps torebelay over before the true hang is met. There's alot of tat here but a huge ledge to run around on.

Totals: 195m 300m

Maps:Massif de La Chartrese Sud - No.3334 OT (Institut Geographique National) 1:25,000Massif de La Chartrese Nord - No.3333 OT (Institut Geographique National) 1:25,000

Publications:Subterranean Climbers - Pierre Chevalier (1951)*Charteuse Souterrain - Baudouin Lismonde & Philippe Brouin (1985) ISBN 2-902670-19-2Grottes en canyons - Pierre Minvielle (1977)*Spéléo Guide Chartreuse-Les plu verticales - Jean Louise Fantoli (1996) ISBN 2-91657-01-2*La Dent du Crolles et son réseau souterrain Badouin Lismonde et collectif (1997),ISBN 2-902670-38-9 (The Biblefor this area really!)

* I obtained my copies through Tony Oldham

Bradford Pothole Club Bulletin:Vol.8 no.4 Spring 1991Craven Pothole Club: "Record" No.44 October 1996 and No.60 October 2000 (Record of their

tripundertaken the week before ours)London University Caving Clubs Journal: No.1 December 1966, No.9 Spring 1969,

No. 12 Winter 1971Mendip Caving Group: Occasional Publication No.3 "en Chartreuse" 1995South Wales Caving Club: Newsletter No.119 July 1997, No.122 2002Technical Speleological Group: Journal No.15 1996

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I was chatting to James “Tetley” Hooper after hisspeech at the BCRA, when he asked what was I doingnext summer. I must admit I hadn’t really given itmuch thought - probably go back to Ireland, do somecaving, laze around, maybe go somewhere on the bike.He then told me about the Imperial College CavingClub ( IC3 ) expedition to Slovenia. I had seen theirstand and it looked interesting. So off to the lecture,which really sold it to me.

The next stage was to get a place on the expedition. Ihad a cunning plan; firstly Tetley recommended me,and then I offered a Dan Yr Ogof trip as a bribe. Itworked - one Danny trip later, I was going on theexpedition.

Imperial takes an even more relaxed view toexpedition planning than Westminster - one evening Iturned up to find that in my absence, I had beennominated the ‘medical person’, thanks to Tetley. Nomatter.

Over the coming months, the expedition graduallytook shape, until the final few weeks when all of asudden, there was a flurry of organisation: get thefood, book the van, the ferry, first aid, have youwritten to ....?, No?, Do it! A frantic rush in the finalhours saw a minibus (minus a few seats) packed withall our gear.

No sooner had we loaded up and started to head outof London, the van break down. In bloody Sidcup!The RAC came out and asked if we are going far,which was a bit of a stupid question with the vanpacked to the gills with gear and several hundred kilobarrels on the roof. He decided to inspect the engine,so he jacked it up with 6 sleeping people and all thegear still in it. As the jack gave off an ominous creakand groan, he solved the problem, although I did havea vision of a 2 tonne jack suddenly failing while he wasunder the van.

On down to Dover, a quick romp around the dutyfree and then across Europe, following a thin blackline in a road atlas. The next problem was the greencard, which can only be bought in Slovenia. We hadno green card, so it there no entry to Slovenia. So backto Italy for the night and to drink some duty free. Thenext day we arrive at the border and found the dutyfree shop had just run out of green cards, a deliberateconspiracy to keep us out of the country. So we turnedaround again and headed to another crossing, parkedthe van, walked across the border and bought the card:cash only, Tolars or DM.

Finally we are in Slovenia. We now had to drive overTriglav, just the highest mountain in Slovenia, with anoverladen bus. As we went down the tight hairpins,the smell of burning brakes became overpowering andnauseating. We had to stop.

Eventually, we reached Bovegec and saw the firstserious effects of the earthquake in March. Streets ofhouses were held up by props, roofs had collapsedinwards and there were massive cracks up the sides ofthe buildings. What could have happened to the cave?Tolmin, the local town, showed very little damage andwe headed up to Tolminski Ravne, a very small villagein the mountains. Here we found the farmer’s househad been condemned, so we could stay in it. Inside,the local geologist had installed a seismometer (sowhat twenty cavers tramping around the house wasgoing to do to the readings only time would tell).Personally, I pitched my tent outside, as the area wasstill being affected by aftershocks.

Over the next few days, we had planned to carry up allwe needed to set up the bivvy. The next day, I waswoken by a low rumble and the tent was shakenviolently; was this an earthquake I thought, as I triedto rouse myself from a semi-conscious state. A seriesof stroboscopic flashes and the tent was turned into adisco; ah, it’s a storm, that’s a relief. I made it to thehouse just as the deluge started; my tent was quicklysurrounded by two rivers and the road became aswollen torrent.

Eventually, at about 11am, we realised that the stormwas not going to abate, so we resigned ourselves tothis fact and set off up the hill with our supplies. Ipunted along the meadow with my walking stick, gothalf way up and decided to shelter in the shepherds’huts. Jim, Mark, and Jackie Evans headed on up to thetop to set up the barrels, otherwise we were going tohave to collect snow for water. Tetley joined me in thehut and he smoked a damp fag while we shivered. Therain pelted against the tin roof. I decided to headdown and return with another load to the hut. Thiswas the wettest and most miserable start to anexpedition ever.

The next day, the sun was splitting the trees as we setout on the long sweaty slog up to the bivvy, via theaptly named Mule Track. On reaching the top of theplateau, a wave of disbelief hit me. I thought plateauxwere flat, but before me, a valley dropped away from aring of heavily twisted and faulted limestone peaks.

Slovenia 1998 - Caving the Imperial Way

Martin McGowan________________________________________________________________

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I tramped down and then back up again to reach thebivvy, located in a very large shakehole that had arock bridge and a snowplugged shaft (M10). All thecaves on the Migovec Plateau were numbered in theorder they were found and each given the prefix M.Over the next few days, we set up camp.

The main system on the Migovec Plateau has threeentrances: M18 (Torn T-shirt), M16 and M2 (KavknaJama). The Imperial use M16, for while M18 was theirdiscovery, it’s a very tight sporting cave. My first tripinto M16 was with Sarah “Scuzzer” Wingrove, a small,hard caver who attacked the cave with vigour. Ourobjective was to help set up the camp by bringingdown the sleeping bags.

The entrance series was easy, although there was alarge amount of loose rocks to dislodge with tacklebags, so I waited for Scuzzer to clear the pitches. Theentrance series after Vhodni Deli contained a series ofannoyingly short crawls, squeezes, climbs and atraverse. At the bottom of Brezho Strahov, weclimbed up into a large passage, ironically namedHotline, for a howling gale was blowing through it andme.

On to the Gladiators’ Traverse, a technical abseil andprussik across a void. Scuzzer forgot to tell me aboutclipping my cowtails into the secondary line, so I flewacross the pit as I stepped off the rock bridge. I passedover a series of large black holes. On the last traverse,‘The Spirit of Elvis’, I noticed some rope damage anddid some quick rerigging. I realised why the traverse

got its name, as I started to suffer from disco leg.Then I launched myself over the abyss to a nearbywall.

Scuzzer and I were going slowly - well, two tackle bagseach didn’t help, especially as they weren’t to bedamaged or got wet. So, at the bottom of Sajeta(nearly - 500m), we decided to dump the bags andhead out.

Coming up XXX, I started to think I was goingslightly mad, as I swore that I could hear musicwafting down the pitch. Maybe it’d been too long atrip. So I continued to prussik to the sound of theFlight of the Valkyries: a surreal experience.

In Bikini Carwash, I bumped into Jan “Jesus” Evettand Tetley having a brew and playing the camp stereo.We all decided that as a first trip, going to camp andback was a bit ambitious, so they joined us and headedback to the surface.

Over the next few days, the underground camp wasset up and I earned a reputation as a chef (notdifficult). Tetley and myself set out on a bounce trip toPawoden (Slovenian for flood) at -575m to look atvarious side passages. At the bottom of XXX, wediscovered a window into a parallel shaft, but left it asthe wall was made of calcite and mud. In Sajeta, wediscovered a rift going off, blocked by boulders, whichon a later trip, Tim “Shed” Wright and I attempted tomove, but to no avail. Meanwhile at Pawoden, Tetleyand I found another rift, this time going off to the

The area visited by the Slovenian expeditions

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north, a first in the cave; after 200m, it ended in a pooland a climb up.

The Slovenians came up and went for the 1000mpoint, in a mega, glory-seeking 24 hour trip.Unfortunately, they broke their only pencil, so theyleft us with a grade 1 survey at the bivvy and the grimjob of surveying it all! It looked as though the bestleads were going deep. But first, a quick trip back toEngland for a friend’s wedding - a brief interlude ofluxury and even more excessive drinking.

Once back on the Migovec Plateau, I went on my firstunderground camping trip, with Jesus, Clewin Griffithand Kathryn Atherton. We had the dubious privilegeof being the first group to test the new, wire ‘deathslide’ tryloean traverse over Gladiators. I flew acrossthe void, the wire giving off ominous creaks andgroans and landed on the other side safely. Getting offthe line involved a careful jiggling and balancing act, toavoid slipping off the landing platform. To remove thepulley from your central mallion, cowtails wereessential to prevent you plummeting down the abyssbeside the landing point.

At XXX, I was just about to abseil when I noticed aserious fray in the rope. I quickly slapped on mycowtails and hand jammer (you can’t be too safe) andgot off the pitch. Luckily, someone had left 70m ofrope at the brew stop, so Katheryn nipped back andgot it. A quick rerig and we headed on down. At camp,we had some rehydrated gloop, snuggled into layers ofwarm, dry Polartec and fell asleep listening toBlackadder: pure luxury.

At 7am, Huggy and Tetley arrived, only to be told thatthe beds belonged to us for another hour, so theykindly made us tea and breakfast. We heard that theSlovenians, Paul “Huggy” and Tetley had hit anothersump at about minus 980m. Eventually we got up andthe others crawled into bed.

