UKH

After reading about the injured caver who was trapped in the Ogof Ffynnon Ddu cave network (rescued and safe now, thankfully), I went off on a Youtube search of those caves and then of other cave systems.

There's one guy shown hammering and chipping big chunks of rock from narrow entrances to be able to squeeze through and it got me wondering what the 'rules' are down there.  I know that damaging rock on the crags and mountains is heavily frowned upon.  Is there a parallel with caving? (I suppose if you're trapped and can only get out by chipping off rock, then fair enough.  But to smash your way 'into' new areas...?  What are the thoughts?)

Got to say I love the idea of being underground in some of those massive void spaces.  Must be pretty magical being down there.  The thought of squeezing through hundreds of metres of tunnels with barely enough room to breath?  Not quite so keen on that. :  Some of these guys seem to be semi-elastic)

Is there a big overlap of climbers and cavers?

Surely it's more like new routing, it's not particularly frowned upon to trundle a load of choss.

No idea.  There was no judgement there, just pondering out loud really.

I'd be interested to know as well, as there were a bunch of cavers kicking off when the Pearsons climbed in a cave using trad gear (as the rock is generally more fragile) but a lot of them seem happy to bollock a bolt in. 

Some climbers cave and some cavers climb but I don't think there is as much of an overlap as there was 50 years ago. I've known of a few cases of friction between the two groups. 

I can see there being a lot of 'transferrable skills' when I'm watching these guys climb up narrow subterranean shafts, but at the same time it being a totally different world (wide open mountains vs claustrophobic passages).  

Fair play to them though.  I just know being the size I am, a lot of that world is out of bounds to me.  I'd have trouble getting my thigh through some of those gaps, never mind me entire body

It would cause a shitstorm if you went to an established cave and chipped away at a tight bit, but if you are the first in an unexplored cave and there is a constriction too tight for you to get through then it's fine to chip away at it or even blow it up. 

Ethics in caving are a lot more fluid. Basically you want to get in and out in one piece. Climbing is made artificially hard by leading rather than toproping, not placing side runners, not using aid etc. but caving is made as easy as possible short of extreme measures to eliminate the challenge, such as blowing up tight bits that people have got through in the past. But you often see fixed gear such as ladders bolted into the rock on certain climbs, because the consequences of a fall are much worse than in UK climbing so you leave a lot of ethics behind for the sake of not taking huge risks. 

Fair play

The guy did mention that breaking the rock was fairly easy and "...luckily not having to blow this up..." actually.  I assumed he was having a laugh.  

This is the guy whose videos I've been watching (I can't find the actual clip of him breaking off the rock though

youtube.com/watch?v=fjOghih_Z5s&

A (paraphrased) quote by a bloke called Dave Elliot - climbers find something easy and make it as hard as possible, covers find something hard and make it as easy as possible.

that is because they climbed a feature -- flow stone -- not the actual base rock.

Features are very delicate and its a no,no do damaage them in caving.  Pitches and routes are specifically set to avoid possible damage to these.

However, a climb on "actual rock" ie GG Rider is fine and most caves admire those that do them as free climbs rather than as SRT / Ladder pitches

Not a caver, but my partner used to be into expedition exploratory caving; multiple continuous days underground pushing new leads down to around -1Km.   From what I could tell digging out whole passages filled of rubble, blowing up out -of -situ boulders in the way was fine, but making new passages in bed rock was a big no. Enlarging a squeeze as the first descentionists provided it did not damage any cave features (stalagmites/stalactites/flow stone/cave pearls ect) was OK, but only just enough to get through.

Alot of time seamed to be spent trying to find entrances that would enable quicker easier access, as was spent pushing down.

It's not uncommon to remove boulders in a boulder choke that's effectively blocking a passage between two areas. These are rocks from just a few cms upto monsters that have fallen or been pushed by glacial floods thousands of years ago into tight spots. They are incredible well jammed in, but it's not the same as effectively quarrying through untouched rock. 

Ethically the damage to many was done decades ago. For the last 20 plus yesrs conservation of features is important, sections might be taped off so you only walk along one narrow corridor and don't damage features that exist and are still forming: tites, mites, straws etc.. some sections are blocked completely off and you can only look in and scan the lamp around. 

In the early days of Mendip caving one of the key figures was Graham Balcombe who also did the FAs of Engineers Slab and Buttonhook route on Gable in the Lakes.

