Caving in the Abode of the Clouds

Once back in Shillong we met with the new crowd who had arrived for main expedition. This is the most geographically diverse expedition I have participated in, with cavers coming from Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland, the UK, Serbia and India. After a further couple of packing and organising days we loaded up the Sumos (4x4 type car) and headed to the East Jaintia Hills.

The first part of the journey was on tarred roads, however it was slow going due to the large number of slow lorries. At one point we overtook a lorry, overtaking another lorry which was overtaking a third lorry, on a blind bend. The technique seems to be to beep your horn and flash lights as you are doing the dangerous overtake. Although it never seemed too dangerous as everyone expects there to be a vehicle on the wrong side of the road around every blind bend anyway.

After a quick lunch stop and the distribution of road beers we soon left the main road and travelled through small towns, the roads here were still tarred but there were numerous severe speed bumps with no markings. I’m not sure how our driver was spotting these as they were basically invisible, we only hit one at high speed. Perhaps it was the constant use of betel nut.  

Betel nut is a popular drug in Asia, by chewing the nut from the areca palm with its leaf and lime (chemical not fruit) the user gets a sense of euphoria and is kept alert. This seemed to be working for our driver. The downside of chewing betel nut is that it stains your mouth and teeth bright red leaving you with a grisly looking smile.

We finally turned off the tarred road and trundled along a very bumpy rocky dirt track, two hours later we arrived at the village. Because of the elections the kids were on school holidays for February, therefore we could use the school buildings for a gear store and office. We unloaded the gear and set up our tents. Unfortunately there was very little flat ground as the camping area was in a small V shaped valley. This bonus of having a small 2 man tent is that the roll mat is the same length as the tent and you can’t slide off it!

The first few days were not too fruitful for us: we did some prospecting, found some very small caves and I even managed a chai-crawl across two villages looking for an absent village headman. However I did get to see some of the famous standing stones whilst we waited for him. We may not have found any caves that day but we did return to the camp with seven pumpkins we had purchased from the villagers.

Our luck soon changed however; Olly went to check out a cave shown to the group by a kid called Michael who had been bribed (with biscuits) to lead their group to a cave; and I went with Robin and Becks to check out “Steamy Cave” escorted by guide Klet. 

We shot off at high speed following Klet down into the valley on a small path. After walking through, rice fields, banana plantations, bamboo forest and some small river gullies we dropped into a huge dry river bed. We then clambered over large slippery boulders for a further 45 minutes before arriving at some beautiful limestone pavement. There were a couple of tricky climbs which Klet easily hopped down, I managed to follow and Klet pointed to a small hole in the river bed from which steam was rising out. Robin and Becks managed to climb down a little downstream and around the corner was a much large cave entrance with a load of huge butterflies floating in the steam billowing out from it. 

Robin climbed down a small drop in the entrance and reported that there was a 13m pitch (drop needing rope) into a huge canyon passage. We gleefully returned to the village via a more direct route straight up the hill through thick-ish jungle. The next day we returned with two teams, one to survey a small cave above the river bed and us to drop the pitch. Robin taught Becks how to bolt whilst Kit and I started the survey. Unfortunately after dropping the first pitch, which had an amazing circular rainbow as the sun hit the steam, there was very quickly a second pitch in Yorkshire pot style.

Luckily we could scavenge the small rope we had used as a handline on the river bed climbs for the next pitch. Kit, Becks and I were rather alarmed to hear a huge rumbling and crashing sound coming from the second pitch that Robin was part way down. Luckily he was just gardening (knocking down dangerous loose rocks). The spare rope wasn’t long enough and we had to head back to camp and return the next day with more rope. 

We returned to camp via yet another different route through the jungle. It took another two trips with another two lots of rope (and another four different routes through the jungle) to reach the bottom of the pitches.

The problem with navigating to the cave was the lack of a path and the numerous areas of thick spiky plants in the jungle. We tried both conventional and unconventional navigation techniques (GPS way points and our own internal compasses) with varying degrees of success. I normally have a good memory for routes but after route number 6 everything looks familiar. Marcel and I had one rather embarrassing incident where we ended up going too far right to avoid thick bamboo forest and dropped into the river bed too far downstream. No problem we thought, we could just head upstream to the cave entrance, we were wrong, five minutes later we ended up at the bottom of a dry 10m unclimbable waterfall. It then took us an extra hour to backtrack and traverse across valley before descending in the correct place.

