Belfry Bulletin Number 281

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THE BELFRY BULLETIN ____________________________________ Volume 25

Number 1

Number 281 January & February 1971 ____________________________________ CONTENTS Caving Yorkshire Cuthbert’s

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Climbing A Good Welsh Weekend In the Cuillins

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BELATED GREETINGS …and a Happy New Remainder of 1971 to one and all.

The postal strike you know about of course, and we will not bore you with all the other reasons why the publication of the B.B. has reached such a low ebb. As you will notice, in order to catch up, this number is dated January and February and we have to go back to 1959 to find the last occasion in which only eleven B.B.’s appeared in a year. In fact, we have to go to all the way back to 1951 to find a gap in the publication of the B.B. as large in time as this one. A solution to the snags of organisation must, and will be found by the Committee, but in discussion all the factors that have led to this gap in publication, other matters are almost bound to be discussed which will affect members as a whole – particularly those who can visit Mendip only occasionally. The most important of these factors as discussed in this Editorial in the section following.

END OF THE MONTHLY JOURNAL?

Archaeology Cave Paintings of Le Portel

Editorial

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Miscellaneous Editorial 1 Crossword 7 ____________________________________ Hon. Sec. A.R. Thomas, Allens House , Priddy, Wells, Somerset.

Hon. Editor, S.J. Collins, Lavender Cottage, Bishop Sutton, Somerset.

For many years, the B.B. has proudly borne the subtitle’ Monthly Journal of the Bristol Exploration Club’.

Its monthly publication has in times past enabled news to be sent to members who are away from Mendip while it is still news, and its frequent appearance compared to many other caving journals has often been spoken of appreciatively. There are, however, several factors which point towards a possible change in the future. The more important ones are as follows: 1. Next year sees the 25th anniversary of the B.B. It would be nice to be able to sort out the future pattern of the B.B. this year, so that it can enter its next quarter century on a stable basis.

2. After the end of the postal strike, postal rates are almost bound to rise, and an increasing amount of member’s subscriptions will have to be spent in sending out a monthly B.B. 3. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to finds members with enough spare time to collate, staple, fold and address the B.B. every month.

4. The need for a better form of print may mean the abandonment of our duplicating in the B.B. In this case, a longer time scale may be needed between issues.

Obviously we have got to steer some sensible path between producing a B.B. which is worth having without it either costing too much per issue or getting behind, as it has done recently OR cutting down the number of issues per year without making members who come to Mendip only now and again feel that they are no longer in touch with what is going on.

As many of you probably know, I have always said that caving magazines should not try to copy each other – because if the B.B. for example becomes exactly the same as, say, the Wessex Journal, then there would be little point in both continuing to exists. Bearing this in mind, I am beginning to come round to the

2 idea of a ‘fat’ B.B. once a quarter – properly printed and having something like 40 to 48 pages of caving, climbing, travel, club news, what is going on, on Mendip, book reviews, humour, and the like. To keep some form of the old monthly going, I suggest that some of the regular features would still be written on a monthly basis – thus, readers would be getting three separate accounts of what went on during the time since the last B.B. This all wants a lot of thought and the Committee will no doubt be doing just this over the next few months. However, if any new scheme is to have a decent chance of success in 1972 plans must be laid BEFORE the next annual general meeting.

‘Alfie’ _______________________________________________________________________________________ Some climbing seems to be much more in the Dawn broke quietly and greyly as we walked round the news than it was at one time, here is a typical shores of Llyn Idwal. We had flown up to Llanbedwr from climbing account to start this years B.B…….

Boscombe Down on the previous day, and then scrounged M.O.A. transport to Ty Newyddion in the Nant Francon Pass.

A GOOD WELSH WEEKEND ….by Steve Grime

On reaching the base of Idwal Slabs, it was still to dark for us to be able to see the climb, so we struck off up the path to Twll Odu. Imagine our surprise as we passed through the cloud on our way to the top of Glyder Fawr.

When we arrived at the summit we were able to appreciate the view even more. In the still, cold morning light, the Snowdon mass seemed far harsher and more inaccessible than it really is. As we sat there, the sun slowly rose above the clouds and bathed them in a multitude of colours, this effect being enhanced by the constant change of form of the cloud top.

