Mini calendar: Autumn 2009:
Spring 2010
    5-6th Feb - Yorkshire, Bradford Hut (Underfloor heating!)
    19-21st Feb - Yorks??? (TSG full)
    5-7th Mar - Yorks (Easegill, Bullpot Farm)
    ~10th - 17th April - Sardinia Caving Tour

Summer 2010: 16th July - 15th August Vodna Sled 2010 - Expedition to Tolminski Migovec

Fresher Info - In a nutshell: Weekly meetings Tues 7pm Stores / Union Bar, Tree Training Wed afternoon, weekend trips fortnightly during term. Club membership is £20 (click to buy online), first two trips are £20, £35 thereafter. Bring food for the journey up, everything else provided for.
Why go caving? To get out of London for the weekend and be cold, wet, exhausted and half starved yet happy. So that you can spend your summers exploring stuff like this.

Penyghent Pot - what a lovely cave! Perhaps not the best weather to do it in, what with the freezing hill fog, the melt-water from the snow plugs gurgling down the Pilgrim's Way and random sprigots of water entering the cave through every available orifice. Sell Gill was also encountered, and a completely inappropriately dressed walk to the pen-y-ghent peak itself, sliding on the refrozen snow in our city shoes.

Lovely little trip to the 'Dip. Two short round trips, a trip to Sump 4, two counter flow round trips, a full sniffing out of every last bit of GB and a little jolly to the Swildons upper series. Lovely roast at the Belfry, crumble is good!

The trip started, as all good things do, with a 5AM alpine start; we caught the first train out of Most Na Soci and through the Julian alps to Bohinjska Bistrica, then a bus to Hotel Zlatorog near Savica (the possible Black Sea resurgance for the Migovec systems). With ice axe and crampons a quick 1.2km of ascent saw us up on our beloved plateau, with Tolminski Kuk brooding in the cloud layer. Based at Dom na Komni, we spent the next day in poor viz logging 5 new blow holes and having a look at the N1-3 entrances.

White out! Yorkshire absolutely stunning looking with a good metre of snow up on the Dales. Beautiful caving once underground, but getting the transit up the snowed out roads was impossible.
Still, had a great day on Leck fell (walking from Leck) bottoming Notts I and getting some Lost Johns' action in. Monday expedition to Gaping saw a brilliant Bar-Stream-Dis meta exchange; a great day of caving for all involved, no matter what experience.
Greenclose was an absolute delight; warm fires, comfy beds, & ace showers.

Derbyshire! And naturally, it was rather chilly. As we approached Castleton we could see the snow up on the peaks. Winnats pass was open, and we abandoned the bus on the sodden verge as there were dozen cars festooning the road. We assumed it meant millions of maillons down the entrance pitch - but was actually just one exchange trip, with each person in a separate car! Storming trip down and out, shot home to the Orpheus as the snow closed in to the roaring coal fires and a truly stuffing curry. Sunday saw us investigate the legends of Derbyshire caves worth doing which were not in Castleton...

An aquatic but extremely fun weekend. Saturday saw three trips gently probing the mighty Easegill system, followed by a massive Chili at the NPC. Sunday saw us in Kingsdale (surprise!) experiencing the joys of underground waterfalls.

A wet weekend on the Llangattock escarpment! There were issues with capturing an Aggy key, so the Saturday was spent in the double whammy of Eglwys Faen (AKA Grafitti cave, or at least it should be...) and the short but sweet Ogof Pen Eryr. An inch of rain fell during Saturday night, so the path & caves were rather aquatic on the Sunday. Had a little explore down Aggy, but failed to find our way through the first choke.

A lovely start to the new year with a couple of adventurous trips down Ogof Ffynnon Ddu (Cave of the Black Spring) on the Saturday. The cute little WSG hut made for a great evening eating, drinking and playing silly caving games. Sunday saw everyone donning wetsuits, and setting out for DYO and Little Neath, where much swimming and gaping at the formations took place.

Just back from a stonking Yorkshire classic. Tim and James did not drown, Leo got someone to carry air for him, Magdalena tried the underground out, Aleeza back on the ropes, Dan and Nathan lost on the moors, Jarv got to the spiral staircase. Jana enjoyed a swing.

Just back from a great weekend at the BCRA 'Hidden Earth' Annual conference. Lots of interesting talks about some great caving going down over the last year - British interest in the ex-Jugoslavian countries is ever increasing. Not that surprising considering how much limestone there is!

Our talk seemed to be fairly well received, though I (Jarv) fluffed a lot of my lines + forgot some of the things I was meant to mention. Still, slides are here for reference:

I know, I know - we've been back two weeks and there's still very little info on the expo up on the web! Everyone's busy moving house / sorting accomodation / catching up with work, so please bear with us. We'll be presenting a lecture at the annual British caving conference, Hidden Earth 25-27th Sept 2009, so will hopefully have some kind of survey drawn up by then.

