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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Dig Halloween update 14th May 2016
Due to a whole lot of reasons there was no digging action at Hallowe'en Rift this weekend!
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The Corsican Crawl – 282 metre Zip Wire
Enormous thanks to Steve for hosting and organising his tree rigging weekend. Steve worked very hard to organise a brilliantly fun couple of days. I think he deserves some sort of special club stunt award for his "Corsican Crawl". (And maybe his outdoor toilet too). Huge thankyous to Tom Howard, Olly King, Cath, Sophie & Sean, Charlotte Meakin, James, Pete & Heather Johnson, Nigel Dibben, Robert and Louise Stevenson, Geordie & the kids, Paul Richardson, and especially to Scott Bradley of the TSG who we all agreed needs a proper DCC thank you.
Steve had wanted to rig a zip line in his garden for a very long time - years in fact. Back in October, I suggested we set a date for it to finally happen. There was much discussion in the months before it about the logistics and safety concerns. Myself, Olly and Dave Dillon went to Steve's a few times to look at the tree and discuss plans in the 2 weeks leading up to the weekend itself. There has been a rope up in Steve's tree for the last 10 years or so, and apparently this rope came from the Berger expedition of 1991, so this obviously needed to be replaced before anything else could happen up the tree. We agreed though, if the zip line wasn't possible or didn't happen for any reason, we would still have a damn good weekend at Steve's playing on ropes and giving the DCC Rocket a fresh lick of paint.
Unfortunately the weekend had a disappointingly poor turnout for a big club event that has been in the calendar since October. Not getting at anyone in particular, it turned out to be a bad weekend for many- of course I know there are very good reasons why. Sorry to say many missed a truly incredible weekend. And the weather was perfect, sunny no wind. For any of you that haven't been to Steve's place it is awesome and quite special...
Upon arriving yesterday, a small group of us were mingled underneath the tree wondering where Steve was. I rang him and was given the cryptic instructions "walk down the meadow and follow the mouse trail"... So off we went and followed the white mice directing us over the bridge, we went through a beautiful woodland filled with thousands of bluebells, there is so much to see. But shortly after Scott arrived at midday, we got on with having a crack at this crazy zip wire idea. I think we are all in agreement if Scott had not come it most likely wouldn't have happened, or at least not as successfully. We needed someone with more experience rigging zip wires than us, and he gave us the confidence in what we were doing. None of us were sure it was possible to do safely, less so in one weekend, and even less considering all the other individual factors involved in putting a 10mm steel zip wire 90 feet up a Corsican Pine the best part of 300 years old, with a bit of a dodgy lean to it?! Fortunately the tree is healthy, and the lean is backwards away from the wire. The tree has been anchored to two other large trees behind it, so that the zip wire cable does not pull the old 100ft tree over. It was under tension by Saturday afternoon, however it was reduced yesterday morning. The main cable is rigged directly to the tree, 27 metres up using planks to protect it's trunk. The forces involved here are big- tons of pressure at either end of the line. At the far end of the meadow 282 metres away the cable ends 20odd metres up another tree, with the main tensioning anchor redirected from there to the bottom trunk of another huge tree. By 7pm on Saturday, the cable was fully hoisted up the tree at one end. It still didn't look great though, we knew there was a lot more work and testing to be done yesterday. Nevertheless we had the traditional DCC knees up with a moonlit midnight walk around the mouse trail, and late night around Steve's dustbin fire. Falling asleep in my tent next to the river with the sound of the waterfall was magical.
So after a leisurely breakfast we got on with it, hoisted the cable up the lower tree, and I gingerly weighted the lowest point to see what happened. I sank to the floor. Higher it went up the tree. Less tension though, the real danger clearly being over tensioning rather than being too slack. Olly and James were towed up the line, with more adjustments and eventually after looking at everything, we decided to go for it. Scott slowly lowered Olly down the zip wire from the top of the tree, along with a saw to get rid of the branches in the way at the top. After some extreme high wire tree surgery, the 80 metre belay rope then came to an end, and it was time to let him go! (There is one small branch in the way still that was just out of reach, but it's not particularly painful unless you're wearing shorts!) Olly rode gracefully down the rest of the line, with the long rope acting as a gentle brake on the long grass. Then it was James' turn, from the top this time. He went bloody fast but slowed down almost as quick and came to a comfortable stop on the floor about 200 metres down the wire. My turn next and I went the furthest, came nowhere near the floor and ended up coming to a stop hanging about 20odd metres away from the end, Charlotte followed me screaming, and then Tom with a zimmer frame for good measure.