Reluctantly, we arose from our grandstand seats and applied ourselves to the task of descending into Llanberis Pass. This we accomplished very quickly and easily. The die was cast for the day, and we ground uphill again – this time for the summit of Crib Goch. Breaking through the cloud again, we found that it had risen considerably and now only three hundred feet from the summit. Again, we stopped to drink in this fantastic sight, so rarely seen in Wales. A sea of cloud stretched away in all directions as far as the eye could see. Our ridge ran away before us, and we fairly cracked along it, the exhilaration of our position lending wings to our feet. Yards, furlongs, miles, pinnacles and whalebacks flew behind us and suddenly – we were gasping; sweating and clag-bound on the summit of Snowdon. I had completely switched off during the journey and Tim said later that I had been going as if the devil himself was after me.

As there was nothing to be seen here but swirling mists, we soon quit Snowdon and moved at a more regular pace down the track, from there breaking left for the col between Llewydd and Yr Wyddfa. The Llewydd ridge passed in a grey succession of ups and downs. We were tiring, and the odd stumble brought forth a curse. It was somewhere around this point that I realised that we hadn’t seem a single soul so far all day – a rare occurrence in the area excerpt for midweek in winter.

As we descended to the Llyn Llidaw reservoir the first spots of rain hit us, and we arrived at Pen-y-pas more than a little damp. Our day, however, was not yet over. After mugs of tea and scones, we left Pen-ypass and set off up the grass bound slopes of Glyder Fawr – a very different mountain from the one we had gambolled over just seven hours previously. The uneven tussocks of grass broke our pace and the water clinging to them soaked us through. At the summit, I thought of giving up, but I had promised Tim that I would show him North Wales, so the next phase of our walk just had to be completed. We strolled over the boulder field to Glyder Fach and there banged and scraped our way along Bristly Ridge and so to the top of Tryfan.

Sheltered in the lee of the summit rocks, I let my mind wander back fifteen months when I had crawled, dragged and heaved myself up one of the gullies to the east side of Tryfan in the most horrible and unsafe snow conditions I had ever coming across. It was only sheer luck that got me to the top. I had fallen off three times while climbing jammed boulders and, as I was on my own with only an ice axe, it was pretty

3 desperate. I had reached the summit in a state of physical and mental collapse. How long I had huddled in the shelter of the same rocks which surrounded me now I couldn’t guess, but I know that it took me some time on that earlier occasion to pull myself together and get off the thing.

We rested on the summit for half an hour or so, eating Kendal Mint Cake and smoking, then we turned downhill on the last leg of our journey. We jolted and jarred our way down the ridge to Llyn Ogwen. On reaching the road, we turned off west and hitched a lift to Tyn-y-Maes and so a last mile or so to the cottage.

Data:

Distance Height gain Time taken

17½ miles 9,030 feet 11 hours

That night we supped well in Bethesda and, under the influence, slept equally well.

The next morning saw us thumping back up the road again. The rain of the previous day had given way to an extremely damping fine drizzle. Our objective for the day was the summit of Glyder Fawr. Not much one might say, but fair as it was 1,400 feet of fine rock climbing ahead.

We uncoiled the rope at the base of Tennis Shoe on the slabs and, after trying on, I lead off up the route.

The not difficult but delightful nature of the climb took our minds off the weather and we bumbled gently upwards. On reaching the top of Tennis Shoe, we shambled up to the foot of Holy Tree Wall, where I made a wonderful mess of the initial moves and fell of twice. At last, I had to resort to skulduggery and, as those were the days when a nut was a nut was a nut; a beautiful bath type brass nut jammed in that cursed groove quite nicely. With a quick heave on the attached sling, I was up on that bare little slab and cruising up the groove beyond.

By the time the route had been completed, I wasn’t quite the cool calm determined mountaineer that I had posed six hundred feet below. Continuation Wall led to an even more desperate struggle, so we decided that instead of doing Central Gully on Glyder Fawr, we would take an easier looking corner to the left of it.

This route started at the foot of an overhanging ten foot wall and then eased off for another three hundred feet, where it curved out of sight. After another spectacular peel – of course of which we saw me being smashed between the eyes by a large ‘D’ stubai screw gate – followed at once by a belt on the back by the head of the aforementioned bath nut – I eventually started the route.

I had to traverse left to avoid a bulging wall covered in green and black slime and found myself precariously balanced on a wall the colour of which was a nice reddy pink, the sort one sees some shales turn to after firing. It was quite lovely. The only thing wrong with it was the fact that it had cleaved into little bricks about four inches long, an inch wide and half an inch deep and they were all quite loose. I was quite, quite frightened. Somehow I managed to get upon the thing and, in doing so, traverse back into that nice comforting groove. By this time I had run out my full length of rope. Fortunately there was a fair sized step in the right wall of the groove so, with one foot braced in this, I had to bring Tim up that nasty black bulge.