Once at the bottom of the pitches we realised that the boulders in the river bed on the surface were actually making up the ceiling 85m above us. We weren’t sure how these were being held up so decided not to walk over them on the surface anymore (Becks had actually already put her leg through a hole in the river bed). We had descended into a vast chamber full of huge house height limestone pinnacles, it was difficult to see across the chamber due to the amount of steam. Below this chamber the cave transforms into a beautiful clean washed canyon with clear blue/green pools.

Following the canyon we found a huge 45m aven and a large chamber with a number of ways on. Meanwhile Olly had finished his cave and there were very few other options to be explored around the village. The decision was made to move the camp to Muallian; the village at the end of the road. Interestingly this is a Jaintia village whereas the previous was Khasi. This means that the village speaks a completely different language even though it is only a 40 minute walk between the two.

Our new campsite was much flatter but busier as we were occupying the village football pitch. We now had a 45min drive, an hour long very steep walk to the cave and then an hour of caving to the end of the survey (including of 80m abseiling on rope). Robin had been suggesting camping at the cave entrance and we all now agreed.

We planned a 2 night 3 day trip with 6 of us/two survey teams. Robin did a great job organising the food but we did question the 1.5kg of powdered milk he had packed. He explained that powdered milk is a lifesaver but we managed to wrestle him down to taking only 500g. After a lift up the road and a rather heavily laden walk down the hill Robin decided to stay at the new camp and set up whilst the rest of us went surveying. We returned to a meal of dhal, meat curry and rice cooked on an open fire and for those that had forgotten a plate, dinner was served on banana leaves.

We slept out on the open limestone pavement on the edge of the dry river bed. It made a nice change to wake up to bird song rather than church bells and cockerels from 05:30 in the morning. Tim did note how mad it was to be sleeping in the Indian jungle, we had to persuade him that there were no tigers. We didn’t mention the wild cat footprints we had seen in the cave, or that a tiger had been seen in the village (although this was 10 years previous).

I didn’t sleep particularly well the first night as to save weight I had only carried in a thin foam mat rather than my Thermarest. But after a tasty breakfast of granola with milk powder and an expedition up the river bed to collect 20l of water for that night's dinner we headed back into the cave. 

We were all excited about today’s trip, we had finished surveying some smaller side passages and were about to head into the unknown stream-way which we could hear rumbling in the distance. We attempted to survey with two teams in the same area of the cave such that we could take turns being the first people walking up the new stream way. Unfortunately this over complicated things. 

After finishing a particularly unpleasant and loose small side passage in which Uros (who is very tall and broad) managed to fill, and therefore block the Bluetooth signal from the Distox (laser device we use for surveying) our group headed out to cook dinner.

Uros stayed with Robin and Tim to continue up the stream way, Uros is not a fan of water (despite being a cave diver) but somehow he managed to traverse around a lake and climb a small waterfall whilst retaining dry feet. Unfortunately the group then met a lake which was swimming depth. This was a convenient time for them to finish surveying for the day.

After dinner and some rum around the campfire we turned in for the night. I slept much better as I dosed up with drowsy anti-histamine tablets, another breakfast of oats, and milk powder and we headed back in for the final day of caving. We split into two teams; three to survey a small pitch that hadn’t been descended and the “swimming team” to cross the lake. We discussed what was the best option for crossing the lake as we didn’t have wet suits or buoyancy aids. I thought that swimming in a caving over suit would be impossible as it would drag you down. Therefore the plan was to strip down to our underwear and pack our caving suits and thermals in a dry bag which could be carried across. We actually had a extra lake to wade across (as Uros’s route the previous day had very loose boulders), then a waterfall climb before the swimming depth lake.  We arrived in the stream way, stripped off and bagged our clothes, luckily the water is quite warm in Meghalaya. I did feel slightly ridiculous in underwear, knee pads and pink wellies, and also quite exposed climbing the sharp limestone on the waterfall.