Wonderfully succesful expedition! Found just under a kilometre of cave, most of it in Vrtnarija and at depths from 250-550m. Found a stream below Dark Tranquility and followed it down to connect with Friendship gallery. Most stunning find of the year was the enormous 81m Happy Monday pitch - Digi Photo. It's the largest in Vrtnarija with an enormous 20m by 20m boulder choke chamber.

We gave a talk in the Tolmin library at the end of expo, all the subtitles are in Slovene, but it's mainly photos: Powerpoint File.
High Res Versions of the slideshow photos. All from this year, almost all new finds.

    The green crates are packed with a years food
    The Bivi mice sniff the cool air expectantly
    Our new rope soaks off its white soap
    After eleven months of darkness Dangermouse babbles peacefully

In 2008 we found over a kilometre of new cave, but failed to make the great connection. And now we go back, better prepared than ever, with the last year spent sharpening our chisels, fettling cordless hammerdrills, lathing steel, building battery packs and stitching bash proof cases out of old neoprene. A replenished stock of fleece, sleeping bags and rollmats, along with the most gracious sponsorship of ultrawarm microfleece bespoke garments from Beast will make for a most comfy underground base camp somewhere near the Dangermouse water.

If we don't find the connection, nor push Dark Tranquility to its end (quite possibly/probably 500m further down), it will not be through lack of trying.

Stonking + full up minibus trip! Stunning weather, barely a cloud in the sky. BBQ at the NPC on Saturday night, and entertaining caving games with the Reading lot. Sunday saw an escape to Easgill + an attempt at a Cow - Link exchange, plus a bit of swimming Cow Dubs (some unintentional!) for the sun lovers.

Taking advantage of the quieter of the two May long weekends, we zoomed up to Yorkshire in Tim's tiny Polo. Was a bit of a squeeze with 4 rather large cavers, and then we had to do the shopping! James and Andy came up via Nottingham. Threw Leo (our new crossover Diver-Caver) in at the deepend and raced across on a Top-Lancs trip (after first rigging Lancs, natch). Sunday saw a probing of the (newly P-bolted) King, and Monday found us descending Rowten in the rain. Probably the first time I've ever looked forward to getting down Rowten as a way of warming up!

A lovely little weekend freed from the yoke of the minibus. Did a great JH-Peak through trip via the White River series with Jim on the Saturday, popping back up on the Sunday for a speedy derig. The White River was stunning - 'like the fat from a billion sausages', poured off and congealed on the floor of the cave.

Speleo Sportive Dans Le Vercors! Just back from a stunning Eurostar/TVG powered trip down to the Vercors. Sticky melting snow kept us off the high peaks, but we nevertheless found a worthy adversory in the form of Scialet de Gay Bunny, enjoyed the Saints de Glace and paddled around in a boat in the De Grournier (sic).

Last minibus trip of the (main) academic calendar - and absolutely stonking it was! Elevan people exchanging via Maskhill Oxlow in an afternoon of efficiency and smooth action (last one out 5 1/2 hrs after first in). Comedy rescue spectacle in Peak on the Saturday night, followed by a trip into Peak for the motivated on the Sunday, and a trip up Victoria aven to look at the rigging for the truly mud-orientated.

Absolutely stunning trip to Slovenia over the long weekend. So much snow that Mala Boka wasn't doable, but had a great time winter mountaineering up to the top entrance of Poloska in the stunning mediterranean sun, before completing a speedy through trip. Sunday saw a day of snow sledging and warm jacuzzi over in Bocinj. Naturally, more injuries were sustained sledging into trees and racing each other through the water chutes than caving or mountaineering.

Ah, the delight of the NPC! This time we had plans for the Allotment, and with a good forecast set off for Juniper Gulf, Christmas Pot and Grange Rigg. Things started to immediately go wrong, most distressing of all being the 4m visibility after the fug descended on the barren and featureless moor. Safe return for all after a i) following a cunningly installed one quid fifty LED back to the gate ii) unintended descent to Clapham iii) GPS pick-me-up from JG. Sunday saw Yordas and Heron being slithered down in Kingsdale - everyone rather tired!

Nice to be back to the Belfry, this time with fewer unbooked university clubs turning up to vomit on our clothing and snuggle up to us at night! The more worked in set off on a Swildons Short-Round with the fine direction of El Tet, a bounce to the sump and a GB investigation (up the comedy climb - only took one spreader with them - oops!). Sunday saw a St Cuths trip courtesy of Mad Phil, before a Megabus return to London.

James KP has written up his experiences on winter tour with ICCC bolting up a chimney above a 30m pitch to shine light for the first time on some beautiful cave. Few photos, as this really is the limit of exploration - so you'll have to use your imagination!