In Swildon's hole (nowadays one of the main systems in the area) they were stopped by a sump and decided to try and blast a way through with explosives. This was the mid 1930s and the locals were already somewhat hostile to the caving offcomers, unfortunately the sump happened to be directly under the village church and being a Sunday morning all the locals were congregated in it. Apparently it didn't help relations...

I started off as a 'proper' caver at 16, although I used to muck about in the Lancs quarries a bit as well when I was a kid growing up. When I joined a club it was the Lancashire Caving & Climbing Club which was undergoing a strong resurgence in its caving side. Pretty soon, I was into the exploration side and was very keen on digging out blocked passages underground or entrances in shakeholes on the moors. There were a few individuals knocking around the Dales who had blasters licences and they could be contacted through the cavers grapevine. Each club closely guarded its prospects - it was like lots of secret societies spread about the place and woe betide anyone who leaked a good lead to the 'opposition'! On a couple of occasions I persuaded a couple of 'blasters' to bang a constriction just a few metres inside a narrow entrance in Dentdale. It was in a small gill between two pastures and we hadn't asked anyone for permission to dig (let alone lay explosives!). As we sat on the surface and the set off the charge the noise seemed to echo up and down the whole length of the dale! Surprisingly, no angry farmers with shotguns appeared. On the second attempt, we got through the constriction - there really was no other way of getting in. I was very thin and determined and it was impossible - perhaps a child could have done it? Cavers have always had a kind of Jekyll and Hyde relationship with rock removal. I never heard of any caver advocating leaving a narrow constriction alone if it was impossible for anyone to get through. Mostly, restrictions that thin or determined cavers could (just about) get through were not banged as they were considered to make the trip more 'sporting' and to remove them would be unethical. Despite this almost universally accepted attitude, some narrow passages that had been gone through in their natural state were enlarged chemically. Mistral Entrance into the lower reaches of Pippikin Pot was widened by a club whose divers were pushing the downstream sump. Getting bottles etc down the restrictions of Pip would have been extremely arduous. You can probably find Sid Perou's film of a trip down Pip on Youtube? It was made in the 1970's when a trip down there was a big deal - lots of entertaining tight, awkward bits and no easy way out from the big stuff down in the depths. It was even more fun coming back out!

Bolting was very controversial back in the day when they started to appear in large numbers (late seventies). Dave Elliot, a local cave instructor, was the main instigator and over the course of the next few years, the major vertical systems in the Dales were equipped. We used to carry lots of hangers to screw into the open sleeves ('redbolt' because Dave used a circle of red material to mark them out). Inevitably, the open sleeves would rust and so glue-ins came about as a much longer-lasting solution that didn't require frequent replacement and a kind of bolt-rash effect around pitch heads. Rigging off natural belays was still an essential skill as not every cave got the 'treatment' and if you were caving abroad then often there weren't any bolts (especially on new exploration).

So yes, cavers are complete hypocrites about conserving rock. Just like climbers, but in a different way.

Most cavers can climb a muddy Diff in wellies. 

And most climbers can roll around in a puddle of mud. The difference is that those perverts see it as fun  

Caving can be good fun but the clothes ffs  

Interesting stuff!  I'll have a scout for those videos, thankyou!

I just found the particular Sid Perou video of Pippikin Pot. It looks like lots more of his stuff there too. Not seen it since it was broadcast by the BBC in the seventies. One of the comments asks if Sid still has the outtakes of 'Jill straddling the stemple pot'? Apparently, Jill's wetsuit split at this point ....

"What a Way To Spend a Sunday"?

I unfortunately stumbled upon a video about John Jones and his demise in Nutty Putty caves in Utah.  A really sad and grim end,.

youtube.com/watch?v=4SGsaYf2qB0&

The caving bits (including the above quote) from the Equinox documentary 'Fear of Falling'.
Also has an interview with the late Rob Parker about Cave Diving.

I don't know about the ethics but having big shoulders I can't think of anything worse than squeezing through a hole underground 

I've got big everythings.  Getting the odd panic attack watching these vids

I have gone through occasional caving phases.

On a number of occasions we have dug our way into new cave passage. Mostly this has been removing silt and mud that has been deposited in relict cave passage over the years. However we have had no concern about the use of lump hammers, crowbars, chisels, and caps (baby explosives) to enlarge things to squirm through.

All of this is generally really hard work so the minimum amount of it is generally done.

Once things are open, people generally leave things alone, unless there is an casualty who needs removing.