We arrived at the deep lake and started the survey, we have waterproof drums to keep the survey instruments dry, but I always try and keep these out the water when transporting other peoples kit in case the drum leaks. Holding the drum above my head I confidently stepped into the lake. I was definitely over confident and I instantly sunk above my head as I forgot how hard it is to swim in wellies. Some spluttering later I somehow managed to flail to the wall where I could cling on and drag myself to the other side. Tim who had already got across said this was quite an amusing sight, but he was impressed that despite my head being underwater my arm holding the drum of instruments remained defiantly in the air. 

On the other side we changed and continued to survey, disappointingly the huge stream passage quickly went into a low chamber which had boulder collapse in every direction likely caused by a fault line. We finished the survey off and exited the cave. Four of us headed back up the hill, but Tim and Robin decided to stay another two nights to have another poke at the boulder choke and try to find a way through. 

Unfortunately they were unsuccessful and when we returned to the cave after a rest day we tidied up a few bits of the survey and de-rigged. There was a lot of kit to come back up the hill and Tim gallantly did three trips that day whilst we carried the ropes out the cave. My rucksack was so heavy climbing back up the hill I couldn’t lift it onto my back but had to get into it, from the floor by putting the straps on and rolling onto hands and knees before getting up.

Whilst steamy cave (Krem Um Ladaw) had come to an end Olly had been spending a few days in Retdung Khur, this was originally thought to sump quite quickly but actually after a maze section it broke out into stomping beautiful stream way. Olly had proven to be very useful and was referred to as the little monkey for climbing some difficult climbs and even rescuing Pinsham’s wellies that he managed to loose in one of the swims.

Olly and I had one last trip together in Retdung Khur where we went to finish off a bit of the maze surveying and so I could see some of the pretty stream way. We were changing at the cave entrance when it started raining, I was a little worried given the small cave entrance is in a river bed but Olly assured me that everything would be fine. We ended up having a short trip due to limited battery in the survey instruments. It actually didn’t stop raining all evening and by the following morning the football field was a big muddy puddle. That morning we took down the camp and waited for the cars to collect us for our journey back to Shillong.  We were not hopeful the sumos (fake 4x4s) would made along the very very slippy now liquid mud road. Luckily although the sumos didn’t get through a 4x4 pick up lorry did, and with Simon doing multiple trips up and down the 1.5 hour long "road" we made it to where the cars had dared drive to. I was super impressed with Simon’s off-road driving abilities as when we were seemingly gliding across the mud sideways towards some kind of danger he would somehow save us from it at the last moment. We didn’t even get stuck once!

With us safely in the first trip up to the waiting cars we headed back to Shillong. Within a couple of hours it started biblically raining, we hoped everyone had made it up the dirt road as it was terrible driving conditions even on the tarred one. People didn’t seem to be using their headlamps in the thunderstorm but just drove everywhere with their hazards on instead. We made it back to Shillong and headed to the final night party hoping that eventually everyone else would turn up.

By some miracle everyone made it back to Shillong before 10pm and we all had some drinks to celebrate both this, the end of the expedition and that this years findings tipped the grand total of cave discovered in Meghalaya since 1992 to 500km with 12km being discovered this year.

Lengthening the World’s Longest Sandstone Cave

Olly and I were lucky to get places on the renowned Meghalaya caving expedition this February. Meghalaya is a state in north-east India, next to Assam (famous for it’s tea). The name Meghalaya is Sanskrit for “abode of the clouds”.

Fun Meghalaya facts :

• Mawsanram (town near Krem Puri) is the wettest place on earth

• Within the state there are three main tribal groups; Jaintia, Khasi and Garo who each speak a different language

• There is a matrilineal system with property and names passed down through the female line

• Shillong (the capital) is much cooler than tropical India as a consequence of its high altitude; at ~1500m above sea level

• The scenery around Shillong reminded European settlers of Scotland hence the nick name “Scotland of the east”

Our journey to Shillong was rather long but reasonably smooth. Luckily we missed the snowstorm which shut Manchester airport and only had minor de-icing delays. We had another delay on our internal flight from Mumbai to Guwahati as we seemed to be refuelled twice, once on the runway. We also had a worrying moment where a man with a toolbox was spotted wandering around under the wing of the plane. However, we arrived safely and were quite relieved to spot our many bags trundling around the baggage carousel.

