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😯
Anyone suffer from claustrophobia?
"but cheeks are almost through" LOL
11:01 + 5.00 do not want
Nope.
There's is not much in this world I don't think I would do with a gun to my head. Potholing and the like, I would take the bullet first. It's less the claustrophobia, and more the freaking out and getting stuck.
Edit: Oh, that video wasn't too bad, was expecting something like:
Needs some help
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Nope nope nope nope.
Friends dad was telling me he got himself so stuck once in a narrow gap while caving in Iceland and the only option was for him to stay stuck for a few hours and fall asleep. Supposedly the wriggling/movement had caused him to get agitated/pumped and swell slightly. By falling asleep his body calmed down a tad and when he woke up he wriggled free.
Mentalist.
The first bit of that made me nauseous. Going in isn't all that bad (mentally for me), but getting out that way, no ta.
I did stuff like that when I was 10. Arse rubbing ceiling, squirming on my belly, arms stuck out infront, with a lighter. Not knowing whether it would open up again. Two other kids behind. Setting fire to each others trousers to add a bit of excitement.
We did it dozens of times. Now I can't watch films involving caves.
The caves (old mine workings) run under Cranham woods if you fancy it 😀
not my idea of fun
I can't even watch the videos all the way through. If I ever did potholing (which isn't bloody likely) the only way they'd get me out is by dragging my cold dead body after I'd have had a proper freak out and got properly stuck.
I suppose there's always 'extraction via defecation' as I'd probably crap myself soon much I'd probably end up a few inches thinner!
**Shudders**
Makes me queezy just watching the videos. Potholing for me holds all the attraction of exploring someone else's nostril with my index finger.
If anyone remembers reading 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' as a kid: the bit where they escape crawling through the tunnels always gave me the creeps, even if I don't think I am particularly claustrophobic.
old enough to remember winter afternoons at weekends when the pubs closed (was the law) - so after a lunchtime session a classic pot needed doing to ensure a good laugh before evening opening - coming from a climbing background I never got the mentalist single rusty anchor bolt makes it more fun thing
I could tell you some stories to make your toes curl. Although semi retired (just in the Cave Rescue these days), I was once a pretty hard-core caver. Spent years exploring some of the longest and deepest caves in the Alps (including that one where Joachim was rescued from last year). On one of my last trips into a new system in the Alps I had such a traumatic time on a squeeze, being only the second (and largest) person ever to go through, that I don't think I have ever properly mentally recovered from it. Imagine lying on you belly in a8-9 inch high tube, half filled with 1 degree C water, blowing an icy hurricane, while dragging a full sac of gear behind. The rock is pressing down on you and small pebbles are rolling under you chest making it even tighter. Worst part is you have NO idea how far it continues or even if it gets tighter before enlarging. Not only that, it is also only the only way back out again! Jeez, I had to dig deep into my mental reserves that day and I am pretty sure I have lost my nerve in tight squeezes since.
^^^^just reading that last post makes me feel anxious ...
Imagine lying on you belly in a8-9 inch high tube, half filled with 1 degree C water, blowing an icy hurricane, while dragging a full sac of gear behind.
You forgot to mention your giant set of balls, which I imagine must have chaffed as you pulled them through.
I would rather ride a fatbike than go potholing. 😀
'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen'
I'd completely forgotten that book until now 🙂 When they have to squeeze through a water sump, not knowing if it comes out into air on the otherside, gave me the willies when I was a kid.
Strangley I have been down a couple of caves in/around Cheddar Gorge - Goatchurch Cavern and another that I can't remember the name.
A friend of mine is really into it and took us down a couple of "beginners" caves in the area. I enjoyed what we did but I won't be doing any more Thanks 8)
iainc - Member
^^^^just reading that last post makes me feel anxious ...
****in right it does 😯
Had a go at potholing a few years ago just to see if I could do it. Didn't have too much of a problem but that was doing stuff that many many people have done before so I knew it was ok (and the squeezes would be short). The idea of not having full details freaks the shit out of me!
Nope to all of the above
Done quite a bit of pot holing before, couldn't even bear the thought of it now.
Cave diving is another step up.
