After working in Brecon Friday through to Sunday morning Jess and I thought we would take advantage of being so close to a caving area and so decided on a photographic trip in to Ogof Craig a Ffynnon.We were soon wishing we had put fewer layers on as w ...
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BakongAfter two days of temple bashing by tuk tuk it was time to get off our butts and do some exercise.The remaing Bakong carvingWe grabbed a couple of shopping basket bikes from our guesthouse and set of for a group (The Rolous Group) of temples some ...
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Angkor Thom South gateSo, we arrived at Siem Reap for five days of temple bashing, it's not just Angkor Wat here, there are hundreds of them.The Bayon, 'who are you looking at?'First up for us was some of the sites in the Angkor Thom complex, founded b ...
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A school student (f, 13) went over on an ankle, on the limestone pavement at the top of the Cove, aggravating an earlier injury. She was unable to walk, so was stretchered down to a CRO vehicle, taken to Malham car park and transferred to the school’s minibus for transport to hospital. Volunteer hours 31 ...
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A walker (f) slipped while climbing a stile, fracturing her neck of femur. CRO members assisted the ambulance crew by carrying her to a CRO vehicle, for transfer to a road ambulance. Volunteer hours 23 ...
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The start of the walkThis is a one day tour that is not run by Oxalis, so we had to pay!Uy, our guideOur guide for the day was Uy, who did the Tu Lan four day tour last year.The porter playing jungle hide and seekThe day starts with a pleasant jungle w ...
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Our second cave for the day was just across the valley from the first. We headed up the track onto the hillside adjacent to the Merthyr Tydfil golf course. After a short distance we arrived at the shakehole and made our way down through the massive and ...
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Today we were joined by Loz and the plan was to complete two short caves and take some photos in each of the sites. After kitting up we descended through the impressive scaffolded entrance series to meet the small streamway. This was followed to the fi ...
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With Tav. Had to climb over the farm gate as it was locked and headed over to the shed to change. ...
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A Three Peaks walker was reported missing, several hours after saying he could not go on from Whernside, but would return to Horton, because of a knee problem. He was alone, with no map etc.. The rest of the party continued. He rang his wife to say he was at ‘Scale Farm, at the bottom of the mountain’. Chapel le dale was added to the information – incorrectly, as it… ...
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After a recent trip to the passages at the top of the pitch down into Moonlight Chamber we realised there was still quite an extensive area of passages that we had still not visited. Rich was joining the trip and wanted to learn some more routes in OFD ...
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A fell-runner reported seeing a lamb, about 10m down into Fern Pot, but couldn’t recover it safely, on his own. A small team was able to do this and, with no ewe taking an interest, returned the lamb to its owner. Volunteer hours: 8 ...
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Team: Adrian Brown, Duncan Hornby and Claire Vivian
Trip date: 12th June 2016


On Sunday Claire and I met up with Adrian to visit two caves in the western part of the Black Mountains: Pal-y-Cwrt (there is a detailed article about this cave in Descent Issue 250) and Heaven’s Door which I am going to call Death Trap cave!

Adrian picked us up at Penwyllt HQ then we headed over to the area and the local farmer kindly allowed us to park up in his farmyard. After a bit of banter, we got changed and headed over to “Death Trap” cave.

Heaven’s Door

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This is a very short cave that none of us had visited before and is found in a deep sink hole. The entrance is a grim backwards crawl down a muddy tube full of mosquitoes. Highly advisable to put in a 15m handline. Adrian and Claire had entered first then it was my turn. After a few metres crawling backwards I sensed that I could kneel up but felt no floor. Turning around I had one of those OMG-WTF am I doing moments as I found I was reversing out over a pitch! There is a scaffold bar in the roof with a rope in situ to provide a handline down this pitch. I eventually joined the others who had moved on to what turned out to be the bitter end of the cave which was a sump.

I took a couple of photos as I wanted to experiment with a firefly slave unit that had been lent to me. We then exited the cave, first Adrian then Claire.

Adrian and Claire at the sump in Heaven’s door.

As I was climbing up I got to a restricted part and stood on a boulder so I could shift into a better position, the boulder moved ever so slightly. No big deal boulders move all the time. With my left foot on solid wall me shuffling around in attempt to pass the awkward climb up I stood on the boulder again, a second later my right foot was in air and the very pitch face I was climbing up crumbled away with the boulder landing below with an almighty thud! If anyone had been below they would have surely been seriously hurt or worse.

I found myself anchored with my left foot on solid wall swing desperately on the hand line. Somewhat concerned for my immediate continuing existence my thoughts turned to my caving comrades, at least one of them will come and investigate as how could anyone not hear that almighty thud? None came and eventually I established a new foothold and was able to climb up and out.

Reaching the surface I found the others happily talking completely unaware of my “adventure”. Interestingly they would not have been more than 15m away from me.

With Heaven's door a new cave to me tucked under my belt, never to be visited again, we headed off to Pal-y-Cwrt.

Trip time: < 1 hour

Pal-y-Cwrt

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Adrian has promised one thing, mud and lots of it, he did not disappoint!

The entrance to this cave is on the hill overlooking the farm. Whilst trying to capture a before and after cave photo we were constantly under attack from midges. Carl Rickard popped out of nowhere to wish us luck on our trip, unfortunately he was unable to join us due to a bad knee. With the midges winning the war we said our goodbyes and quickly entered the cave.

At the entrance of Pal-y-Cwrt, caked in Heaven’s door black mud. The entrance has a Mendip like quality; muddy with a steeply descending passage. You enter an impressively large chamber with several possible routes. Adrian (one of the current digging team) showed us their latest find. This required crawling in gloopy red mud and a flat out crawl through a squalid duck. It took next to no time to be covered head to toe in mud! We also visited the choke that Tony Donovan was half buried alive in (See Descent 250) and unsurprisingly did not hang around too long! Eventually we left the cave, got changed and washed our kit in a nearby stream. Adrian got out his now famous kelly kettle and whipped up a brew. It was a great, if not somewhat muddy, bit of Sunday caving, thanks Adrian!

Caked in red mud!

Trip Time: < 2 hours
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A woman (79) slipped and fell on Storrs Common, having just completed the Waterfalls Walk. A local man called for an ambulance and alerted the team due to the location, knowing access would be difficult for an ambulance. Team members carried out initia ...
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The team were contacted by the Police, after the organisers of a charity walk expressed concern for 2 inexperienced walkers attempting the 3 peaks walk as part of an organised fundraising event, last seen on Pen y Ghent at 10.30. Our duty controller quickly established that the 2 walkers (male 19 & 25) had no waterproofs, food, drink, map or compass with them – just the clothes they started the… ...
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Off we go, looks hot out alreadyJune 2nd, today is Ruth's Birthday!'Flame Trees' burning?So, we went for a long bike ride, a very long bike ride considering we were on 'shopping basket' bikes and it was very hot.Phong Nha, it's where we live. Just not ...
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With Nick Hawkes and Matt Tuck. Really good to see Matt re-join the fray, the last log entry I can find is dated 25/01/1992. Mind you Matt has spent most of the that gap based overseas. Anyway I digress, back to the job in hand. Nick went to the di ...
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Scientists have led the first full-scale national assessment of metal contamination in bats, showing that many bats in the UK contain levels of metals high enough to cause toxic effects. ...
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