Hon. Sec: A.R. Thomas. Allens House, Townsend, Priddy,
Wells,

Somerset.
Hon. Editor: – S.J. Collins, Lavender Cottage, Bishop Sutton,

Bristol

Editorial

Au Fond Des Gouffres

One hopes that the detractors of Mendip’s potential will
have received quite a jolt with the discovery of Rhino Rift by John Cornwall
and his team.  This remarkable hole by
Mendip standards goes down over four hundred feet with something less than
fifty feet of horizontal development if the estimates turn out to be correct
and give Mendip something very like a
Yorkshire
pothole.  It only needs a
South Wales type cave to be discovered at the bottom
going the best part of the way to Cheddar to give Rhino Rift a national
standing.  We hope, of course, to be able
to obtain an account for the B.B. on the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, North Hill proceeds steadily downwards under the
direction of NHASA and threatens to become Mendip’s toughest descent.  The story about Mendip being played out;
lacking hairy cave and being on too small a scale begins happily to be less
credible.

Stal Still

In this same happy mood, it is good to note that the
decorations on Shatter cave seem to be standing up well to the passage of time
and cavers.  With a few notorious
exceptions – like the erratics which have been carelessly and quite
unnecessarily TRAMPLED through by some unimaginative moron, the cave is still
very photogenic – thanks to the care of the Cerberus, to whom all credit is
due.  If anyone doubts the need for, or effectiveness
of a decently controlled gating system, here, is its vindication.

That Box!

Leaving no gimmick unexplored, a mail box has been recently
installed in the Belfry with the idea that it might just prompt someone to
write a letter or even an article for the B.B. So far, the Editor’s key has revealed nothing but a few wood shavings
left over from the box’s manufacture – but we can still hope!

Postal Department

The Editor has actually had several offers of HELP recently
which are being taken up and might result in a stable system for the addressing
and sending out of the B.B.  Keep your
fingers crossed!

“Alfie”

*****************************************

It is possible to RING UP the Belfry.  The telephone number of the first Mendip
caving hut to be on the ‘phone’ is WELLS 8697. The correct postal address of the Belfry is: – The Belfry,

Wells Road, Priddy,
Wells,

Somerset,
BA5 3AU.

 

The 4,000’s in Winter

By Steve Grime

The warden at Loch Morlich S.Y.A. hostel was muttering
things like ‘If anyone goes up there today, he wants his head read.’  Unperturbed, we continued to check and pack
our gear.  Soon, the sound of words like
‘social irresponsibility’ reached our ears, so without more ado; we grabbed our
packs and fled into the early dawn light of a very dark January day.

Our aim was to ascend all the 4,000 peaks in the Cairngorms
– though we doubted if we could do it under these foul conditions.  My companion for the day was a ski instructor
from the hostel – I was there on ten days holiday.

Piling our gear into the car, we set off for Coire Cas car
park and, as we passed the tree line of

Rothiemurchus
Forest,
we passed through the clag and burst into brilliant sunshine.  There wasn’t a single cloud above us.  We were jubilant.  One can imagine the things we said about the
wardens of Scottish Youth hostels.

We left the car at 9.15 and, with ski strapped to our packs,
struck off to the west heading for the Sinclair Hut.   Crossing the Lairag Ghru path and passing
the Sinclair Hut, we ascended the slopes Sron na Lairag and reached the first
decent snow and kicked our way up to it at a good fast rate.  On the summit of Sron na Lairag we were able
to put on our skis and had a nice half mile or so run to the base of the final
climb to the top of Braeriach (4,248).

From Braeriach, we had a good run on hard snow to Einich
Cairn (4,061) and then to spot height 4,149. From there, we walked to the edge of the coire and peered in.  The snow scenery was out of this worls and
cornices hung on every edge (we didn’t get too close) and the walls were
plastered.  Not a rock showed
anywhere.  It was really beautiful.

