Wales Outdoors

CAVING AT PORTH YR OGOF

It rained so last night, so much so that I thought the caving planned for today would be seriously curtailed, if not canceled. But my fears were groundless. I awoke to bright sunny skies with excellent prospects for this to continue for the day. There's nothing I dislike more than getting changed in the rain; I was happy...

I had two clients who wanted a caving trip, a father and son combo who were away for the week, killing time over half term.

I decided on Porth Yr Ogof as it is easy - ish to get to and an excellent beginners trip.

We crawled around the maze for much of the morning, exiting for a spot of lunch and then back in for the traditional exploration of the river system and some of the more obscure passageways... we even made it to Hywells Groto, a dirty crawl through muddies water and over achingly placed fist sized boulders.

They were happy, and glad of the wetsuits issued for the afternoon session - man, that water was cold!

ad·ven·ture

n.

1.

a. An undertaking or enterprise of a hazardous nature.

b. An undertaking of a questionable nature, especially one involving intervention in another state's affairs.

2. An unusual or exciting experience: an adventure in dining.

3. Participation in hazardous or exciting experiences: the love of adventure.

4. A financial speculation or business venture.

v. ad·ven·tured, ad·ven·tur·ing, ad·ven·tures

v.tr.

1. To venture upon; undertake or try.

2. To expose to danger or risk; hazard.

v.intr.

1. To take a risk; dare.

2. To proceed despite risks.

---

[Middle English aventure, from Old French, from Latin adventrus, future participle of advenre, to arrive;]

CAVING - LATE AVAILABILITY

We will be running a day long caving session for a small group (two at the moment) on Tuesday 26th February.

This will be a trip into the belly of the Beacons, entering Porth Yr Ogof and fully exploring this fun cave system.

The low price for late availability is simply a fee of £35pp. We provide all kit, instruction, insurance and carry the relevent safety items.... You just need some warm clothes and clean clothes to get changed into after the activity.

If you wish to book and have paypal please click on the £35 (pound coins) photo that appears in the paypal widget at the top right of this site or if you don't have paypal email you intention to come along. Full details will be supplied by return.

We hope to see you on the day.

OUR COASTEERING GUIDELINES

Following on from Tuesdays post I thought it timely to describe in a little more detail the activity known as coasteering and outline our procedures and policies. The following is taken directly from the An Intertidal Thing website.

COASTEERING INFORMATION

Definitions - The UK Mountain Training Board defines the activities in the following ways:

Sea Level Traversing- Primarily a dry Rock- Climbing activity.
Coasteering- Usually a wet activity involving swimming and jumping from height into water as an integral part.
Adventure Swimming- Another name for Coasteering or a non-technical variation of canyoning.

We currently use two venues Ogmore to Southerndown and Bracelet Bay to Limeslade Bay at Mumbles. The activities at these locations are very different from each other.

Ogmore
This is a great although exposed venue. We cannot guarantee that Coasteering will take place. We need calm sea conditions and we need the tide to be going out.

Situated on the Bristol channel, this area has the second highest tide range in the world (12 metres), we need to be aware of the condition of the sea.

There are some good sized jumps, nothing huge but good fun, and just the best traversing that you will ever have.

This is best as part of the multi activity beach day.

Mumbles
Here the activity is Rock Hoping. We do not get wet but we traverse close to seal level, hoping from one rock to another, avoiding the brine. There are some good cave sections and a real challenge at he end, the smallest cave you could ever attempt to enter go through.

Again, this is best as part of the multi activity beach day.

Kit
It is walking boots for both locations with full wetsuit, bouyancy, helmet and gloves for Ogmore and old clothing and a helmet for Mumbles.

Staff
We run the coasteering with a staff ratio of 2:8, an instructor and an assistant to eight clients. This ensures safety and a great sesion but is expensive. The Rock Hoping at Mumbles is 1:8.

All of our activities are now run with a minimum staff ratio of 1:8 and we try to supply two staff for every session.

For 2008 our standard rate is £55 pp for a day and this increased rate reflects the enhanced staff ratio and improvements in kit provision.

We now believe that our provision is second to none and we think that the small increase in costs to the client is worth every penny.

OUR MULTI ACTIVITY BEACH DAY

The coastline of South Wales is dramatic and often overlooked by visitors to the area although it is very much used by the locals.

When developing the coastal business, An Intertidal Thing, we wanted to be able to offer coasteering along with a range of other beach activities, in part to move away from the predominance of bookings for gorge walking and also to be able to offer a truly sustainable activity day that had NO environmental impact.

