Oxford University Cave Club

Club Caving Meetings, Hilary Term 2022

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(end of) Week	Date	Place	Cost	Accommodation	Meeting Leader
0
1	21st-23rd January	North Wales	£40	LCCC	Rosa Clements
2
3	4th-6th February	South Wales	£40	SWCC	Steve Roberts
4
5	8th-20th February:	Peak District	£40	TSG	Fiona Zhang
6
7	4th-6th March	Northern Dales	£40	BPC	Vlad Catanea
8
9

Other meets may be organised - please check at Wednesday meetings or via the OUCC mailing lists.

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There is a detailed crib sheet on the website telling you exactly how to organise a weekend. Take a Look!

How to Sign up for a Caving Trip
	Trips must be paid for in advance. Payment is by an online system. https://www.oxforduniversitystores.co.uk/browse/product.asp?compid=1&modid=1&catid=1722 Cost covers: loan of equipment, transport, accommodation, food on site; but not food in transit or what you spend in the pub! See here for more information. If you haven't been caving with us before but want to give it a go, membership and insurance for your first term with OUCC is free!
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	Read this important information and complete this online OUCC Pre-Trip information form
Single Rope Technique
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Trip Details

Weekend 21st-23rd January: North Wales, staying at the LCCC's Dan-y-Mynnyd hut
	We'll be starting off the term with something a bit unusual- a trip to North Wales! The idea is to visit Croesor-Rhosydd on the Saturday and go to Bounce Below on the Sunday. Croesor-Rhosydd is a slate mine with some interesting features like a zipline, a bridge made of ladders, and an abseil into a canoe! Bounce Below is an underground trampoline park in another slate mine, it's good fun. Warning: the tickets for Bounce Below cost £25 so we won't be able to cover that as part of the £40 weekend cost, but there are plenty of other slate mines and walks in the area for those who want to come on the weekend but give Bounce Below a miss. Bounce Below sessions are one hour long so it may be possible to have a short mine visit or walk after bouncing too.
Weekend 4th-6th February: South Wales, staying at SWCC
	For our main Wales trip, we'll stay at one of our favourites- SWCC, right above Ogof Fynnon Ddu. It's also in walking distance of Pant Mawr, and I'll try and get us a Dan-yr-Ogof permit too. Dan-yr-Ogof is a lot of fun but very wet- if you've got a wetsuit, bring it with you, but don't be too disappointed if the DYO trip gets cancelled due to high water levels, that happens quite often. The Wales weekend would be a good choice if you've not been caving before, there are some great beginner trips in OFD as well as some more advanced ones. I know we talked about Saturday Aggy trips, but there wasn't a great deal of enthusiasm and Whitewalls is booked up for most of the term anyway, so lets just have some fun at SWCC.
Weekend 18th-20th February: Peak District, staying at TSG
	We're a bit overdue a visit to the Peak District, so lets go there in week 5. The Peak District has a lot of fun SRT trips but also some good beginner trips e.g. Peak Cavern and Giant's Hole. I'll make sure to get a permit for Peak Cavern this time, as soon as the hut booking is confirmed. Oxlow comes to mind for beginner friendly SRT, plus a few of the mines have an engine shaft with pretty straightforward SRT. The TSG is an excellent hut, and it's in Castleton which is a lovely village with six pubs, so this could be a nice weekend for all ability levels.
Weekend 4th-6th March: Yorkshire (Northern Dales) , staying at BPC
	We won a weekend at the BPC for tidying up well at CHECC! (Well, mostly Sarah won it I think, the rest of us tidied up a little...) So let's have that weekend in March and hope it's a bit less icy than the CHECC weekend and we can get some decent length trips in. I may declare this an SRT only weekend- i.e. to come on this weekend you must have come on at least one other caving trip and at least one SRT practice. Not because we can't do beginner trips in Yorkshire, just because it can be hard to have beginner trips, first SRT trips, and slightly more advanced SRT trips all on the same weekend, and the Yorkshire trip would be a good time to focus on the latter two. However it might be opened up to everyone depending on who signs up. As for caves, I'm thinking of getting permits for Bar Pot/ Flood Entrance since we'll be a bit further East than we stay at Bull Pot Farm, and by March we'll have a decent chance of seeing the Gaping Gill main chamber in daylight. Let me know if you have a permit request though, there's loads of choice. There's also quite a few caves that don't require permits, including Marble Steps.

Accommodation:
BEC: Bristol Exploration Club; BPC: Bradford Pothole Club; BPF: Bull Pot Farm;
LCCC: Lancashire Caving & Climbing Club; MCG: Mendip Caving Group;
NPC: Northern Pennine Club; Orpheus: Orpheus Caving Club; SMCC: Shepton Mallet Caving Club;
SWCC: South Wales Caving Club; TSG: Technical Speleo Group; UBSS: University of Bristol Speleological Society;
WCC: Wessex Caving Club; Whitewalls: Chelsea Speleological Society; WSG: Westminster Speleo Group;
Yorkshire Dales Guides: (Hornby Laithe Bunkbarn); YSS: Yorkshire Subterranean Society.