Wed 11th July short round trip - Swildons Hole

This week's cave trip was in Swildon's Hole on the Mendips. It's the longest cave on the Mendips. Divers have tried to connect it up to Wookey Hole but that connection is yet to be made. At the latter stages of the cave there are 12 sumps (submerged passages) . Sump 12 is yet to be passed and marks the end of the cave. Sump1 is just two metres - you have to duck your head down and pass through it using a rope line. Most cavers are able to pass it without difficulty, it's the psycological barrier you have to get through! The next few sumps are free diveable, but are trickier.
You can watch Jack Osborne bail out of doing it on you tube. I've been as far as sump2, but not dived beyond that.
Sometimes sump1 is not a dive at all. Unlikely though in the weather we have been having lately.

Tim had explained that the trip was arranged for some beginners to the club. I was a little worried about the water levels, but fortunately there hadn't been as much rain during the weekend prior  as to what had been forecast. The cave still was very wet (not seen it that wet for quite some time). We went in the long dry (pretty way). Once into the Cave Scott and Tim squeezed up into the new grotto just for fun. Despite being 6 ft 4 ish Scott is determined to squeeze into anything Tim can squeeze into & positively relishes the challenge. I enjoyed a rest as having been there before had no desire to have another go. In terms of party size we had 4 experienced cavers, 1 novice and my friend Dan who'd done some caving abroad. Dan managed fine and really enjoyed the experience. We made it down the first waterfall/cascade without hitch (with some help from Scott/Tim for our novice) we had a nose at the top of the pitch then it was time to head out. Our novice despite seeming okay on the way through struggled on the way out (not due to cold/water but a badly fitting oversuit and running out of steam). In retrospect we should have headed out  at the point we reached the top of the small waterfall, but things are easy to look back at in retrospect. A decision was made to exit via the short dry way - the quickest and safest option. I think I've only been out that way once, and that was probably about 2 years ago. The other exit is to go out the wet way which I love and is always the way I'd choose to go out the cave.

As implied by it's name the short dry way is the quickest way out of the cave. It however has one final obstacle - Jacobs ladder - it starts off okay but the top is quite polished and for someone with little climbing experience, and no energy it can be challenging. Again Scott, Tim, Frank and Dan all worked together to get our novice up. Then it was past the flowing water & out the cave. Coming out through the water isn't too pleasant as you get a face full of it as you shuffle forwards on your tummy.

In terms of positives I think everyone worked well together in what was a bit of a difficult situation. Some things are impossible to predict, so even with the best of planning things can go wrong.

Here is a survey of the entrance series stolen from Dave's blog: