The depths of a Highland Winter may seem an ill-advised time to embark on exploring the submerged passages of Uamh nan-Claigg ionn, The Cave of Skulls, Scotland’s deepest cave. But I had a lull in my diary and, besides, after dragging my kit down five vertical drops and numerous constricted crawls, I’d be convincingly ‘out of the wind’.
Cave diving in the Scotland is like most of the UK, specialising in tight, serpentine crawls, long abseils and muddy water (or watery mud)… and the sites are normally a bloody a long way from the car. There aren’t many fat UK cave divers.
We were filming this little jaunt for the BBC’s Adventure Show. The plan was for Stu Keasley to film me up top and in the initial section and I’d self-shoot on a small hand-held inside the rest of the system. I had to carry one of the heaviest rucksacks of my life – twin seven litre cylinder, side-mount harness, climbing harness, 105 metres of rope, torches, reels, abseiling, ascending and anchoring kit and my camera – about 60kg in all. Fortunately it was only about a mile and a half from the end of the nearest road. Unfortunately it was winter, the road was blocked, so it ended up being two and half… uphill.
I’d investigated a few other sites the day before so, after Sherpa-ing my load up through the snow, I was gifted the opportunity to pull on a partially frozen wetsuit whilst simultaneously blaspheming enough to offend most major religions. Finally kitted up it was time to descend into the underworld. The entrance is large cavity in the ground, overarched by an eldritch, gnarled tree with beards and bunting of moss and lichen hanging into the icicle-encrusted darkness. Once I abseiled down and entered the system I could feel the rise in temperature as the warm earth enveloped me. The first awkward bend and low crawl brought the reality of my predicament. It was impossible to drag or push all my equipment in one go so I’d have to shuttle, re-doing each section four or five times. The first crawl is followed by two abseils, with one the most awkward take-off I’ve ever encountered.