Mendips I
Ben Richards, David Wilson, Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Salwa Ahmad, Thurston Blount, Lamya Adam, Soya Shinkura, Moses Bejon, Nancy Lindsey, Aditya Amritkar, Thomas Pearson, Nick Richards, Sereon Cui, Kai Vice, Alden Ng, Rian Austin, Will Sumerfield, Robbie James, Shiven Tayal, Andy Morse, Nicola Pearce, Sam Barber
Friday
Third time lucky it seems as this Friday the travel planning was borderline sensible. A miracle! After the debacles of W1&2 it certainly felt like it. 1pm and during my lunch break I found myself running through the rain with over 30kgs of camera, caving and personal kit spread between three bags. I dsahed down the road, via a ridiculous rampage through Tesco, as I headed for the Oxford Tube with two minutes to spare. Kai and Nancy were already on board, and before long we were in Oxford where I took my meetings from my brother's house while Nancy and Kai went sightseeing for a few hours.
After I finished at 4:30 we zoomed off to the Wessex and were greeted by relentless rain and fog - which was quite annoying given our plans were to get to work on the SRT rig outside the hut. Fortunately two handy anchors in the kit room allowed us to practice some Shower Rigging Technique instead. The rain soon dried up though and so we headed outside where Nancy and I taught Nick and Kai the full suite of SRT moves.
One by one the other cars arrived, with Chris's car containing the latest results of Chris's adventures in cake baking. It was delicious despite losing a considerable number of points for presentation. As the night wound on I headed to bed, leaving the noctural contingent to stay up for apparently the entire night other than an hour or two before breakfast.
Ben
Stayed up until 0700, I wonder why...
Learned SRT for the first time (incorrectly), I wonder why...
I am apparently a part of the nocturnal contingent now, I wonder why...
I didn't, in fact, forget most of what happened tonight, I wonder why...
Davey ate a whole thing of cream that went off. He spent the rest of the weekend shitting himself. I have heard legends of the man, but now, and ONLY now, do I understand them, truly, from the bottom of my heart: the full extent of his powers.
Kai, I wonder why...
Saturday
Hunter's Hole: Ben Richards, Lamya Adam, Nancy Lindsey, Thomas Pearson, Nick Richards, Kai Vice
First time doing SRT, on two hours of sleep. Very concerning? But I didn't drop to my death (many thanks to Ben) I napped at least three times. There is photographic evidence somewhere (Ben has it). I had a lot of fun, although apparently, it is one of the less pretty caves?? stay tuned to find out my opinions on more holes in the ground. There was a lot of rubbish while I was trying to find a mine. I also nearly suffocated going up a chimney. I forgot about the lack of oxygen :( Walk. 0200. another 0600 bedtime, I wonder why...
Kai, first SRT done EVER in the history of SRT
Thomas went to gas street. Quite exceptional.
Thomas
After an incredibly confusing and stressful morning of semi-trip-planning I eventually gave up and took over organising of the trips. We had three rotating groups that needed SRT training and my group that had trained the night before. The weather was bad on Sunday so we needed to train everyone today, Davey had offered to train all day long and we didn't have enough leaders to do this many separate trips so Thurston and Julien volunteered to run back to back swildon's trips to make everything work out. I ended up going for a morning, afternoon and evening groups for training on the rig, and then I disappeared off with the others I'd trained the night before to do hunter's hole. This went well, and then I returned to find out that my grand plans had partly succeeded, but being somewhat thrown off course by the first SRT group taking basically the entire day to finish their training. All was well after a night of squeeze machine and cider though. Also, Nick scanned the entirety of Mendip Underground for the google drive, having to redo 100 pages in the middle because they failed to save. A true hero.
Ben
Swildon's Hole: Julien Jean, Thurston Blount, Alden Ng, Rian Austin, Will Sumerfield
We woke up with the ambitious plan to do two caves in one day: start out with Swildon's and then bring Davey's SRT training group down Eastwater. After the typical wetsuit faff we walked over to Swildon's and witnessed a full cavalry bataillon going on a fox hunt. This is possibly the most british thing I have ever seen.
Our group ended up being quite speedy and we succesfully got to our destination of just past Sump 1 despite the time pressure. On the way back, I ascended the 20ft only to find that Reading had entered the cave and used our ladder. There was much faff rerigging the pitch with Reading's ladder, all while Alden urinated down the pitch directly below me.
We got back to the hut and found that Davey's group were still mid training, so we decided to wait for them in our kit to bring them to Eastwater. After several hours of waiting, progressively getting colder, and a whole impromtu picnic which involved getting into the kitchen without any of the Wessex members noticing, we finally gave up on the Eastwater trip and changed out of our soaked wetsuits.
Julien
Saw Big Chris' Mum. Incredible.