Clewin and Kathryn went down to investigate an inletTetley had found before the sump. Jan and I headeddown The Wonderstuff, discovered by the Sloveniansbut not fully surveyed. We did an exciting traverse,using brute force and ignorance, over Porcelain Pitch,with its unique, ammoniac smell. Straddling theremains of a rock arch, I abseiled down a series ofinterestingly rigged, large, dry pitches. Snap gateskarabiners; home-made hangars; no back up; dodgynaturals - the standard for Slovenian rigging, as theirphilosophy was get down and maybe out as quickly aspossible. We found several interesting leads off andnoted them down for the future.

Back to camp and we kipped before going out thenext day. On the way out, we investigated theNorthern Line and rappelled into Elephants’Graveyard. The graveyard is a boulder chokedchamber with several leads. We looked at a rift whichended in a pitch, surrounded by hanging death. While

Jan was bolting the pitch, I dug up into a chamber fullof boulder breakdown. This was left, as no onefancied playing hide and seek in a pile of loose, car sizerocks. Clewin and Katheryn surveyed a glutinous mud-filled rift called Chocolate Moose.

On the way out, we saw a pitch below where we’dcome in. I declined to go down, as there was a six inchcrack in the main ‘wall’ and it was getting late. Goingout, we bumped into Scuzzer, Stephan Pier, and CecileChabot and exchanged news. By the time we reachedSajeta, we were slowing down.

I was about half way up the 85 metre pitch when Iheard a whooshing sound and a cry of BELOW!Something bounced off the rock below me, as I clungto the rope and made love to the rock. I cursedClewin. A minute later, he shouted down somethingabout a jammer and I took part in a strange version ofchinese whispers.

“You want what? Where did you leave it?”

I wondered how you could leave your jammer behind;oh, it must be his spare, I thought. Eventually Ireached the top and found out that Clewin haddropped his hand jammer down the pitch. “D’oh!!.” Itis still a mystery to me why Clewin detached hisjammer from his foot loops.

M ‘Do you have a spare jammer?’C ‘No’M ‘Do you have some spare cord?’C ‘No’M ‘Oh!’

I quickly found a loop of cord.

M ‘Do you know how to use a French Prussik knot?’

C ‘No’M ‘Ah!’

As I was giving a quick lesson in how to do a FrenchPrussik, Kathryn arrived, quickly followed by Jan. Arescue plan formed in my head. I gave Jesus the ‘goodnews’ that he was to head out of the cave as quickly aspossible, while the three of us slowly plodded upExhibition Road to the traverse. Jesus and Kathrynsoon disappeared from sight, while Clewin and Itandem prussiked up the rope. Clewin prussiked forseveral minutes, while I did a few strokes and caughthim up.

At the changeovers, I got nervous because if theprussik cord was dropped, I would have to do a mid-rope rescue and haul Clewin out, plus give him a goodkicking later. Luckily, it didn’t come to that and aboutan hour later, we reached the top. No more rope forme for some time. Phew!

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After a brew and some chocolate, the three of usclambered up Exhibition Road, while Jesus flew out ofthe cave to save us. Our tackle bags helped to warm usin this cold, alpine prison. Mentally, in no time, we hadreached Gladiators, but I know on reflection this wasnot true, as we all struggled up the climbs. I climbedover to the zip line (aka death slide) and pulled myselfacross it. Everything was being done slowly, as fatiguewas taking its toll on the grey cells (or maybe it wasjust more difficult to go up the line).

The plan had been for me to send my hand jammerback with the pulley, so Clewin could get across. Iclipped on my jammer and yelled for Clewin to pull itacross. The pulley moved about a foot and thenstopped. Damn! The string to bring the pulley backhad snapped. So I climbed back down and struggled toretrieve the jammer. I was intensely aware that if I

could not get it or if I dropped it downthe void, then two of us would be stuckin the cave. This intense nervous strugglefinally paid off and I slowly slithered andstumbled up towards Hotline with myfailing carbide.

As I continued on out I kept imagining Iheard someone. Tiredness, coldness andlack of food were taking their toll. Withmy carbide now next to useless, I turnedon my electric for the changeovers andslowly counted off each pitch, crawl, andclimb. Every noise was amplified by myimagination. ‘Ey Ho?’ No, it was justpebbles falling or water dripping.

As I crawled through to Vhodni, I heardthe scree being dislodged and hitting thechamber floor. I abseiled down and sawIain McKenna whizzing down into thechamber on the other rope. He wasilluminated in a halo of carbide, holdingaloof a handled jammer like Arthur withExcalibur: our salvation. We exchangedthe latest information. I slowly went out,struggling on the awkward window at thetop of the last pitch. Eventually, Icrashed in my tent at 3.00am

There were various trips over the nextweeks, but eventually the unavoidabletask of derigging came. On our last trip,the hardcore cavers went in. It was apleasure to come up the Exhibition Roadin a large group, as you could look backto see a string of carbide pearls strung outalong the majestic traverse, contrastingwith the absolute blackness of the pitchesbelow.

Other memories of the trip are waking upto a panorama of mountain tops, with thesun creeping over them; the evenings in

the bivvy making dinner, drinking whatever wasavailable, then stumbling out to watch the stars andhaving them pointed out; the days down in Tolminand relaxing by the unbelievably blue green river.

Adi Hooper aid climbing in the Hall of Justice in Gardeners’ World

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James Hooper drying out at the bivvy campsite after a Gardeners’ World trip

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All year I had been sneaking off on Tuesday nightsfrom WSG pub meets and driving to the Southsidebar to chat to Imperial Caving Club about theirsummer expedition. Usually I dragged James Hooper,Pete Jurd or Tim Wright off, hopping into the Landi(KRN) to hack my way through Whitehall andKnightsbridge, driving in the traditional Londonfashion of only giving way to black hacks and thingswhich were bigger. Porsches and Mercedes ownerswatch out. Once again, KRN was to be despatched toSlovenia, as the Imperial College Union had refused usa minibus. Of course, the Landi did attract the usualcomments about why the number plate had the nameof a famous Slovenian mountain.

So finally, I stepped off the plane at Trieste, anotherRyan air flight that does not quite go where it claimedand headed by train to Slovenia, well to Graziaactually, on the Italian side of the border. Anovernight stay in the luxury of a hotel, before walkingacross the border and catching the bus to Tolmin. Assoon as I stepped off the bus, I was back in the oldroutine of pizza and beer, surrounded by scruffycavers wearing their only ‘clean’ T shirts. So the nextday I jumped into KRN and headed for the Migovicplateau.

As we headed up the mountain, we could see thestorms clouds rolling in; most of the group raced onahead, unencumbered by a mountain of caving kit anda tent. I slogged up the last zigzag to fading daylight,purple hammerhead clouds burning orange on theunderside and occasionally, lightning would dance offthe distance peak of Krn and echo around theTolminski valley. At the top, I was greeted by shoutsfrom the rest of the team as they sat drinking vodkawhile watching Thor’s hammers flash across the sky. Ipushed across the last obstacle of the so called‘plateau’, which with its 300m diameter shakeholes wasanything but flat.

That night, I kipped with Ben Ogborne and ClewinGriffith, due to arriving too late to set up my tent.Their tent was an ancient mountaineering one, whichwas now being held together by duck tape, in trueBlue Peter fashion. As the weather closed in overdinner, we could see we were in for a rough night.Throughout the night, the tent rattled, shook andflapped around as if the only thing holding it to theground was the ballast of three cavers and their gear asthe front of the tent popped in and out of shape.Suddenly in the middle of this battering, a desperatevoice was heard crying in the wilderness outside. Igingerly stuck my head out into the gale, noticing a

large rip in the front of the tent and heard AdrianHooper asking if there was any room in the tent.

“Is this an emergency?” I asked

A stunned Adi kneeled on the ground, head pokingthrough the porch.

“Sorry we have no room” was our response, especiallyas our tent seemed destine to fall apart some time inthe night.

So Adi disappeared into the night, while we patchedthe rip in the porch with gaffer tape and batteneddown the hatches. The next morning I pitched my tenton the only flat piece of ground left; unfortunately itwas also the highest spot around; well, lightening can’tstrike twice. Meanwhile, poor Adi surveyed theremnants of his tent. Adi ended up moving his gearinto my tent and that was the start of the climbingdouble act of the expedition.

At the start of the expedition, we had Gardeners’World at –400m and slowly it was going down. Onone rigging trip in the Urinal Series with Ed Austin, Iarrived to find Hugh Penny and Adi still rigging PistonPitch, as they could not reach the far side. Piston wasthe bogey pitch from last year; it took an awful lot ofwater in flood and had been rerigged several times.The final rig involved a dodgy traverse, then a boldlean of faith over the pitch (even for people over1.8m) to make a Y hang. You then needed anotherperson to help adjust the massive Y hang. Headingdown the pitch, you had to start a pendulum for theSpiderman Deviation placed last year by Jan Evetts. Ittook half an hour of swinging around to rig the pitchand occasionally the rope would twang like the stringof a bass guitar as it hit the side of the pitch. This wastypical of the challenging SRT rigging required to goanywhere deep in Gardeners’ World.

One of the leads from last year was Jelly Chamber,which always colder than the rest of the cave, due tothe draught. Leading off the chamber, we found twoclimbs to the Hunger Series (named after the rumblingof Adi’s stomach) and Judge Dread Series. To get upthese climbs, we needed the petrol drill, but there wereone or two obstacles to overcome first. The mostimportant was a bottle neck of boulders at the top ofLaurel Pitch– even the slim members of the teamfound it tight. So a hit squad was sent into remove thebottleneck.

Slovenia 2001 - the IC3 Expedition

Martin McGowan________________________________________________________________

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At the top of the pitch were Hugh Penny, Ed Austin,myself and ‘El Chorro’ (the drill), while Adi thesmallest and fastest was sent down the pitch to bringup the rope. For several minutes, we struggled with acrowbar, slings and hammers to no avail. Then wethought of winching the boulders out so we drilledtwo anchor points in the boulder and set up a Z rig.Instantly it popped out. This released the genie fromthe bottle and some of the coffee table sized bouldertumbled and rumbled down the 60m pitch. Thememory that sticks out the most in my mind is beingattached by my cow tails to the bolts, hanging over theenlarged pitch head waving a hammer to hit the lastboulder that had become stuck, whileHugh took photographs. This waspure insane destruction. When I re-rigged the rope, all I could find was apile of fist size rocks, all that remainedof several tons of boulders. So nowthe way was free to bring the drilldown.

