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A warm welcome to all our Freshers! We're glad you chose to join us (or are thinking about it at least). You'll be able to enjoy regular caving trips, lots of socials, and a bunch of new friends.

Joining the Club...

To join the club it is a requirement that you are a member YorkSport. This is because, in order to use our training facilities in the sports centre, you need to be covered under the university insurance. You can join on the YorkSport website.

Club membership is currently £15 (£5 when you join which includes your first trip, and the rest in the second term). Our normal day trips (usually on a Saturday or a Sunday) cost £6 per trip (plus a £1 fee to hire one of our culb lights). This is to cover transport and light maintainance costs. Other trips, such as Bull Pot Farm or Wales are over several days and the cost is normally more than the normal trip fees in order to pay for accommodation etc. If you have a car that you can take others in then you get paid for your fuel and you don't have to pay the trip fee.

As soon as you've joined, you'll also receive full access to this website. This includes the chat forum which will keep you up-to-date with upcoming events, trips and general club banter. If you have joined and not yet received your password via email then please go to the login reminder page and enter your email address in the first section and it'll be sent right back to you.

Your first trip...

If you have never been on a trip before, you need to bring the following...

  • Clothing to suit the time of year / weather
  • A towel
  • Change of underwear
  • Some money to buy breakfast and (cheap) evening meal
  • Some water or other drink is good to take along

You won't wear any of your own clothes (apart from underwear!) in the cave. The club supply a furry undersuit to keep you warm underground and a protective oversuit. All the safety kit is supplied by the club so you don't need to worry about that. Plenty of experienced members are on hand before we set off to make sure you have the all the correct stuff.

The agenda for your first trip...

Meet at the caving container behind the sports centre. The beginners trips are quite basic so we meet at 9am (usually trips meet at 8am). If you don't know where the caving container is, you can meet us outside the sports centre entrance (we'll keep checking for you!). We'll get your kit together from the container and load up the cars or mini-bus.

We'll head off to the Yorkshire Dales where we'll stop at Bernie's Cafe or Inglesport for breakfast and to hire the lights. When we're suitably filled, we set off to the cave. Your first trip is likely to be a cave called Long Churn. This involves no rope-work so it’s ideal for novices. We park and get changed outside by the cars and set off on the short walk to the cave. We'll spend about 2-3 hours underground before heading back to the cars, and then back to Bernie's to return the lights. Normally we'll stop at Skipton on the way home to get some food (usually pizza/burger/chips).

Our expected time of return to York for the first trip will be approximately 10pm although this does depend on how quickly we get organised and how long we stop for food etc.

Further trips...

Your first trip will be quite basic to get you familiar with what caving is all about. After a couple of training sessions, we'll take a trip to a much more elaborate cave system. This is likely to be Bar Pot entering into the Gaping Gill system in the Yorkshire Dales. Here you will use SRT (single rope technique) to gain access to the HUGE Gaping Gill main chamber (big enough to fit York Minster in it). With the largest underground waterfall in the UK, it's a truly spectacular sight!

From here, we go on regular trips to the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District. In addition to this we arrange yearly trips to South Wales and the Mendip Hills to visit a massive choice of spectacular cave systems. You can explore places only a handful of people have ever seen and see cave formations beyond anything you'd ever see in a show cave.

Weekends...

We go on several weekends away (or sometimes longer).We usually stay in cottages owned by larger caving clubs across the UK such as Bull Pot Farm and the School House in Yorkshire, the Chapel in the Peak District, SWCC in South Wales and the Shepton Mallet Caving Club in the Mendips (Somerset). These are cheap bunkhouses (around £5 a night) and are a good place to meet other cavers. Weekend trips are normally once or twice a term and involve lots of caving, not to mention large quantities of alcohol.

Missed the first couple of weeks?...

It's not a problem if you've missed the first couple of weeks of term. It's best if you can come along at this time, but we'll always be able to fit you in! Just drop in to our training sessions, every Thursday night from 8:00pm in the Main Sports hall. We welcome any new members at any time, so just come along and have a chat.

Take a look at our training page at: www.yucpc.org.uk/training

 

One of the entrances to Long Churn which is likely to be your first trip.

Our regular training sessions in the sports hall.

The spectacular Gaping Gill main chamber. You will be able to go here within a few weeks!

Just some of the many formations you will see in almost every cave you visit.

Not forgetting the regular pub crawls!