(Excuse the bad soundtrack)
I would rather ride a fatbike than go potholing.
Never mind that. I'd rather go to Dalby. And pay to park there. 😀
My heartrate actually rises watching some of those clips. Compared to Rock Climbing, even easy caving is something I'd never contemplate doing.
Haha, found some pics...
me surveying new passageway in the Alps
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And a mate digging some gravel out of the start of the squeeze described above before I went through it
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And some of the ice formations in the big chamber of the system we were mapping
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I always thought I'd be okay at pot holing, until I went on a team building caving exercise thingy and some cocky twart insisted on going first and got stuck on the way out.
This meant I was stuck midway through a squeezey bit unable to straighten my head up and in pitch darkness for what seemed like about 2 hours but was probably about 2 mins. Closest I've come to crying since watching the beginning of 'Up' (I'm emotionally dead inside)
The stories above gave me sweaty palms 😯
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
That's is all.
I would rather ride a fatbike than go potholing.
Never mind that. I'd rather go to Dalby.
Yeah. But at least potholing's a proper underground sport...
Sorry. I'm so so sorry.
My first thought was 'why', but then I recalled some of my caving trips and I got it. Because you could...
The Long Crawl in DYO, Dim Dwr in OFD, The Lobster Pot in Sidcot Swallet and the entrance to Daren Cilau all spring to mind. Mix in some water and Swildons Sump One was pretty good fun too...!
For a little vertical fun try the entrance rift in St Cuthbert's.
Then there were the caving games - crawling through the back of a chair, circumnavigating a table without touching the floor... Quite a lot of alcohol was involved. All played in caving huts after the pubs shut. Then there was crockery cricket.
Never play sofa rugby against a women's team. I'm saying no more.
Always wanted to to do some cave diving - I've dived underground but not without a surface but got no further than that.
Ex BEC member...
I couldn't watch that first video, so I didn't even click on the others.
I think I may have nightmares tonight...
If anyone remembers reading 'The Weirdstone of Brisingamen' as a kid: the bit where they escape crawling through the tunnels always gave me the creeps, even if I don't think I am particularly claustrophobic.
Yup, The dwarve mines through Fundindelve. Read it as an adult, just thinking about it now gives me a dose of the horrors. I can't bring myself to watch any of those videos, those photos above I had to skip past.
I'm not claustrophobic in that I can't bear to be shut in a small space, it's the trapped in complete confinement, stuck tight in a very tight space has me almost hyperventilating even thinking about it.
There's no inducement that would encourage me to go potholing, especially if it involved tight sqeezes, or even worse, a sump, like Swildens.
Hear that clucking sound? That's me, that is...
Swildon's One is a pussycat. Google for 'Swildons Sumps' for the rather less user-friendly ones! And Four used to be full of large red worms as it was underneath a cow shed. There wasn't a place called Cowsh Aven for no reason!
Ah, the happy memories of nights in the Belfry 🙂
Games like... How long could you sit on the top of the log burner, spinning the table on your back (it was about 15 feet long and weighed at least 150 kilos. The room was about 16 feet wide!), feet-first up the wall ladder and into the loft, happy days. Swildons short round was alwys one of my faves down there. Kind of made the trip back through sump one bearable, coming after all the other muddy ducks and knowing it was the last difficulty on the way out.
Just looking at the still shots gives me the terrors.
I would rather ride a fatbike than go potholing. 😀
I would rather get ridden by Ton than go potholing again.
Tried it once about 15yrs ago and I have seldom been so relieved to have felt fresh air and rain on my face once back out.
The Lobster Pot in Sidcot Swallet
That's the other cave I went in - Sidcot Swallet (see my earlier post). The Lobster pot was a tight squeeze but I found that the big space either side of the small, tight squeeze made it tolerable.
Once I was out I could hardly believe I went in. My wife came in with us and she took a load of photo's - looking at some of them now I'm amazed at what we did.
I start to panic when I struggle to free myself from a wet t-shirt.
So sod that!
@welshfarmer - we must have met sometime! When were you at the Belfry? Do you remember Jingles?
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen ... proper childhood flashback...
Its a no from me for squeezing through holes and having a bit of a panic attack when your are 6ft 2"
Julian, WelshFarmer- have we met? We've certainly been to some of the same places. I'm very local to Llygad Llwychwr where free diving the sumps gave me a proper buzz. Problem is I'm 6'4" so crawls are a right pain for me. Straight squeezes don't worry me at all but the crawls like Blue Pencil Passage, Long Crawl, Even Bluddy Longer Crawl etc were a bit wearisome. As for Cowsh'Aven- shlt and slurry drooling down the wall, filled with bloodworms did make me think a bit.
Mrs Ambrose has banned me from these things nowadays after I was caught looking at the prices of bottles and regulators. They say there are only two types of cave-divers. Good ones and dead ones. Sadly, I've known both :(.
At the end of the day though, a good vertical trip, especially if it's a pull through with a lot of water really got me going. Unless I had to pass a knot when abbing. That is always thought provoking!
Ambrose - possibly! We've certain been through some of the places you describe. I think Blue Pecil Passage is well named - the last bit over the stream passage is certainly sporting!
MrsJulianA has tried caving - to her eternal credit - but hated it! Swildons, OFD I.
Sometimes I have a hankering to go again - like now, after a couple of glasses of wine - but we prefer three or four star hotels on the continent together to -four star caving huts apart!
At least my vodka consumption has ceased along with my caving days. Would still like to try cave diving though... Although a flight in a local Yak 52 is a much more appealing and likely prospect now!
Ambrose - which cave divers? I had the misfortune to cave with someone from SWC whom I didnt like but Gavin Newman was ok. I did meet a guy called Clive who was pretty unassuming - and a very experienced cave diver!
Used to frequent the Belfrey back in Uni days, so about 1986 through till about 1994, though we didn't use it too often in the latter years as it all got abit mental there for a while. Jingles doesn't ring a bell, only people I remember were Tony J and Zot. Ambrose. Who knows if we have met. Got a mate down your way, Jon Drury, who I went down Llygad Llwychwr with. Nice cave. I am Abergavenny area so grew up with all the caves of Llangattock and the Clydach Gorge on my doorstep.
Age. It is a terrible thing..... 🙂
Nostalgia. It's not what it used to be....
I was a BEC member around 1994-1995 so a bit later than you, wf. It was a bit mental... Had some fun times though!
Jingles - John Williams - was a great guy. Tony J, also deceased, ran BAT Products and was a very hard caver. Good guy. Zot rings a bell but I wouldn't recognise most people from those days now.
Part of me would like to revisit some of those places but it was a bad, single, unhappy, vodka guzzling time of my life I don't want to go back to.
A mate of used to go diving OR caving (or bungee jumping & parachuting) said he'd never combine the two.
If you saw Zot, you would think "that face rings a bell. Why doesn't he use the clanger like everyone else?" Easily the most recognisable face in the Hunters Moon. I hear what you are saying about the excess of it all. But lots of great memories. If I had the chance I would do it all again. Well maybe not all of it 🙂
Potholes up north tent to be be vertical on Mendip we cave !!
Vertical stuff in S Wales isn't that common but Pwll Swnd was always a bit of a giggle if you could find it. I loved the Dales pots and bore mates to death on the few and far-between biking trips I take up there. Pant Mawr is a marvel especially when you find the helictites. Bizarrely, I regularly cycle over the area nowadays. My gear is to old to be trusted for another trip- a real shame.
Sherp'd for Martyn Farr. I'm friends with Steve Thomas.
There are a few paperbacks wrapped in polythene bags besides various OFD and DyO sumps and chokes from when I sat and waited. As for Darren Cilau- what a hell hole. We used to push it after work. I can remember getting back into fresh air at 3:00AM and then driving home to Brynamman to be in work early the next day. Nig Rogers, where are you now?!
This is the best, most palm-moistening thread ever! I've just been on an hour long Youtube caving bender.
This was a good one.
Not caving but I spent a fair bit of time exploring the old slate mines in the Blaenau Ffestiniog area in my youth. Uncle John (yes him!) had an interest and there was a through trip you could do which involved entering a long tunnel then through some caverns and up a big incline before popping out of a massive hole on the mountain above (a twll I think it was called). Googling suggests ithe incline bit has all collapsed now which is a bit scary, but there's still a through trip folks do to the village of Croesor. Fascinating stuff.
http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/rhosydd-slate-mine-and-ghost-village-wales-sept-2012.t74091
Loved the Welsh slate mine link.