The Judge Dread Series got the mostattention. The main problem we hadencountered before bringing the drilldown was the rock being so hard.The spit would loose most of its teethwhen you were only half way throughplacing the bolt, hence the need for adrill. The first climb had a bolt placedabout half way up to protect the leadclimber and then there was a bit ofwide bridging until an old roof tubewas gained. This was shuffled alonguntil you could squirm onto the ledgeat the top of the pitch. From here wefollowed the ledge over a scramble ofboulders and into the Hall of Justice.

This was a chamber with two largeprojections in the roof, which lookedlike the scales of justice. A scrambleover a convenient triangular shapedboulder gave us access to a riftheading towards the roof. This wasthe way on we needed, but there wasone more obstacle - we had nothrough bolts at the top camp. So weheaded down to the farm to collectsome through bolts and get some restand relaxation in Tolmin.

Adrian and I had never used throughbolts before, so we were a wee bitapprehensive about using the 8mmbits of metal, especially the shorterones, so we opted for the longest oneswe could find. We finally set off,overloaded with gear: a petrol drill,static rope, dynamic rope, boltinghammer, runners, extenders, camera, plates, searchlight, survey kit and of course a flask of hot chocolate.

We jingled and jangled our way down themountainside and into the cave.

We soon arrived at the Halls of Justice and started toaid climb one of the leads. I led the traverse in theroof on the first part, wide bridging the gap to awedged boulder where I placed the second bolt. Fromthere, I traversed over the gap, wedging myself intoplace. Placed the third bolt and continue out to a ledgewhere another bolt was placed so you could scrambleup onto the Scales of Justice, about 15m above thefloor. At this point I was getting a bit light-headed,either from the exposure to the height or the petrol

fumes, so I let Adi take over the lead. He chimneyedup onto the ledge and then placed two bolts into the

Martin with El Chorro the drill at the head of Laurel Pitch in Gardeners’ World

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roof. The next step had a bold reach across to somerock - at this point, the drill failed. So it was time for afew quick pictures and some hot chocolate, beforeleaving it all for next year, as Adi was heading homethe next day.

Over the next few weeks, Gardeners’ World madesteady progress, even though we now had a smallerteam. It was noticeable that a bounce trip to – 400m+was taking a toil on the team. The old lags Ian McKenna, Jim and Mark Evans turned up and bolted alarge pitch called Zimmer that James and Andy Jurdhad just found. With the derig looming, James tookTomas, one of Slovenian cavers, down on a final trip,for a final push. When they came back, they revealed astunning find of 400m of horizontal passage at thebottom of Zimmer. Once again the expedition wasbuzzing with excitement and my derig trip was now apushing trip. Dave Wilson and I headed down forFriendship Gallery.

The first lead we looked at was Leopard, which Ipendulumed into. It was a short mud covered, 3 metrewide passage ending in a large pitch, but nowherecould we see a solid point to belay off. Poking arounda few holes in the floor off Friendship gallery, wenoted the passageway would be an ideal place for acampsite - water nearby and a flat floor. Dave droppedhis generator’s base down one shaft, so we wereforced to go down the pot and survey it: a nice cleanwashed rift with two waterfalls coming into it. So thiswas the Falls Road or Slap Pot; in my view, the way onby passing the muddy pitch heads at the end of theFriendship Gallery, but only time will tell.

Back at Friendship Gallery, we met Pete and hisbrother Andy who been pushing a muddy freezingshaft. The trip out was memorable, for as we reachedPiston it was noticeably wet and Laurel was acontinuous shower. Throughout the entrancechamber, you could hear the rumble of thunder. Justas I got out of the cave, there was a blinding flash andloud bang, far too close for comfort. Dave and Petehad already gone and so with Andy, I ran for the bivi.Lightening danced all around the peaks of the cirque.The way back was a stroboscopic run in blue whitelight. At the bivi, Pete was doing a mean impression ofClint Eastwood with a gristled beard and poncho,while Dave whistled up some food as the rainpounded on the tarpaulins and overflowed into thebarrels.The rest of the team had retreated to their tents. Thatnight I realised why North Face tents are worth theirweight in gold, as my one had stood up to a batteringfrom gusting winds coming over the ridge. The nextmorning, the area around where we were camping hadseveral new burnt areas from lightening strikes near tothe tent. Luckily, dwarf pine is better at attractinglightening than tents.

The other non-caving memories of the trip werewaking up at 6.30 in the morning - somewhere in thedistance, I could hear a murmur of chud-chud whirl ofhelicopter blades. As I crawled through the door ofthe tent to relieve myself, I could swear the noise wasgetting louder. The bass thud and whirl of the bladeswas resonating inside my hungover head. Just as Ilooked up, a Huey swept over my tent. I instinctivelyducked; this was all down to having a bright yellowtent in the National Park, where normally camping isprohibited. On a clear day, the tent could be seen fromall the surrounding peaks.

Overall, the expedition had its highs and lows, whichis to be expected over a period of 6 weeks, butnonetheless, Slovenia is still a great place to go.Besides the caving, there are loads of adventure sportsto do, from canoeing to paragliding, all of which canbe tried out at a reasonable cost from one of the manyextreme sports providers.

Further News

2003

When we returned on the next expedition in 2003 IC3

continued bolting down the muddy slope with somehelp from two Slovenians, Robert and Bogomir,armed with a sky hook . Meanwhile, Slap Pot turnedout not to be the way on. They had found the BigRock Candy Mountain – ironically named after thesong on the camp tape because there was nothingsweet about it.

From the bottom of this, we discovered a longhorizonal section of cave. I had one trip down thisquite old pheratic passage with Brain. After strollingalong the passage and putting in a few lengths of shortrope over 3m free climbs, we reached a pitch.

I arranged an interesting traverse out to the pitchhead, as we were using natural belays to speed up thedescent. After landing on the floor, I could not helpnoticing the passage was no longer horizontal but wasdistinctly U shaped – like an old siphon. I walkedabout 10m from the base of the pitch and could seethat this impressive passage had shrunk down to an8cm gap with a howling draught coming through it.

Brain arrived and both our hearts sunk, for at a depthof 800m and a few weeks to go, we had killed the lead.But then Brain noticed the floor was only sand, so hestarted to dig it out with his Stop. It was a mad idea,but then digging usually is at –800m. Could we dig outenough sand to crawl through? Being the slimmer one,I got into the small gap we had created and started tokick out the sand to the side. After a short period(well, you hardly notice time passing when you haveexploration fever), I was through and it continued. Itgot bigger, there was a junction, it got unbelievable.Then I remembered that we had to survey it.

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It was like having a bucket of cold water thrown overyour fireworks. We were back to reality with a bang.So we started from the junction, now called Red CowRoundabout after a famous pub/traffic island inDublin and worked our way back. We would surveythe stuff on from the junction the next day after anight in camp. The next ‘morning’, we started thedescent down the Big Rock Candy Mountain, withBrian leading the way. At the first short pitch, he couldnot open his Stop - something had jammed in thecatch. Despite various attempts to bash out the sand,we were thwarted. Evenually we got the message thatwe were not going down but heading out.

So about turn and off to Zimmer. Brian again wentfirst, while I waited in the shelter of Friendship Galleryas he slogged up the wet bit of Zimmer. All too soon Iwas on the rope. Just as I got to the rebelay, I heardBrain shouting about something.

“The rope what?” I said.

“The rope is damaged, the sheaf is cut but it is OK”came the reply.

Oh! I thought, as I had visions of hanging on by asingle strand. Then a few minutes later, Brian said hewas at the top and the rope was free, but just be

careful.This placed me in a dilemma. Brain says it’s OK, so doI go up, or do I go back to camp and wait severalhours for the next team, in the vain hope that theyhave brought more rope into the cave? I decided to goup - being stuck in a muddy draughty camp had noappeal. I had had enough, I wanted some daylight.

I can’t really say what I thought as I ascended therope. I remember singing loudly to block out variousthoughts about plummeting to my death. For once, itwould be a blessing to have no imagination. Well, aftergingerly going up the rope to the cut, I could clearlysee the rock projection that had snagged the rope andcaused Brian to saw through most of the sheath. OnceI had passed the damaged section, I was full of thejoys of spring, as the dread lifted from my mind. Aquick slash of the knife, several knots in the end andthe rope was no longer an issue, although now therewas no way down to the lead. On the way out, webumped into Clewin and Jan and told them the badnews. Although they did not have rope on them, theyknew that there was some on another lead a fewpitches back. So we wished them all the best andheaded for the surface.

Martin demonstrating how not to take a Landrover across the Soca River

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2004

This year, we pushed the horizontal section of thecave after Red Cow Roundabout, using a pleasantcamp called the Fridge, as the fridge thermometer saidit was 1c . The main issue became the fact that wewere discovering hundreds of metres of dry, sandypassage and with no water around, we couldn’t movethe camp closer to the pushing face.

We focussed on the area to the left of Red CowRoundabout, as this pushed the horizontal section ofthe cave north towards a nearby peak, Tolimski Kuk.There was talk about getting under Kuk and on to theKammo plateau on its far side . Looking back on it, itfelt like we could reach infinity and beyond, as therewere kilometres of barren limestone betweenourselves and Triglav to the north, about 2 days walkaway. Although I went down to the right of Red CowRoundabout, this lead got ignored. It was not helpedby Tim and I disappearing from the expedition, Timto catch a plane, whilst I walked to Triglav. Only at theend when Tetley and Clewin were derigging did it get asecond look. Again, they reported a storming lead.

2005

This year, we focused mainly on surface leads andshallow pushes, as the team was lacking in experiencedmembers to go deep and run a camp. Over the years Ihave been on expeditions with Imperial and theSloveneans of JSPTD, we have built up an excellentrelationship with the local community, both caversand non cavers, and this is one of the reasons we keepon returning. Of course, we still dream of uniting theMig System with Gardeners’ World and making it thelongest in Slovenia and knocking Postojna off the topspot. The only certain thing I know about the MigovicPlateau is that with three large caves under it, it doesseem like a block of Swiss cheese. As for the future,who knows; maybe we will be back in 2007.

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In December 1997, I was approached by JamesHooper and Jim Evans, caving friends from London.They asked me if I fancied a new caving area. “Ofcourse,” I replied, “What do you have in mind?”

“Ethiopia”

Once I had got up off the floor and dusted my clothesdown, I laughed for a bit. “But Ethiopia is a barren,flat country with no food or water and a lot ofpotential for building sand-castles. Why there?”

There were two good reasons for this particularcountry: 1) Jim’s brother Mark and his wife JackieEvans were going to be out there for 2 years withVSO and they would be able to do some research forus, and; 2) there had been an expedition out there in1978 with some interesting results. That was enoughfor me.

We decided that a group of three was an ideal numberto safe travel (oh, yes) and reduced the risk of gettinglost in crowds or failing to get all your kit into one car.

Friday 20th MarchI arrived in Heathrow at around 17:00, flight at 21:30,so there was plenty of time to get some ales downbefore the flight. At 19:15 Jim Evans and JamesHooper turned up (15min before check-in) with thetickets and the passports. It was then that we realisedthat this trip was really happening and this was thefirst time we had met up as a team.

Saturday 21st MarchDuring the 8-hour flight south to Ashmra and then onto Addis Ababa, we were accompanied by a group of27 American dental students, who were travelling outto an area west of Addis to assist in the building of anew wing on a hospital. ‘Brickies and labourers’ - Ithink not. One in particular, who was sitting next tome during the flight, spent half her time flossing andcrapping herself every time the plane even shuddered.

We had to learn fast in Addis; firstly do not pay for ataxi in the airport (5 times the price of a private one).Secondly, do not allow anyone even to look at yourbags (they will want a tip). We met up with ageological student outside the airport who we hadstumbled upon by accident by sending an e-mail to theuniversity asking if anyone from Addis had anyinterest in caving. He replied that he was notinterested, but he knew of some caves and he wouldmeet us at the airport. He did and he then acted as anexcellent guide around Addis.

The main priority was to move up country, so we hadto buy some tickets for the local bus service. Ourguide helped out with the language barriers andexplained to us that the bus journey would be anexperience to be remembered.

Sunday 22nd MarchWe arose from our hotel beds at 04:30 in order tomake the 06:00 bus. We were told that the bus stationwould be very busy, so it would be useful to tip thetaxi driver enough to take us direct to our bus. Whenwe arrived at the station, an area of about 100msquare, with at least 40 buses lined up and severalthousand people trying to buy tickets for the limitednumber of seats to each destination. There was noway that we would have found the bus without somehelp.

We found our bus, an Italian 48-seater and it was inquite good condition. We had to pay extra to put ourrucksacks on the roof and then we grabbed someseats. The cost of the 2-day journey and the extrabaggage was about 10bir each, that is about £1. It wasstrange that the back seats were empty, but we foundout the reason a little later on, when the tarmacfinished and the graded surface began. We werecontinuously bounced off our seats; by at least metreand a half on some occasions.

We made our way slowly north, up through thecountry towards Desay, which was to be our overnightstop. En route, we passed a group of squadies lookingvery confused and trying to work out how they wouldexplain to their colonel why they had parked theirarmoured car upside down and half submerged in apool of water!

The bus would stop every 3 hours or so for a legstretch and a chance to buy some sugarcane or softdrinks from one of the many villages en route. Peoplewere very surprised to see us. The impression that wegot was that tourists did not use the bus service andthat they normally flew up the country in an hourinstead of a two and a half day marathon.

We made good friends with many people on the buswho wanted to practise their English. This helped uswhen we drove straight through Desay, our scheduledstop, and were told that there was still daylight left, sowe decided to try for the next village before nightfall.

We pulled up in Hike, a small village at about 2300maltitude and which survives on a lake stocked with fish,which is about a 2km hike away. Our new-found

Ethiopia 98 - “a little more than a caving expedition...”

Bob Kynaston________________________________________________________________

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friends helped us find a hotel and a place to eat. Ameal for four people was based around Injura, a crossbetween a pancake and a soggy dishcloth and tastedslightly of vinegar. This was the base to all Ethiopianfood which would then have a assortment of curry,potato, meat and fish put on top of it. The meal cameto 15bir, (about £1.50), while our hotel rooms werealso 15bir each.

Monday 23rd MarchSetting off at 5:30 in the morning for the next part ofour journey up to Mychew, where we hoped to join upwith Mark and Jackie. The journey was amazing, upand down the most fantastic roads and passes. Onehill in particular was a pass that climbed up around1000m in as little distance with hair-raising bends andno crash barriers: the Italians sure knew how to buildgood roads.

Arrived in Mychew, which was at about 2500maltitude, at around midday and soon found theTechnical School where Mark and Jacky wereteaching. After some tea and biscuits, they gave us atour of the town. Big mistake - we were now a groupof 5 ferengeys, attracting children like sweets. By thetime we reached the monument on the top of a nearbyhill, we reckoned we had around 150 kids at our feet -the curiosity factor just drove them mad. A quickretreat through a cactus patch and an internal stonefight between the older kids soon dispersed the crowd,to our relief.

Wednesday 25th MarchUp at 04:00 again to catch the local bus service. Thiswas to be a 4-5 hour run up to Mekeley, the capital ofthe Tigray province, which was mainly limestone.Mark had made a great contact for us in Mekeley. Hegot in touch with a small-time mining outfit calledAshinti Goldfields, which proved to be of great value.We met with Ken Douglas (Irish), Keron (Ethiopian)and Roberto (Italian) of Ashinti in an office litteredwith geological maps, aerial photographs, satelliteimages and plenty of rock samples for paper weights.They were all very helpful, showing us areas wheremajor faults cut across big gorges and how accessiblethe areas were.

The next thing we needed was permission to look atthe geological features in the area. Ashinti to therescue - they set up a meeting for us for the followingmorning with The Minerals and Energy Departmentfor Tigray.

Thursday 26th MarchMet with Kerios (another one) at the MineralsDepartment after being dropped off by one of theAshinti Land Cruisers. Not knowing what type ofresponse we would get from him, we gave a smallpresentation of everything that we had found outabout the area, which was quite a lot, but we explainedthat we were not being paid or anything and the onlygain was to be a sense of personal achievement.

The maps came out - first an impressive 100,000:1geological map and then three 50,000:1 area mapswhich we would later be given permission to buy, but

The area visited by the expedition

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for the meantime we could borrow and copy, whichwere great for field use. He also gave us a letter ofpermission for access to the whole area and pointedout a gorge that should be of some interest to us,intersected by 2 faults. We thought that we hadachieved quite a lot and then he gave us a guide for theday who knew that particular area and spoke goodEnglish.

We walked the 2km back to town on a high. Back atAshinti, we told Kerios of the new situation and thatwe would have to hire a 4WD to get to the area. Hepulled a couple of strings and got an old Land Roverfor 330bir for the day as opposed to an air-conditioned Land Cruiser for 600bir. That night wewent out quite chuffed with our achievements.

Friday 27th MarchOur Land Rover which was meant to meet us at 08:00appeared at 09:00. But first we had to find a garagewith electricity on in order to buy some petrol andthen we collected our guide for the day (whose name Ididn’t write down).

Heading north east from Mekeley for about 20km to avillage called MaiMeckeden (Mai meaning water), wewere quickly introduced to the elder of the communityand shook his hand well. Next we were led to thebase of the village, past a couple of sunbathing dogsand over a wall. Down the bank a few yards, there wasa lot of limestone exposed on the side and it washeavily covered in stal. A little later, we stooped into acave that was being used as a storeroom. It washeavily decorated and measured about 2m high. Thefront was about 4-5m long and it went back about 4minto the bank, where several small tubes oozed tufaand stal.

We then continued climbing down the cliff to the baseof a small gorge, about 3m wide and 7-8m high. Asmall resurgence at the base produced a trickle ofwater. About 100m down the gorge, we came across aplunge pool which was about 3m in diameter. Thelocal who was with us said the pool never dried up andit was 5m deep: also, there was a small arch that youcould duck under to a small cave on the other side.The water was green with algae, and the amount of lifein it would have kept David Bellamy busy for years, sowe decided to take the locals’ word for the cave.

Our guide took us out of the gorge at this point, as wewere told that it would be easier to walk along the topto the next point of interest. Walking for about 2 km,following a larger gorge about 25-30m deep and wide,we were led down the side to a large alcove. This wasdraped in a massive stal curtain and covered inflowstone, but any possible ways on were blocked offby the same stal deposits.

Nevertheless we continued down the gorge foranother 2km or so, until we came across one of thefaults cutting N-S across the E-W gorge. On one side,

a big rubble slope went off into the distance, while onthe other side, there was a small building at the base ofa 20m high cliff with a 1m high bedding plane in it,and an obvious gully which must produce water atsome time or other. But alas, this was a holy place andwe were forbidden to go up to the cliff.

The rest of the gorge had little else to offer us so weheaded back. The guide from the Energy Departmentsuggested that we might be interested in a 120m highwaterfall to the south of Mekeley, which an Americanhad climbed a couple of years ago. We made our wayover to Dubi, a small village situated about 7km to thesouth of Mekeley, where we sat down for a while in asmall arboretum that had had a fair amount of moneyspent on it to try and grow different types of trees andshrubs: it seemed to have been quite successful.

Undeterred, we returned to our vehicle and grabbedour SRT kits and rope. The paraphernalia andaccoutrements of SRT amused the locals a lot. Werigged the pitch and rappelled down to a largeplatform with a round burial mound in the middle ofit. Directly behind it were several entrances to cave-passages, the small chambers in the caves being about3m high and 5m long. There had at one time been astone wall built around the front of the cave and theroof was stained with what looked like tar and sootdeposits from fires. The back of the cave was veryinteresting; there had been small alcoves carved out ofthe back wall, which according to the local priest wereused as a storage place for archives from Axum duringthe Muslim invasions in the 14th century. The onlypossible routes off were all choked up with stal andflowstone, which was a pity, but the find was still ofgreat significance.

