Vercors, France - Friday, 29 August 2008

Paul and I again headed to Pont-en-Royans and then up the lower section of the bourne Gorge to visit the Choranche Show Cave, the Gournier, which is very close to the Choranche, and the Bournillon, a cave with an enormous entrance, where water levels are controlled by a hydro electric plant.

The Choranche Show Cave is definitely worth a visit and is amazingly well decorated with lots of stal and some 3/4m straws, it's very pretty.




We also had a look at the entrance to the Gournier, which looked very inviting. There were lots of boats at the entrance, ready for the journey across the initial lake.




We then decided that as we were in the area we should have a look at the Bournillon down in the bottom of the valley. The afternoon was getting rather warm as we turned off the main road onto a single-lane track heading down to the hydro-electric plant. We had to park half way down as a barrier prevented us from going further, so we walked from there - and quite a walk it was and it was baking!!!






The entrance appears to be gigantic, but when you finally start to get inside, it closes down to a passage about 10m round, with a bridge crossing it. Interesting place and again, one for another time!?






















Before leaving the relative cool of the cave, I soaked my shirt (good move) and my hat (bad move). It was definitely cooler on the walk back to the car, but although my shirt dried really quickly, my hat was still really rather damp when it got back to England the next day!!

Vercors, France - Wed-Fri 27-29 August 2008

On Wednesday morning Keith and Pete were the only takers for the trip to the Grotte de la Luire. Paul didn't fancy 200m of ladders, although he was feeling much better than the day before and I was completely seized up from the day before. Paul suggested quite an ambitious walk (it would have been ambitious if I hadn't been as stiff as a post!!) and we debated that for a while before settling for a short loop of it, which was a relief to me as I knew he'd be carrying me if we went any further. I was in pain!! As we drove past the car park where the original walk would have started, I knew that we'd made the right choice!!

We followed a valley, Coombe Claire, up to an auberge and stopped for coffee and some delicious summer fruit tart. From there we continued down the other side of the saddle (on the wrong path I suspect) to what I thought was going to be a viewpoint, but turned out to be a viewpoint with lots of trees in front of it, at which point I chucked my dolly out of the pram and Paul threatened to disown me.

We finally found a map showing some cross country ski routes and found our way back to the refuge and followed the track to the refuge back to the road and down there to where we'd left the car.

We then had a call from the boys and met them in Lans for a Coke and then went to the supermarket to buy lots of food, which we scoffed back at the apartment.

By Thursday morning I'd loosened up again and was up for some more underground exploration. Paul had a phone call soon after breakfast from a French lad who wanted to join us. As Boyd had opted not to come we had a spare place, so we agreed to pick him up from the registration area.

We then drove out to the Trou Qui Souffle, parked up and changed and walked back down to the entrance, which is just brilliant - sit on the edge of the tarmac with your legs down the hole and attach your descender!!

To cut a long story short, Keith, Pete and Tibon, the French lad, went down, I followed, heard Paul struggling with a tight bit on the entrance pitch and then heard Pete calling back to say that Keith had hurt his finger. Paul retreated back up the pitch, Keith came back with a wonky finger that I taped up for him and while the two of them left, the three of us continued. We dropped several dry pitches and did some fairly straight forward but airy traversing that Tibon didn't seem to happy with and then came to a point where the main route appeared to continue down a series of short drops, but the bottom of the rope we'd just descended had a piece of string attached to it, which led into a side passage.

For some reason Pete decided to take the side route and for some reason we followed him into a crawling muddy passage (very reminiscent of a Derbyshire crawl!) to a pitch that Pete assured me was only about 20m. He seemed to take an awfully long time to go down and then Tibon seemed to take even longer and I changed my mind about going down several times before I leant right out and saw how far away the two of them actually were at the bottom. I was very glad I hadn't bothered when Pete came prussiking back up to say that we were on the wrong route. At that point we decided to head back out, we obviously weren't going to find the through route very easily. Good fun though!!

Back on the surface, we found Paul and Keith waiting for us. We did suggest that Keith should go to hospital, but he declined and went to the first aid tent back at Speleobar. They taped his little finger to the next one, but by the end of the evening he'd taken the tape off because it was hurting more when strapped up.

