| Upper Flood Swallet | Charterhouse, Mendips |
| Saturday 6 February 2010 | |
| On the Friday night, GSG members Julie Hesketh-Laird and Peter Dennis arrived at the Mendip Caving Group cottage near Charterhouse after an afternoon flight from Edinburgh and evening bike ride from Aberystwyth, respectively. Julie had kindly invited Peter along because a guest place was available for a trip into Upper Flood Swallet and she was aware that he had missed out on three previous opportunities. Upper Flood is restricted to groups of four, including a recognised leader. |  Midnight Streamway |
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The full group gathered during breakfast on Saturday morning and preparations were made for the main purpose of the trip. Mike Richardson and Ben Cooper (both MCG) wanted to install and test a ventilation system at a dig face in East Passage because they had previously encountered high CO2 concentrations which had halted progress. Ben carried a Peli case with drill, rawl plugs, eyebolts and plastic ties, Mike carried a tackle sack with electric fan and power packs and Peter a tackle sack with coiled ducting and a water bottle. Tim Francis and Richard Carey set out with us but went off ahead to explore the far reaches before planning to assist at the dig. |
| With excitement in anticipation of the cave, Peter accompanied everyone along the road and track to reach Velvet Bottom where the entrance is capped by a locked, steel lid. Once down the entrance ladder and steps, all made rapid progress hauling the equipment through Upper Flood Passage, straightforward albeit with stooping, hands and knees and occasional but easy flat-out crawls along the rubble floor. The chamber in this section and beyond the Duck and Midnight Chamber is surprisingly well decorated with stal and calcite flows, some sections requiring low crawling to avoid damage to the splendid straws and curtains. This section ended at the Lavatory Trap and Sludge Duck where immersion in water is unavoidable. The Trap demands a step down into a small depression retaining a muddy pool. From here everyone had to push through a flat out wet crawl on their back, with helmet removed to pass a low arch of restricted air space (Sludge Duck), followed by a T-junction where cleaner, shallower water is encountered and can be followed flat out but face down. Following the combined Midnight and Shale streamway soon led everyone to the Red Room where the Boulder Choke begins. The red calcite flow here suggested that historic mineral workings had mobilised ochre and other minerals after the calcite formations were deposited. |  Link from Royal Icing Chamber to West Passage |
 Curtains on descent into West Passage |
The Boulder Choke presented the most sporting section. Many and varied contortions and short climbs were required to pass the various squeezes at various angles. Peter carried an Oldham T3 cell on battery belt but was relieved not to need to remove this at any stage although some prior thought about cell position on back, left or right hip was necessary to ease progress. Peter followed Julie through each constriction and Mike followed behind offering good advice on general body position. Free-fall, head first down slope worked best for Peter too! This included '3D squeeze' where he tried to step in feet first but could not roll forward over knees for the head first, exit step. He needed to reverse out and start again head first which made the obstacle very easy. |
| Once the September 2006 breakthrough point was reached and the descent of the final boulder slope into the impressively decorated Blackmoor Master Cave was completed, everyone took a short break at the Departure Lounge. After the rest the group proceeded apace along the streamway of Malcolm's Way, with impressive calcite flows and speleothems, passing the novel calcite obstacle of 'Walking the Plank' on a sharp corner. Once the constriction that halted progress in September 2006 was passed, the group entered Royal Icing Passage and the 2008 extensions. On passing Brian's Eye, a pit to the right of the passage, Mike commented that this had recently sumped following excavation but it was dry again and rekindled interest in further work there. Next the group entered East Passage to the dig in the Rift Series. Julie and Peter stayed whilst the Mike ran the ducting to the dig and Ben drilled out the first holes for rawl plugs and eye bolts to attach the ties. Julie then led Peter on a tour into East Passage at Zebra Aven, back to Royal Icing Chamber onto West Passage where they met Tim and Rich who were going to the dig. They continued past the beautifully decorated entrance of Neverland and pushed on to Chuckle Choke, where an audible but obscured streamway runs below a small rubble depression adjacent to a static sump. Once as far along West Passage as comfortable, they returned to the link with Royal Icing Chamber and Peter took some photos at the entrance of Hidden Passage before they both returned to the dig to assess progress and find out what was planned for exit. A few more skips of spoil were planned so Julie and Peter set off ahead to steadily reverse their route and avoid congestion. They eventually exited into dark, starry skies with ice forming along the track back to the MCG cottage. A thoroughly enjoyable and exhilarating trip witnessing evidence of prospects for the discovery of more cavern and passage. |  Entrance to Neverland |
 Chamber at Hidden Passage |
Photo credits: Peter Dennis |