The waterfall was just below the village and it wasquite impressive. It headed a gully which was about100m wide near the back end and then widened out toa large valley after about 250m. We talked to thevillage elders and the priest, asking them if they knewof any bati (caves) and after some amount ofdiscussion between them, we were led down a bank toa point where we could see an entrance about 10mdown the cliff face. This was a holy site and had notbeen accessible to anyone for a number of years, dueto the difficulty of the climb down to the entrance.

Saturday 28th MarchWe decided that the area around Mekely was of someinterest to us, but our best chance of finding any cavewould be to move about 50km north west to HargraveSalam, where we had been in contact with a Belgiangeologist called Jan. He was studying soil erosion andits effects. We decided to spend this day in Mekelyrecovering, eating doughnuts, drinking beer andchewing on sirloin steaks.

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Sunday 29th MarchUp at 04:30 in order to catch the local bus. We werelooked at a bit oddly when we asked for the bus toHargrave Salam, because basically, this is not a touristspot and no-one in their right mind would even wantto go there, apart from a trio of mad speleologists ofcourse. After a painful 4hr bus journey to cover the50km, we arrived at our location.

This small village was situated on the side of a hill, at2630m altitude and with a population of about 1500.We were soon surrounded by hundreds of people. Thesight of white people was extremely rare and theinterest we generated was amazing. After some smallcommunication problems, we found the Hotel Tegray(aka Hotel flea pit). We soon found a couple of kidswho wanted to practise their English - they showed uswhere Jan lived, but unfortunately he was out. So, withplenty of the day remaining, we went for the jugularand asked if the lads knew of any caves - they said yes,so we set out.

To my disappointment, we went north. My researchhad told me we had to go south, but what the hell. Wewalked for about 4km and eventually came acrosssome sandstone caves that had been used in 1990 bythe Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front as aheadquarters. From there, they master- minded thewar against the government forces and won! The caveshad been excavated out of the sandstone and severalbrick barracks had been built in them. There weremany maps and plans laid out which the TPLF had

used during the war. The quality was quite impressive,but what do you expect from American Satellite maps.

We tried to explain to our guides that we were afternatural caves and not artificial holes. They decided totake us to another area. To my satisfaction, we headedback to the village and then started heading south eastin the direction of the big limestone valley. From thetop of the valley, we could see several intersections ofgorges and gullies stretching out into the distance, butthe sheer size of this area was going to prove to be abig challenge, as the base of the valley was over 800mbelow us.

Standing on the top of a sandstone cliff about 25mhigh, we could see that it wound around the northwest side of the valley for several hundred metres. Bynow, we had gathered another crowd of childrenfrom the village, which was situated above the cliff.There many children eager to show us entrances alongthe cliff, although being in sandstone, we could hardlyrefuse the offer.

The first of the entrances were just small solutionpockets and then, as they lead us round one of theledges about 10m down from the top of the cliff, wecame across a bedding plane about 10m wide and0.5m high, which had been blocked by boulders beingstacked across the entrance. Quick as a flash, weremoved a helmet and light from our bag and startedto pull away some of the boulders to gain access to thecave.

A cave at MaiMeckeden

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The children warned us not to enter this cave as adragon lived inside, so of course we continued as anymad caver would. Just inside the entrance, we founddragon food! This was in the shape of an ox’s head,the remains of a ribcage and one and a half legs.Outside the passage, the children were now begging usto come out of the cave, as it was too dangerous. Atthis point, a small snake passed in front of me byabout a couple of metres. Okay, the kids have a point,maybe another day.

We retired from the cave, placing boulders back overthe hole that we had made. The children then took usup to the top of the cliff and down a dodgy bankcovered in very short grass. After a very nerve rackingfew minutes, an entrance became obvious. It was righton the rim of the cliff. The hole was about 2m wideand 1m high and draughting like mad - this had to beinteresting. Instead, it turned out to be just a shortconnection to another entrance.

Later that day, we returned to Hargrev Salam andmanaged to meet up with Jan. The information that hehad to offer was great. He produced a section throughthe valley which showed that the limestone beds werehorizontal and were 700m deep. Jan also pointed outareas that would be of interest to us and helped us tofind a suitable guide.

Monday 30th MarchAfter a good breakfast of scrambled eggs, we set outin a southerly direction from Hargrev Salam. Afterabout 7-8km, we asked our interpreter to quiz one ofthe local priests to see if they knew of any caves.There seemed to be a fair amount of discussion goingon and finally we were led off further south and up theside of the valley.

Once again, we were taken to more sandstone caves,but these caves did have Dragons in them! Theentrances were about 4-5m wide and 2m high; they allwent back for about 5-6 m and then tapered down to a0.5m high passage. A rumbling noise was heard in theback of one of the caves and the abundance ofporcupine quills in the entrances was enough to tell usto abandon this area quickly.

We next headed back down the valley to go to one ofthe sites that Jan had mentioned. En route, we cameacross a small school and a clean water storage project.A little further down the valley, there was a buildingthat housed a new engine and a corn mill. This hadbeen put here about three months earlier and stillneeded to be set up: yes, it was very tempting. Here,we picked up a second guide, who came armed with akalashnikov for little reassurance and protection fromany bandits - he was great.

The resurgence was an oasis of life. It was amazingthat so much life just appeared as soon as watersprung from the ground. We found several cavesaround this point. One in particular was at the base of

a waterfall. The cave was littered in guana and thepotential of histoplasmosis was considerable. We triednot to disturb much of the guana, but it was verydifficult.

The cave was about 20m long and went up about 6-8m, until it finally finished in a calcite choke. The sameblock of limestone also had many small alcoves andtunnels. Unfortunately they were all blocked afteronly a few metres. The residents of the caves did notseem to mind us looking at them; they were quite largebats about 15cm from foot to nose.

We were next taken to another resurgence a littlelower down the valley. This was coming out from thebase of a cliff which was found to have a large cleftbehind, but we did not have enough gear to climbdown it and the day was getting on, so we decided toturn around and head back home.

Tuesday 31st MarchUp at 05:00 again. The plan today was to do a roundtrip incorporating a small village called Mia Bati (watercave), about a 10km walk away from base. Jan hadsuggested a good route down to this area. Our guidehad other ideas for route finding, which meantspending several hours climbing down loose dirt androck faces. As the morning progressed, I started to feela little under the weather, but thought nothing of it.

Arrived at the village, but there was no sign of water,apart from a dried up river bed and a few murkypools. We followed the river bed down for aboutanother 1km and came across a waterfall about 30mhigh and 50-60m wide, cutting through the limestoneand riddled with holes. James and Jim went off to takea closer look while I sat back in a shaded spot, nowfeeling pretty ill. Even with an air temperature in the90s, I had goose bumps on my arms and felt quitechilled.

I dozed for a few hours, but I was not improving, soJames decided that it would not be wise to continue tothe next area, which was some way off. We started towalk back up the valley towards base, about 12km and500m above us. The heat of the day was just too muchfor me. I had to keep stopping to rest and now mybowels decided to react in a very violent way aboutevery fifteen minutes.

We were able to find some shelter from the middayheat in a farm house. There, I dozed for about another3 hours before we set off again. The final leg was toomuch for me. By this stage, all my energy was goneand the steepest part of the track was yet to come.

Jim, James, our guide and a couple of locals helped tosupport me up the hill and even along the flat section.When we reached the road, a passing Land Cruisergave me a lift for the last 6-7 km back to the village.My condition worsened through the night and nomatter how much re-hydrate I drunk or Imodium I

70

took, there was no improvement. The only option wasto travel back to Mekele and get medical help.

Wednesday 1st April (not much of a fools day)After a rough, sleepless night, we caught a bus back toMekele, where we met up with an Australian doctorwho managed to sort out an appointment with aspecialist. After a good prodding, bits of me weretaken away to be sampled. The diagnosis was‘histolytica entamoeba’, better known as ‘amoebicdysentery’. The treatment was a course of tablets tokill the parasite, followed by antibiotics to heal anydamage.

The next couple of days went very slowly andpainfully, but James and Jim were great, sorting out aninternal flight back to Addis for me and just generallylooking after me. I flew back to Addis on the Fridayafternoon and found a small hotel there, where I couldcrash out the following day until my flight left.

To sum it up, Ethiopia was an amazing country withsome great people, but you would have to visit it toget an impression what it’s really like. From the cavingpoint of view, the area we visited has huge potentialand I believe that it needs looking at a little closer.

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“Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy,and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; whoexpect that age will perform the promises of youth,and that the deficiencies of the present day will besupplied by the morrow; attend to the history ofRasselas, prince of Abyssinia.” Samuel Johnson,Rasselas, 1759.

We stood in the final chamber, filled with awe andtrepidation. A dream had come true, against the odds.But what would come next? A ray of light shone downfrom above, illuminating the huge cavern. Thealmighty unknown lay ahead, overcoming the heat anddiscomfort.

A sharp jolt brought me to my senses. I was now on abus filled with Ethiopians chatting, gesticulating,smiling at the other two British people, Jim Evans andBob Kynaston, heading north on the dirt road fromAddis. I was not underground. I was not IndianaJones. Nor, au grand serieux, a Knight Templar. Ihadn’t just found the lost Ark of the Covenant.

That was, I suppose, how it started though. The ark(or tabot) is believed to be in Ethiopia, or Abyssinia asthe country was once known. We had done ourresearch. We had also read James Bruce’s account ofan 18th century expedition to this land to locate thesource of the Nile, “two fountains that had no issue inthe plain at the top of the mountain but flow from thefoot of it.”

This initial interest in the country had led Jim’s brotherMark to teach there for V.S.O. I was caught up in theexcitement, enthralled with the enthusiasm.Limestone, we discovered, lay in the mountains in thenorth and had never been thoroughly reconnoitred bycavers. There were 800m thick bands of limestone and4000m high mountains which towered up above theannual clouds. Could we, at the very least, discover anew cave system?

The unknown lay ahead overcoming the heat anddiscomfort of a ten hour journey at an average speedof twelve kilometres per hour. Outside, the luscious,green countryside provided continual visual delights. Iwas content, munching sugar cane, listening to therecorded, rhythmic beats and undulating notes of alocal musician, on the road again with my helmet andtorch.