There used to be some fascinating remains near Corris - several levels you could get into and a whacking great hole in the hillside above them. Also a slate works with tramway remains outside. Aberllefenni I think?
Went on a tour of a working gold mine years ago. It was Wales' only one at the time. Don't know if it's still there.
STW meet in Priddy for a bimble around Swildons anyone's? And maybe a pint in the New Inn or the Queen Vic? Didn't like the Hunters.
Oh, and had some GREAT trips down Singing River. Not a beginner's trip though!
JulianA I would be well up for a Swildens return. I did all my caving with Tim Stratford and the Swindon club in the 1990s. Lots of OFD trips and other stuff in the area. A few short Mendips trips as well. But been meaning to get back into it. And I won't have to hulk a lead acid battery pack now!
@DavidB Bear it in mind for sometime in the summer maybe? Pretty hectic few weeks coming up but might be free weekdays in June if my contract doesn't get renewed.
WelshfarmerThe rock is pressing down on you and small pebbles are rolling under you chest making it even tighter. Worst part is you have NO idea how far it continues or even if it gets tighter before enlarging.
The idea of not knowing how long it would continue for DO NOT WANT 😯
I would definitely be up for some cave/MTB action at some point. You could do a whole series since there are underground opportunities in all the best MTB areas, and invariably also a great caving hut to stay in. Pick the caving day according to weather. Could combine
Swildons/Mendip ride/Belfrey
OFD/Brecon Beacons/SWCC hut
P8 or Giants/Peaks ride/Orpheus
Slate mines/Snowdon/Any one of the club huts up there
Swinstos pull through/Dales Ride/One of the caving huts
Coniston mines/Lakes/One of the mountaineering huts
Possibilities and permeations are endless.
So let's plan one for later in the year . Pretty quiet here at end of May and most of August.
Used to do a fair bit of caving and didn't mind the squeezes, only times I felt 'NOPE' were losing the group I was with for about 20 seconds and smashing my knee hard in a cave where you had to SRT out. That was a tad painful.
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Zot from the planet Tharg. 😯 He was a feature of the Belfry back in the 1960s, I well remember thrutching my way out of Cuthberts entrance after he'd released the water onto me! 😀 What fun
(Not that I was caving the 60s, he was still there in the 80s and is probably there even now....)
A good mate of mine and climbing partner was also a pretty useful caver. He quit climbing and took up scuba diving. I quipped he would soon be cave diving but he reckoned that was just insane. Shortly afterwards he booked on a course with Martyn Farr.
I was never very interested in caving but he did take me on a trip down Lancaster Hole which I quite enjoyed, though abbing down first and looking back up at the speck of light above I found myself wondering if I'd done anything to upset him.
welshfarmer. I'm in, let's create a new genre bike-caving-packing.
JulianA I would be well up for a Swildens return. I did all my caving with Tim Stratford and the Swindon club in the 1990s. Lots of OFD trips and other stuff in the area. A few short Mendips trips as well. But been meaning to get back into it. And I won't have to hulk a lead acid battery pack now!
Bloke I've worked with at three different companies over the last thirty years or so used to go potholing, he's from Swindon, he told me about Swildens. Mike Wicks, anyone remember him? Red hair, beard.
*shudders*
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Bloke I've worked with at three different companies over the last thirty years or so used to go potholing, he's from Swindon, he told me about Swildens. Mike Wicks, anyone remember him? Red hair, beard.
🙂 a caver with a beard. That is just about all of them then. Cavers were the original hipsters
@ bearnecessities
I think thats the part where he doesn't know how long it goes on for too, or if it even does open up 😯
Never seen the appeal of caving. Watching some of the videos has reinforced this view!
Respect to those who do this stuff - I know I couldn't.
So there I was today in the cafe, feeling very STW because I'd just bought a Coframo stove-top fan. Lo and behold up walks Dudley Thorpe, the owner of Dragon Caving in Abercraf.
