A Couple of Mines

A couple of quick mining trips to report before the New Year is out.

8/12/12 West Mine, Alderley Edge

An RRCPC trip with a Derbyshire Caving Club member, Nigel, kindly showing us round some of the extensive Alderley Edge Copper Mines. We spent about 4 hours underground (with a few minutes in Engine Vein) looking round an absolute maze of passages. As far as I could make out, West Mine was made up of 3 horizontal levels with various climbs, shafts and ramps connecting them. But I might be wrong...! There weren't too many mining artifacts left, but we did see some impressive vivid blue copper deposits where water had seeped onto the passage walls. We also saw a  mine shaft which  features in part of Alan Garner's Wierdstone of Brisingamen (a childhood favourite) - a good bit of trivia!

Engine Vein is a separate mine and, although it's less extensive, it looked very impressive and would warrant a return trip when we have more time.

24/12/12 Robin's Shaft Mine

Kathryn derigging the main shaft

Kathryn and I did some yuletide caving in the south of the Peak District. Robin's Shaft Mine consists of a 100m deep shaft inclined at about 45-60 degrees, leading to a small amount of natural cave at the bottom. It's an interesting SRT exercise to get down the shaft, but not too much to see at the bottom. A fine way to spend a very rainy Christmas Eve though! 2 hrs T/U.

Some South Wales and Yorkshire Caving

A few more trips to report before my next few weekends are filled up with various wedding related shenanigans.

Ogof Ffynnon Ddu
27/10/12

Martin and I had driven down to South Wales to help show CUCC's latest band of victims recruits round. With Martin, Adrian and three novices (Mikhail, Rui, Josh) we decided to try the OFD I round trip. Overall I think we did a pretty good job of persuading them that we knew precisely where we were despite this very much not being the case!

After stomping up the streamway and climbing up Lowe's Passage into the higher level stuff, I took a photo of Rui at the 'Bee's Knees' formations in Roundabout Chamber. This chamber is a classic place to confuse new cavers as the 'obvious' route leads you round a little circle back to where you started at the formations (unless you spot the actual way on which is slightly hidden). On our second time round I was asked to take another photo of the formations. I suggested that we wait as there were some more nice formations 'just round the corner'. On our third time round the penny finally dropped!

We continued on smugly and found the slithery climbs down to the bolt traverse above the streamway. After negotiating this we managed to follow our noses through various passages back to the Toast Rack to complete the round trip in about 4 hours or so.

Car Pot

6th October 2012

I'd been wanting to visit Car Pot for ages. Below the various awkward pitches and squeezes it's apparently really pretty. So Kathryn and I jumped at the opportunity to join Emma and Tom on a trip there.

A pre-trip Inglesport visit left me somewhat nervous ('Emma, if you die, can I have your oversuit?' among the reassuring utterances heard), especially as it had been so long since I'd last attempted a trip from the Black Book of Misery (and that attempt had ended about 10m into the cave).

We left Clapham and trudged up the lower flanks of Ingleborough in fine autumn sunshine and before I knew it I found myself at the bottom of the entrance pitch - so far so good.

Le Caving

Kathryn and I spent the first week of August in the Ecrins in the French Alps (via ferrata-ing and attempting some big mountains) before joining the Red Rose trip to the Vercors for some caving and canyoning.

Naturally I was hoping to post lost of photos of the amazing Vercors caves that we visited. Unfortunately on our second via ferrata my camera detached itself from my harness and went bouncing off into oblivion, never to be seen again. We returned the following day with a proper rope, intending to abseil off and hopefully find it clinging to an unlikely ledge. But one look at where it had fallen convinced us to give it up as a lost cause. RIP Canon Ixus 80IS, we had some good times together.

Here are some dodgy photos of some alpine scenery taken from my phone instead:

A Rematch with Fault Aven

21st and 22nd July at SWCC

Saturday: Ogof Fynnon Ddu 1 to Cwm Dwr via Fault Aven

A couple of years back I went to try and have a look at the Pom Pom, a formation in Fault Aven, high above the OFD streamway. We saw some pretty cool stuff that day, but had not quite gotten to the Pom Pom so I vowed to return one day for a second attempt, this time with a camera.

Two Trips in One Day!

7/7/12

I turned up at Bull Pot farm on Friday night fully expecting a long evening of 'socialising' followed by a late start and a short trip. Imagine my surprise then, when I arrived to find that caving plans had already been formed, and that they involved two trips and a 7 am start! Becka, James and Jenny were going to dig in Link Pot very early as James and Jenny needed an early getaway. Becka was then planning on doing Peterson Pot to Pippikin Pot with Patrick afterwards. Peterson Pot is not renowned for it's easy walking sized passages and is in found in the Black Book of Misery. Not having done much caving of late, I began to suspect I may have bitten off more than I could chew.

A Few Random Trips

Not too much underground owing to various heinous surface-based activities, but a few trips to report.

5th May: Swinsto Hole with Tony and Kathryn, 2 hrs T/U

12th May: Took Kathryn's dad and sister down Moel Fferna, 2 hrs T/U:

A monster sized cavern in Moel Fferna