Note: At the bottom of this forum post is a rough copy of a survey. The numbers marked in Red on the survey relate to the Red numbers in the write up – shown as (1), (2) etc. I'd suggest that you may want to right hand mouse click on the survey, and 'save the image' to your computer so that you can open it at a larger size – to zoom in and out etc.

The video appears at the bottom of this report.

All the 'photos' are actually just still frames taken from the video footage.

Ogof Draenen - The Round Trip - 15th May 2011
Trip Report by Tim Watts.

05:40, 16th February 2011: The missus kicks me awake; “Aren’t you getting up?” she asks, “The alarms already gone off three times!”

20 mins later, remembering to pick up all my caving gear on the way out of the door, I'm sat in Marcs Carneys car heading towards Ogof Draenen in Gwent, South Wales. Bracing ourselves for the three hour journey we find ourselves behind another car, the registration of which ends in 'MAD'. Based on the trip we were about to embark on, that in itself was very apt, but moreover, it meant that we were following non other than John 'crazy' Joinson, his better half Linda and looking every so slightly green, from a wedding party the night before, Doug the red wine drinker!

Loosing them through various roundabouts we stop for a quick break at a McDonalds, just enough time for a coffee and a McMuffin before getting back on the road and arriving at the car park next to the Lamb & Fox Pub at Pwll Du.

By 9:30 the 11 strong team are kitted up ready to make a move. Mick Murphy had brought along a couple of new lads Dain and Luke, and Marc had invited the father-son team of Mansell and Tom. Also with us was Briany who had driven straight from the Cave Rescue AGM the day before and camped for the night.

We made the short walk to the cave entrance (1) and opened up the door to peer inside. Armed with various printouts of survey data, round trip description texts and anything else we'd been able to lay our hands on prior to the trip, we were hell bent on completing the round trip.









Ogof Draenen is currently in the region of 70km in length and still 'growing' as more and more new discoveries are made. This being the second largest cave in the UK, just navigating the round trip is a task in itself and we wanted to be armed with as much information as possible. Mick Murphy had done the round trip around 20 years ago but it would be unfair to expect anyone to remember the way after such a long time!

Entering the cave the initial entrance complex is on the small side. Nothing too tight and squeezy but not exactly of vast proportions. After an early start and a three hour car drive its a rude wake up! We were very fortunate that the entrance series were uncharacteristically dry due to the good weather preceding the trip.















After a while, the second of a couple of scaffolding climbs leads down through a slightly unstable area.



And then a small climb down what is normally a pouring torrent!





Finally a space big enough to re-group!





Easier ground then allows us to reach a short rope assisted down climb (2).

















Shortly after getting to the bottom of this down climb, we reached “Cairn Junction” (3). At “Cairn junction” (on the cairn itself) is the signing-in book, which we were all careful to complete!




We then took the desirable sounding “Wonderbra Bypass” which leaves the “Cain Junction” area via a small down climb.





“Wonderbra” quickly leads in to the equally desirable sounding “Beer Challenge”.

The reality was the this quickly turned into a low flat out crawl and its was a welcome relief when we exited into the much larger “White Arch Passage”.















Passing under the White Arch itself (I confess that I didn't notice passing under it, probably because the whole way was a boulder passage and most of the time was spend watching my footing on very slippy rock!) we entered the Lamb and Fox Chamber (4), named after the pub which lies directly above. In this chamber were some huge boulders – the size of buses!

Circling round this chamber in a generally clockwise direction we reached a rock 'staircase' up which we climbed.



Climbing this brought us in to the beginning of the “Indiana Highway” (5).

“Indiana Highway” is a narrow rift, which gets deeper and deeper. A slip into this rift would result in a considerable drop and in many parts where the rift got wider towards the bottom, it looked as if it would be impossible to climb out of without a rope. In other places you could imagine dropping into the narrowing rift and becoming jammed by the tightening taper. At one point there is a hole in the floor of the rift with a huge shaft dropping straight down. This is at a wider point of the rift making the situation even more 'exposed'. Thankfully a traverse line has been put in as you pass over this section.











Crawling out of the end of the Indiana Highway, we reached an area where we could regroup and catch our breath and admire some nice fossils.

