Adam Fletcher, David Cooke, Judi Durber, Lawrence Wilson, Paul James

Tim and Andy (local F o D cavers)

A Friday day trip to the Forest of Dean, despite the wet weather and flooding we all arrived safe and sound before getting changed in the rain and tramping across the fields to the entrance. Just up valley from our dry entrance the sinking stream was in full spate, as was the overflow from the local sewage works

The entrance took 40 years to dig out and is not surprising as it a large shaft that was full of stones. At the bottom of the fixed ladders the dig broke through to the top of another pitch that we SRTd in two sections, equally easy on ladders I suspect. From the bottom the roar (and smell) of the steam was encountered. A longish crawl popped us out just above the stream, thankfully we could traverse above it for a few metres before it turned left and disappeared.

We went up a tributary in increasingly large passage until Waterfall chamber was reached where we climbed up the waterfall into dry fossil passage. From here the names of all the passages are a bit of a blur, however the Chunnel, the Deserts and other sizeable passages where visited to our far point (maybe called flowstone choke?) where we had a spot of lunch

Unfortunately we managed to loose one of our guides here which involved a lot of going back and forth before we where all together again.

We then visited an amazing dog skeleton of unknown age before making our way back out by much the same way that we came in regaining the surface after 5 hours underground.

After changing a debrief and warm up was enjoyed in a local pub. Huge thanks to Judi and Adam for organising and also to Andy and Tim for leading us.

This is a great cave that is surprisingly roomy and very extensive, we did less than half of it, definitely worth another trip and only an hour and a quarter from Cheddar

— Lawrence Wilson 12/01/2024