Returning to our skis, we clipped in and slid down to the
start of the climb to the top of Cairn Toul (4,241).  Here we had our second rest of the day, the
first being at the summit of Braeriach. It was then that the thought of ‘doing the Ben’ first crossed our minds.  It looked so close that one felt one only had
to reach out to touch it.  We turned our
task and climbed the five hundred feet or so to the summit.  From here, the view was truly splendid – even
better than when John Manchip and I were there in similar conditions in
November 1967.  Wave on wave of mountains
reared up north and west.  Visibility was
such that I have never known before.  Ben
Wyvis looked as if it were a mere stone’s throw away when in fact it was nearer
sixty miles from where we stood.  The
Kintail and Torridon mountains were white blobs floating of a sea of cloud, and
the Trossachs to the south west merged as one into a seemingly vast
plateau.  However, time was pressing so
we plunged down the north east arête of the hill into the lairag Ghru.

At 2.15, we reached the side of the Dee opposite

Taylor’s Burn and stopped
for lunch.  Peter said he wanted to go
into Loch Aron after Ben Macdui so, as I wished to do the Cairn Lochan, we
parted arranging to meet on the Cairn Gorm summit.  I crossed the
Dee
at 3 pm and arrived at the summit of Ben Macdui at 4.10 pm in a bit of a
sweat.  After a twenty minute rest, I put
on my skis and followed the tracks Barry Abley (a work colleague) and myself
had made the previous day.

The snow on top was quite hard and my skis made a nice crisp
swishing noise as they passed over it. In the hollows, out of the wind, it was a little slushy and progress was
slower.  As I followed the ridge, or
rather plateau rim, round to Cairn Lochan the sun finally sank below the
horizon in a lurid red glow, and by the time I had reached the cairn on Cairn
Gorm it was almost dark.  It was dark by
the time Peter joined me.  I had seen him
as a dark spot moving slowly across the snowy wastes of Coire Raibeirt from the
gap containing the Uisage Burn.

A slow but hairy descent of an iced up White Lady run in the
dark brought us to the foot of the hill and then we walked down to the car park
and drove down to the hostel.  Over
dinner we talked about going to

Fort
William and putting the
‘Ben’ on the list for the twenty four hours so, packing up once more; we drove
through the snow to Glen Nevis.  We slept
in the car until 4 am and then after a quick breakfast, set off up the
path.  The only sounds were those of our
breathing rasping and our feet stumbling over what must be the worst popular
hill path in the country.

That the weather was turning was pretty obvious.  However, we kept going until the halfway
lochan just to see if we were going to rise above the cloud.  After another few hundred feet it was plain
for all to see that a real stinker was blowing up and there’s not much fun to
be had out of milling around on mountain sides in the dark in a young blizzard
trying to navigate by torchlight with a soggy map.  The only possible thing to do was to retreat,
and this we did with alacrity.  We piled
back into the car and scurried through the murk to
Inverness
where Dorothy was staying with her folk’s and arrived there in time for a late
breakfast.

Data: (Discounting the ‘Ben’.)

Distance: Height Gain: Taylor’s Burn Ski Runs Time (car-car)

21 miles. 9,800 feet. Crampons on ice. 10 miles approx. 9 hrs 15 mins.

 

Monthly Notes No. 38

By “Ben”

Rhino Rift

It can no longer be news that the great engineering project
(including the Trans-Rhino Rift railway and Control Room) has resulted in a
cave.  After a few preliminary
discoveries, the Rhino Rift team broke into a nicely stalactited chamber which
forms the top of an large shaft, thirty feet across and a hundred feet
deep.  This ends in a steeply sloping
stalagmited boulder slope leading to a spacious fifty five foot pitch followed
immediately by a more rift-like pitch of eighty feet.  The bottom of this third pitch, some 280 feet
below the top of the first pitch, is quite large also and the prospects of
further discoveries at this point are very good.  There is at present quite a lot of loose rock
on the ledges and in the third shaft. When this is cleared the descent will become much safer and will become
the longest and most pleasurable vertical descent on Mendip.  The prospects around the top of the shaft are
also good, and the R.R. team are likely to be kept quite busy in the next few
months.

Reservoir Hole

The dig in the terminal boulder choke is looking promising,
but is becoming rather hazardous.

Stobart’s Hole

Entered by Messrs Stobart and Harvey after about three hours
work in the face of the Tarmac Quarry at Shipham.  It is about fifty five feet up the face and
consists of a very loosed by spacious rift some fifty feet long.

North Hill

This has also gone to the extent of yielding a hundred and
fifty feet of passage ending in an impossible light section.  Even Fred Davies is stuck at present at this
point.

Yorkshire – Whitsun

Anyone interested in a trip to Yorkshire at Whitsun (May 29
– 31) visiting Alum Pot, Disappointment Pot and Ireby Fell Cavern should
contact TIM LARGE at 16 Meade House, Wedgewood Road, Twerton, Bath, Somerset.

Climbing Meets

The following Climbing Meets have been arranged: –

SCOTLAND       9h to 20 April.
NORTH WALES            7th
to 9th May.

CORNWALL      Whitsun and August Bank Holiday.
PEMBROKE     24th to 26th September.

GOWER
COAST           15th
to 17th October.

There are additional meets in
North
Wales between these dates. Contact ‘Fred’ Atwell for details.

 

M.R.O.

Every caver on Mendip is a member of the M.R.O. and may find
himself on a rescue at some time or other. That means YOU and the M.R.O. may well need YOUR help one day.  To enable the B.E.C. to play its full part in
rescue work, as many of its members as possible MUST be on an efficient
call-out system.  PLEASE send the
following information to TIM LARGE at 16 MEADE HOUSE,

WEDGWOOD ROAD, TWERTON,
BATH,

SOMERSET as
soon as you can.

Your home and work phone number if any.  Whether you are prepared to help underground
or on the surface.  Whether you have
transport, what is consists of and how many people will it hold besides
yourself.  How long have you been caving
and what Mendip caves you have a thorough knowledge of.  Whether you have any special knowledge of
little parts known parts of cave systems. What real and practice rescues you have been on and whether you are
qualified in any kind of first aid.

PLEASE take this seriously. It is a serious subject.  NOBODY
wants to be called out on rescues but if you are fit and active or have
knowledge and experience and do nothing towards putting these at the service of
the M.R.O. some poor bloke might well die who could be alive but for your laziness
or selfishness.

Think about it.  No DO
something about it.  Go on, do it now.

Notices

Have you got an old WHEELBARROW?  You know the sort of thing.  It has one wheel, two handles and flies.  If you have, or you know anyone who has –
preferably a contractor’s barrow BRING IT TO THE BELFRY or contact the Hut
Engineer.  Perhaps you can LEND us a
barrow at a pinch (you might even get it back again if you’re lucky!)

The Committee would like to record their thanks to Nigel
Rich for the donation of two hundred Christmas trees for the Belfry site.

THERE WILL BE ANOTHER EVENT AT THE BELFRY ON SATURDAY THE
22ND OF MAY.  THIS WILL BE PRECEDED BY A
TACKLE AFTERNOON AT WHICH THE ONE AND ONLY NORMAN (“Tacklemaster”) PETTY WILL
BE PRESENT IN PERSON TO SHOW HOW B.E.C. TACKLE IS CONSTRUCTED.  DO NOT MISS THIS ASTOUNDING AND UNREPEATABLE
DEMONSTRATION…..FOLLOWED BY AN EVENING’S BEER, SONG AND FIRE PREVENTION.

Thanks to our old friend and club member ‘Tessie’ Burt (Nee
Storr) who has recently sent a donation to the club and who will be pleased to
see old friends when they are in

London.  The number is Harpenden 62588 and the address
is

66 Roundwood Lane,
Harpenden, Herts.

WET SUITS can be obtained at a discount price.  £12 for a nylon lined kit.  Double skin available if required.  We must get TEN orders for this discount price.  HOW ABOUT YOU?  Contact TIM LARGE, 16 MEADE HOUSE,

WEDGWOOD ROAD,
TWERTON,

BATH,
SOMERSET.

