An Icelandic Adventure

Having run out of frozen meals, Kathryn and I decided to go to Iceland. Our main objective was the Laugavegur trail, which runs from the hot springs of Landmannalaugar to the glacial valley of Þórsmörk, with an optional extra day or two over the Fimmvörðuháls pass to Skógar. The route would take us past the  Eyjafjallajökull glacier, the scene of the 2010 eruption which disrupted flights across Europe. When it comes to words I am physically unable to pronounce, Icelandic is rivalled only by Welsh. Try saying Eyjafjallajökull three times backwards as fast as you can...

The geothermal pool at Landmannalaugar

An Ogof Ffynnon Ddu Trip

10/08/2013

I'd only ever done through trips in OFD in the upstream direction, so it would be interesting to see how hard the route-finding for our planned downstream (OFD Top to OFD 1) trip would be today.

Kathryn, Anya, Jess, Serena, Adrian, Olly and I slogged up to the top entrance, half of us poaching, trussed up in neoprene and PVC oversuits. Some highly sweaty caving brought us to the very shallow Salubrious streamway and a certain amount of relief. Soon enough we were at the top of Maypole Inlet. I was last down the climb into inlet, and without a rope it was more slithery than I remembered. The inlet itself wasn't carrying much water, and we followed it down into the main streamway which was also low.

Alpine Adventures

Around this time last year Kathryn and I headed to the Ecrins for our first attempt at conquering some alpine mountains. We had an lovely time, although things didn't quite go entirely to plan: I dropped my camera off a via ferrata, and we failed to make it up any summits due to a combination of failing to acclimatise properly and picking some peaks that were beyond us. My grand plan of a romantic mountain-top proposal was hastily rearranged into popping the question on a col.

Looking across to the summit of the Allalinhorn

Caving in a Washing Machine

15/06/13 An aborted trip down Roaring Hole

Wookey, Kathryn and I, joined by Jeremy and Chris, were following a team of Durham cavers into Roaring Hole, a cave notable for its damp boulder chokes. The plan was for us to loiter in Inglesport for an hour or so then head down the cave in Chapel-le-Dale and derig their ropes. We executed the first part of the plan exceptionally well.

 

As we walked towards the cave we met a gaggle of familiar but cleaner than usual-looking, yellow-suited cavers coming the other way. Durham had aborted below the second choke because it was too wet. After a couple of days of unsettled weather it seemed we had made a poor choice of cave.

War of the Worlds, Ogof Draenen

8/06/13

Nial and Emma in War of the Worlds

With the prospect of a long trip to Draenen at the weekend, I had spent some time on Friday printing out various bits of description and surveys to several potential locations in the cave. I had then cleverly forgotten to pack them before driving down to South Wales.

Emma, Nial and I settled on a trip to War of the Worlds, a huge passage in the south of the cave, with some formations nearby. Armed with one paragraph of useful text, a photo of the survey and a vague recollection that I'd read that "it's somewhere a bit beyond Snowball Passage", we reluctantly left behind a rare sunny day above Abergavenny and squirmed our way through the somewhat miserable entrance series. A little while later we stripped off the tops of our oversuits at the first water stop (in Lamb and Fox Chamber) and made our sweaty way through the maze of dry tunnels to Snowball Passage.

A Rare Weekend on Mendip

Crystals in Neverland, Upper Flood Swallet

It had been been four years since I last went caving in the Mendips, and now I'm wondering why I left it so long! That trip in 2009 included a visit to recent discoveries in Upper Flood Swallet. However, the prettiest section, Neverland, was closed off as it was deemed too fragile to cope with any caver traffic. Since then, a bypass has been dug, which enables access to Neverland with less risk to the formations. When Alex and Jess sorted out a trip there, with Mike the Animal leading, in return for us doing a bit of digging, I jumped at the chance to join them.

 

The Tales of an Incompetent Cross Country Skier in Norway

Our home for the week

Until last week Kathryn and I had never been skiing. So when the opportunity to go to Anthony and Julia's hut in Norway arose, we embraced it with the kind of wanton enthusiasm typical of people who have absolutely no idea what they are letting themselves in for. Afterall, if couldn't be that different from sledging, right?

So it was that we found ourselves in a quaint wooden hut in the Hallingdal region, one week in late March. It was -25^oC outside, and the snow was a metre deep. But huddled round the stove, by candlelight, we were very cosy indeed.