We stayed with Mark and his wife Jackie for a coupleof days. Went for walks with over a hundred localchildren for company. Local food was hot, and spicy,

served on injera, a flat spongy bread with the localdrink, tella, a ‘beer’ made from maize. The localmarket sold everything from sandals made out of tyresto stoves created from EC oil containers.

All the local customs, dress and dance were verydistinct and took a while to assimilate. We also tried tofind out more about the fable of an ancient tunnelfrom Axum to Eritrea that was related to us by anumber of people. The story goes that two menentered this tunnel and while passing through it, oneman picked up a handful of sand. On exiting, hefound the sand had turned to gold. They couldn’treturn to the tunnel (I can’t recall why). One mancursed himself for not bringing out any sand, while theother was angry and disappointed that he hadn’t takemore.

The tunnel had never been found (it would be severalhundred kilometers long and could make someonevery rich) and though we couldn’t find out anythingmore, such talk of caves and large discoveries quicklyled to a feeling that we should continue our quest. Wethus headed north again, to limestone, to Mekele, tothe inevitable bureaucracy of a reconnaissance,permits, meetings with officials and geologists, thesearch for maps and information amid a friendly,bustling, dusty town.

In the end we found very little. By a normal definitionof find, that is. But numbers, metres, depth, planlengths and survey stations, I was surprised todiscover, can mean little. I was standing at the top of a100-metre waterfall. Local priests, dressed in white,had told us via a translator that a cave lay halfwaydown the cliff. They hadn’t been inside or even to theentrance. No one had, as far as they knew, for severalhundred years, since documents and sacred relics fromas far away as Axum (100 km away) had been stashedthere during the Christian-Muslim wars (1528-60).Their information had been passed down by oraltradition, from generation to generation.

As I helped rig a Y-hang, before an audience of vastnumbers of children and villagers, I was as excited asI’d be finding huge underground rivers and sailingunexplored lakes, bolting 130m pitches and emerginginto huge decorated chambers. I attached my well-travelled descender and abseiled down to a ledge.Behind me, Jim pointed to a rock shelter going backabout five metres. Evidence of an ancient wall thatbricked off the entrance could be seen. At the back ofthe alcove, we observed several shelves that had beencarefully chiselled into the wall and obviously used to

Buses, dragons and churches - Ethiopia 1998

James Hopper________________________________________________________________

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store something valuable. This, we realised, in alllikelihood confirmed the stories of the orthodoxclergy. A fascinating piece of history had been foundin which caves played an important part. It was quitepossible that we were the first Europeans to stand inthis awesome location, with water crashing downbehind us and spectacular views of a long, deep gorge.

We saw caves, artificially enlarged, that were used bythe Liberation Army during the civil war. Our torchesilluminated maps on the wall showing strategicpositions. We sweated down a large valley to theoccasional cries of unseen monkeys, to discover small,decorated grottoes where prehistoric man may oncehave dwelt.

We were warned by frightened youngsters thatdragons lurked in another series of caves. Longquivers lay outside the entrances and peering inside, Icould discern a forebidding pile of skulls and bones. Icrawled in, intrigued, apprehensive. Perusing into theblackness, I caught a glimpse of something shuffling inthe passage beyond. I lay still, listening over thedouble beat of my heart. Then I saw it. A ‘dragon’, alarge porcupine-type creature. Slowly, I beat a cautiousretreat.On another occasion it was Bob who inched out of asmall cave, feet first, to be confronted by a farmerwith a Kalashnikov. We tried to explain in signlanguage and unsurprisingly, failed. We produced ourpermission paper that we hoped said something like“please give these speleologists any assistance theyrequire”, but he was unable to read. So into the village

we were led to find someone who could explain.

So, in the conventional sense, we chanced upon verylittle but experiences, stories, interesting places andpeople, well off the beaten track, This produced agrowing realisation, to me at least, that we werediscovering a veritable cornucopia of finds.

We awoke, once again, at about five in the morning. Igroped in the darkness to light a candle in my dollar-a-night hotel room, made from mud with a corrugatediron roof. I could still smell the nauseous scent of thepetrol-based spray that I used to kill the bed bugs thenight before. After a quick pit stop (literally!) I calledto Jim and Bob and packed my rucksack with cavingkit, bottles of puri-tabbed water, a first-aid kit andother essentials. We then met with a local guide thatwe had encountered the previous day, ate some foodand left Hagre Salem (the land of peace) before dawn.The whole village was beginning to stir, goatherdswere calling their animals, hot coals being used to re-light hearths.

We walked at a fast pace for three hours, watching thesky turn from black to blue via the whole range ofgreys, pinks and purples. The land here was not as lushas that seen to the south but harsh and rugged, withthin vegetation and little surface water. It waspredominantly limestone and we had worked out on amap the areas we were interested in. The heat rosewith the sun and it quickly became hot, ‘too hot!,damned hot’.

An Ethiopian church in a cave alcove

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Soon after our white faces surprised a local child, Bobdeclared that he was tired and needed to rest. Welocated a shady spot on the banks of a dry riverbedand I immediately made use of the time to investigate,climbing around a ten metre drop to search for caves.Nothing. Returning to Bob after a hair-raising climbup a well calcited cliff, I realised that he really was notwell. We slowly made our way back towards HagreSalem, but the heat and effort was clearly too much.We eventually (much time, short distance) came to ahamlet consisting of a few mud huts. There, a womenwith features that reflected the landscape led us intoher home, a small hut with thatched roof in thetraditional style. Clay pots stored the labours of theprevious harvest.

We lay down on animal hides to wait until it becamecooler. Bob alternated between sweating and shiveringand it dawned on me just how isolated we were. Hehad been touched by fever and was becomingdehydrated despite drinking considerable quantities ofwater. Finally we knew we had to leave, and so began aslow walk with stops every fifty or so yards. Jim and Isupported him on each side. Daylight and toilet paperwere fast running out. I ran to the dirt road that only ahandful of vehicles used each day and was lucky towave down a car.

Bobby got a lift back to the village while Jim and Iwalked for an hour and a half to our hotel. A terriblenight followed for Bob and only he can describe whatit was truly like. The next day we travelled by bus forfour hours to Mekele, to the nearest doctors andhospital.

Bob flew back to Britain several days later with one ofthe V.S.O. people to look after him. Jim and I, with athird week left, returned to visit Mark and Jackie for afew days. We had a 4000m high mountain to climb,Booka. A four-hour walk in the afternoon led up to avillage at about 3500m, complete with a Copticchurch. I coughed, wheezed and spluttered all day(having somehow caught bronchitis) as women passedus with huge loads on their backs. I was enjoying everyminute though; the country indeed had an infectiousspirit.

We had planned to camp and then reach the summitthe following morning, but once again we were forcedto succumb to the customary hospitality of theEthiopians. We ended up squeezing into a mud hutwith an elderly couple for an uncomfortable night.The next morning we woke up early and set off. As wegained in altitude, I found it harder to breathe andbecame disorientated, dizzy and lethargic. I knew Iwould not make it to the top, so lay down and fellasleep in the sun waiting for the others to return andwondering if this was some form of altitude sickness.

The following day we hitched a lift on a lorry,stopping after an hour to become inebriated with thedriver on tej, (mead made from honey), then driving

on to a small town. We later found out that the drivergot run over minutes after saying goodbye. I was morefortunate - having taken a very cheap course ofantibiotics, my cough had cleared up. After a night’ssleep, we caught a bus that only just seemed to travelfaster than the camel trains carrying salt from thedeserts in the south of the country.

Wild craggy mountains and vast rocky escarpmentseventually provided the backdrop to the strikinglysingular town of Lalibela, one of the world’s best-keptsecrets. We were there to see the monolithic rock-hewn churches and nothing could have prepared mefor them. Carved below ground level in the 12thcentury (some say by over 40,000 people, thoughlocals claim it was done in a day by angels, with St.George somehow being involved) the churches werebig. Ringed by trenches and courtyards, they wereconnected to each other by a tangled subterraneanmaze of tunnels and passages. To anyone who hadspent hours digging a boulder choke or clearing ablocked passage, the place was truly awesome. It wasimpossible to avoid thoughts of supernaturalintervention and Knights Templar and seekers of theHoly Grail.

Wandering between the churches in the thin light ofmorning mass, white-robed hermits emerged bible-in-hand from their underground cells, the chill highlandair warmed by their gentle swaying chants. We entereda candle-lit church and were led to an opening behindthe altar. A natural cave passage led on into themountain. And we finally gained a huge chamber witha ray of light shining down from above. The unknownlay ahead. And a jolt brought me to my senses. I wasunderground, on the Piccadilly line, heading home.

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Expedition Members:Jim Evans (ICCC / NPC)Bob Kynaston (NWCC / WSG)James Hooper (OUCC / WSG / ICCC)

References:Hancock, Graham: Sign and the Seal, Published byMandarin (1995)Briggs, Philip: Guide to Ethiopia, Bradt Publications(1997)Pankhurst, R : Caves in Ethiopian History, EthiopianObserver XIV (1) 1973 pp15-31Caplin D. (Ed): The Caves of Ethiopia, 1972 BritishSpeleological Expedition to Ethiopia, TransactionsCRG Vol. 15 No. 3 pp 107-168 September (1973)Evans, Jim* : Ethiopia ‘98 In search of the Holy Grail,Imperial College CC Journal No. 21 Summer 1998Moorehead, Alan: The Blue Nile, Published by TheReprint Society Ltd, 1963

* This gives a fuller account of the Expedition (thatdid not receive any sponsorship).

Digging on an impressive scale - the rock hewn monolithic churches at Lalibela

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So, you’re planning a caving expedition to East Africa?East Africa, the area surrounding the Great LakeVictoria and the Great Rift Valley? The area whichwas created by huge volcanic upheavals several millionyears ago? Don’t you know that caves are formed inlimestone which is not compatible with volcanoes?Are you mad?!

True, you are not going to find the deepest or longestcave system in the world. In actual fact you are goingto be fairly hard pressed to get both feet and yourhead out of direct sunlight, but that does not meanthat there is nothing of speliological interest in EastAfrica. While you are never going to become famousfrom caving in East Africa, there is certainly no reasonwhy you should not spend a couple of enjoyableweeks exploring a few of the sites that do exist.