How he did it I will never know. He plopped twice and still managed to regain and continue. He was very gripped.

Eventually, we arrived at the summit and took off our packs, vowing never to climb laden ever again.

After a brief rest, we hopped down to the Pen-y-Gwrd and then hitched back to Llanbedwr, bivvying out at the Victoria Inn for the night and then flying back to Boscombe on the Monday.

Data: Time taken Grades

About 1,100 feet of climbing and thrutching.

Too long.

Hardest, severe but seemed more than that in big boots, in rain, with packs.

_______________________________________________________________________________________ ….having been climbing with Steve, we now go caving with Colin Priddle…….

4 Friday, the 8th of January saw eleven bods rushing up the M6 motorway to go down Birks Fell Cave. After camping at Horton-in-Ribblesdale, Bob Craig phoned the met office and reported back to us. Heavier rain later in the day was forecast. Most people, remembering Pen-y-Ghent, decided against the cave under these likely conditions, and so we went down Ireby Fell Cavern.

Y O R K S H I R E ….by Colin Priddle

In all, thirteen people descended the hole and the Ding; Dong; Bell; Pussy; Well and Rope pitches. None of these pitches were over forty feet and after the first four, there was a long passage which we estimated to be half a mile long which sloped slightly downwards and was just about a body’s breadth wide. It was perfect for high speed caving except that ‘S’ bends were sometimes a little sharp. After this passage the gradient steepened until the master cave was reached. This terminated in a sump.

A few photographs were taken of the masses of people in the master cave. On the way out, three of the party visited the newly discovered Red Rose Inlets. Judging by the name of this series, the extensions were found by the Red Rose Cave and Pothole club. The three who visited this series thought it very beautiful and well worth a photographic trip. The party eventually came out in three separate groups – it was not organised but just happened that way. Everybody enjoyed the trip, being not too strenuous but pleasant with it’s moderately wet pitches. One of the groups into which the party had split, took a look down Marble Steps afterwards and went as far as the top of the first pitch.

The whole party consisted of Alan Butcher, Bob Mehew, Martin Mills, Brian and Janet Woodward and Bob Craig (all S.M.C.C.) plus Martin Webster, Martin Huaun, Colin Priddle and Dave Yeandle (all B.E.C.) plus Pete Rose and two others.

Later, in the Crown Inn at Horton during the evenings socialising, Martin Webster was caught flicking beer at the Boy – the penalty was his being chucked out by the landlord.

Sunday was a lovely day. Messrs Woodward, Priddle, Yeandle, Rose and one other joined forces with Fred Davies and Ian Jepson (W.C.C. and N.H.A.S.A.) and did Swinsto – coming out into the valley via the Kingsdale Master Cave. The multitude of pitches were quickly passed by abseiling using two travelling ropes. Seven people are too many for a trip like that, and this party split into two. The first party out did it in two hours, but this time could have been shortened considerably with better organisation. The abseiling technique is a very pleasant way of getting down to the valley floor. On the wet pitches you can get to the bottom incredibly quickly.

Meanwhile the others went walking and, after the usual lunchtime refreshments, we walked to Ingleton via Beezley’s Falls in pleasant sunshine. Then we headed for home. _______________________________________________________________________________________

C U T H B E R T’S ….by Tim Large

A rescue practice was held in St. Cuthbert’s on the 5th of December last. The carry was started from the bottom of Stal Pitch. The first party carried from there to the downstream side of the Choke. The second party then took over, and carried from Traverse Chamber to the top of Pulpit, where both teams combined for the final haul. The time taken was about three and a half hours.

On the whole, the practice went very well, giving everyone experience in every aspect of rescue technique. It was disappointing to see only a few people turn up for this rescue practice, and I am sure that not everybody who caves in Cuthbert’s knows what to do in such circumstances.

During the rescue practice, the Choke was finally broken through in the hope that it could be used, but this route was found to be impracticable at the moment. It does, however, give a new direct route down the streamway instead of having to go round by-pass Passage. At the moment, the new passage is a flat out

5 crawl in the streambed, which consists of mud and gravel. We hope that this fill will be gradually washed out, now that a through passage exists.

At the Cuthbert’s Leader’s meeting held on the 22nd of November certain items of fixed tackle were recommended to be brought out of the cave. These were as follows: 1.

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The chain on the Great Gour.

The chain in the Rabbit Warren Extension.

The chain on the Water Chute.

The top chain on the Wire Rift.

The four rung ladder into Pillar Chamber.

