Other Sites and Blogs – Darkness Below

We can’t hope to bring you every story, but there are plenty of caving and mining blogs out there you can browse at your leisure – so have a read through some of the best! If you know of a blog you’d like us to add to this page please let us know.

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Wookey Hole, Mendip

9th August 2018: with Brockers, Tav, Nick, Jon, Duncan and Alex. Jon, Nick and Tav playing in the sand-pit with their buckets and spades, Duncan took away their buckets, while the rest of us hauled-away and emptied the buckets and then, sent the bu ...
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8th August 2018

With Roz, Nick, Mike, Tav, Jon, Brockers, Duncan and Alex. (Images to be added) A big group assembled tonight but, plenty of room in the cave. Between us we dragged enough kit to rig several pitches. Nick leading the way followed by Mike and ...
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Alert only – August 5th Sun. 21.38hrs – Sulber Nick, Horton in Ribblesdale, North Yorkshire – Alert only

Two walkers (f, f) reported themselves ‘lost and losing daylight’, but gave a (correct) ten figure grid reference for their position, within 100m of ‘Sulber Crossroads’.While the duty controller was trying to contact them, they ...
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4th August 2018

An unexpected development! With Jonathon, Duncan, Tav, Brockers and Alex. The first task of the day was to set-up a drag tray to make the digging in the low bedding a bit easier. That done, I went into the bedding and filled the skip, Jon ...
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Incident 49/2018 – Aug. 4th Sat 21.30 Ingleton Waterfalls Trail, Ingleton, North Yorkshire – Mountain Rescue?

A visitor reported her elderly parents missing on the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail. Unable to call her back and with the ‘mispers’ having no phone, the duty controller (resident in Ingleton) popped out to look for them. Just as a CRO colleague ...
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Incident 48/2018 – Aug. 4th Sat 12.02 Ingleton Waterfalls Trail, Ingleton, North Yorkshire – Mountain Rescue

A visitor (m, 32) sustained a fracture to the shoulder, after taking a fall between Manor Bridge and Pecca Falls, on the Waterfalls Trail. Team members immobilised the shoulder, then supported him on the walk down to the main Trail car park. He was ass ...
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Incident 47/2018 – Jul. 25th Wed 15.16 Malham Moor, North Yorkshire – Mountain Rescue

A mountain biker (f, 70) hit a rock on the bridleway from Tennant Gill to Henside and was pitched forward, over her bicycle handlebars, fracturing both of the bones to one wrist. Once her arm was immobilised, during which process the patient steadfastl ...
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Wookey Hole, Mendip

2nd August 2018: I haven’t managed to dig in Wookey Hole for a while due to one thing or another, in the meantime, the rest of the team have continued with the task. Good to get back and see the progress made. With Mike, Alex, Jonathon, Duncan, ...
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The Wild Wookey Experience

Back in June a team from Dudley Caving Club was invited to try out the adventure caving experience in Wookey Hole, Somerset, England. It was brilliant and we thoroughly enjoyed every minute. It is easily the best show cave adventure in the country. My ...
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Predatory sea corals team up to feed on stinging jellyfish

Cave-dwelling corals in the Mediterranean can work alongside one another to catch and eat stinging jellyfish, a study reveals. ...
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28th July 2018

With Alex, Jonathon, Jake and Brockers. Alex digging, lowering the floor of the rift to be able to get into the passage beyond. Meanwhile, there was a backlog of spoil to shift from Thursday’s activities. I loaded the skip to Jonathon who hau ...
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26th July 2018

Due to meetings, work commitments and some other reasons the Wookey Hole digging team was rather depleted only Jake and Jonathon were available. Not much the two of them could achieve in the sand dig in 20 so they went to Hallowe’en Rift. At ...
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24th July 2018

With Jake and Tav I wanted to look at the current dig to see whether an application of IRS might be required and to photograph the fractured stal in the north/south rift at the [current] furthest point of the passage, perhaps evidence for ear ...
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How the Little Ice Age affected South American climate

For the first time, scientists reconstruct the rainfall distribution in Brazil during the climate changes that marked the Middle Ages using isotopic records from caves. ...
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21st July 2018

I had spent the early part of the week (16th-19th) at the University of Sheffield Zooarchaeology Labs attending an intensive but informative course “The History of the British Fauna: wild and domesticate vertebrates”. The course was delivered through ...
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Incident 46/2018 – Jul. 19th Thur 18.00 Malham Cove, Malham, North Yorkshire – Mountain Rescue

The team were called out by North Yorkshire Police to assist with the recovery of a person with fatal injuries from the foot of the cove. Team members were also tasked to search ledges and other parts of the cove for any items belonging to the deceased ...
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14th July 2018

As previously mentioned, the title “Up the Garden Path” has been used elsewhere, in line with some recent correspondences, Jake has suggested the name “The EGO has landed!”. Duncan and Naomi’s wedding today. Only Jonathon and Alex were availa ...
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Incident 45/2018 – Jul. 14th Sat 15.06 “Brother’s Wall”, Crummackdale, Austwick, North Yorkshire – Mountain Rescue

A climber (m, 48) was reported to have fallen, sustaining a dislocation fracture of one wrist, in Crummackdale. After initial confusion, when the grid reference provided by the ambulance service indicated the head of Crummackdale, but the Yorkshire Air ...
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