Vercors, France - Mon-Tues, 25-26 August 2008,

On Monday, Paul and I drove to Pont-en-Royans at the southern, downstream end of the Bourne Gorge. Unfortunately the actual gorge was closed due to road works, but there was an alternative route that took us over the tops to Pont-en-Royans. Built on the very side of the gorge the village perches right over the river in a very dramatic setting. We stopped for coffee and then headed on to our destination, a gear shop called Expe, where Paul had agreed to collect some bolts for Ralph Johnson.
















By Tuesday morning, Keith was sporting a full-on head cold and looking and sounding more than a bit rough. We had breakfast and Keith and Pete disappeared in search of in-soles for Pete's wellies as he'd left his in England. I was ready to leave when Paul decided that he really didn't feel up to going, so I cadged a lift with Boyd. Neither of us was planning to go very far, probably as far as Puis Aldos, the last big pitch before the Great Rubble Heap, but Keith and Pete planned to go to the Hall of Thirteen, a drop of something like 500m (too far for me after two months of little or no caving).

Boyd and I arrived well before out allotted time of entry and Keith and Pete weren't far behind. We sat and ate and drank in the atmosphere before kitting up and heading underground. The 'boys' disappeared fairly quickly leaving Boyd and myself to take it a bit steadier. The Meanders, which I'd heard more than a few horror stories about, weren't as bad as I expected, I'm sure I've done worse in OFD and not clipped into a traverse line. We reached our destination in fairly good time, having made steady progress and decided that that was far enough.

In hindsight, I think we should possibly have bitten the bullet and descended that final 50m pitch and explored a little further because some of Keith's photos of the columns only a little further on are wonderful, but we headed for the surface.

Unfortunately at that point we caught up with a French group of four and then three groups coming in, one of which was Jules Barrett and Martin from the Eldon and friends. We waited while fourteen people descended and then the four French people went up - they were pretty slow and we waited over an hour and got very cold. In an effort to move quicker, we overtook them on the next big pitch, where there were two ropes, but I wonder whether we did the right thing because by the time we reached the 27m entrance pitch we were both completely knackered!!! And then we had nearly 2 miles to walk up hill back to Boyd's van.

Vercors, France - Sat-Sun, 23-24 August 2008

We travelled to Villard-de-Lans in the Vercors region of southeast France for the International Caving Conference to be held in Lans-en-Vercors, 10km up the road. As well as talks, slide shows and other conference stuff, there were a selection of local caves pre-rigged for cavers, which was our main attraction.

Paul, Keith, Pete Collins, myself, Boyd & Jenny rented two apartments on the outskirts of Villard. Paul and I arrived late afternoon on Saturday and Keith and Pete a little later. We drove into Lans to pick up our registration cards and check out the Speleobar, an enormous marquee cum shed on the outskirts of town that housed the dining area, bars and entertainment staging.

On Sunday morning we returned to Lans to find out what the procedures were for getting a caving trip. Having put our names down to go into the Gouffre Berger on Tuesday, we decided to walk up there to check out the route.

























We drove out through Autrans and headed up onto the ridge in between the two valleys. The views were stonking and even more amazing across the valley we'd driven up from, looking across the mountain tops to Mont Blanc in the distance. It was clearly a very popular place to go for a Sunday afternoon jaunt as there were cars parked everywhere and we had a bit of fun finding a space ourselves, I nearly took the exhaust off the car as I parked.

We walked down through the woods and eventually found ourselves at the entrance. Pete, being Pete, had to go scuttling down as far as he could for a good look. It was quite odd watching groups kitting up and disappearing down the hole, knowing that our turn wouldn't come for another two days.

Caving in Derbyshire

We were supposed to be going to Yorkshire for the weekend, but the forecast was dire and Penyghent is not the sort of place you want to be when it's raining (plus there's a 1000ft crawl, which makes my knees cringe just thinking about it!).

We wimped out at the last minute at around 6:20 on Friday evening, phoned Jim and Keith to let them know we weren't going, I went to the shop for lashings of chocolate and we settled down in front of the tele for the evening.