Anyway- there is an actual MTB caving trip possible through the Dinas silica mines. It's a hoot. Wholly illegal, no rights of way that bikes are allowed on and probably contravenes the Mines and Quarries regulations. I managed to lose my bike in there once when we left them and went for a deeper explore.
This really sums it up.
[url= http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/upper-dinas-silica-mine-pontneddfechan-july-2012.t74419 ]http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/upper-dinas-silica-mine-pontneddfechan-july-2012.t74419[/url]
Croydon caving club have a cottage we could book very close by, in Ystradfellte. Loads of MTB to be done in the area.
http://www.croydoncavingclub.org.uk/cottage
I'm pretty local, happy to guide but you will have to put up with a gentle pace!
Porth yr Ogof and all its delights are a whole five minutes distant! Can you swim? Can you swim well? Can you swim very well indeed?
The silica mines are a good place for a snorkel! Crystal clear water...
Dived in there too when the caver's fair at SWCC was on one year. About 1995.
Age 14 we read a piece in English class that detailed a caver dying from lack of oxygen after wedging himself so tightly into what turned out to be a dead end hole that he couldn't be freed. From what I remember they left his body down there.
Never really fancied caving much after that.
..and that completes my nightmare material.
If you see Dudley again, give him my regards. We became good friends when he used to bring his van out to the National German Caving conference just after I moved over there. It was nice to have someone English to chat to. We always used to stay at the Croydon hut when caving in South Wales, really liked that hut. More recently have stayed in the Westminster, but not for caving. The Silica mines trip sounds epic. Well up for that.
Porth yr Ogof, hmmm, had some fun swimming in there. The swim out to the resurgence is always scarey after all the fatalities there in the past.
The stuck caver you are thing of was Neil Moss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Moss_%28caver%29
He may well of been rescued if they had worked out a bit sooner that he was suffocating with a build up of CO2. By the time the rescuers worked it out he was too weak to help himself.
I was a BEC member in the early 80s my dad still is .Has been a member since the 1950s number 373 I think .So a club old boy these days .I used to stay in the Belfry weekends even though I lived less than 2 miles away ,it was nearer the Hunters !
Zot (Chris Harvey)is still around has not changed ,still bloody ugly and is now about 73 !!
🙂 Good old Zot. Him and Mike were always a feature of a Mendips trip. He really got on well with my German GF (he spoke quite a bit of German). One of the proper old Skool characters. Not a face you easily forget 🙂
It's kinda weird that MTB riders who I would have thought are "in-it" for the freedom to fly along trails anywhere in the great wideopen, can also be happy spending hours crawling along dark tiny crawls where you often cannot even breathe using your ribcage (my most vivid memory - Urrgh).
Its like putting Football & MotoGP supporters in the same room, the universe shouldn't allow it !!!
Caving is great fun .Welshfarmer ,The New Inn Priddy closed a couple of years ago ,but the Queen Vic is usually busy a few diggers meet on a Sunday night after digging near Wigmore
Used to do potholing in Devon as part of school activities, back in the days when they'd let a bunch of school kids do dangerous things. Carbide lamps and no safety gear, like roping together etc when going across crevasses, climbing etc.
I loved it, though was freaky when you get told that sign there down that way is a warning that's it's a literal dead end. No way you could turn around or back out and no exit. Were a few bits we did with really tight squeezes and just had to trust the guide that you'd come out somewhere and there's a way out.
Was muddy, oddly warm, some impressive caves, lakes, weird insects that live in the dark.
I'd never do it now though. The thought of it scares me. Plus I'm not the skinny kid I was and just wouldn't fit down those holes 😀
Caving is great fun
I'll take your word for it. 😆
Very interesting but harrowing read here:
Not for me.
Rule one in caving. Never, ever, read anything about the Mossdale tradgedy. Especially if going into a cave with even the slightest chance of flooding. That one puts the willies up me still.
Not a great idea to go into any wet part of a cave when the weather forecast is for rain or it has been raining for a few days!
I've seen the water going into Swildon's though the caver's entrance... Even if you could wait it out in a dry section I wouldn't fancy it.
Is the phone line still extant between Bridge cave and LNRC?