It is possible to fly to Shillong but we had been advised against this as more often than not flights are diverted or cancelled due to fog. Instead we had a three hour car journey from Guwahati to Shillong, I was intrigued to see that our driver had his blood type painted on the car near the fuel cap. This was our first experience of Indian roads, to me it looked like total danger chaos but the old hands told us that it actually used to be much worse as there are now far fewer coal lorries on the roads.

Meghalaya has been in the international news recently when a group of miners became trapped in flooded illegal coal mine workings. Although mining of coal was banned in 2014 due to the horrendous safety and pollution record, a loop hole allowing the transportation of already extracted coal piles on the surface meant many mines continued to operate. However, this month a further ban on the transportation of coal was implemented and hence fewer coal lorries are on the roads.

We eventually arrived through the slow crawling traffic of Shillong and dropped our kit bags off at Brian’s house. Brian who lives in Shillong has been caving with the expedition for over 20 years and sorts a lot of the logistics. He also has the biggest bonsai tree collection I have ever seen. We then checked into our hotel had a few beers and went to bed. I did wonder what was missing from our hotel room and in the morning I realised that it was windows. The standard rooms had no windows, but this was actually beneficial as you didn’t get the 6am bus station noise. 

After breakfast we headed to Brian’s to start the kit organising. This year there was no real doctor on the expedition so Olly and I took charge of the medical kits. We did an inventory and found Dr Cat’s shopping list from last year. We pondered over what was OK to be out of date and then set off with a rather long list drugs to purchase most of which are prescription only in the UK. Three pharmacies later we had a big bag of most of these, which was both worrying and convenient. You can buy almost anything over the counter which explains India’s antibiotic resistance problem. The only challenge was actually getting served at the counter where there appeared to be no queuing system and I seemed to have very poor “bar presence”.

The next morning our small group set off (this was the pre-expedition week with a small group of cavers).

Our task for the week was to finish the exploration and survey of a cave called Krem Puri which the expedition had been exploring for the previous two years. Krem Puri is particularly special as it is formed entirely in sandstone, the passage is a mixture of low crawling maze and deep canyons, there are some sand stalagmite type formations which are thought to be new to science. After last years expedition the total surveyed passage was just under 25km making it the longest sandstone cave in the world. This world ranking has made Krem Puri very popular with tourists, this is both a blessing and a curse, whilst the popularity of the cave brings wealth to the local area and many people are getting to see and experience the cave, the cave has suffered from graffiti.

Much of this graffiti is the result of tourists marking the walls with arrows such that they don't get lost in the complicated maze of passages but some is pointless name tagging. As most of this cave is inactive (does not carry flowing water) and is millions of years old, this graffiti will now be a permanent feature.

Over the week our task was to explore and survey a series of high level passages, descend down a couple of undescended holes and collect water samples for scientific analysis. On the first afternoon we were in the cave working out the passages we needed to explore we heard some voices further along the canyon.

Soon a group of four guys in flip flops with phones for torches stumbled up to us, it turns out that they were lost and they were very pleased to see us. Mark pointed them in the direction of the exit and we carried on, ten minutes later we hear another group down the canyon, it turned out to be the same guys who had managed to go around in a big loop. Mark decided to take them directly to the cave entrance we had entered to ensure their safe exit. This was not the entrance they had come in and they were quite rightly alarmed that there was significantly more crawling in small sandy tubes than they had done on the way in. However they trusted that Mark knew what he was doing and they were soon deposited safely in daylight.

Mark actually has a bit of a reputation for getting lost in the cave, to be honest its very easy to do with so many turnings and connections, everything looks the same.

To access the unexplored high level passages we could not use conventional means like climbing or bolting as the rock is super crumbly. Instead Mark and Brian had organised for the locals to leave a 6m long bamboo pole outside the cave entrance. With this we used a technique called "may-poling" where a wire ladder is first tied to he end of the pole which is then hoisted up and leaned against the rock face. You then trust your fiends to brace the pole whilst you scale the wire ladder. Our 6m bamboo pole was a little thinner than we had hoped for which actually worked in our favour, although it was unnervingly flexible whilst climbing this extra flexibility actually made navigating the pole around a lot of sharp corners, in a Chuckle Brothers fashion, much easier.

