Ogof Hesp Alyn (OHA) sounded like it might be a bit of an epic for me so I decided to go down Ogof Hen Ffynhonnau (OHF)/(Poacher's). I think I made a wise choice, Poachers is a great little cave for a Sunday trip.
A 10 minute walk from the car park to a hole in the banking with a gate just inside it leads after a few meters to a manhole over a 5 metre ladder pitch into the system. Hands and knees through an adit lead to another hands and knees crawl or low walk through banks of silt and sticky mud. A reasonable sized chamber is entered and a route over a rock bridge leads to the active streamway. We went upstream to a chamber with a large stalagmite boss, looked like a 5ft cupcake that had slumped.
We spent time admiring some cave paintings, a red hand print and a hunting scene; expert dating concluded that they were from circa 2012. We photographed them for posterity and then, using water and brushes brought along for the job, we scrubbed them off.
Towards the end of the cave we saw what looked suspiciously like farm yard run off that had settled in a side stream waiting to be disturbed by cavers. It was photographed and we watched as it flowed away downstream. Traces of diesel oil were found in a similar location last year.
More graffiti was spotted but was left to be removed another time as it was on delicate formations and will need specialist equipment to remove. Makes you wonder about the mentality of the people who do that sort of damage.
In several places in the cave we saw tree roots hanging from the ceiling some even continued to grow in the mud.
On the return some of the party enjoyed flat out muddy alternatives to the easy main route back and seemed to particularly enjoy a tricky little mud climb, those of us who stuck to the easy route could hear their cries of delight from a considerable distance.
Time, probably a couple of hours but time flies when you are having fun!
The team Mike, Jane, Paul, Gordon, Alex Guides Dave and Dewi.
Thanks to Dewi Lloyd for leading the trip.
sounds like you guys had a good time 