Wales
Wales 26th and 27th October 2002
Andy Jurd, Colm Carroll, Darryl Anderson, Jani Silvanto, Jerome Lee, Moritz Guenther, Neel Savani, Pete Jurd, Philipp, Rik Venn, Stefan Bennewitz, Mark Quigley
Photos courtesy of Darryl Anderson
Friday
Got away from the union in a decidedly dodgy union van (aren't they all dodgy) and off on the motorway to the valleys. Made it to the Aberdare Tesco just before closing time, so managed to stock up on a bit of booze. The WSG hut was it's usual freezing self, so, much of this booze was consumed to warm us up! The spin off of this was strange practices with the common-room table.
Colm Carroll
Saturday
OFD 2
Darryl, Colm, Jani, Moritz, Philipp
This was a first caving trip for Jani, Moritz and Philipp. Colm knew the way so he led us down to Gnome passage and down Selubrious passage, stopping off to see the trident and the judge on the way. From there we went down Maypole inlet to the OFD 2 streamway, with me and Colm taking photos along the way. We went upstream for a bit but didn't get as far as the top waterfall before turning back. We then climbed back up maypole inlet and returned the way we came, stopping off at the mini columns on the way, including a ridiculously pointless squeeze where I managed to get a photo of Jani. Time underground 5 hours. The evening involved drinking beer, cards, drinking gin (as we'd run out of beer), table traversing, and yet more drinking.
Darryl Anderson
The first job after the greasy cavers breakfast was to fix the holes in the roof of the van using duck-tape. Duck-tape, is there anything it can't do? After that we went on a mad driving spree to get to South Wales Fascist Caving Club before 11am to get the keys.
Colm, Moritz, Philipp, Jani and Darryl took the usual route down Gnome to Trident and Judge via Salubrious. Feeling keen, we motored on to the streamway, taking the climb down to maypole in our stride. After a quick splash upstream (no dwarf-traps), we returned via the minicolumns to find that Pete's group had nicked the ladder, so we got a bit of free-climbing in before exiting the cave.
Pete's group had a surprisingly similar trip - the only excitement being a blown bulb whilst thrashing around in the streamway.
Colm Carroll
Sunday
OFD 2
Darryl, Rick, Jerome
Not wanting to go down Cwm Dur today, I took the 2 guys who did that on saturday into OFD 2. After a few route finding problems with White Arch series, and a quick detour to see the mini columns, we eventually found Gnome Passage and from there we went down Edwards Shortcut, with the slippery traverse, and on to Selenite passage. After reaching the top of Maypole inlet we decided not to go down so we headed out via Salubrious, including the detour to trident and judge. Time Underground 4 hours.
Darryl Anderson
Most of us went into Cwm Dwr in search of the holy grail - the confluence with the main streamway. The unsuspecting Freshers seemed not to enjoy the entrance series on the way in, I wonder why? Tackling the boulder choke with ruthless efficiency meant we had enough time to faff on the climb down to the small streamway. With bad weather outside, the water was running higher than usual, so we turned around a bit early, Pete, Rik and Neel continued to the confluence, with Neel getting completely soaked climbing the waterfall on the return. Everyone was even less impressed with the entrance crawl on the way out, with multiple light failure indicating a good weekend's caving.
The Darryl faction went in OFD top, managing to get from Selenite to Edward's Shortcut - an IC3 first!
Colm Carroll
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| WSG Hut | Table Traversing | Changing outside the SWCC |
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The Minicolumns | Climbing down into Salubrious | Jani (I think) in a squeeze
Colm under Trident