Being the lightest I was sent up the pole first, but after it bore my weight we took it in turns to explore all the high level passages, unfortunately finding all were infilled with sand and impassable in this area of the cave.

The other passage we needed to check was much further into the cave up a passage called the Grand Canyon, it turned out to be quite an ordeal getting there with perilous traversing (straddling a large drop) on very crumbly ledges with a sprinkling of large loose boulders for good measure. After two hours we had managed to get ourselves and the 6m bamboo pole to the passage of interest. Here the team split; Mark and Brian went left to explore and survey the new passage. Cookie, Olly and I climbed right up the pole into an area of known passage called the mini maze which had some unsurveyed sections. We soon found out why these were unsurveyed as they got smaller and smaller and then muddier. Whilst crawling in a body sized tube filled with gloopy mud I realised the funny patterns on the floor were actually thousands of rat footprints. I really hoped that I wasn't about to come face to face with one of the four very large healthy looking rats we had seen scampering up the canyon earlier. With no rat encounters our misery was rewarded by seeing what Cookie described as the best fossilised dinosaur vertebrae in the whole cave.

There is a third entrance to the cave which requires a 60m abseil down a cliff face to a stunning balcony in the trees. We rigged this route mainly for fun but also for easy access to some flowing water at this end of the cave which we wanted to sample to record the temperature, pH, conductivity and carbonate content. This enabled us to do a through trip which you enter and exit through different parts of the cave.

After a number of days crawling around in some of Krem Puri's more unpleasant areas we were quite happy that Mark was satisfied we had ticked off all the question marks on the survey and that we could travel back to Shillong to meet with everyone arriving for the main expedition.

Climbing in the Cairngorms

After a few days in the far north we woke up to two inches of snow at the Grampian caving hut. This was our indicator to pack up and run back south for hopefully some winter climbing in the Cairngorms, but not until after we had built a couple of snow men. 

Oli wasn’t super keen to go to the Cairngorms, she describes them as more rounded bumps than actual proper spiky mountains. However, below are a few fun facts about the Cairngorms:

• The Cairngorms is the largest national park in the UK, twice the size of the Lake District national park and bigger than Luxembourg.

• It contains four out of the top five highest mountains in the UK.

• The park contains 25% of Scotland’s native woodland.

• The national park covers 2% of the UKs land mass but 25% of the UKs most threatened species are found there including capercaillie, pine marten, osprey, Scottish wildcat, golden eagle, red squirrel, snow bunting, lapwing, crested tit, dotterel and black grouse.

• The aspen trees support some of the UKs rarest and most threatened lichens.

We arrived a few hours later and parked in a woodland car park. We were a little disappointed that the 2 inches of snow we had in Elphin appeared not to have fallen over most of where we drove through and there was only a small smattering of snow in the Cairngorms. However when we got up in the morning it appeared the snow had followed us!

The first route we had planned to do was the Fiacaill Ridge. We headed up the path and after a few misdirections we started up broad section of the ridge. We met a few other groups roping up for the steep section and had to do some waiting around before we set off “moving together”. It was here I should have put an extra layer on as I soon started to get very cold, but I decided I couldn’t take all the mountaineering coils and coats off. We started climbing along the steep sections but I quickly managed to work myself into a panic as I had started blindly following the rope and came to what seemed an impossible overhanging section. After a couple of failed attempts and wailing to Olly that I couldn’t climb it, I eventually realised that if I took two steps backwards there was and obvious step up that everyone else had taken. 

We carried along the ridge but I soon discovered I didn’t really like “moving together” as I was always left at the back and didn’t get to sociably chat at belay points. We ended waiting around again whilst we did some route finding at what looked like an impossible rock face. At this point I decided I was way out of my depth and didn’t want to climb the impossible looking rock face. Luckily this could be avoided by walking around the side. We then waited at the top for Oli and Chris in our bothy bag where I discovered that cucumber is a terrible winter mountaineering food as it freezes and you get an ice cream headache eating it.

There was a white out on top of the plateau but some good navigation by Chris lead us safely back down to the ski centre with a stop off on the way for Chris to demonstrate, then us to practice some ice axe arrests.

That evening we discovered a car park near-ish to the Pine Marten bar and stopped in for a few drinks whilst we planned the next days activities. I wanted to step down the climbing and with high winds forecast but clear skies we opted for a walk up to the Cairngorm summit.