East Africa is usually taken as the old British colonies(or protectorates) of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Atthe time of writing, the situation in all of thesecountries is fairly stable. The only areas to steer clearof are Northern Uganda and some border areas, forexample with Burundi, the Democratic Republic ofCongo and Sudan. However, things change fast withnews reports on an almost weekly basis of a militarycoup in one African country or another. On thepositive side, Burundi has just had elections, so thingsthere may improve. The rule is to check before youtravel.

Although all the igneous rock of the Great Rift Valleydoes not sound promising, I have found that there aremany sites of interest to cavers throughout the region.Most of these will have a local guide desperate toshow you around and regale you with implausible talesof cave-gods or pygmies for a small fee. Realistically,there isn’t much chance of finding anything new. Butyou never know…

To give you an idea of what kind of things you couldvisit, here are a few I have been to.

Explosion Crater, near the crater lakes, south of FortPortal, Western Uganda.This very impressive shaft descends vertically into theearth. At the bottom the water must be able to drainaway as it has not turned into a lake. I was told that afew years ago some Americans had tried to reach thebottom with ropes (I found the bolts they had used)but had failed. This was because it was “bottomless”,in fact so deep that “even birds can not escape if theyfly down”. It sounds like a challenge!

Community Cave, near Kisoro, south-westernUganda.I was taken on a tour of this cave by four Ugandanswho had three pairs of shoes and one smoky kerosenelamp between them. I was told exactly where thepygmies slept, where they went when it rained etc. etc.One end of the cave finished with a low crawl that wasdrafting strongly. With clothes you wouldn’t mindgetting dirty and an hour or two with a spade, I amsure you would get through.

Tatomb Cave, Mount Elgon, Eastern Uganda.If you do the trek, you camp in the entrance of thisspectacular cavern, which is an experience in itself. Iexplored the bat infested passage for some way untilmy friends got too scared. I was told that the cave hadbeen surveyed but no-one was able to show me theplan.

Amboni Caves, near Tanga, Eastern Tanzania.You can get a guided tour around some of these caves,where leaders of the Mau Mau revolution in Kenyasheltered during the 1950s. There are several othercaves in the area that you might be able to look in, butwatch out for snakes!

Lava Tubes, northern RwandaAlthough Rwanda is not in my definition of EastAfrica, these are some of the longest tubes in theworld. Unfortunately bodies were dumped in themduring the 1994 Genocide and many of the tubes arenow seen as mass graves. One of my friends waschased away from one by a man with a gun. The othertubes are in national parks where access is difficult dueto bureaucracy, mines and rebels.

This is just a small selection of the caves actually here.I have found that most places I visit have some formof cave to see close by.

Challenges to an expedition in East Africa...

LanguageLocal knowledge is the key to finding caves. After this,goodwill has to be fostered within the localcommunity. Both of these rely on language skills.While educated East Africans speak English, mostpeople will only speak the local language, socommunication in rural areas, where the caves mightbe, could well be a problem. This would be especiallytrue if the site weren’t already a tourist attraction.

Dreaming of Caves in East Africa

Pete Jurd________________________________________________________________

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TransportThe biggest risk to your life in Africa is the roads.Some of them have to be seen to be believed. Thedriving skills are often in even worse condition thanthe roads. Distances are also huge, with a traverse ofTanzania taking several days. If you wanted to hireyour own car, prices are not cheap and you wouldneed to be a proficient mechanic in case of abreakdown in the middle of no-where.

BureaucracyMany sites are found within national parks. Gainingaccess to these could be difficult. The approval oflocal dignitaries would need to be sorted and theymight well want something in return for the favour.And then of course, it is probably not possible to dowhat you want at all. Few people have internet accessand letters take weeks. The best bet is probably to tryand sort it out on the ground, but to accept that theremay be disappointments.

So in conclusion, do not be put off. East Africa has alot to offer to any caver or observer of the humancondition. While there may not be quite as muchenjoyment in the actual caving in this part of the worldas in other places, the sense of achievement of actuallyhaving got to and enterance, and the things that youhave seen on the way, more than make up for it!

The East African countries of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania

Equator

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While our understanding of Caerllwyn’s history cannever be precise, its past can be traced back with somedegree of certainty for a couple of centuries. Whatemerges is not so much a history of a single building,but more a historical view of the surrounding area,with the two brought together by the people who livedthere.

For Caerllwyn, two features of the surroundinglandscape have been influential. The first is Fan Foel,rising steadily behind the cottage and beside which thevillage of Penderyn has rested for many hundreds ofyears. The second is the common, Hirwaun Wrgan,that lies spread out to the south of the cottage, acrossthe valley towards Craig y Llyn. Both have a richhistory and it is against their background that theemergence of settlements like Caerllwyn can be set,beginning with a momentous battle.

Some Early History

At about the time the Normans invaded England,Gwrgan held the lordship of Morganwg (present dayGlamorgan) and tradition has it that Gwrgan bestoweda large piece of ground at Hirwaun as common land tothe people, it being named Hirwaun Wrgan in hismemory.

Upon Gwrgan’s death, the lordship of Morganwgpassed to his son Jestyn, who soon found himself inconflict with Rhys ap Tewdwr, the lord ofDeheubarth, a powerful kingdom in south west Wales.The cause of this conflict is said to have been Jestyn’srefusal to acknowledge the overlordship claimed byRhys, but another account says it arose from the desireof Rhys to possess Nest, Jestyn’s wife, a woman ofrare beauty.

Jestyn, in urgent need of assistance, sent Einon apCollwyn, a Welshman who had connections with theNormans in England, to seek military aid. Einonbrought the much needed help in the person ofRobert Fitzhamon, who, with his 12 knights, 24esquires and 3,000 men-at-arms, landed at Porthkerryin 1090 or 1091. The combined Morganwg andNorman army met Rhys ap Twedwr’s army onHirwaun Wrgan, the first encounter of the battletaking place at a part of the common that becameknown as Ton Rhys, that is, Rhys’s turf. Jestyn andFitzhamon then retreated a short distance from TonRhys and after a sharp and bloody battle, inflicted acrushing defeat on Rhys. So began the Normanconquest of Glamorgan.

The death of Rhys, the later betrayal of Jestyn byEinon and Jestyn’s subsequent defeat by Fitzhamonare told elsewhere. What this battle meant to thesurrounding area was described several centuries laterby Theophilus Jones, Archdeacon of Brecon, who inhis 1809 ‘The History of Brecknockshire’ wrote :

Hirwaun Wrgan, or at least a great part of it, where the battlewas fought between Justin ap Gwrgan and Rhys ap Tudor, inwhich the latter was defeated, is situated within this parish : it isan extensive boggy common, extending from two to three mileseast and west ; not only this plain, but almost the whole ofPenderin, still bear memorials to this conflict. Bodwigad, as it isnow called, and which the almost unlettered sculptor, in thechurch, has still corrupted further into Bodwiggied, or themansion of the wigs, was anciently Bôd waun y gâd, the abode ormansion on the field of battle ; a valley also which runs acrossthe parish is called Cadlan, meaning much the same, and isstudded with Carneddau, two of them are certainly militarymemorials, one of which is about twelve or fourteen yards round,having a foss or dryditch about it, the other is above twenty yardsin circumference and nine feet high, there are also at least forty orfifty smaller heaps of stones in the fields adjoining the hill.

Maps drawn up in the 1870s shows the site of a battlesome four hundred yards to the south of Caerllwyn, ata place now covered by the factories of the HirwaunIndustrial Estate. Ton Rhys itself is shown evennearer, lying just beyond the small bridge, at the pointwhere having turned right, you would now go underthe Glyn Neath by-pass. A little further afield, CwmCadlan, the valley of the battlefield, is littered withwarlike names and it may have been there that, in thepursuit of Rhys’s men after the main battle, muchslaughter took place.

In the two hundred years after this great battle, thearea around Caerllwyn was to see several swings ofpower between the Norman lordships and nativeWelsh rulers. The Normans’ rule was far from secure,so much so that the reemergence of native power sawSenghenydd hold sway southwards to within a fewmiles of Cardiff.

The Norman lordships of the March, such as those ofGlamorgan and Brecon, became frontier kingdoms inminiature, defending their territory against local nativerulers, the greater Welsh kingdoms such asDeheubarth, and against each other, the latterrequiring formal peace treaties in order to cease.

A Short History of Caerllwyn

Duncan Minty________________________________________________________________

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Set amid these warring factions, the area would haveseen and suffered from more than the usual sways ofmilitary fortune for that time. Those living around FanFoel would have been subjects by tutelage or possiblyby kin, to a native ruler, who in turn would have beensubject to whichever Lord had control of the area atthe time.

Small hamlets with a few outlying farms werecharacteristic of settlement in Anglo-Norman Wales.The hilltop church above Penderyn, of which tracesgo back to the earliest Norman times, would havegiven just such a focus to farms such as Bogwigiad andTrebanog. Much of the peasant housing however, wasfragile and impermanent and would have beenfrequently rebuilt and realigned.

In time, the Norman lordships consolidated their holdon the area and with the stability that this peacebrought, the forests of upland Glamorgan would havebeen seen by an expanding population as an attractivesource of food, fuel and building timber. It is likely tohave been from this period, between 1300 and 1400,that the southern side of Fan Foel saw morepermanent settlements established.

It was to be another battle, this time fought far off incentral England, that opened up another era of changefor the upland regions of Glamorgan. In 1485, thebattle of Bosworth saw the War of Roses end withHenry Tudor victorious. With Henry and hissupporters’ long association with Wales, the following

hundred years saw a great energy emerge in theeconomic life of Wales, with much of it concentratedon the wool trade and on exploiting the mineralresources.

In the second half of the 16th century, iron ore beganto be mined around Rhigos. The iron furnaces thatsprung up as a result depended on more than just localore. From nearby hills such as Fan Foel would havecome a plentiful supply of timber for making thecharcoal to fuel the furnaces, while local water suppliesto work the bellows which produced the blast werejust as important. The success of the iron foundry atRhigos was helped by the long war with Spain keepingdemands for military ordnance high and by restrictionsimposed upon the manufacture of iron close toLondon.

