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Ever since Rich broke my nose on my third caving trip I should have known he would bring me bad luck, I should have heeded the warnings of the older members - but then who else was there for me to go caving with? Longwood August: Filled with confidence from our success in exploring Sarum Inlet in Manor farm from the day before, we decided to tackle Longwood cave. Neither of us had been there before but this didn't worry us at all. We were confident we could find our way round and because the mincing Cardiff crew had been ok we didn't think the high water caused by large amounts of rain would be a problem. Our first mistake was to go completely the wrong way, into August hole series. Mendip cavers will know this is the part of the cave prone to severe and sudden flooding! Convinced that we were going the right way and that Cardiff and been through here only the day before we pushed on regardless of the large quantities of water. I wasn't daft enough to lead the way; instead I left that down to Rich who disappeared ahead of me through a chute into a water filled rift. I sent my tackle sack after him through the chute and that was the last we saw of it. We came to our senses shortly after and called a retreat, leaving the tackle sack there. It was only when we returned to the Belfry that we realised where we had actually been and felt rather foolish. The choice between either returning on Wednesday or put up with Toby's whining about hundreds of pounds of lost kit was an easy one to make and we were back in Mendip that Wednesday to recover our sack.
Cwm Dwr: The theme of leaving things in caves continued in Wales a few weeks later. At the time it seemed like a really good idea to take a drink bottle into Cwm dwr and I thought it was a good idea to leave it at a point where we'd be coming back to. I however hadn't counted on meeting Joel and the Cardiff crew and then going out through OFD1 instead. This meant that whilst everyone else was eating dinner Rich & I had to crawl back through the entrance and collect it. However my misery was only complete when Michelle decided she didn't want to do OFD again. Rich and I agreed to take her and Hannah Blocksidge into Cwm dwr and ended up doing the crawl five times in one weekend! Rhino Epic: After being part of the rescue practise team throughout the day in St Cuthberts it seemed like a good idea to try my hand at rigging in Rhino in the evening. Chris needed no encouragement, Simon required much and Carol wasn't having it. We left her in the capable hands of Joel while we went on our second caving trip of the day. Rhino, great pitches and easy to rig, unless there is a big group using the P anchors. So down the bolted route then. Having done minimal rigging before and never on bolts I was a ‘little' slow and prone to ‘minor' panics resulting in Chris and Simon getting ‘slightly' cold. Problem #1: Finding the deviation. "Chris where does the deviation go?" "Can't remember" "You rigged this route 2 weeks ago!!" Excellent, I put a deviation in which I later found was in the wrong position. Leading too.... Problem #2: Trying to continue the route. Descended most of the 1st pitch to the point where you need to swing across to continue. The deviation position made it impossible to do this due to serious rope rub when swinging (however I was still convinced the deviation was right) Descended the pitch and rigged the 2nd using the P anchors (the other group had left by now). Chris went back up to rig the P anchor route from the top while Simon and I descended the 2nd pitch. The next ‘problems' occurred simultaneously. Problem #3: Simon gets stuck. When prussicing back up Simon had a great dislike for my rigging, which was a little tight at the re-belay. I learnt this from Simon having a directed swearing session (at me). At this point.... Problem 4: Chris learns the hard way.... Chris rigged the P anchors and thought it would be a good idea to try and continue on the bolted route. Chris tried to swing into the rift but the rope is in the wrong position so can't make it. He then has a brainwave, and attempts to use the other rope. He tried to change ropes by moving his hand jammer onto the other rope and then tried to stand up in the foot loop to move the chest jammer across. What then happened was the other rope stretched when he stood up, not taking the weight off his chest jammer. When he stepped out of the foot loop his hand jammer shot up out of reach. Chris was hung up on both ropes in a human Y-hang! At this point I heard the desperate cries of Chris, but I could do nothing but wait as Simon was still stuck and cursing 20 metres above me. I was the only caver who could move freely but with no rope and no way up it was going to be a long night.... Too cut a long story short, we all got out (15 minutes after the call out) rescued Carol from the clutches of Joel and went home (at about 3 in the morning). Easegill ten hour trip: One drunken evening in the Red Rose Caving Club Chris and I decided to go hardcore caving the next day while the rest of the guys minced around. After randomly picking points on the Ease Gill survey we decided that Top Sink to Lancaster was a bloody long way and should satisfy our macho urges. Next day, seriously hung over, we set off with loads of rope and the knowledge that all we have to do is follow the river, it will be simple! Rigged Lancaster entrance and continued to the P anchors that could get us down to the river. First problem, the rope was far to short! Pissed off we decided to try and find fall pot and rig that. Couldn't find it. We did find a short pitch that lead into some amazing chambers (the graveyard I think). Convinced we could get to the river this way we followed a small stream way through rift passage but it eventually closed down. So we tried another possible route following a flat out muddy crawl. This got tighter and tighter until helmets had to be taken off to get through. We continued like this for ages and then, unbelievably, we entered into some big stuff! Excitement was short lived as we soon recognised the small stream way we were following about an hour ago. Crap! Pissed off we de-rigged the cave and found that it was early evening outside. But Go back? Us? No! A few words of encouragement and we were off to find Top sink and Easter Grotto. It was about two miles away and it started to get very dark on the way there. Based on previous luck we thought there was no way we were going to find the entrance. However we didn't give up and (amazingly) found the cave: a scaffolded entrance with a rusty lid. We followed the SRT kit eating meanders and then tried to follow the stream way. Unfortunately this was more difficult than the survey suggested. Boulder choked or too tight, it could only be followed for short distances. This led to us traversing over muddy 20 metre drops trying to find the way on. After ages we found Easter Grotto eventually. It has to be seen it to be believed, fantastic! It felt about 4am in the morning and we knew it was time to get out, go home and eat lots. - Rich Bayfield. Note: This photos was actually taken by me!
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Try to get through Longwood August in flood, loose a tackle sack, rescue it, do the Cwm dwr crawl five times in a weekend, learn to rig, get to the black wall tunnel in the West end, have an epic in Rhino, get back 15mins after the call out and finally spend ten hours in Easegill - It's just another normal semester for Rich and Chris!!
