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I thought Daz had triplets.

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I think there are enough Scaifes in the world already, and changing the woman’s surname after marriage isn’t a Spanish thing.
I am of course now Chris de la Scaife.

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I just can’t believe you attempted it headfirst before going in feet first. Is this the new you?

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Now that would make sense.

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It’s really not very muddy at all. I don’t know why people say it is.

We saw an unforgivable act of vandalism in there. Some bastard had written, “D. Miller 1986” on the wall. If I ever find D. Miller I’d like to give him a piece of my mind.

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Well done chaps – Dr Miller’s first NFTFH “tight” squeeze. I hope you drank an outrageous amount to celebrate.
When I was in there with Alex, Ales and other less successful squeezers, we got the tackle sack stuck on the same pitch, so I had to go back down it.
What sort of unimaginative explorer calls something Cave Hole? Do these people not know any amusingly named Roman emperors?

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I’ve got it.
You’ll just have to wait for the journal Chris (Shaman).

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Xandar wrote:

Once sorted we ate and went to bed, I awoke 2 hours later with an al-mighty stomach cramp…. to be continued.

Way to leave us all on tenterhooks!
What happened next: did you explore miles and miles of virgin passage, or did you shit yourself?

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Good work chaps. Let’s go and explore the limestone.

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I think there should be a Netflix series about your plans to do Hensler’s every time you go caving, and how you almost always end up doing something else.

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It’s definitely worth going back to Fresnedo. There are plenty of bits to look at. On either side of Coyote Inlet there are short, easyish digs that might well lead to plenty.

I didn’t go back because James had gone home and I didn’t want to go into his cave without him.

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Friday 11th of August 2017
Vallina
Chris Scaife, Carol Smith, Peter Smith, Lloyd Cawthorne

Primarily a tourist trip to see some of the delights of this excellent cave, such as Swirl Chamber, but being in Matienzo there were also some question marks to look at on the way back from the known stuff.

First I climbed down a pit at the end of the Sandy Passage. This looked scary but was quite a straightforward free climb and Lloyd followed me down. We got into a narrow, tortuous streamway, which soon became too tight. It could perhaps be enlarged though and is leading in a direction in which no other cave passage is known.

We then headed towards the Zona de la Massa, where the survey was incomplete in a few places. A question mark on one corner was fairly quickly confirmed to be a genuine dead end, but opposite we surveyed 15m of passage. We then had a look at a low section that, about a month ago, Juan had looked at and said it was choked. We crawled through into walking passage, quite soon linking up with known cave, and have named this part Juan’s Walk of Shame.

[Scaife]

Tuesday 8th of August 2017
Mostajo
Chris Scaife, Lloyd Cawthorne, Sahil Maharaj, Alex Sheppard

The main aim of this trip was to investigate a draughting hole at the start of Tenebrous Passage (a combined BRCC/MUSC discovery from 2014). When we got there it seemed unlikely that all members of the group would get to the hole safely, so we decided to investigate some question marks elsewhere on the survey.

We found a very well decorated passage opposite the Golden Void. 55m of new passage was surveyed and we have named it Sheppard’s Bush.

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Monday 7th of August 2017
415
Chris Scaife, Carol Smith, Tom Howard, Nigel Dibben

A photographic trip into this cave, just a short walk from the village. This was the first visit to 415 for Tom and Nigel and also the first time I have been in Helictite Passage. The formations in this passage are spectacular, with calcite at all angles, the helictites in places looping around each other. I just hope the photos from Tom and Nigel do it justice.

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Sunday 6th of August 2017
Socks
Chris Scaife and Lloyd Cawthorne

We went up to dig this draughting hole, a short walk from Matienzo. It hasn’t been looked at for two years, but according to the information on the computer it is 3m long and 3m deep.

It must have been affected by storms in the last two years, because we found it to be 11.5m deep. There is still a strong draught, but it is too tight to get any further without a serious dig of the ground beneath your feet.

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