The next morning we arrived at the ski centre car park and Oli asks me if we saw the reindeer being walked down the road. We hadn’t! And we didn’t see the reindeer in the lower car park the day previously either. Oli is just lucky in seeing all the wildlife. It was super windy but I got to try out my new snow goggles. We made it to the summit and were just in time to see the weather station pop out to take it’s measurements. Despite the strong winds it was pretty clear and we got some good views across the plateau.

It was Friday night and the Pine Marten bar was a little busier, however the 50 mountain rescue people had vacated by the time we arrived. The conditions were meant to be good the following day and we planned to attempt another day climbing this time in Coire an t-scheada.

We had a minor panic when we woke up and couldn't open the van door as it had frozen shut in the night. Luckily with managed to signal to Chris who could give it a good pull from the outside. Once freed, we drove to the ski car park and found every climber in Scotland had arrived to make the most of the first good weather Saturday of the year. On the way in to the Coire we spotted climbers on every face including queues for the routes we had planned to do. 

We began to debate whether we wanted to queue and whether the conditions were any good (due to lack of freeze thaw). However we concluded to join the queue as it appeared to have reduced to just one pair.  

We kitted up, headed up the snow slope to the start of the climb but quickly realised we actually we're pair numbers 3 and 4 of the queue. After a bit of a wait Olly set off. This time we climbed traditionally and I enjoyed the climb considerably more. Luckily the other pairs in front of us split off onto different routes and soon we were first in the queue.

I could hear the conversation of another group below us, the leader had got to the first belay point and was incredibly happy as this was the hardest winter climb he had lead. His happiness was quickly curtailed by his partner bellowing up that he had slipped and snapped his front tooth off. Seems like we were having a much better day.

We got to the top of our route with only minor route finding issues and were treated with stunning views including a distant cloud inversion.

It was great to see lots of people out enjoying the amazing weather. Back at the car park we decided to head into Aviemore to get Olly some power for his laptop so that we could complete our Indian visas.  

The previous day we had tried and failed due to the specific file sizes/types the application required. To add insult to injury we had just hit our allocated 3 hours free parking in Aldi car park when we noticed we had a flat tyre. Luckily a nice guy lent us a pump so we pumped up and limped to a free car park.

We then got out the van manual and managed to locate the jack and locking wheel nut. We struggled to loosen the wheel nuts especially the anti-theft one. After going back to the manual and scoffing at the seemingly obvious instructions on how to loosen nuts we actually followed them and succeeded in loosing all but the anti-theft  one. Roll on 1.5 hours and the AA man arrived. We did feel slightly better as he had to get out the extra long torque wrench to remove it. The good thing about living in your vehicle is that you can cook dinner and sit in bed whilst you wait.

After our stunning weather day it was predicted to be a bit windier with some snow. We picked a crag which would be sheltered from the wind. Unfortunately you had to descend onto crag which meant accurate navigation was needed to prevent us accidentally walking off the cliff edge. Due to the limited visibility in the snow we chose to walk on a single bearing for 1.4km. As I was the only person wearing contact lenses rather than glasses I was the allocated eyes. I was pretty pleased that we were only 10m off over the whole distance.

The scariest part of the day for me was climbing down the snow gully to get to the start of the climbs. This was called the "easy route" however the steps appeared to have been kicked in by a giraffe and the snow was worryingly unconsolidated. I wasn't helped by another experienced group descending above us and knock large chunks of snow on me.

I was going to wimp out half way down but the idea of going back up was just as bad. Oli shouted to me that I was almost at the bottom so I decided to keep going. We weren't near the bottom but apparently she really thought we were and she wasn't tricking me.  Also turns out there is a huge drop from the crag to the valley but it was shrouded in mist, which was probably good for me.

At the bottom we looked at the PDF guide and found our route. Olly started but quickly called down that it seemed a little hard. We then found that some other climbers 100m to our right thought they were doing the same route. Turns out we were in the wrong place so after some tricky down climbing for Olly we moved over and got in the queue. 

The climb was quite pleasant and we even had some clear views for a while. I had borrowed Chris's walking axe so I had a pair. It was good fun hitting axes into stuff but the problem with walking axes is my hands would slide off the ends. 