Have you paid your sub yet?

 

Dan-yr-Ogof

A group of us visited the South Wales Caving Club
Headquarters of January 7th for one of our regular fortnightly trips into
O.F.D. where we have spent most of the winter caving weekends in
exploration.  A friend (Martin) from
S.W.C.C. said that he was going into Dan-yr-Ogof to remove eighty feet of
electron ladder from Rottenstone Aven in D.Y.O. II.  This was to be replaced with nylon line hung
from a rawlbolt.  Since trips into the
cave require an S.W.C.C. leader, we jumped at the chance to join Martin.    Buckett and I always take wet suits with
us, just in case we are offered a trip into Dan-yr-Ogof.  Bert’s neoprene bags barely resemble a suit,
so he left them at home in Wycombe. However, he managed to borrow some wet suit trousers which helped.  Dan-yr-Ogof is, in places, very wet.

The show cave is closed for the winter months, so we had to
go in by the river entrance.   This is
some thirty feet below the show cave entrance and is quite impressive in
itself, with plenty of water resurging from it. The water is several feet deep in places, and the current pretty
strong.  Before daylight is lost, a climb
into a hole in the roof from which a small stream trickles leads us through a
gated grille into the show cave.  On
concrete paths, the walk to the lake is easy. There seemed to be no spectacular formations in the show cave, but
Martin gave a very talented tourist guides description of the various bits of
stal.

We soon dropped down to the lakes, which form the main part
of the stream.  Traversing the edge of
these, Bert caused much amusement in his topless wet suit.  The lakes are largely deep and slow moving
and have a floor of that irritating sand that gets into boots all too easily.

Leaving the roomy passage for low roofed boulder-stream
chambers followed by a high narrow rift passage, we eventually arrived at the
beginning of the endless crawl.  This
seemed neither long nor arduous as expected, although much heat was generated
by all.  A right angle bend proved to be
much easier than that in Blue Pencil. If, at one time, there were any very tight or awkward parts, these must
have been removed with bang or the passage of very many cavers.  At the end of the crawl, a descent via ample
ledges, followed by a fixed chain ladder allows one to drop straight into the
Grand Canyon in Dan-yr-Ogof II.

The
Grand Canyon is full of
straws, up to five feet or more in length, and they are clustered in groups of
several hundred.  In spite of the high
roof, it is necessary in many places to duck in order to avoid damaging
them.  On shelves at the sides there are
many small helictites.  A short distance
along the
Grand Canyon is a fine pool, almost
filling the width of the passage and containing orange crystals and
soapflakes.  On the journey out, we
gingerly picked our way round the far side of this pool and climbed into
Flabbergasm Chasm.  Here are some superb
straws.  Although few in number, they are
up to ten feet long.  One has a large
pendant stal attached and seems to sway gently. All looked so fragile that we tiptoed past, hardly daring to breathe.

Grand Canyon ends in a short climb, and the

Green
Canal
lies immediately ahead.  This is a narrow
twisting rift containing deep, cold, green water.  Bert used a lilo mini dinghy to get through
the two hundred feet of canal and paddled with feet dangling over the sides,
for all the world like a troglodyte duck (such creatures DO exist – see the
Caves of Northwest Clare.)  The canal is
only wide enough for a swimmer to pass the lilo safely in one or two
places.  Not wanting to be held up
treading water and rapidly freezing, we waited for Betrt to disappear from
sight and sound.  This took some time,
for firstly he played and spun round in the water, and then he is a noise
fellow anyway.  I set off at racing
speed, splashing water everywhere, only to find Bet attempting to hide from my
wrath in the nearest passing place.  I
set up eddies, spinning Bert out of control, until Buckett came along and set
the poor fellow to rights again.  On the
return journey, we discovered that we had swum much further than necessary – we
could have stood up after a hundred feet or so!