(an exception to this was a cave I managed to squeeze into through a kind of toilet u-bend arrangement where you had to either revolve whilst wiggling through or bend your knees the wrong way. None of my friends could make it through so I blew some of it up to make it bigger so they could help dig beyond it. I suppose that is like retro chipping your own route)

Nothing ever used to bother me. Unless it was physically impossible I'd get through. Then, in my late thirties I started to get slightly claustrophobic in stuff I'd formerly just swanned through. In the end it built up to almost panic level and I got out of caving. One of the hardest things I had to come to terms with as I'd loved it for so long, the team spirit, the great characters I met, to say nothing of the great caves themselves. I always thought of myself as a caver who did some climbing, even when I stopped caving.

Caving has always struck me as a distillation of everything unpleasant you might encounter in climbing.

Caving is nothing like climbing. It's like saying running is like swimming. As a member of a club that did both there were very few who actually did both (I was one) and your viewpoint seemed to be current among most of the climbers. Now and again we'd lure some of the climbers into the underworld. They usually resisted further invitations.

Maybe not many in your club, but the crossover exists!  I think the biggest problem is they're both obsessive time consuming hobbies, so hard to find time for both. Since electron etc replaced by rope use (SRT) there has been more common ground.I suggest very few climbers with [metaphorically speaking] big cohones wouldn't enjoy Gaping Gill dihedral route?? Probably more cavers would cross into climbing than vica versa

--------

I would like to point to bolted limestone sport routes. These are made possible (at least made practical) by drilling in bolts and climbs didn't exist there before. Bolts are placed with care but are a destructive modification. Retro bolting and chipping to make easier is obviously frowned upon.

In caving if you took a classic squeeze in an established route and applied Dr Nobel's linctus because you couldn't get through yourself, you'd be lynched (like retro bolting and chipping to make easier). If you are making a new route possible then minimal rock removal may be acceptable. There are parallels in the ethics.

There are plenty of cavers that climb.., certainly in the BPC (when to part taking of refreshments) but few climbers that cave.

I'm a climber that got drawn into caving... And now consider my self more a caver that climbs. I think that may be more that the caving scene is more like the climbing  scene was when I started - more a mountain /outside no matter the weather activity rather than a "sport" ... Unglamorous, full of misfits and characters, rebellious and the social get together being a big part of it. 

The first ones of which used hand drilled Petzl caving bolts:
https://i0.wp.com/hongkongclimbing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/bolting5....

But the bits of rock climbing that fill me with horror are chimneys and anything wriggly. 

Pete Livesey was a caver who was also quite good at climbing...

Have to say, the thought of squirming through a cave scares the sh*t out of me.

I had a fairly intense spell of caving and loved it. Did one through trip then my first SRT was Black Shiver one freezing November night. Steep learning curve and amazing caving. Popped out, totally knackered, and watched the Northern Lights!  One of my best ever outdoor memories. 

Interesting thread TC, hope you are well. 

I was talking to one of our undergrads years back who was into caving, and my viewpoint at the time was "so it's like climbing but without the view? I'll stick to climbing!" but fast forward a few years and he gave me and a climbing buddy a tour of Swildons.  We emerged to snow on the fields and I remember trying to get inside one of the fireplaces at the Hunters to warm up.  Driving home that night me and my climbing buddy talked and the consensus was "Hmmm, weird hobby that"...but it's got under my skin since.  Perhaps not so much pure caving but the idea of finding and exploring underground spaces, of which there are a fair few round Bristol/Wiltshire/Mendip way, gets me more excited now than the idea of heading back to a crag I've been to countless times before to repeat the same routes within my failing powers. 

Having kids I like the fact that the weather isn't an issue (OK flooding excepted), nor is the light - it's going to be dark underground come what may.  I also like the fact that barring technical pitches moving together is much easier than climbing, sure I've had good moments at belay stances waiting for the leader to do their stuff and pondering the infinities, but I've also had times when I'd much rather be doing something other than craning my neck and waiting for another two feet of rope to inch out...Only yesterday I was looking at the Shepton Mallet meets calendar on their website and thinking about taking it further...

The question I can't answer is why it gets me excited. It's a perverse activity!

I'm doing good mate, thank you. I hope you are too.

The more I watch, the more interested I get in it.

The thought of being in a place so alien and so off limits really is attractive isn't it.