Saturday saw us heading for Hitch 'n' Hike to buy me a new Meander suit because my old one was disintegrating rapidly. We then continued via Oxlow Farm - to collect part of Pete Collins' car that he carelessly left behind the previous weekend - to Perryfoot Farm and had a trip into P8. Several other people had the same idea, including Paul Cooper and his friend, Quentin, but we were all in twos and nicely spread out so it was very pleasant. Water levels were surprisingly low with the upstream sump completely dry and noticeably silty at the bottom, certainly compared to other years when I've seen it dry. The downstream sump was even siltier than ever with a large pool leading up to the sump proper.

Back on the surface, we headed for Outside at Calver Crossroads and had sausage and chips (Pat, if you're reading this, it was really lovely!!!!). I had a mug of tea... well almost... I managed to upend it all over the table and had to use a huge bundle of serviettes to mop it up.

Sunday morning and we'd agreed the night before to go to Knotlow Caverns (part mine) for a short trip. The weather, which had stayed dry as forecast the day before, was looking a bit more unsettled, but it was still dry. The first two pitches are straight forward and we then dropped down steeply to the head of the Waterfall Pitch. This is the engine chamber below Knotlow Engine Shaft and you can see big indents in the wall where huge timbers would have supported all sorts of gubbins (technical term!) for hauling lead out of the mine.

To get to a point where you can drop into the chamber without getting soaked - the stream comes out of a very narrow bedding (an inch or two) below the pitch head - you have to traverse a comparatively blank wall, hanging on the traverse line. In the past this has caused me all sorts of problems to the extent that I've had to back off it, unable to get across, but I think I've got it cracked now as I didn't even have to use my footloop.

I gather from various sources that those who went to Yorkshire didn't get far in Penyghent and if they went, they didn't get far in Hunt Pot either!! Thank you Metcheck, you saved us a lot of travelling for nothing.

Titan - the big one

Team Orpheus ready to go!

So, the day had finally arrived for the visit to Titan. Having seen it from the bottom a few weeks before, I had some idea of what to expect, but I don't think anything really prepares you for the real thing. Keith was rigging and he, Aaron, Paul T, Boyd and Larry were to go through to JH, whilst Chris, Dave, Phil Walker and Mark came from JH through to Titan.

Paul, Dawn and I were heading in and out of Titan, so we followed that group down the entrance pitch and followed them to the balcony that overlooks the 80m pitch down to the Event Horizon. It's a very scary place to stand, even when you're clipped into two different ropes. Paul T was on the rope when I first looked over with Aaron on the Event Horizon and with my light on full, I could see far too much. Awesome!

Boyd was next to go and Paul took a couple of photos of us before he set off.












He looked remarkably calm (8 days after his 70th birthday!) hanging over the edge while I took a final shot, a lot calmer than Larry did a few minutes later.






















I spent quite some time on the Event Horizon while Larry went on down and Dawn arrived and then headed back up. The prusik back up didn't seem to take too long, considering, but then I was busy taking lots of photos of all the pretty formations. The entrance pitch was another thing. It's quite a large diameter and deceptively long!!













Kate Humble, you're a star!!!

Birthday Walk in Bradgate Park, Saturday 10 May

To celebrate my birthday (on the day) and Jill's birthday (30 April), we had arranged to meet, with Loraine as well, for a walk around Bradgate Park. Up to about a week ago the weather was chilly, but today it was very warm, almost too warm, and very hazy, so the danger of burning was very high. We seem to have gone from winter straight into summer and missed spring altogether!!



But we slapped on the factor 20 and 50 and set off, puffing and panting up the hills to the high point of the park, 'Old John' as the folly at the very highest point of the park is known (photograph taken from the road along the bottom of the park).

Stopping periodically to sit in the shade and cool off a bit, we made our way towards the road, via a small wood of ancient oak trees. They're so old, in fact, that often the only living part is the outer 'shell', with the core of the tree rotting, or even completely hollow.


I have a thing for trees at the best of times so I was busy taking photos as we wandered among them. I remember clambering around in them when I was a kid.

They're just so beautiful and... old.












































We also had the ubiquitous 'group' photo.

Down on the road, we had about 3/4 of a mile to walk back to the car, but we had a brief stop at a cafe where we enjoyed a cup of tea and sat talking. The closer we got to the car park the more people there were - everyone seemed to be enjoying the sunshine, kids paddling in the stream and dripping ice cream all down themselves. The deer were doing the sensible thing and were crashed out in the shade under the trees. There didn't appear to be any fawns yet, which surprised me a bit, but maybe it's just too early.