Rottenstone Aven.  The
name could hardly be more apt.  Loose
boulders abound, and the landings off the ladder both top and bottom, are quite
nasty.  The upper one is a ledge of
boulders, cemented loosely with mud. While the rawlbolt was being fitted, we traversed a mud and boulder
ledge and crossed a very narrow slippery bridge made of similar materials to
the ledge from which Bert nearly discovered the quickest way to the bottom of
the aven.  Climbing a steep mud slope, we
came to a couple of chambers a hundred and fifty feet above the aven
floor.  From the roof of each hung many
beautiful white delicate tree-like formations, composed of helitites and
calcite crystals.  Some looked like
inverted corals in bunches of about three inches in diameter.

The ladder had been in the aven six months, and looked like
it.  All but Buckett descended using the
ladder, while he finally let down the ladder and abseiled down on a new nylon
line.  Having noshed, we set off rapidly
for the first rising.  Here, water from
the sink Waen Fignen Felen appears from a sump but soon vanishes into the
boulders on the floor.  Water from the
much larger sink Sink-y-Geidd is seen again only in D.Y.O. I in the lakes and
at the resurgence.  Clearly, much large
passage remains to be discovered.  We did
not go into D.Y.O. III, but it is reached via a fixed ladder through a hole in
the roof near the rising.  We emerged
after an excellent, though not technically difficult seven hour trip, to a fine
evening with full moon and pale starts twinkling.  A fitting end to a trip into such beautiful
system.

 

A few days in

Yugoslavia

by Colin Priddle

Unlike hitching from
Austria
into
Yugoslavia, hitching in
Yugoslavia is very much
easier and I had soon found the Karts Research Centre for

Slovenia in
Postojna.  There I was shown their fine
museum and given the address of the Jamerski Klub Ljubljana, and was told that
they met every Friday at 7 pm.  The next
day being Thursday, I went to the famous Postojnska Jama in Postojna.  The trip in the cave lasted a hundred and
five minutes and was made up of about two kilometres in the train and a walk of
about a mile.  It was really
magnificent.  All of the cave was shown
as abundant with formations.  The
lighting was perfect and the English speaking guide very informative.  Later that day, I went to the Predjamski
Grad, which is a castle in the entrance to a cave.  The cave behind the castle is about five
kilometres long but it is not for the public’s eye.  On Friday, I hitched back to

Ljubljana and eventually found an insignificant
door along a dingy corridor.  After a
look around the town, I returned at 7 pm. After an hour in the clubroom, we went out for a few beers and as the
Yugoslavians could speak very good English, I found the evening interesting,
informative and, of course, boozy.

The next day, I found myself travelling by car to Idrija
which is about forty kilometres from Ljubljana and soon after an excellent
picnic meal, there of us were donning wet suits and diving equipment (designed
for sea diving) and passed a forty metre long sump in a resurgence cave called
Ukovnok. This sump was passed for the first time the weekend previous to my
visit, and the purpose of this trip was to survey the cave and to dive the
second sump.  Both were
unsuccessful.  The clinometer was lost,
probably in the first sump and the dive into the second sump only resulted in a
small bell being found.

After we had explored the complex of small passages near the
second sump, I wandered further back in the cave, went though a small passage and
found a large chamber which bypassed the second sump.  After showing the Yugoslavs this chamber,
they promptly named it Pope’s Hall and we soon found the third sump and a
static sump at one end of the chamber. To carry diving equipment to this sump would have been far too strenuous
(the kit was twin sixties) which was a pity, as they were perfect looking
sumps.  Further back in the cave, we
found another side passage and they insisted that I went first.  Unfortunately it ended after about fifty
metres.  We had, however, doubled the
length of the cave as we finally dived out.

In the morning on the way to the cave, I was shown a huge
resurgence below a hundred metre high cliff face.  The resurgence is a lake about forty metres
square with a river running off at one end. The resurgence has been dived to a depth of forty metres, but has proved
too be too big for divers to see where they were going.  The lake is called Divje Jezero (The Wild
Lake).