Its always good to hear stories like yours, where you've tried something on a whim and it's really gotten under your skin. 

Yes, that was my experience in the 'Lancs'

Quite good at a few things. Has there been a biography yet? He was involved in the early pushing of Mossdale Caverns of course. Pete ran the ML course I did at Buckden House in Wharfedale and he was a fascinating bloke to talk to.

'Black Shiver' .... doesn't the name just set you up before you even get there? A bit of a baptism of fire! I think the names of caves were one of the big features that drew me in - Juniper Gulf, Roaring Hole, Lost John's, Growling Hole, Quaking Pot, Gaping Gill etc etc. I only have to see the names and the memories come back.

Especially on the old hangers before resin anchors, bit more work and hanging around involved. First time I went there even finding the entrance took a little bit of tooing and froing in the mist. 

Not really a biography but John Sheard edited a collection of his writing & contributions from others - 'Fast and Free - Pete Livesey: Stories of a Rock-Climbing Legend'

edit to add - it includes some caving & running as well as climbing

They do conjure up some "interesting" mental images for those of us who haven't been there 😂

What would you encounter down Boggarts Roaring Hole (and I haven't made that up)? Or Batty Wife Cave even ... ? The guidebook says 'A suitable trip after a heavy night at the Station Inn!'

When I was caving in the late 90s blasting was pretty common.

In fact I was part of an experiment here in France using Hilti blasting caps to split large boulders. It worked too.

E

Pippikin still fills me with horror. That was on a through trip in the early eighties. If we had  laddered the first pitch I would have  turned round and gone out immediately on seeing what was in front of us. However we had pulled the rope down so not much choice other than to continue.  I did later hear of someone who sat at the bottom of that pitch waiting for the rest of the team to complete the through trip and return with a ladder. 

The guide description of Pippikin, at the time,  stated that 'rescue is thought to be impossible' although I gather this has been proved wrong.

Since then the only underground trip I have done is on the GG winch. 

However I still fascinated by the exploration that is still finding new stuff.

John

Who knows. Maybe when I get this timber off (see the Die Lard With A Vengeance thread) and I stop resembling livestock, someone will volunteer to show me something relatively easy 😅😅😅

Black Shiver is a feature on Ingleborough, which the cave entrance is beneath. The name is appropriate though...almost at the start there is a flat out crawl in water. Finding the entrance is quite satisfying nav. The passages get bigger though with another wet crawl before you descend a vast rift with a boulder platform midway... the bottom for many, but you can head on down a (smaller) pretty stream passage (with quite different character, much more intimate, and even some decoratons, with the thought of a long trip out in the back of your mind)  to the real bottom... It feels like a real journey. Not somewhere I'd want to be with rain on the forecast.

Yes, I knew where Black Shiver got it's name from. It's still a fabulously evocative name for the pot though. I only did it once even though I didn't find it too bad for a grade V. Other Grade Vs (and a few IVs!) gave me the willies much more. Never did get to the bottom of Quaking and Strans Gill - well, didn't even get down the entrance pitch. Have you read the original account of the discovery by ULSA (particularly the Brook brothers)? It always surprised me that such a major deep pot stayed unexplored until relatively recently (1967/8?). It just needed a bit of extra determination.

There are plenty of easy caves about. You can explore quite a few with a reliable light and old clothes. I keep threatening to make a minor comeback but it's near on 20 years since! Never say never? Some of the most determined cavers I knew were 'big boned'. One guy I know took black plastic bin bags and Fairy liquid down Pippikin Pot. When he got to the tight bits, off came the wetsuit and I'll leave the rest to your imagination! It worked (up and down) but wasn't a pretty sight.

Haha haha. Any excuse to smother myself in a bit of beef dripping... 

Told you it was perverse : )

I think that enlargement happens more than people think. After all once some muddy people have passed through all evidence is covered up with the mud. (Peak centric view)

Loads of caves are full of old bang wire as well.

I'd say it is a similar situation to American climbing where it starts of with just a couple of bolts on a route because that is all the FA team could be bothered or needed to place. Then over time more collect to allow weaker (or fatter) teams to make the trip.

I don't think many climbers can really make any sartorial claims.

Ron Hills, those lurid tights in times gone by, clothes trashed getting up gritstone jamming cracks, ....

