Yorkshire Subterranean Society

The first YSS trip to the Berger was in Aug.1986 led and organised by Colin Gray. The expedition numbered a total of 47 members of whom 39 were below ground and although not one member had been to the Berger before we were at the bottom at the end of the third day. A total of 27 members made the bottom i.e.57%. The trip however was not without incident, no Berger trip is, as a rope on Claudines shaft was cut by a flying boulder during a flash flood, trapping 5 members at the bottom of the Grand Canyon for some 33 hrs, even so the trip was a resounding success.

It was interesting to note that the 2004 forty year reunion saw 26 of those people attending, however we failed to contact the 5 members who were trapped i.e.Simon Bryan, Alex Copping, Steve Simms (sparrow), and John Couling (Idris). If anyone visiting the site knows of their whereabouts please ask them to get in touch.

In Aug1988 the YSS were back on the Sornin plateau, with Colin Gray still leading, this time with a total of 53 members, of which 44 were down the hole, this time made slighly easier as 16 of these were on the 1986 expedition so had a working knowledge of the cave. The gods were kind on this occasion with 30 bottoming the cave i.e.60%.

The gods however were not so kind to Chris Commerie who managed to smash his kneecap on Balcony pitch (just below Camp 1). After a 7 hour self rescue, with pushing and pulling from Trevor Milner and Andy McCarron (The Webmaster) to the base of Garbys. A rescue was organised by ourselves, and after being dragged out of the cave, and hauled the 1.5 miles to the base camp, and then driven to the hospital, Chris was back on telephone duty " at the entrance" the following day, with his crutches!

Aug. 1991 was slightly different with 50 people attending the cave which was in a different mood. The Berger had a major flood just before our entry which means we were chasing the receding waters all the way down the cave, this slowed down the rigging teams. Chris Gill attempting to run the telephone lines to Camp 1, with Wayne Confrey, found himself not admiring "the journey by the starless river" but swimming it involuntarily. At the same time Jason Mallinson (now of diving fame ) and his team were attempting to bottom the "Fromagere", a tight horrible narrow cave with a 700ft. pitch,yes 700 ft.which connects with the Berger in the "Gallery of the Dead". He was finally stopped by an impassable canal, but even so we believe this is a depth record for any englishman in this cave at the 1991 point.

Complications then set in when two Belgian cavers went down Fromagere completely ill-equipt, on our tackle,. ie shorts under boiler suits in a super severe cave @ 4 degrees C. resulting in a major rescue by the YSS. Our medic (Andy Gadget) declared them both dead , "twice", after getting them out of the cave due to massive hypothermia. However, with ambulances on the plateau, no mean feat in itself, (there is no 999 system in France)the victims did recover after two weeks in a French hospital.

Things were slowly getting back to normal when suddenlly, as if planned, a French woman came screaming into the camp saying that five teenagers were missing in the limestone forest. Like knights in shining armour we were at it again. Colin asked Fred Weekes (now underground controller for the CRO) to organise search parties, and off they charged into the forest, like true englishmen. Half an hour later the woman casually mentioned to Colin ,who had walked up to the carpark to console her, as you do, that the children had turned up all safe and sound. So, let us now organise search parties to look for the search parties who are looking for people who are not lost. Colin at this point got kitted up and went to Camp 1 in the Berger solo and went to sleep.