At this point Canyon West and Canyon East meet us, and the passage we follow towards Megadrive for a short distance also resembled what can only be described as a canyon. It was here that we stopped for a quick bite to eat and drink. The time now being around midday, already two hours into the trip and with a long long way ahead of us!

Moving on down the HUGE Megadrive passage some of us took a short detour down a route the name of which escapes me (somewhere near the “Rabbit Run”) to see some pretties while others decided to save their energy!











Then we made progress along Perseverance II.





From Perseverance II we arrived on a balcony at the top of a cliff overlooking “Arms Park” (6) This is another Large Chamber. Thankfully this is fitted with a ladder making the climb down very simple compared to rigging for SRT. This chamber is fairly close to the controversial second entrance, which I assume was used to bring the ladder sections into the cave.
This second entrance is the topic of much debate but is not available for general use – from what I understand its been blocked and unblocked a number of times as rival parties seek agreement.







From the bottom of the ladder the route circles round to the left and a half hidden hole leads down to the left which brings us out into the Players Tunnel.





Circling round, the Players Tunnel passes directly beneath our previous route. Most of the Players Tunnel has a totally flat roof, and the huge slabs and boulders that have fallen from it make the going slow but steady. At the end of the Players Tunnel we pass under a section where the loose rock roof if still in the process of peeling off! I wouldn't go as far as using the term 'hanging death' but this peeling process has been going on for an immeasurable time and in the grand scheme of things its all going to fall down one day! Where some of the roof has landed in what could almost be described a 'choke' , there is a small but easy enough route through which brings us out on the other side into St. Davids Hall.





I made an attempt at taking a photo of the hall which is shown below, but I was using the camera I used for the Video, which was in a semi steamed up scuba diving housing, without a tripod. Trying to light it with just my caplight, although being over 1500 Lumens, was still not really enough for a snapshot of a chamber this size (and this was just a small part of it at the far end!)







As you can see the roof is flat again, just like the players tunnel had been previously – the same bedding plane.

Moving on – directly ahead in the previous photo, another fairly tight crawl brought us out into Agent Blorenge II. This being an active streamway. It made a refreshing change to be able to walk on a relatively flat, non-slippy floor and we made good progress.





We knew the at some point along this passage we would need to turn left into the Squirrel Rifts. This area of the cave is well known for its ability to confuse anyone trying to navigate the round trip. Many written guides state things like “Forget the survey, follow your nose, etc etc etc” Most accounts I've read state this as being the hardest section of the trip to navigate.

Eventually we reached a low sumped area in Agent Blorenge, and having confirmed that it was actually the sump on our survey and not just a low section, we knew we needed to backtrack a little.











Backtracking slightly we explored various options before finding what we considered to be the most likely. A banked climb (7) heading up from the streamway according to the compass built into my watch was heading the correct way - due south.







Using the Compass built into my watch we managed to confirm that we were generally heading the right way and by a process of elimination slowly worked our way through the squirrel rifts.

It was this section that took us a much longer than our expected amount of time. Scouting ahead Mick and I found ourselves dropping down into a very tight rift, helmets off wriggling through. Mick popped out at the far end and as I was half way through shouted back that he'd found a rope hanging down for an abseil from above which might be easier. He had concern that the squeeze might be too tight for some in the group. I agreed to squeeze backwards and then climb back up to where the rest of the group were waiting in order to scout round for the top of the rope that Mick had found.

While Mick and I had been exploring this option, John and Doug had explored a tight crawl directly above us, John had forced his body through and now found himself with his head hanging out of a worm hole high in the side of a sheer cliff, looking down at Mick! Doug doing his best to pull John out backwards!

Trying to retain communication between Mick, Doug (and hence John) and the rest of the team, we got to the top of the rope (8 ). This involved popping out of a hole in another section of cliff feet first while clinging onto the rope – all of us being happy to have caving belts and cowstails on! Then free climbing down about 4 meters of sheer rock into a very steeply sloping rift which banked down sharply, before becoming a free hanging abseil.

Having only one figure of 8 descender between the team and with several of the team having no experience of using it, I found myself positioned on the sloping rift, below the 4m down-climb, and above the abseil, guiding the team out through the hole, down the free climb, down the slope, and then threading them onto the figure of 8 before instructing them down. (I then had to pull the figure of 8 back up again after each descent). From us reaching the sump in Agent Blorenge, navigating through the squirrel rifts and all getting to the bottom of the abseil something like 2 hours had passed for a total distance of only a few hundred yards!