Back at the car park I ditched my bag in the car and we went and indulged ourselves in an ice cream and sat by the stream and ate them. Then we headed for home. A lovely day out.

PS: There's an interesting bit about Bradgate on this website:
http://www.woodland-trust.org.uk/ancient-tree-forum/events/eventinfo/events_calke.htm

Weekend in Nenthead

A long weekend exploring the mines of Nenthead. A really interesting place, loads of artefacts and well-preserved mine passage, miles of passage partially or complete lined with dressed stone, loads of brightly coloured calcite decorations... fascinating.

Saturday, 26 April 2008

Had hoped to get a trip into one of the Winster mines, but unfortunately it didn't come off - never mind, another time. Paul, meanwhile, had gone off to P8 for a DCRO exercise, so I spent the morning watching some TV and generally dossing (much needed).

After lunch I took another look at the garden and decided that it was far too nice to be indoors, in fact probably the nicest day of the year so far. It was early so I decided to tackle the garden shed (more of a sentry box really), so I spent the next couple of hours screwing and nailing it together and then made a start on varnishing it before I had to leave for the DCRO AGM. Heavy rain was forecast for Sunday, so I tacked one of the polythene sheets onto it that have been covering it up all winter to cover up the bits that aren't yet varnished.

Alt Tues - Slin Tor

Spent the evening with Niki & Mat and some of the Alt Tues crowd (wife Jim, wife Andy, Arthur, Martin and Scott). Arthur and I went AWOL at different times to have a poke around some of the smaller holes, while the rest were exploring another bigger hole.

The fields at the bottom of the hill were full of primroses and wood anemones, very pretty.

When we got back to the cars I discovered that Paul had been called out to a shout at Peak/Titan/JH, which fortunately had been cancelled when the missing cavers turned up at the top of JH.

Went to the Barley Mow for a quick drink and got home just after Paul.

OCC Yorkshire Trip 19-20 April 2008

Paul and I arrived at the NPC on Friday night to find Jim and Boyd already there, so we all headed out to the pub. I was absolutely exhausted and by 11:00 had got to the point where I simply couldn't stop yawning.

Met Keith and Phil Walker in Bernies on Saturday morning and, after some discussion, decided to go to Alum. Water levels were really quite low and it was quite a dry trip down Dolly Tubs, although Paul managed to fall in Plank Pool. Paul and I got as far as the shelf above the Bridge and decided to head back out but the other four bottomed Alum and had a look at the sump.

On Sunday Boyd headed off home after Bernies and the rest of us went on to Kingsdale. Paul's shoulder was playing up again, but he generously offered to rig Valley Entrance for us, so the four of us trudged off up the hill and went straight to the entrance to Swinsto (I think Keith knows where it is now!).

Had a cracking trip down through Swinsto. The 300m crawl was hard on the knees and wrists and the water was really cold, but overall it was fine. I found a couple of what Jim told me were Stonefly larvae. Some of the pitch take-offs were a little scary and exposed - you don't realise how much you rely on a back-up rope until it's no longer there! - but as long as you're careful it's fine. We dropped through the boulder choke into the streamway and crawled and stooped our way along to the main streamway, which seemed fairly short to the bottom of the Valley Entrance pitch. We emerged after about 31/4 hours into the rain.

An uneventful, but very enjoyable trip that I've been meaning to do for ages. Definitely one I'll do again.

Walk & Grovel around Middleton Dale and Coombes Dale

One of Paul Chandler's walks, interesting enough partly in the same area that Niki and I explored last Wednesday.

We headed over the hill from Stoney Middleton and dropped down into Coombes Dale and spent a couple of hours or so on the sides of a side valley looking at some old mine workings and having lunch.

We then went on up Coombes Dale to look at the big gated entrance to Sallet Mine.

From there we headed back down the valley, practically to the stile for the footpath over the hill back to the village and crossed the stream to check out Fatigue Pot. Paul had been telling us about Masson CC trips and digging in there and he hadn't really been selling it (Niki said that if he was a car salesman, he'd be sacked!), so when we saw the flat out, muddy grovel we all looked at each other and decided to stay in the sunshine and enjoy the cracking view of Curbar Edge and Curbar Gap.