The method we used is to connect yourself to the pulley with your locked stop on a 15 metre or so length of rope, which is attached to yourself coiled in a bag, when you come to a stop, you can abseil down the rope to gradually release yourself from the cable. Clearly weight is a huge factor in this zip wire as to speed and landing. Everyone involved did a bloody good job with simple yet effective rigging. There was no hoist system installed, you had to prusik to the top of the tree, and connect yourself to the cable whilst stood on a branch. All in all a fantastic weekend, many thanks again to all who were involved! Needless to say, we didn't get around to repainting the rocket, maybe we can organise another weekend to get the job done before the September open weekend?
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| Olly abseiling down the tree for the first time |
Steve had wanted to rig a zip line in his garden for a very long time - years in fact. Back in October, I suggested we set a date for it to finally happen. There was much discussion in the months before it about the logistics and safety concerns. Myself, Olly and Dave Dillon went to Steve's a few times to look at the tree and discuss plans in the 2 weeks leading up to the weekend itself. There has been a rope up in Steve's tree for the last 10 years or so, and apparently this rope came from the Berger expedition of 1991, so this obviously needed to be replaced before anything else could happen up the tree. We agreed though, if the zip line wasn't possible or didn't happen for any reason, we would still have a damn good weekend at Steve's playing on ropes and giving the DCC Rocket a fresh lick of paint.
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| Me 100ft up on a cold and windy Friday night |
Unfortunately the weekend had a disappointingly poor turnout for a big club event that has been in the calendar since October. Not getting at anyone in particular, it turned out to be a bad weekend for many- of course I know there are very good reasons why. Sorry to say many missed a truly incredible weekend. And the weather was perfect, sunny no wind. For any of you that haven't been to Steve's place it is awesome and quite special...
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| Magical English Bluebell Woods |
Upon arriving yesterday, a small group of us were mingled underneath the tree wondering where Steve was. I rang him and was given the cryptic instructions "walk down the meadow and follow the mouse trail"... So off we went and followed the white mice directing us over the bridge, we went through a beautiful woodland filled with thousands of bluebells, there is so much to see. But shortly after Scott arrived at midday, we got on with having a crack at this crazy zip wire idea. I think we are all in agreement if Scott had not come it most likely wouldn't have happened, or at least not as successfully. We needed someone with more experience rigging zip wires than us, and he gave us the confidence in what we were doing. None of us were sure it was possible to do safely, less so in one weekend, and even less considering all the other individual factors involved in putting a 10mm steel zip wire 90 feet up a Corsican Pine the best part of 300 years old, with a bit of a dodgy lean to it?! Fortunately the tree is healthy, and the lean is backwards away from the wire. The tree has been anchored to two other large trees behind it, so that the zip wire cable does not pull the old 100ft tree over. It was under tension by Saturday afternoon, however it was reduced yesterday morning. The main cable is rigged directly to the tree, 27 metres up using planks to protect it's trunk. The forces involved here are big- tons of pressure at either end of the line. At the far end of the meadow 282 metres away the cable ends 20odd metres up another tree, with the main tensioning anchor redirected from there to the bottom trunk of another huge tree. By 7pm on Saturday, the cable was fully hoisted up the tree at one end. It still didn't look great though, we knew there was a lot more work and testing to be done yesterday. Nevertheless we had the traditional DCC knees up with a moonlit midnight walk around the mouse trail, and late night around Steve's dustbin fire. Falling asleep in my tent next to the river with the sound of the waterfall was magical.
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| Pruning |
So after a leisurely breakfast we got on with it, hoisted the cable up the lower tree, and I gingerly weighted the lowest point to see what happened. I sank to the floor. Higher it went up the tree. Less tension though, the real danger clearly being over tensioning rather than being too slack. Olly and James were towed up the line, with more adjustments and eventually after looking at everything, we decided to go for it. Scott slowly lowered Olly down the zip wire from the top of the tree, along with a saw to get rid of the branches in the way at the top. After some extreme high wire tree surgery, the 80 metre belay rope then came to an end, and it was time to let him go! (There is one small branch in the way still that was just out of reach, but it's not particularly painful unless you're wearing shorts!) Olly rode gracefully down the rest of the line, with the long rope acting as a gentle brake on the long grass. Then it was James' turn, from the top this time. He went bloody fast but slowed down almost as quick and came to a comfortable stop on the floor about 200 metres down the wire. My turn next and I went the furthest, came nowhere near the floor and ended up coming to a stop hanging about 20odd metres away from the end, Charlotte followed me screaming, and then Tom with a zimmer frame for good measure.
