Caving & Exploration (1954-2022)
Snatcher Pot: Mick Ellerton, John Helm (CPC), David Thompson (RRCPC), & Steve Woods, 13th January 2022. I still remember tracking down a copy of Northern Caves 1 online for a bargain. Pouring through the pages. The tick list that emerged; the 200m plus ones. Partly completed, and having joined the club and been told about …
Bull Pot of The Witches: Mick, John Wootton, Ann & Steve Woods (11 May 2021). Mid-week evening trips squeezed between work and everything else could not provide more. With the weather mixed, a long day and countless other excuses I was doubtful over the phone until I heard John and Ann were to be there. …
Dowbergill: Fay, Jack, Bob Reilly, and Steve Woods (2nd May 2021). There's plenty of tales of Dowbergill trips and Dowbergill records. I’ve been reading Wim Hoff’s book recently. He’s a remarkable guy. He talks about how we are all capable of more than we think, regardless of the limits others set for us or we …
Dow Cave: Mick Ellerton & Steve Woods (14th July & 8th August 2020). Dow Cave is a fab place for a mooch but there’s so much more to it than that. Both of us slightly rusty we'd accordingly decided on Dow with no particular plan. The walk to the entrance is always something familiarly special. …
Scanty Lardos Pot: Mick Ellerton, Steve Woods, Olly Rees (Over and Under) & Rich Hudson (BPC), 28th July 2020. It’d been a protracted abstinence. Various new ‘guidelines’ and details were now in place and to be followed. It was exciting to be heading underground finally though; a return to some semblance of normality. Anticipating this …
Fossil Pot: Steve Woods & Mick Ellerton (14 Jan 2019). With thanks and a whole list of exciting nuggets of information courtesy of Hucky and Woody and with the Upstream Sump on hold I was keen to visit The Driftwood Series and investigate. Earlier trips had led to nothing. The first of these in a …
Recent photos by Bill Nix of Scanty Lardos Pot capture many of the highlights of this ongoing club project...
Fossil for me started with a number of tourist trips followed a few years later with considerable fun via several club projects. The first finding Chris C demonstrating what happens when you attempt to drill out a hole where all the caps haven't done their business. The next finding Joe demonstrating Fossil's uncanny ability to …
Carefully, positioning my feet on slopy footholds, I looked ahead. The passage continued on in a similar manner but the best footholds seemed to further up, meaning I would have to climb upwards to carry on..
Wanting to get out and go caving and with all the usual suspects tied up with other stuff I thought about Fossil and then there again was Dowbergill. So kitted up and caving I had a half plan. A repeat of my last trip with Ian and Adele. But there was more to it than that...
Narrowly avoiding a head first manoeuvre that wouldn’t have turned out so well and climbing out of the end of the t-shaped rift I was joined by the others in the chamber below for a breather, a laugh and a drink of pop and a collective sharing of the fun we’d all equally just had..
Weather permitting we continue to return to this project and make slow progress in the final boulder choke. ‘The office’ though remains a formidable obstacle. Not a place to hang about.
Rana Hole to Uamh An Claonaite: Andy Cole, Steve Woods (Assynt Club Meet / June ‘16). I’ve always wanted to visit the far north. As long as I can remember. Long before I started caving. Cameron McNeish’s Wilderness Walk presenting a landscape like no other in Suilven a mountain that signposts one of a kind …
Continue reading "Rana Hole to Uamh An Claonaite by Steve Woods"
Thundering River Cave: Richard Gibson, Graham Huck, Steve Woods (30 August 2017). I have often been secretly in awe of the B-Team. The more time I spend in their company the greater the scale of their digging endeavours becomes apparent and more stories of this and their associated unheard-of monikers slip out. So it is …