NB: On reflection (Having the power of Google at my disposal) it would appear that the correct route was the tight squeeze that Mick and I were initially going through which avoided the very tricky free climb and abseil. But Micks judgement that it was too tight for some in the group was no-doubt based on sound experience. On reflection it would have saved time to send the smaller team members (even I was able to fit so it can't have been 'that' tight!) through the squeeze and the 'larger' ones down the abseil.



Mick had instructed his wife to call Cave Rescue if she hadn't heard from us by 21:00 and time was definitely against us now!

Happy to have finally come through the Squirrel rifts we entered “Far Agent Blorenge” with its active stream way any some nice pretties (formations) along the way.



At a point (9 ) the main passage takes a sharp turn to the right, the water disappears down a hole here and re-emerges immediately after the right turn. Following the path of water on this route is the Normal Route for the round trip but an alternative 'Shorter' route was described in one of the route descriptions which involved continuing due south at this point to go via the tight crawl of Chocolate Blorenge. Based on the time factor, Marc and Mick made the sensible decision based on the information given to take this shorter route. I said I'd wait at the junction to instruct/direct several of the team who were still catching up from behind – the biggest loss of time would be if we ended up getting separated!

Fully regrouped with the rest of the group we made the long crawl along Chocolate Blorenge.





People were definitely starting to get tired now and we were at a point about as far away from the entrance as thr round trip would take us!

Suddenly we come across Marc and Mick coming back the other way. The crawl had come out in a small wormhole above a waterfall a few meters up a steep section of wet slippy rock which they thought was do'able going down but they were not convinced it was the right way and to climb back up and out again might have been too difficult.

To tight in the crawl to have a proper discussion with a trail of bodies between us but with the clear message to retreat back via the long crawl the weary group made its way back to point (9).

More time had been lost but the decisions were all being made based on sensible ideas at the time.

My attempts at filming now took a back seat to route finding. Which was a shame as in my opinion the second half of the round trip was by far and away the most spectacular and is one reason that I can't wait to go back (more on that later though)!

Following the water downstream I found myself in the lead as we reached a waterfall. Approaching it and looking up to the left was a wormhole (yes it had been the right one after-all)!

Following the waterfall down through a tight right turn, the path of the water tapered down too tight to follow any further and the way on was via another similar eyehole up a climb to the left through the eyehole another climb down (Which is the last scene of the video) brought us into the start of “Sewer 1”



Sewer one involved getting wet but was nothing too drastic. Taking a sharp left turn at (10) found ourselves in another tight rift, a considerable drop below and a good distance above us. It was however very tight from left to right and took care to pick the correct route, adjusting our altitude in the rift to find the parts wide enough to make forward progress.

Eventually it got wider to the extent that the way forward was via a very awkward down-climb of about 5 meters, which ended up being an free hanging rope assisted down-climb. I actually abseiled down using a cowstail. The only thing to anchor the rope with was a much too small natural 'spike'. It was hardly a spike, more a very small pimple on the rock! We'd read other reports mention this downclimb with a dodgy anchor 'spike' which is why we'd brought the short rope with us. And I could honestly not find another more reliable anchor!

Pushing forward down a free climbed cascade I entered “Sewer II”. Where I waited for the rest of the group. The group was now getting really tired. It was now around 19:00 and we were at point (11). We'd been in the cave now for 9 hours. We were a little over half way around the total distance and the painful truth was that there was no way that we could get the whole group out by 21:00 - when Micks wife would call Cave Rescue.

A brief discussion to this effect was made between Mick, Marc and myself.

Mick seemed very sure of the remainder of the route out – although how he was able to remember in this level of detail after some 20 years of absence from the cave I will never know!

Although there was still a huge distance to travel (several km), the vast majority of the remainder of the route involved simply following the flow of water, down the remainder of the Main Agent Blorenge streamway down a number of free climbed waterfalls and cascades to “The Confluence” (This last photo) with the huge Main Streamway (12), then continuing to follow the flow of water, navigating a number of boulder chokes. To “Tea Junction” and finally back to “Cairn Junction” (3) to sign-out in the book before the roped climb (2) up into the entrance/exit series (1).