The charcoal fired furnaces being worked within a fewmiles of Caerllwyn slowly began to eat away at thesurrounding woodlands. This pushing back of the treecover opened up new land for grazing or cultivation,allowing for a growing number of small agriculturalholdings. This appetite of the furnaces for woodbecame too great and as easily accessible suppliesbegan to dwindle, so did the mining the area couldsupport. It became a shadow of its former self andfarming became the bedrock of the local economy,centred around the church and village market atPenderyn.

Caerllwyn soon after WSG moved in. Notice the bushes covering where the car park is now and growing up the gable end

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A Place on the Map

Penderyn’s fortunes have been much influenced by itstwo mansions, Bodwigiad and Trebanog, meaning themansion in the field of battle and the dwelling on thesummits respectively. Both had connections bymarriage with leading families in Brecknockshire andthe church of Penderyn was traditionally under thecontrol of the lords of Brecon.

The rector of the church at Penderyn would have beensupported by vicarial tithes, paid in kind by theparishioners around Fan Foel and Cwm Cadlan withcrops, wool, milk and the like. These payments in kindwere progressively substituted with monetarypayments, this tendency being stimulated by landenclosures, particularly in the 18th century. At timessuch as the end of the 18th century, when WilliamMorgan was both rector of Penderyn church andowner of the mansion at Trebanog, the control bothspiritual and secular over those working the landaround Fan Foel is clear.

Enclosures were often carried out to improve the landand its yield, and had they proceeded without thecommutation of tithes into money, the religious andlay owners of the tithes would have received an

automatically increased income. Acts of Parliamentwere therefore passed over the years to get rid of theobligation to pay tithes, culminating in the Tithe Actof 1836 which commuted them once and for all intomonetary payments.

The very nature of enclosure and the commutation oftithes helped create delineated and identifiable plots ofland that were being brought into cultivation or usedfor habitation. This long process of enclosure wouldhave helped formalise the site upon which Caerllwynnow stands and perhaps even the name itself, as we’llnow see.

The word Caerllwyn has one thing in common withmany Welsh placenames - it has been mangled by theEnglish. Spelt in this way - Caerllwyn - it could meanthe same as its namesake in Gwent, that is, the ‘highplace of the encampment’. With such a great battlehaving been fought nearby, this produces a marvellousred herring. Spelt in its old way - Cae’r-llwyn - it hasthe meaning in keeping with its surroundings - the‘field of bushes’.

Estate maps of the late 18th century for neighbouringfarms such as Pentwyn and Tylau Morgrig show manynames of a similar origin - Cae’r Coed, Cae’r Wayn

Caerllwyn just after the tin roof had been blown off in 1972. Notice the thatch found under the tin sheet, the chimney at the top of thenear gable end wall, the original tiny kitchen window, the absence of a back door and the two pitches to the rear roof, evidence of thekitchen as a later add-on. The original loo bucket room is on the left

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and Cae Pwdwr for instance. That each field carried aname reflects the closeness, through dependence, ofthe farming families to their small holding.

Another process of delineation and mapping in thebeginning of the 19th century provides us with thefirst evidence of the cottage’s existance. This was thefirst edition of the Ordnance Survey, drawn at a scaleof one inch to the mile and published in 1830. Themap for the Penderyn area (shown above) was in factbased upon a survey carried out in 1814. That surveyidentified a site with a name they noted down asCarlwyn, similar in shape to that of the present dayand containing two buildings positioned in much thesame way as today. The line of the present day road isclearly identifiable, although instead of turning righton reaching the river, towards the present bridge, thetrack crosses straight over by way of a ford.

The tithe map for the Lower Parish of Penderyn wasproduced in 1840. The site of the OS’s ‘Carlwyn’ isshown as plot 223 and has the same two buildings asits predecessor. The accompanying apportionmentlists the ownership, size and use of each tithe plot. Itshows plot 223 as part of the holding of TrebanogUcha, this farm being shown on the tithe map, ratherconfusingly, in the same place as Tai Cyplau. TrebanogUcha is owned by Morgan Morgan Esq. (more ofwhom later) and occupied by Jenkin Williams. Plot223 is not actually named as Cae’r-llwyn, being

recorded simply as a building. As it is not shown as ahomestead, like other farms around it, we can assumeit was unoccupied at that time.

It is likely that in the period between the 1814 OSsurvey and the 1840 tithe map and apportionment,Cae’r-llwyn was abandoned as a homestead. Twoevents may have precipitated this : firstly, the 1830’ssaw what was to be that century’s worst depressionand many farm labourers would have lost their jobsand therefore their homes ; secondly, resistance to theexpense of the Poor Law may have seen some localfarmers closing down their marginal tenantedproperties in an attempt to temper the rise in ratesexperienced in that period.

People at Caerllwyn

The first record of who lived at Cae’r-llwyn is found inthe census. These began in 1841, but in that year, thereis no recognisable entry for Cae’r-llwyn, indicating thatit was uninhabited

It is in 1851, on the night of the 30 March, that thenext censor recorded the following people residing at‘Carllwin’ : John Morgan, a 79 year old widower andfarmer of 4 acres; his son Rees aged 34 and daughtersMary and Margaret, aged 39 and 27; plus a visitor,John Jones.

The 1830 First Edition Ordnance Survey map of the area around Caerllwyn, taken from drawings made about 1814. ‘Carlwyn’ isshown just below the dead centre point.

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The Morgan family can be traced back to the 1841census, where they were recorded as living in‘Trebanog Ishaf’, the farm a short distance from thepresent bridge.

It is in the record of the 1861 census that Cae’r-llwyn’spast connects more definitely to its present. It shows‘Caerllwyn’ as home to a large family, that of Phillipand Mary Richards. Phillip is aged 39, an iron minerand native of Penderyn. Mary is aged 44, shown as an‘iron miner’s wife’ and a native of Ystradfellte. Withthem were living eight of their nine children: David,Mirian, Richard, John, William, Philip, Gwenllien andAnn. The eldest, Thomas, was absent that night. Theirfamily bible is with the present day Mary Richards.

The elder children had been born in Rhigos, while theyounger three had been born in Penderyn. Phillip aged6 and Gwenllien aged 4 are recorded as being‘scholars’, so they must have been receiving someform of education. The sons from nine year oldWilliam upwards are shown as the sons of an ironminer – it is likely that they were working in some wayby that age, probably alongside their father.

Mary Richards had been born in 1816, to the Morganfamily that was subsequently to move to Tai Cyplau,the farm across from Cae’r-llwyn. After she marriedPhillip, the family lived in Rhigos, leaving there forCae’r-llwyn around 1853. It is possible, butunsubstantiated, that Mary was related to the 79 yearold John Morgan living at Cae’r-llwyn in 1851 and thatMary and Phillip moved to Cae’r-llwyn after he died.

Ten years later, at the time of the next census in 1871,Phillip and Mary are still at ‘Carllwyn’, with David,John, Phillip, Gwenllian and Ann. It is known thatThomas had become a cashier by then, at a collieryover in the Rhondda and that Marian had married.Richard had died five years earlier.

The 1881 census shows Mary Richards, now aged 64,living at ‘Caerllwyn’ with her children Phillip, aged 28and Ann, aged 22, both unmarried.

Some time before 1881, Mary and Phillip’s daughterGwenllian married Morgan Morgan and returned toher mother’s former home some one hundred yardsopposite, Tai Cyplau. There, she raised a family of fivedaughters, Ann, Mathilda, Mary, Elizabeth and Sarahand three of these daughters figure prominently inhow WSG came to occupy and hold on to Cae’r-llwyn.

On the night of the census in 1891, we find MaryRichards, now aged 75, still living at Cae’r-llwyn , onthis night with Gwenllian’s daughter Ann. The familystory is that each of the five Morgan daughters took itin turn to spend the night with their grandmother inCae’r-llwyn. It is this Ann, some 78 years later in 1968and now aged 89, that was to rent Cae’r-llwyn to theWestminster Speleological Group.

Mary Richards was to die in 1906, being buriedalongside Phillip in the graveyard of Penderyn Church.Of Gwenllian’s five daughters, Elizabeth and Sarahwere to die young. Ann never married and worked as adressmaker until retiring to live in Cae’r-llwynbungalow, built in 1936. Mathilda married and had onedaughter, the Mary we know, who inherited Cae’r-llwyn upon her Aunt Ann’s death in 1977, aged 98.Gwenllian’s fifth daughter, Mary, had three children,Gwen, Merlin and Betty. Merlin (the present MaryRichard’s cousin) married Stella and they lived inCae’r-llwyn bungalow into the late 1980s. The presentMary Richard is the great-granddaughter of Mary andPhillip.

The 20th Century

Towards the end of the 19th century, Tai Cyplau hadbeen sold by the Morgan family, who continued onthere as tenants instead. After Mary Richards died in1906, Cae’r-llwyn was rented out. It is known that JeanPhillips lived there for many years between the twoworld wars. In the 1940s and 1950s, a railwayman, MrStephens, lived there until passing away. It wasprobably his railwayman’s coat that was foundbetween layers of the roof when winds ripped it openin 1972.

There are a few pictures of Cae’r-llwyn before WSGtook up residence in 1968. One is of Ann Morganstanding at the front gate. This gate is only a few feetacross and there is a hedge going back from it towardsthe left hand side of the cottage door. The other is ofthe rear of the cottage, taken up high from across thestream. The two separate roofs of the cottage andkitchen can be clearly seen.

The history of Cae’r-llwyn is an unremarkable one, forit is like that of many other old cottages along the topof the Valleys. While it has had its periods of decline,several people over the years have found good reasonto repair it and live there - Phillip and Mary Richardsfor their large family and a group of cavers as a clubhut. How much of the present fabric dates back tothese earliest times, nearly two hundred years ago, isimpossible to say. It is reputed to be the third oldestbuilding in the area, after the Red Lion and the barnlying against the road at Pontcefnffordd farm. Weshould do what we can to ensure that in 2200,someone can look back on another two hundred yearsof the cottage, whoever that may be.

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