Upon returning to

Ljubljana,
I had dinner in one of the caver’s homes and as I had to be up early in the
morning, I went back to the clubroom to sleep. It should be noted that I missed one of the best booze-ups in
Ljubljana as that night the Yugoslavian-American
basketball match took place, resulting in

Yugoslavia wining the world
championship.

At 5.45 SUNDAY MORNING I was up and half an hour later on
the train at the station.  It is
surprising how busy the place is at that time, but apparently it was quieter
than usual on that occasion, owing to the celebrations the night before.  At eight o’clock, we were having a picnic
meal and shortly afterwards, changing for the cave.  The cave we were going into was not far from
Postojna and it is a lovely national park, wooded, with deep limestone windows
looking down on the underground river Rak. There are two rock bridges over the limestone windows.

As we were changing, one of the cavers was chopping down a
large pine tree, with another shouting in English, “But this is a National
Park!”  I was amazed when the tree, with
its side branches out off, was carried into the cave.  About a hundred metres inside the cave, it
was used as a bridge and was certainly better than getting wet.

The cave we were in is called Zelske Jama, the series Julhi
Rov and the passage Blata which means muddy. It was very muddy and unfortunately my caving clothes were the only
clothes I had in

Yugoslavia.

At the end of this muddy passage was a boulder choke and a
sump that looked easily diveable.  The
object of the trip was to bang (they say mine) at the top of the boulder choke,
where there was a howling wind.  There is
almost certainly lots of large cave beyond. After two bangs, the passage was open but not yet safe, so we had to
return as we had no fuse left for further banging.

For the information of bang experts, the Yugoslavians use a
slow burning fuse, home made mercury fulminate detonators and T.N.T. obtained
by breaking open German bombs left over from the war.  The bombs are stacked in several caves.

I was shown a further part of the series, very big and
pretty and then we went out to fester in the sun for a couple of hours before
going to catch the train to

Ljubljana.

In
Slovenia,
which is the northern part of

Yugoslavia,
they have about three thousand five hundred explored caves and only about
thirty five cavers – not all of those very active.

 

Muscial Surveys

Meanwhile, the following has been sent us by Bob Bagshaw…

On a cave survey which we received recently form the States,
certain musical notations were used.  To
keep the B.E.C. up to date, a group of armchair troglodytic scientists have set
up a special study group.  Their
preliminary report indicates some of the lines on which the Americans may now
be working.

The group of armchair troglodytic scientists now require
some measurements to be carried out underground and are looking for some
unusually clever keen erudite robust souls to investigate the notes emitted by
strategically placed stalactites when struck by a standard laboratory hammer
(e.g. the base of a carbide lamp containing a specified quantity of Belfry
carbide) under varying climatic conditions. They will appoint and Acting Sound Surveyor who will ascertain which
stalactites should be included in a survey to facilitate musical route in
finding caves.

Due to the lack of space, the full deliberations of the
Group of Armchair Troglodytic Scientists cannot be published, but the above
gives some idea of their reasoning and special hopes.

I.N. Itial

Christmas Puzzle

At present, “Sett” gets the two pints of beer, unless
somebody else comes up with a more ingenious solution.  Answer and final winner will be given in next
month’s B.B.

Have you paid your sub yet?

Monthly Crossword – Number 9

Across:

1. Use twit for strenuous caving.
(3,4)
4. Initial form of bang. (1,1)
5. Minor caving operation. (2)
7. Light in rift or chamber. (5)
9. Be tempers frayed in this series?. (9)
10. Diggers do this. (5)
11. Artistic inside of straw? (2)
13. Direction to go for further exploration. (2)
14. Muddled Rat’s egg to the Belfry from the Hunters? (7)

Down:

1. “….will do it to excess.”? (2)
2. Is gun very mixed in this caving activity. (9)
3. Top of top? (2)
4. Type of charge. (7)
6. Stream to a cave. (5,2)
7. Mix paste to show the way. (5)
8. Custom may be exhibited in caves but not dress. (5)
12. Has been beheaded. (2)
13. Alternative. (2)

Solution To Last Month’s Crossword

 

Stencils completed 16.4.71