Marc and I seemed to have the most energy left in the tank and were fairly sure of the way out – or at least we were armed with a copy of the survey and some of the written guides – and my trusty watch compass!

It was suggested that it was down to us to try to make it out to make the call, a race against time with less than 2 hours left on the clock.

I didn't like the idea of splitting up but saw the reason for it. I really didn't want Cave Rescue being called out for no good reason. In the back of my mind were things like Mark having already given his spare batteries away to others in the group who had come ill-prepared for a trip of this duration. I had no spare ones to lend him if his died – my lamp uses custom made Litium-Ion packs.

Also it seemed wrong to be leaving a group where several people were already feeling extremely fatigued.

However time was short and every second was a second lost.

Marc and I pushed on, making good time. But setting the pace at our own maximum speed was very different to the pace we'd been following for the rest of the day. I sure I can speak for Marc in saying that moving at this speed now took its toll and we realised we were both weary by now. There was still plenty of semi technical caving to be done, free climbs down waterfalls, climbing through boulder passages and through boulder chokes (12) etc. Accidents happen at any time but more often than not occur when people are tired, or rushing, or both!

Being the only one of us to be wearing a watch, I did my best to encourage progress against the clock, while at the same time balancing the risk - both of accidents and of taking the wrong turn.

On the one hand I was feeling the adrenalin from the excitement of the 'mission' bestowed upon us. But in the back of my mind was a deep concern that we were leaving some very tired people behind – a feeling that I had no choice but to try to suppress for the time being.

We were both shattered when we finally made it out and got the call through. Promising Micks wife that we'd remain as the eyes on the ground until such time as the rest of the group made it out safely.

It was now that the hardest part of the day began for me – and I’m sure for Marc too. We were out and were safe, but all we could think of were the rest of the team.

We'd done all we could on the way out to make it easy for the group following us.

We'd had difficult decisions to make in order to thread out way through boulder chokes, normally having to rely on picking the 'dirtiest' most well trodden route, we left our wet footprints on the dry rocks aware that they would stay wet for many hours and be easy to follow, We also paused on many occasions to stack piles of rocks as mini-cairns to show the correct routes at many tricky parts where we'd gone wrong ourselves and had to backtrack.

As the hours ticked by, we were talking about all kinds of things. We both had limited battery life left in our lamps – we could go back in to try to assist the group out and run out of power and become a problem ourselves. We could go in and get in to trouble ourselves and then there would be no-one left on the outside to make the call.

I had concerns about fatigued people making it up the final rope assisted climb. But I had to accept the fact that where there was a rope and some basic gear there was plenty of safe methods for assisting people up a climb. And there was ample skill within the remaining group to sort this out if required.

We decided that as it had taken us 2 hours to complete the last part of the trip, it would take the remainder of the group at least double this which gave us an estimate of 23:00 for them getting out. By 24:00 we would have to think about taking action.

Shortly after 23:00 we both heaved a sigh on relief when we saw lights in the distance.

Over 13 hours after entering the cave – everyone was back out again and I can't begin to tell you how happy I was about that.

From observing people through the day I know some ended up enjoying it less than others. But the challenge brings the reward and I hope that for everyone the experience ended up being positive one.

If it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger!

I'd just like to thank everyone on the trip. Obviously to Mick and Marc for being the official leaders, but also to everyone else for firstly putting up with being blinded by my lamp while I was filming but also for being an excellent group of people who rose to all the challenges and made for a great day out.

So the future for me and Ogof Draenen?

I can't wait to go back!

I'd suggest that next time the group needs to be smaller, or at possibly split into two teams a short distance apart with two leaders. This is particularly the case if there are any less technical cavers where more one on one assistance might be required. It will also make a huge difference having leaders who have recently done the trip.

The full 3d model of the Draenen Survey Model is available here
www.oucc.org.uk/draenen/survey/survex/draenen_survex_data.htm

To view it download and install Survex Software on your computer from here:
survex.com/download.html

This is the Video of the trip:

Awesome trip report

I do believe Joel will shortly be asking you to undertake his univeristy essays



Ian

I've done enough university essays to last a lifetime. I'd rather pickle my own eyeballs.