That evening Oli and Chris decided to go for a moonlit walk around Glenmore Lodge. I joined them as I was sure if I didn't they would see some can can dancing reindeer. There were not reindeer but we did see the biggest shooting star I have ever seen!

Strong winds were predicted for the following day so we had a late start and hung around at the visitor centre. We caved in and had a full Scottish breakfast which was delicious and even caught a glimpse of a red squirrel on a bird feeder. 

Oli and Chris were staying longer but it was time for us to head down to South Wales for the Wealden Cave and Mine Society annual dinner.

Caving in Scotland

With the weather not very conducive to winter mountaineering we decided to head further north and sample some of the caving Scotland has to offer. We left Glen Coe, picking up some supplies in Fort William, and stopping briefly at the Commando Memorial at Spean Bridge.

Then we set off for Applecross, on the west coast of the Scottish mainland overlooking Raasay. The weather was fairly miserable and as we travelled across the mountain pass the fog descended. After a little bit of searching we found somewhere to park up for the night; overlooking Applecross bay and a short distance from the pub. We headed to the lovely local pub, with a roaring fire, for a slap up meal and a few local beers.

The next morning we were up early for a trip down Liar’s Sink (survey). It was only discovered recently in 2016, when some dry weather allowed the entrance to be dug out, revealing 600m of cave passage. It was a worthy trip, with some pretty formations and an interesting traverse towards the end to bypass the waterfall.

Next we headed towards the Grampian Caving Club Hut in Elphin, just north of Ullapool. We took the scenic route, along the North Coast 500 route, which although overcast and occasionally wet still offered some lovely views.

Unfortunately the boiler at the caving hut was broken, so no hot showers! We made do with a pan shower heated over the wood stove. It was nice to be indoors for a few days, and to be able to sit and cook in the warm.

One of the days we took a trip into Rana Hole, a good sporting trip with impressive cave at the far end.

We spent another day with a morning hike up Glas Bheinn; up and down the same route. It was a cold, blowy day with some fantastic views as the cloud lifted. In the afternoon we took the long way back, driving along the coast past golden beaches.

And then it snowed. Anya and Oli built some snowmen in the morning, but then we packed up and left for the Cairngorms hoping to catch some winter climbs in condition.

Winter Mountaineering Skills

After new year on the Isle of Skye with our caving friends, some of us stayed up in Scotland for 5 days of winter mountaineering skills booked with Abacus mountain guides.

Our idea was to start with basic skills (for me the winter noob) move onto mountaineering skills and rope work before finishing the course with some proper climbing. Due to instructor student ratios decreasing for the more advanced days we would drop in/out of the relevant sessions for each of us.

Unfortunately for us the snow, which had been on the summits, before Christmas had all but melted during a few warm days over the Christmas period. So although as we drove down to Fort William in -2°C this only refroze the small smattering of snow left above 900m.

We arrived in Fort William did some last minute gear shopping then headed to the "HGV wasteland" to park up overnight. We had a sociable van-quet and turned in early.

Apparently the conditions were not ideal to learn basic winter skills and Mike from Abacus joined us for the day such that our guide Dave could take the guys up Tower Gulley whilst Mike lead us up Number 4 Gulley where Oli refreshed her crampon skills and I used crampons for the first time.

After a ride up to the guide’s north face car park (which cuts out half an hour of up hill walking). We walked up to the CIC hut together before splitting into our groups. Oli and I followed Mike over some scree slopes until we were at the base of Number 3 Gulley. Here we practised walking across a snow field by cutting steps with our ice axes. Next we put our crampons on and practice walking up and down the slope facing up or down hill or sideways like a crab. We learnt how to cut ledges to stand on comfortably & safely and how to make steps with crampons.

After this practice we walked across to Number 4 Gulley, had a discussion about avalanche risk then ascended with Mike short roping us. At the top of the gully which seemed alarmingly steep when we looked back down it, we bumped into the other group who had just been to the summit.

Instead of heading straight down with them we decided to also bag the summit and were treated with a broken spectre and a cloud inversion. 

We then headed down the main track and caught up with the guys. At the lower car park we were surprisingly greeted with a film crew. They had come to interview Mike for a piece on mountain safety following two recent accidents on Ben Nevis. The piece aired on BBC News a few days later with us featured uploading our rucksacks from the van in the background — so I assume we must had looked moderately competent.