Back at the cars, we drove a short distance up Middleton Dale to park near Layby Pot. We checked out both of the entrances and found another hole that Niki and I missed last week, Beech Hole. We then headed back past the cars (stopping for chocolate bars and more sandwiches) and climbed up the other side of the valley to find some more holes. We also managed to clarify which hole was which and discovered that we'd got some of them mixed up last week.

Niki joined me on a day's rambling about looking at/for holes in the general area of Eyam and Middleton Dale, something I'd been meaning to do pretty much since I moved to Derbyshire.


We started out on the road between Eyam and Foolow, managed to find Linen Dale Cave quite quickly and then visited the impressive shakehole where Waterfall Swallet is and the almost as impressive shakehole of Little Waterfall Swallet.

We then turned our attention to Middleton Dale and spent pretty much the rest of the day rootling around finding holes and trying to work out what they were. We didn't get underground very far, which was probably just as well because the Middleton Dale caves are pretty muddy places, but we did have one trip into a mine near the end of the day and Niki showed me how strong she is.

Actually the boulders are made of polystyrene, left behind after a film shoot for Peak Practice but they were rather good fun!!

Hartington & Pilsbury Castle

Another glorious sunny, spring-like day and Paul and I turned down a trip underground to go for a walk. We parked up in Hartington and headed north along the east side of the Dove valley towards Crowdecote.

About two miles up the valley we came to Pilsbury Castle, an ancient motte and bailey, where we planned to stop for lunch. The outcrop on the right is natural with the earthworks to the left and also across the other side of the River Dove, which at this point is little bigger than a stream.




The top photo also shows Chrome Hill in the distance, where we walked back in January.







After our sandwiches, we headed down to the bottom of the valley and crossed the Dove at a ford, which luckily also has a foot bridge, a huge wooden beam laid from one side to the other.




I was really surprised at the height of the debris that was caught in the bushes alongside the water, in places it was three feet above the current water level. I know we had a lot of rain in January, but I hadn't realised just how much.




From the bottom of the valley we trudged right up the far side to the road. We turned back towards Hartington and followed the ridge to a small pine wood and then dropped steeply back down to the valley floor, crossed back over the river and back to Hartington.

Oxlow Caverns, lambs and celandines

On our way to Oxlow Caverns (a trip which turned out to be abortive when a 60m rope turned out to be only 52m, so we had to turn back just above the last pitch), we spotted a ewe with a lamb so new-born that it was still wobbly. After the trip we noticed that the field nearest to the farm was actually full of little ones. They're lucky that they've been born during some glorious sunny days, although the nights are probably mostly below freezing.

On the way back, just as we were leaving Buxton I spotted some trees on the back road where the ground was carpeted with flowering celandines, the first ones I've seen this year. They must be in a very sunny, sheltered spot because they're well ahead of any others.

Clough Woods near Winster

It was quite late in the day when Paul and I decided to go for a walk, we didn't leave until nearly 3:00pm, but it was sunny and felt really quite mild. We headed across the fields towards Birchover before turning east down Wensley Dale into Clough Woods. We ignored a path on the right shortly after entering the woods and continued on the main track before it crossed the stream and headed off in the wrong direction.

Having decided that we didn't want to go that way, we followed what turned out to be a deer track in the general direction that we wanted to head. As we approached a boggy spot and a very steep bank up which the deer obviously go, I stopped to suggest that we retrace our steps slightly to climb a more gentle part of the slope. I happened to glance further down the bank and spotted two fallow deer hinds lying in a clearing not far below us. They watched us for thirty seconds or so before jumping up and 'running away', at which point we realised that there were actually four of them. I always suspected that there were deer in Clough Woods but now we have proof. Wonderful... deer to stalk within walking distance of home!

At the top of the bank we picked up the path that we should have taken in the first place and followed it around the end of the ridge to the edge of the woods. I suggested that the best route would be to stay in the woods and drop down to the stream, but Paul insisted that we should head out across the fields and follow a valley that drops down to the stream. Knowing what a quagmire it usually is I wasn't surprised to find that we were soon up to the top of our boots in mud, but hey... it's quicker that way.

After slogging back up the fields we walked back through the village and I spotted the first crocuses that I'd seen under a hedge near Win Tor Avenue.