The recommendations were turned down by the Committee as they felt that they might not representative of the Cuthbert’s Leaders as a whole, since only ten out of the twenty five leaders were present at the Cuthbert’s Leader’s Meeting. The question of the fixed tackle will be again debated at the next Cuthbert’s Leader’s Meeting, when it is hoped that a decision will be reached with the Committee can have more confidence in.

Another decision taken at the Leader’s meeting was that of opening the Maypole Series again. This series was closed to enable scientific work to be carried out, but there has been almost no work has been done for a long time, and in view of this, it was not felt to be fair to penalise the ordinary cave by keeping the series closed. It is thus open again. _______________________________________________________________________________________ It seem appropriate to follow some caving and climbing with a little archaeology, and it is pleasant to welcome back to the pages of the B.B. one of our older members, Johnny Ifold (of Ifold’s Series in Eastwater, Ifold’s Horror in Stoke Lane, etc.)

CAVE PAINTINGS OF LE PORTEL

This cave is situated not far from the railway station of Varilhes. The paintings were discovered in 1908 by Dr. Jeannal. The cave is entered by going through a low narrow corridor which descends sharply. At the bottom of this corridor, an iron gate gives access to the painted galleries.

The first painting which I saw rather a surprise, for, instead of it showing one of the animals which one associates with the art of prehistoric man, it represents a little owl which has kept watch over Le Portel for at least twenty thousand years.

The principal chamber is about a hundred and eighty feet long, from which several galleries branch off.

There are some fine horses painted in a soft brown colour – their archaic style recalls the dappled horses of Peche-Merle. The largest painting is of a horse over four feet long and this painting is also distinguished by its being the only complete polychrome picture in the cave.

One of the galleries is full of paintings of horses drawn in black outline. The eye is immediately fixed on one – little horse stamping his left foreleg. This simple movement gives him a tremendous amount of life and interest. One would like to know why the artist drew him this way.

The most famous panel in Le Portal is that showing three black Magdalenian bison. Two of the bison with heads lowered face each other. To the left of this a pair is the third and most splendid of the bison.

Thus, the two great art cycles are clearly represented in this cave: relatively early Aurignacian-Perigordian and early Magdalenian. _______________________________________________________________________________________ An EVENT is being organised at the BELFRY on Saturday, MARCH 27TH!!!! And will consist of…

Old Fashioned Mendip Singsong BEER AVAILABLE!

ALL WELCOME!

YOU DON’T OFTEN GET THE CHANCE!

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IN THE CUILLINS …by Bob Cross

Skye is the largest island in the Hebrides and it’s about sixty miles across country form north to south and uneasily and fairly cheaply breached from the mainland.

Whichever road you take to Skye, the scenery is magnificent, and you may become so overawed at what you see that you may never get to Skye at all.

The Cullin Mountains are in the centre of the island, on its west coast. They are dissected by glens and lochs where camp sites are plentiful. The mountains are black and foreboding. Consider yourself lucky if you see much of them, for most of the time they are clothed in cloud. The massif is basically a long ridge, running north to south, and is flanked by spurs with steep points lopped off by the glaciers. Vegetation on the upper slopes is very sparse indeed. Owing to a near complete absence of soil, the slopes are broken by crags of steep slabs, affording varying rock climbs. The scope for rock climbing here is overwhelming but fell walking is limited though by the good fortune it is possible to ascend Sgurr Alasdair – at about 3,200 ft. the highest mountain on Skye – without the aid of a rope given fair weather.

I had the great pleasure to ascend the peak around midsummer during a brief stay on Skye. Four of us set out one morning from the Youth Hostel at Glenbrittle. The weather was settled and a warm breeze wafted through our hair. The first leg of our route lay down the track from Glenbrittle House, a small farmstead form whence we followed a track up through the heather passing a waterfall called Eas Mor. On we went, over a hillside strewn with boulders and small rocky outcrops and soon reached a lochan called Loch-anFhir-Bhallaich. We halted beside its limpid waters and had a bite to eat. From here, our eyes were drawn down along the length of Loch Brittle, banked by steep cliffs and narrow pebbly beaches, and on out to sea where the wind whipped up white horses. On our left loomed the hills of the Isle of Rhum and between them and us could be seen the uninhabited Isle of Soay. Off the northern coast of Rhum lay Canna, and far out to sea was the south end of South Uist and the isles of Barra and Eriksay. The sea was a deep blue and made an indescribably beautiful contrast with the island scenery. Scanning the view with my field glasses I glimpsed a solitary fishing boat bobbing up and down on the waves. After a few minutes here we set off up, spurred on by the expectation of even better views.