We use several locations, Mumbles and the Gower, near Swansea, Ogmore to Southerndown, near Bridgend, and Swansea Bay (part sub-contracted provision).

Across these three locations we can offer abseiling and climbing, cave exploration, beach games, power kites and mountain boards, body boarding, coasteering, rock hopping, canoeing, windsurfing and beach volleyball.

Intertidal events are notoriously fickle, difficult to guarantee provision due to the unknown swell, wind, and wave conditions. We have overcome the problems associated with beach days by taking a wide range of activities to the location which compliment each other. If coasteering is not available because of the swell then it is likely that the sea will be in condition for body boarding, if there is wind for the kites but now waves then we kite instead of body boarding. In this way we guarantee that the day will be a success.

This unique approach to activity provision can only be found at An Intertidal Thing. There is no other provider that comes close to our well thought out and professionally delivered beach sessions. 

The classic day for us is along the spectacular VERY TIDAL limestone cliffs that fall into the sea between Ogmore and Southerndown and it is this that we encourage clients to go for. The full day is described here and you can read this by clicking on continue reading....

ENVIRONMENTAL CHARTER GROUP

Many years ago I was developing a commercial but ethical group of adventure activity suppliers, collectively known as the Beacons Outdoors Instructors Association. This was a small group of providers but was open to all commercial operators providing that the prospective members were keen to work to the environmental, customer care and staffing guidelines that were peer developed.

Part of the work undertaken was a survey of community and environmental groups within the Brecon Beacons National Park (BBNP) and development of a code of practice built around sustainability objectives.

This work led the BBNP to move to promote a National Park wide environmental charter, open to all. This charter was a success but the charter group had no teeth to police the members and conflicting personalities led to the eventual demise of the group.

After two years of asking, the BBNP are about to post the original charter groups aims and objectives, a kind of best practice statement for those working in the natural environment. I am very pleased to once again be involved in the promotion of sustainability and care for the environment and to have been persistent in requesting that the original document will once again be available on a public website.

It is now the responsibility for those who wish to work to a professional standard regarding environmental care to link to this page on the BBNP website stating that they are working to the principles as detailed.

There can be no policing of such an informal arrangement and perhaps policing is not ever possible. However, all providers can be vigilant and can confront those who are working outside of the charter.

For the charter in full please read more....

BARRIER DEVICES

Since offering first aid training it has become very clear to me that retention of skills learnt is good, but confidence to use these life saving techniques reduces exponentially after about six months after taking part in the training.

One piece of kit that I have in place in my personal and instructor first aid kits is the face mask barrier to aid resuscitation. This enable resus to be administered whilst keeping the face of the first aider away from the face of the injured person. Easy to use and as cheap as £5 each I recommend that all should have one of these in the glove box of the car and at the bottom of the hand or man bag....

I am glad that I made the decision to go for professional and exhaustive first aid kits and my decision, although expensive (each of my kits equates to a cash value of about £120), is confirmed by trials and ongoing experience....

"Conclusions: One year after a single episode of ventilation training, lay persons tended to hyperventilate; however, the degree of hyperventilation and resulting stomach inflation were lower when a mouth-to-mouth mask or a face shield was employed. Regular training is therefore required to retain ventilation skills; retention of skills may be better with ventilation devices."

(from an inter-European study with randomised trials in 2004/05)

GLAD I'M NOT AN EMPLOYEE

I found this article in the Institute of Leadership Management's newsletter. It is scary stuff for those office workers of the not too distant future.

It seems as if 'Big Brother' is truly with us, not the C4 voyeurism I hasten to add, but the chillingly imagined George Orwell version that has become so relevant to our lives. Click read more to see the article.

I advise a change in career today - get out on the hills and enjoy the last bastion of freedom from the information age.....

A COLD DAY, VANDALISM AND TOURISM MANAGEMENT

Yesterday I was out on the first gorge walk of the year.

The weather was fine, but cold, the river in good condition, but very cold!

Three women had booked an adventure session and with this group size, we managed to achieve a good deal, despite the water temperature. The morning was spent keeping warm and dry and the afternoon was a full on wet experience. Brrr....

The women seemed to enjoy it!!

Surprisingly, the car park was busy for this time of the year, not a good omen for peak season, with five groups being led through the boulders and pools of the Sychrydd.

I noted that one supplier that I have commented upon several times were providing the session for young people without issuing wetsuits. I leave this one for you to ponder but would say that it had been -2 the night before.