Submitted to Felix, so keep your eyes peeled...

Our Winter tour to Yorkshire was a densely packed week of some of the best caving on offer in the UK. We had deep rope trips, novel exploration by the boys with the Bosch GBH aid climbing their way up a 10m chimney above a 35m pitch (alas, the chimney led not to Santa, but to a choked bedding plane), epic expeds through the might of the Easegill system, decadent consumption of roast dinners and the usual caving hut shenanigans.

Too much snow to get to BPF, so dumped bus on the ice floe that was the NPC carpark.
King (to King Henry hall + back) & Tatham Wife on Sat - sledged down off the fell by the light of the moon on the 20cm of snow.
Sunday saw a Simpsons pull through to Valley Entrance, and a spot of Inglesport-bag sledging up Chapel-le-Dale.

Stomping trip to Yorks. Had the NPC to ourself, and a permit for Lost Johns where we had an absolutely stellar trip on the Saturday with a badly planned arduous derig. Saturday saw a trip to Yordas in Kingsdale. Sub zero outside for most of the weekend, but that wouldn't stop us!

We've finally banged out a couple of thousand words on our extremely succesful 5-week summer expedition exploring Tolminski Migovec in Western Slovenia. We'll definitely be back in Summer 2009, with a concrete plan for Underground Camp in Captain Kangaroo now that we've found a faithful stream of drinking water in Dangermouse. Read to get acquainted...

Well, the 'fireworks' trip got off to a rather ignoble start when we wandered forgetfully past the cut-price fire sticks in Tescos on our quest for fried breakfast material. So we settled for an epic Saturday exchange trip down Gaping Gill (Flood + Bar), played frisbee & lit up the place with a 15'000 candela hand flare. Sunday saw the determined head down Valley Entrance to giggle at the sumps.

Great set of wet 'n' wild trips this weekend.
1) Went straight to the cave on Friday evening (1am) and caved through the night to avoid the crowds in Swildons (Hallo'ween party with real bats...).
2) Crawled out of bed midday on Saturday before zooming off for more underground rivers in Charterhouse.
3) Absolutely fantastic meal in the super comfy Belfry hut, before getting the bare necessary of shut-eye and then taking on some sump free-diving on Sunday to achieve the Black Hole.

Lovely start to the year down at the SWCC cottage next door to the mighty Ogof Fynnon Ddu system. Big Saturday trip with all the teams meeting up underground at the impressive Top Waterfall. Sunday saw the committed exploring OFD II off the beaten track, following our noses and finding little gems everywhere.

Having finally run out of excuses, a one-man team from ICCC set off on the train to Abergavenny to join the Daren diggers at their Hard Rock Cafe. An amazing weekend to join the Daren crew, a wonderful time had stumbling around the enormity of this complex cave.

Quickly quickly before all the undergraduates arrived, we shot off for a little weekend trip with the JN/EXSS group of the physics department to enjoy the pleasure of Top Entrance (OFD) and the perverse delights of evening games in the WSG hut. Major washout on the Saturday which prevented us from venturing to the streamway, rain had stopped by Sunday lunch in time for a beautiful walk up a hill in the Brecons.

Just in time for Hidden Earth, we have a 90% complete M2/GW survey.
Vrtnarija/M2 2008 [PDF]
Vrtnarija/M2 2008 [Inkscape SVG].
All of Jarv's photos are up on the website, others still to come.
75-Slide BCRA Hidden Earth Talk [PDF]

How to explain expedition fever? The call of the unknown, the burning desire to stand once again on the pushing front... stumbling home from a caving trip over the moonscape of the plateau to greet the warm glow of the fire in the Bivvi... the ring of the hammer as you place the bolts to abseil down a new pit... the solitude of climbing in darkness, the warm glow of humanity when returned to your company... But such concerns do not convince your supervisor or bank manager to elope for 5 whole weeks.

So to speak objectively, we have the genuine possibility of connecting Vrtnarija to Sistem Migovec and forming the 2nd longest cave in Slovenia (Postojna, number 1 slot, can only be fully explored by cave diving). The distance between Vrtnarija and M2 (Sistem Migovec) was closed to 30m at closest approach by the end of 2007 (error guessed at circa. 50m). We have a mountain that sits on the watershed between the Adriatic and Black Sea, with possibily the most complicated alpine speleogenesis in the world, and a whole host of secrets to unlock. We have new caves descending into blank mountain, and deep leads near the bottom of Vrtnarija that must be pushed soon before the decay of the bolts puts them beyond reach.

But anyway, the controls are set for the heart of the hollow mountain, Andreja reports from Migovec that there is still some snow in the bivi, rope is washed and prepped, Lidl has been abused, and the days are counting down...