The next day, with our guide Dave, we tackled Ledge Route which is a ridge on the north face of Ben Nevis. Here we practised some rope work in pairs and learnt the difference between short roping (being walked along like a dog), death roping (being tied to one another but not to the mountain) and moving together (like death roping except being attached to the mountain). There was no proper snow on Ledge Route but the large quantity of rime (ice) meant we got to use our crampons.

After successfully making it to the top of Ledge Route we rejoined the main track and had another plod back down to the car park. Oli said she’d read somewhere that the main route to the summit of Ben Nevis is the most dull mountain climb in the UK. Having done it a number of times now, I agree that the unchangeable zigzag path often enshrouded with cloud is very same-y. In addition the added slippy ice down to 700m really didn't add to the knee-wrecking descent.

That evening we went to the leisure centre in Fort William for a shower. Annoyingly after half of us paid £3 each for showers we found out if we waited an hour we could have participated in "happy hour" where you can swim, sauna and shower for £1!

For our third guided day we moved to Glencoe with the hope of more snow. The night before we had found a popular overnight parking spot within walking distance of the Clachaig Inn. After a morning toilet run to the visitor centre we met Dave at the Three Sister’s car park. We worked on some more rope work by climbing the zigzags up to the summit of Stob Corie nan Lochan. There wasn't any snow but again the rime meant crampons were handy near the top. I had a go at leading Chris in our moving together pair and even placed a couple of pieces of gear under Dave's supervision.

Dave did find us a Gulley to descend which had some icy snow still clinging on. With me on short rope we made our descent. Conveniently other people had been down the gully and left handy bucket seats and ledges carved out which we could use for handy resting places as it turns out climbing down a steep slope in crampons is hard work on your calves.

At the bottom of the snow we skidded down the scree slope and headed back to the vans. That evening we had a few drinks in the vans and Edd left us (as he still has a job). The following day Chris and Olly had Dave to themselves to do some more technical scrambling.

Oli and I went for a scenic drive through the Glencoe pass and popped our heads in at the ski centre to assess their shower and water facilities. We then headed to Glen Etive for a walk, there is a famous house here which is where some of the James Bond film Skyfall was filmed. We found somewhere to park and had a meander down the river, the bog factor was quite high but we were rewarded by spotting a stag sitting on the opposite side the river bank. it obviously didn't care that we were there because we watched it  wade across the river to our side and walk into the distance. In afternoon we headed to Fort William for swim & sauna happy hour and to pick up some food and fuel.

The weather was predicted to be terrible the following day and with the lack of snow we decided to use our last day with Dave at the ice factor which is a indoor ice climbing wall in Kinlockleven.

In pairs we had a two hour session on the wall, Dave gave us some useful hints and tips like instead of using energy hitting an ice axe in, occasionally it's possible to just slot it into a hole already made by someone else. Additionally it's possible in chimneys to use your hands as well as axe's. 

I really enjoyed the ice climbing and quite fancy doing more of it, which of course requires buying even more shiny gear. Dave also gave us some tips on our indoor climbing and I had a lesson in how to lead climb. I was especially pleased with myself as I lead a grade 5 which is only a couple of grades lower than I can top rope. 

With the weather improved the following day but with still a lack of snow we opted for a gentle walking day up Stob Dubh. We relished being in the sunshine and seeing our shadows for the first day in a while. At the summit there were a couple of friendly ravens, I always forget how big they are until you see them up close. Unfortunately for Oli these were healthy ravens and she didn't get to live out her childhood dream of nursing one back to health.

That evening after a few pints in the Clachaig Inn Oli and Chris decided to climb the Aonach Eagach ridge the next day. I was a little worried about how long it would take compared to number of daylight hours as once on the ridge your are committed to finishing it. So instead Olly and I did everyone's laundry in Fort William and went to happy hour at the leisure centre.  That evening we made a group decision to run away north and do some caving whilst we waited for the winter climbing conditions to improve.

Overall I think I got the most out of our guided days being completely new to winter mountaineering, as we were unlucky with the lack of winter. However hopefully we will get some snow in the upcoming weeks.