No idea what you're on about  https://www.inglesport.com/product/warmbac-pvc-caving-oversuit/

You should worry about what those depraved cavers wear under their PVC suits. PVC suit, chest harness, wellies, you would probably be well dressed for the after party of the conservative party annual conference 

And orienteering - I was crap at all three but caving got me into climbing. (We did caving at school!)

Certainly in my time caving in the Dales (the last 20 years), I don’t know of any squeezes which have been enlarged post-exploration. Obviously it might happen occasionally, but it certainly isn’t commonplace. There’s a few  places that have been enlarged because of rescues (Pippikin and Swan Dyke at least), but that’s a bit different! There’s also a few places that have been drilled ready to blast if a rescue is required I believe!

In general there’s a pretty strong ethic against modifying passages after the original exploration. Things might be a bit different in Derbyshire though…

For those who haven't read it, Martyn Farr's 'The darkness beckons' is essential reading.

I always thought about giving caving a go.   A few things stopped me - I thought I would enjoy it and it would create tension with climbing (para-thingies the same).  Secondly, despite the fore-going I do not have an affinity with cold water.

Having read 'The darkness beckons' it is clear that cave diving is only for those with an ability to suppress many human characteristics.  They would fare well in Tintern Quarry

I could never truly be a caver as i'm extremely claustrophobic BUT i do like entering larger caves where I don't get those feelings. I couldn't imagine squeezing in a little hole in the ground or a slit between two rocks and nudging my way deeper and deeper.. 

I'm almost having a panic attack just thinking of it 

I think one of the biggest differences between caving and climbing relates to time.

For example if you fu*k up climbing and you get pumped, begin to feel the rising fear as your hands start to uncurl whilst way above your gear, you always know that it will resolve itself one way or the other quite quickly. Soon you will be hanging off the rope or bashed up on the ground. Crisis over.

When I have pushed it too far in tight bits of cave you get the same feelings of rising dread as you realise you can't go forwards and you can't work out what position your legs need to get in to go backwards. This is where it's different to climbing, you freak out, panic, hyperventilate and general have a sh!t time. Then you calm down a bit only to realise you are still there, stuck, problem most definitely not over.

I'd say it's more like the alps, reaching the bottom of a cave (not a through trip) is bit like summiting, you're only half way. Battery duration was a challenge 20 years ago too, but that's not a problem now. Most caving challenges are not squeezes, but distance, duration, complex terrain, 3d navigation off a 2d paper survey, water levels, rigging in awkward positions or locations.

I used to be a caver 30 yrs ago before taking up climbing ....but once a caver .... have returned to it recently. After years of climbing all the climby bits of caves seem much easier but the squeezes are much harder - not because I am fatter (though I am fatter!) but because ones ribcase becomes less compressible as you get older. I seem more prone to claustrophobia and find MRI s quite taxing. The gear is much improved - when I started it was either an  explosive gas light strapped to your head (carbide) or dangerous chemicals strapped to your waste (acid / alkali batteries) both of which didn't give out much light - now you can stick an equivalent light source on your keyring.

In other respects things seem much the same - when I went into the Hunters in Priddy (hardcore  cavers pub) after a break of 30 years or so, the same chap wearing the same pullover was stood in the same position behind the bar (it might have been the son but he looked identical). The only nod to modern developments was a mobile phone . This was nailed up behind the bar as a warning.

I went to the Hunters in Priddy on the Friday night before my first caving trip. Swildon's round and through sump 2.

Never been so terrified. 30 years ago mind....

Yep Hunters can be scary! Do you mean Sump 1 which is very short? Sump 2 is about 20 ft long and would be an interesting first trip... 

Sump 2. It was interesting....

I really should start my own thread, so sorry about this, but if you like running and caving there's this:

https://marathons.ahotu.com/event/kristallmarathon-im-erlebnis-bergwerk-mer...

A few trips after Black Shiver we went to do King Pot after a mega snowfall.  My mate had a Citroen 2CV so me and Big Phil (who was my mentor) sat on the bonnet and it’s narrow tyres bit into the snow so we made progress up the road.  Phil knew the entrance and we made a huge snow bollard above the sink hole, backed up with wooden stakes around its rim, to ab off. We couldn’t break through the snow into to entrance even after digging and jumping up and down and all sorts we couldn’t break through so we sacked it off. Pretty sure it was King Pot. 