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| Extreme high wire tree surgery |
The method we used is to connect yourself to the pulley with your locked stop on a 15 metre or so length of rope, which is attached to yourself coiled in a bag, when you come to a stop, you can abseil down the rope to gradually release yourself from the cable. Clearly weight is a huge factor in this zip wire as to speed and landing. Everyone involved did a bloody good job with simple yet effective rigging. There was no hoist system installed, you had to prusik to the top of the tree, and connect yourself to the cable whilst stood on a branch. All in all a fantastic weekend, many thanks again to all who were involved! Needless to say, we didn't get around to repainting the rocket, maybe we can organise another weekend to get the job done before the September open weekend?
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Fairy Quarry …….The Return
After a short tip in OFD Keith felt ready to return to the scene of his unfortunate accident 6 months before.This time Keith went fully harnessed and belayed down in to Fernhill accompanied by Ian and John to take in the splendid curtain formations whi ...
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A Coffee Break In Ogof Marros
It had been a long wet winter and as the entrance series can flood to the roof we had been hampered from visiting the newly discovered Ogof Marros. I had first met Phil Knight a few years ago when he joined the SWCC where on one of our regular jau ...
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Student deciphers ‘cave art’: ‘Stone age art’ in Upper Franconian cave not an archaeological sensation after all
The Mäanderhöhle cave near Bamberg was previously regarded as an archaeological sensation. It was thought to contain some of the oldest cave art in Germany. However, a researcher has demonstrated that the markings discovered inside the cave in 2005 are not fertility symbols carved by humans as previously thought. In fact, these lines occurred as a result of natural processes, the archaeologist says ...
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Vince Simmonds Blog – Longwood, Mendip
9th May 2016: took a stroll from Blackrock Gate up to Longwood to admire the fine display of bluebells there.
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Dig Halloween update 7th May 2016
Just Jake and Nick in attendance at the dig in Hallowe'en Rift this weekend and between them shifted over 50 bags.
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Giant’s Hole
Tom and I found ourselves at a loose end this weekend, on Friday night we decided to go down the classic Giant's Hole near Castleton in Derbyshire. Tom came to pick me up at the entirely reasonable time of 9.45am and off we went, stopping for breakfast ...
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A coffee break in Ogof Marros
It had been a long wet winter and as the entrance series can flood to the roof we had been hampered from visiting the newly discovered Ogof Marros. I had first met Phil Knight a few years ago when he joined the SWCC where on one of our regular jau ...
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Dong Hoi, and Phong Nha in March/April
Ruth paddles into the early morning sunTime marches on, two more Months have passed since my last general update, so here's a few pictures and some news that got away. Ruth has been doing a few early morning canoeing sessions with John since he arrived ...
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SWCC – Looking to the future
What better way to follow on from the 70th anniversary celebrations than to look to the next 70?There were several trips underground with the club's next generation over the anniversary weekend and this is the story of one of them.The plan developed in ...
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Ninh Binn – Part Two
Tuesday 26th AprilWorking in the rice fieldsSecond day, no more sunshine, only rain. Undeterred, but having had enough of boat rides, we got on our bikes and started to cycle off the beaten track.It's a cave, and a Temple, bonus!First we cycled close t ...
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Ninh Binh – Tam Coc
Ninh Binh SunsetMonday 25th AprilWe have a few days off, so we decided to book a last minute trip to Ninh Binh. It's supposed to be like Ha Long Bay, only inland.Foot rowingBooking the train tickets turned out to be an absolute nightmare, it was Sunday ...
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Vince Simmonds Blog – Wookey Hole, Mendip
28th April 2016: I'm out of action for a while following some surgery on a dodgy elbow. However, the quest off Chamber 20 continues and thanks go to Nick Hawkes for penning the latest instalment, as follows: Duncan, Brockers, Sam, Nick and Gavin(N ...
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Bar Pot To Gaping Gill Main Chamber
For our last day's play in the Dales we headed up from Clapham village car park in sunshine for the walk up to Bar Pot. Jess had elected to do the rigging for this one and was soon at the head of the pitch trying to figure out the best/easiest way to r ...
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