Sump 1 is amazing, can't go wrong with a cheeky sump. Freshers love my sumps.
Thurston
Eastwater Cavern: Chris Hayes, Salwa Ahmad, Soya Shinkura, Moses Bejon, Robbie James, Shiven Tayal
Salwa had to bail but the others had a good trip in Eastwater and took some group photos so it seems.
The Editor
Sunday
White Pit: Ben Richards, Aditya Amritkar, Nick Richards, Andy Morse, Nicola Pearce
After getting up earlier than most, I learned that two of the wessex members, Nicky and Andy, were offering a tour of White Pit, and the various pretties that it contains. After hunter's hole the day before this was a great chance to get some photos. Nick woke up and Aditya was also in the kitchen so they both joined us as well, before anyone else was even aware of our plans.
After arriving and changing we learnt that Andy worked on the Rosetta mission (!!) which was awesome, and then we made the arduous 60 second walk over to the middle of the field where the cave was. The entrance was a Mendip classic of a ladder on a lifeline which Nick enjoyed tremendously - even more so when Andy started questioning his belaying technique while Nick was middway down the ladder, but all went smoothly.
First we went down the right turn, and saw the room of stunning pretties. They seem to be flowing out of the entire wall, and continue on for ages - really impressive stuff! A quick poke down the muddy dig at the end and then I spent the return taking photos of Aditya and Nick, some of which I even think turned out half decently.
On the way back to the entrance there's a 2m free climb which Adi slipped off of from the first foothold. He didn't slip very far, basically the same height as from standing on the ground, but still bruised his lower back so we helped him out of the cave and called it a day - the left hand route with the hole to poke your head through is waiting there for next time. He was fine after afew hours at the hut, and we returned to London via our various routes that evening, in the same groups that we had arrived in.
Sludge Pit: Chris Hayes, Lamya Adam, Nancy Lindsey, Kai Vice, Alden Ng, Rian Austin
I didn't get covered in mud, unfortunately. There was a distinct lack of rubbish, however, which made it leagues above Hunter's Hole
Kai, lack of sludge
Eastwater Cavern: Julien Jean, Thurston Blount, Thomas Pearson, Alden Ng, Will Sumerfield, Sam Barber
I was incredibly sleep deprived, which made the boulder choke navigation quite difficult. We got down past dolphin pot and then Thurston sent Thomas down a pointless squeeze.
Julien
I pioneered this eastwater trip, and convinced people to go. We reached the entrance of the cave and it was great, it was permanently horizontal; we could never stand up because it was squeezy. It was just like that for a long time. Then we reached a pitch called dolphin pot where we rigged a sketchy handline to go throguh the hole in the floor. It turned out that Thurston had to decided NOT to add handholds to the lower half of this rope, so as I descended I was forced to tie them as I went. The reader can interpret how this made me feel. I was thrilled.
Unfortunately, by the time we were at the bottom of the pot, we had run out of time as it was a Sunday trip. However,. Thurston decided to tell me that a little crack in the wall was the correct direction. He told me to squeeze inside and find out where it went. After squeezing down this crack and round the corner, I found myself in a very precaious and mildly scary position, where I was very much jammed. I had to shuffle myself backwards to get out.
After returning to the surface, Thurston decided to tell us that one of the squeezes we had done was the location that someone had died. This was a fact that he had omitted while we were in the cave.
Thomas
Sleep deprived, Thomas convinced me to take him down the most ambitious Eastwater trip ever conceived for a Sunday. Grandeurs of seeing the other side of the 380ft way without actually doing it were even spoken.
Eastwater itself is interesting. Boulder choke is easy to follow, but yeah, you have to ignore it at the end and squeeze through a collapse. Something something "that name possibly could be a crude joke about a girl scout dying in the cave" - Big Chris later, but alas, I won't tell anyone until they get out. Anyway, that technical squeeze is pretty fun, not even that tight.
Onwards, you just follow the passage down, getting into a small tube that leads into a bedding plane, then into the crossroads. Great caving, just go in a tube and get to dolphin pot. I then made the genius decision to kill all the freshers off by just descending the handline, and telling them to rig it themselves. Julien was half-asleep at the back. Great fun, just sat at the bottom and tormented. Fun to see the last pitch and turn around, before lying to Thomas that the way on is a tiny squeeze that only he could do.
I thought maybe I could give the bag to Julien for the way out. Sadly there are few such cases, as after taking the bag only a measly 5 metres, he gave up and gave it to me. Eastwater is a great cave.
Thurston
Chill in the hut: Sereon, Salwa, Shiven
Salwa grilled Sereon on best places to visit in China. I don't think much else happened.
The Editor
SRT Training: Soya, Robbie, Moses, Davey de la Crème
Another whole day of SRT training. Davey is our hero ❤️