Few days later we decided on something towards Gaping Gill. Crazy snow and blizzards - they had tried to ban people walking through the woods from Clapham. We stopped for a fag under a wee overhang in Trow Gill. Weather was bonkers - I remember a Robin perched a few feet away also sheltering. Next thing there was this massive ‘whoosh’ and ‘thump’ and we got engulfed in snow. A massive pine tree had been toppled over in the gales and landed two feet away from us. It was only the pointy end near us though. We did that mixture of laughing and shitting ourselves and sacked it off. 

Twenty years later, family and me walked off Ingleborough via that route. Had a wee memory thing and saw the same tree, with a huge chunk sawed out of it were it landed across the path. I had never retold  the tale, so did them. Kids looked a bit perplexed.

BTW, when I did Black Shiver I got taught how to use a Petzl Stop and the Croll etc in a two minute training session at the entrance. I’d bought all the gear an hour before from Inglesports. I got soaked in that crawl at the start. Half way down the first and I realised I hadn’t screwed up my delta maillot on my harness so I shoved a thumb into the gap. big Phil then ‘persuaded’ the maillot the screw shut. He took pleasure in pointing out the moss in the roof from when it floods. I de- rigged everything. He legged it in front. My torch started fading - a cheapo leccy job. He must have realised so waited before the final pitch. Startled the hell out of him - he saw a dim light and thought I was waaay back when turns out I was a few feet away !  Might have some of the details wrong. He Northern Lights was a truly amazing finale. 

Love you Big Phil !! Mx

For the Eagle eyed, I meant D shaped maillon.  Anyway, it bent out of shape coz I hadn’t screwed it up properly and then abbed off it. 

Memories of club meets with a few cavers present.  Away in the corner somebody would be hard at work making what were small pipe bombs - prior to working on a boulder choked entrance somewhere.

Keen caver before becoming a keen climber but love both.

I think following an active stream way underground is akin to ghyll scrambling but with a roof on but with no moss and far less ethics!

Then, in my late thirties I started to get slightly claustrophobic in stuff I'd formerly just swanned through. In the end it built up to almost panic level and I got out of caving.

Interesting, I'm 57 now and been caving all my life and still as daft as ever, never suffered with claustrophobia (touch wood). Still regularly pushing tight leads

For me it's easy, summertime is for climbing, winter/ bad weather days are for caving

That's called evolution You climbed out of the ground :P

I had considered going for psychotherapy but thought it would seem a bit trivial at the time. Seeing a shrink to convince me that pushing through tight, water-filled squeezes was normal .... ?

My version of this involved an earlier precursor to the Stop - the rack. Great for abbing as long as you threaded the rope correctly through the bars (I didn't!). I was about to weight the rope at the top of Alum Pot main shaft when a mate noticed my error. Much effing and blinding later we were back on track and I lived to beyond my teens.

and alcohol poisoning

Probably anyone still reading this thread has made up their minds on which way they fall (or be a less usual up for both), but if undecided try this choice, which one looks good to you will be a decider

Amazing training facilities - these look great fun... but which one would you pick?

youtube.com/watch?v=dy-2Yk31W-w&

youtube.com/watch?v=x5Dh7vjIk7g&

I know of a major Derbyshire system where the original entrance had a very very VERY difficult squeeze. It wasn't enlarged but in that case a new entrance was dug, in part to enable diving bottles and teams to enter (yes the original entrance really was that tight apparently) but they definitely didn't "improve" the original.

Might be slightly before your time but this has happened at least once in the Dales. Mistral Hole used to be a short series of tight crawls and awkward bends which led into the lower series of Pippikin Pot. It was blasted (late eighties by the Northern Pennine Club?) to allow their divers easy access to push the downstream sump on towards Lancaster Hole etc. I remember it being quite controversial back in the day.

We got a mate of mine through sump 1. He'd been going down Swildons each Easter for years and never given it a go. One of our party took down a mini bottle and the rest of us blocked his retreat! He went through and loved it, doing it twice for the hell of it.

Yes, Sump 1 is a bit of accessible fun, a bit like making freshers do Sifta's Quid.  Sump 2 is very different (and I was never tempted by it).  Sump 3...

I used to do quite a bit of casual caving with Bristol climbers when the evenings got too dark to climb midweek.  The solution was caving (apart from the real nutters who just climbed in the gorge using 1980s headtorches - they claimed some things were easier if you couldn't see the drop).

We did the various Swildon's round trips (I remember a very exciting Long Wet trip where there was long section with just enough space to breathe if you took your helmet off and nobody got into the pool at the end), Lionel's Hole round trip (with the infamous Labyrinth), the really tight bit at the end of Goat's Church, as well as a few trips up north to Kingsdale and GG.