Gradually the character of the hillside changed. Grass and heather gave way to scree and boulders and our path dropped gently into the Coire Lagan. Below us the waters of the Allte Coire Lagan ran on their way to the sea. We followed the banks of this stream up until the waters spilled over a great chute of smooth glaciated rock of the tarn above. Our route lay up the sides of this chute and on to the level ground surrounding the tarn. The going proved easy, my vibrams gripping perfectly on the sometimes wet rock.

The seaward side of the tarn was rimmed with smooth rock through which ran veins of white marble like calcite which contrasted strongly with the reddish brown of the rock. We were in a vast amphitheatre. On our left rose a great ridge – Sgurr Dearg while in front of us soared a tremendous stone chute of incredible proportions, the like of which I have never seen before or since. For what must have been six hundred feet or more, the scree rose then vanished between the sheer black walls of a gully. Above this and to our right loomed the towering summit of Sgurr Alasdair, disappearing for moments under blankets of cloud. At our feet lay a chaos of boulders and scree thrown down form the chute. There were two fellows on the scree.

We waited for them to gain the summit ridge, as they were dislodging stones and welters of debris would frequently thunder down, echoing from the surrounding ramparts. After what seemed like hours, the continuing crashing sound died away, and we thought it safe to carry on. Having studied the other team’s progress, I decided it would be better to keep to the slabs at the side of the scree, rather than do battle with the scree itself. This proved a much faster ascent than we had witnessed, and we gained height rapidly.

Soon we were in the gully and solid slabs gave way to a jumble of boulders from wall to wall. This section of about four hundred feet was very steep and many stones were dislodged. One caught me on the kneecap, and the culprit was bitterly cursed. The top was getting near signalled by a fresh breeze whistling down the gully. At last we were on the ridge, and what a fantastic view! A quick scramble up a bristly arête and we were on the summit. It fell sharply away on three sides into the depths of the valley below and we could just make out the figures of the two rock climbers coming up from Sgurr Scumain to the south west. The view was glorious, as by now the sun had begun to set over the Hebrides. I was overawed and felt very humble.

We didn’t stop there long as the light was fading fast and the temperature dropping. We descended to the valley in silence and utter contentment at what we had done. These feelings are for me the sum of the spirit of mountaineering.

7 Editor’s Note: Do climbers make better writers than cavers? Are they more literate? Do they have better brains? It would seem so, judging by the lack of writing about CAVING – a sport which used to be practised to quite an extent in the B.E.C. The climbers show that you don’t have to discover a new mountain – or even a new route – to be able to write interestingly about a trip. Why can’t we have some of the same sort of treatment done for CAVING trips? What about it, you young, keen, active cavers? _______________________________________________________________________________________ HAVE YOU PAID YOUR SUB YET? Subs are DUE on the 31st January. Full members £1.25 (25/-) married couples £1.75 (35/-) and junior members under 18 years of age £).75 (15/-) Cheques, cash, etc. to R.J. BAGSHAW, 699 WELLS ROAD, KNOWLE, BRISTOL 4.

Why not do it now? Article 20 of the constitution says…..’membership mat be deemed by the Committee to have ceased if a member’s annual subscription, being due on the 31st January and being requested at the member’s last known address before March 31st following, shall not have been received by April 30th of that year.’

Hence, the well know jungle….

Annual subs must all be in Ere the month of May begin Any bloke who fails to pay May not get B.B. for May!

DOITNOW+SENDIT TO BOB+ DOITNOW+SENDIT TO BOB+ DOITNOW+SENDIT TO BOB+ DOIT MONTHLY CROSSWORD – Number 8.

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Solution To Last Month’s Crossword C

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2. Describes a long way. (3) 5. Form a plan with survey included. (3) 7. Eyes open south east and east. (3) 8. ‘O, my leap!’ (of this?). (7) 11. Water for mixed teams. (4) 12. Not for NiFes. (4) 14. Singe it – and sets off bang. (7) 16. Top value in some kinds of game. (3) 17. Rats to in Cuthbert’s. (3)

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Stencils completed 11.3.71

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1. Insane backwards device in Cuthbert’s? (3) 3. Useful in perpendicular opening. (5) 4. Home of this in Lamb Leer and Cuthbert’s. (3) 6. Apes Sag along cave route. (7) 7. Cork Les on Eastern Mendip. (7) 9. Softly two directions for Mendip hill 10. Typically about nothing. (3) 13. 3 down forms this. (4) 14. Cold notice not absent. (3) 15. Drink Yorkshire ale. (3)