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Mendips trip

GB Cave – Mendips (Sunday 16th May 2010)

 

Dave Fearnehough  (FCG), Antonio Sarmiento (FCG), Geoff Morgan, Riho Peterson and Chris Gibbs

 

Sarah Surman (FCG), George Gallagher (FCG), Jack Harrison FCG, Shawn May, Shaun Bateman and Judith Spring

Our friends from Frome Caving Group had been trying to arrange a Mendips trip for us from some months – and eventually we got there.  We all met up at The Castle of Comfort and filled in the permits and gave our 50p donation (a lot more regulated than when I last went to this area) then followed loads of cyclists to the cave – there was a 100 mile road event on which happened to follow the route that we needed.

 

Got to the entrance by about 11.30 am with two parties which inevitably merged into one.  The cave entrance is a 200 yd walk across a field and is gated and with a block built bunker over it (seems typical of the Mendips).  The initial descent is a climb down then a steep descent for a lot of the cave (again typical of the Mendips 30° tilt) – the cave is recorded as being 1.95 km of passage over a depth of 134 m.  The characteristic of much of the rock is unusual, being dark with lots of parallel flakes.  However, the cave has something of near everything aspect of caving, including a number of awkward little climbs, open little climbs, squeezes, walking passage, single ladder pitches  and a good amount of pretties (no sump). Riho and I took photographs throughout most of the trip.

 

Came out as two parties with the second group getting back to the cars at about 5.00 pm.  Everybody felt that they had been on a decent caving trip and had a good day out – thanks Frome.