My impression was that many of the Bristol climbing scene then dabbled (and some more than dabbled).  My wife (who is slightly claustrophobic and has a reasonable fear of drowning in muddy water) would only attempt a squeeze if Big Mark Hopkinson had demonstrated he could do it (even if he had to take his wetsuit off).  There was a legend that Crispin Waddy had gone off to do Swildon's 3 on his own after hearing people talk about it in the pub (no idea whether it was true, but it was a great story).

I have many happy memories of climbing and caving in the Mendips.  I felt the caving had the same sense of adventure, without too many self-applied rules, as climbing seemed to have had decades earlier.  I liked the Culm for the same reason - style was secondary to survival.  As Summo says above, it's more like the alps.   

 "There was a legend that Crispin Waddy had gone off to do Swildon's 3 on his own after hearing people talk about it in the pub (no idea whether it was true, but it was a great story)."

CW was a caver at one point and we did a lot of trips together. Interestingly back in the day CW turned down a free-diving trip to Swildons 9 on the grounds it was too dangerous so we dropped him off at Cheddar Gorge. When we returned to pick him up several hours later he had soloed several E numbers. Horses for courses ....

There is a sort of version of "caving" for climbers and urban explorers...dare we mention here slate mines? (yes, yes, pedantically they're  underground quarries not "mines"). They can make good underground trips for those who don't cave, and the majority of trips are dry routes (further appeals to climbers). Can require a little more risk management than caving though.

You have to be wary of any man-made underground workings. Caves have had thousands of years to reach a position of relative stability. Mines can be extremely dodgy. The slate caverns I've been in are towards the safer end of the spectrum but still you need to treat them with caution. Possibly the dodgiest mines I've been in are the copper mines in the Coniston fells. Potential death traps for the unwary. One passage were walking down had a very deep hole in the floor. When I knelt down to look I realised that the 'floor' we'd just come along was actually a false floor held up by decaying wooden stemples. The drop was bottomless and we retreated carefully. There used to be a mines 'caving' club, the Cumbria Amenities Trust. They may be still going. Used to know some of them.

I can visualise how carefully you would have back tracked having realised that....

"Mines can be extremely dodgy."

Quite - I moved to a non caving area (cornwall) so I have done some mine exploring but along with the big srt pitches the objectives dangers of collapse, false floors, stonefall, gas made it far more hazardous than most caves. On the plus side most of it was walking with few squeezes...

And then there's the supernatural hazard of 'the Old Man'. On a trip down Ecton Copper Mine in the Peak one of my caving friends went off exploring away from the group during a Marsbar stop. Some time later he was back, white as a sheet and shaken. Chris said he'd sat down for a breather and felt a hand on his shoulder. On turning around, there was no one there. Some of the passages down there are called coffin levels due to the cross-section shape ...

I went to some (silica?) Mines in the South Wales Valleys once. Huge, square tunnels disappearing into darkness. Didn't have a torch, didn't return and can't even remember where they were now...

Anybody body know where I'm talking about???

Dinas rock? There's a limestone quarry crag and a tougher natural overhanging crag created by the river. 

I recall seeing photos of cave divers exploring some S. Wales silica mines. The water looked very clear in big passages.

You might think that, but many climbers spent a lot of time caving, Al Rouse, Pete Livesey started off as cavers, Ron Fawcett, John Sheard, Keith Myhill, Tom Proctor, Geoff Birtles, Pete Gomersall, Tim Lewis, the editor of Mountain magazine. Need I go on. Back in the early 80,s we had a loose group of climbing cavers who we christened the Pirahna club, motto Pirahnas bite best. We used to go up to the Dales,  climb one day and cave the next, interspersed by too much drink. The only one of us who never went underground was Rab and he steadfastly refused! Nearly all the group could onsight at least E5 and descend grade 5 caves. Very happy times indeed.

I consider myself a caver who climbs, even though I probably spend more time climbing than caving (certainly in the summer). 
 

I still mostly socialise with cavers as they are generally absolutely brilliant, unassuming, and not at all superficial. Once you’ve seen someone soaked to the bone and covered in mud etc. It just doesn’t matter what they look like, what they’re wearing or what ever, they’re all just part of one tribe! Oh and they do all love a good piss up .

It should also be said that caving lends itself much better to a hangover than climbing...

