Climbing into thermals, thick oversuit and wellies in the middle of the flippin’ hottest day for ages was more than a mare! Thankfully, the short walk over to the cave entrance was quick and as soon as we got there we lit-up and dived straight in. The cold blast that blew our way was real sweet – heaven in fact…

Giant’s Cave, despite its name starts off kinda small and intimate, the entrance series, all 256m of it, is super-friendly. The streamway meanders through accommodating passages and chambers until Garland’s Pot signals the start of the more serious stuff. To here, it talks less than 15-20 minutes and is anything but demanding. Down to Garland’s, Giant’s is understandably popular with beginners and groups.

And speaking of groups, we were on reccie to check out the photo opportunities for Alpkit’s up and coming Big Shakeout. First up to feature after the entrance is the Base Camp Chamber; a stream entering from the right boosting the water in the streamway. Boss Aven is next up and is quite a surprise with its lush flowstone cascades and walls which are easily the jewel in the entrance series to Giant’s. Garland’s Pot is a 5m drop just beyond Boss Aven but other than to act as a stop for those sans SRT kit Garland’s isn’t much to speak of.

As I say we were there scoping out the chambers and passages for the cave photography element of the Big Shakeout. We were only in there a couple of hours but I shot a bunch of locations and yes, we reckon that we’ll be dropping into Giant’s as part of the Big Shakeout. Agh, almost forgot; if you fancy trying your hand at a short crawling passage check out the squeeze in the ‘smarty tube’ on the way down the Giant’s Highway…

For more on Alpkit’s Big Shakeout click through here http://www.alpkit.com/bigshakeout/schoolofadventure. Meanwhile here’s a selection of pixs from the trip…

Jim climbing down to Garland’s Pot...