I have a feeling it was near Dinas Rock but not quarries;  these were proper mine entrances, but big enough to drive a dump truck into.

Indeed. Some friends recently opened up an old mine in Derbyshire which was an excellent example of objective hazards.

It consisted of a mined out vertical seam about sixty meters top to bottom. Several hundred years ago it had been equipped with a series of false floors held up by wooden stemples. On top of these false floors mining spoil had been stacked to avoid having to carry it out. In the intervening years all the stemples have rotted away leaving tottering hanging death.

I was schooled in the art of chimneying through mud slicked limestone rifts by my friends who had equipped the place with a series of horizontal ropes which provided the illusion of safety.

A few weeks ago I saw photos of one of them looking quite shaken up after half of it came down on them as they were abseiling into a hole and the abb rope brushed against some stacked rocks which released.

(What was very cool in there was the two hundred year old footprints in the mud showing the nailed cleats on t' old man's boots)

Some in the neath Valley around there are big ish. https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/incredible-underground-pictur...

http://www.industrialgwent.co.uk/w-b13-powis/index.htm#dinas

Reposting as the last attempt got eaten, if this is a duplicate... Sorry!

This is your silica mine

http://www.cambrianmines.co.uk/NAL/portfolio.html

I went on to waffle something about me being a climber that got into mine exploring and then recently started dabbling caving (my first and second cave trips were GG dihedral then Titan through trip, which were absolutely fantastic and I got bitten by the caving bug, can't recommend either trip enough!!!).

The crossover from climb to cave does happen

That's it; cheers!

I have sudden urge to steal my granddaughter one afternoon and take her up to blue John cavern... Totally safe and guided, but totally different to anything she's ever seen before and it'll be a great adventure. 

I find true misery is when I start of on a climb and it becomes above-ground caving in some awful guano filled low grade sandbag of green horror, working towards a slit of light above.

Emerging victorious (if filthy) from a fissure in the rock, the whole experience falls away like a bad dream.  

I imagine that the Lancashire C&CC would be one of very few clubs that incorporate both activities in the club name. When I joined back in the '90s it was the Lancs Caving & Climbing Club but over the years since then, as you know Karl, as stalwarts like yourself have either drifted away or retired gracefully with age, the caving activities of the club virtually stopped. Maybe about a decade ago the club decided on a subtle change of name because it was thought that we weren't attracting any new caving members and that perhaps the name was putting off some climber-but-definitely-not-caver recruits. Thus we became the Lancs Climbing & Caving Club. However, at the moment, the pendulum is swinging back the other way and a number of new members are joining specifically to go on caving meets, while others are climbers but keen to give caving a go. I think this caving renaissance has resulted in some of the more long-standing members who caved a lot in the past getting keen again and the caving meets list is looking much healthier than for many a year. 

Glad to hear the club hasn't completely moved away from the Dark Side, Rog. I still get beyond the limits of daylight now and again but nothing drastic. Usually a grovel encountered during the course of a walk - old habits die hard. I managed to get Ali through Dovecote Cave near Sedbergh earlier this year. You only need a torch and to mind your head on the low bits. I first went in when I was about 14. Nearly half a century later and I still thought it was great.  I think Ali enjoyed herself too once she realised I wasn't leading her to a horrible death.

Not far away is a derelict farmhouse which is slowly falling into ruin. A few years ago I had a poke about inside and found old evidence that someone into caving/cave diving had once occupied it. I wondered if that might have been Oliver 'Bear' Statham? He used to work as a potter just down the hill. Sadly, he committed suicide in 1979 aged only 27. He was probably the closest thing to a hero we cavers would admit to having. I literally stumbled across his grave in Cowgill, Dentdale several years ago.

A couple of us old Eldon members still get out. Bob Toogood and myself bottomed Giants a couple of weeks ago and he’s over 80. He also followed a couple of E3,s this summer. So still creakily trying. At one time in the 70,s the Eldon was also one of the best climbing clubs in the country, with descents of hard caves worldwide, all the classic alpine N. Faces and many hard first ascents.

Giant's Hole - that brings back a few memories. It was my introduction to Peak caves and first ever caving ladder (the first little pitch, Garlands?). I fell off, fortunately whilst being belayed from above. I was always more Dales oriented but the reputation of the Eldon PC was that of a major player. Eldon Hole was a big omission in my Peak CV. Didn't someone equip a sport route in the entrance shaft some time back?