A New Hobby!

The Main Building at Glagow Uni

Upon arriving at the University of Glasgow, one of the first things that I decided to do was to join some of the groups on campus. Although I am technically not a student anymore, being a post doc affords one a few “luxuries” that you have as a student. (There are plenty of NOT luxuries that go along with it as well! Haha)

I have learned over the years that one of the best ways to meet new people and potentially tap an unlimited resource for learning new things is through University Club Sports groups. I still have amazing friends that I met through the rock climbing club at Texas Tech University oh so many years ago!

Anyway, I trolled through the list of student groups and decided to really get out of my comfort zone and skip right past the cycling club and join a group that does something I’ve never done before but have always been quite enamoured with...CAVING! I’ve always really loved exploring caves and roped climbing and all of the associated rope techniques are my favourite type of climbing, so I thought, perfect!

The idea isn't to keep from getting all wet, it's to
be able to stay warm once you ARE wet!

I turned up for a couple of training sessions to start learning the SRT (single rope technique) necessary to get your butt back out of the cave that you abseil into, met the club members for several Thursday night pub nights, and finally had time to go on a weekend trip with the group! We went to the Yorkshire Dales and had a fantastic weekend!! This is the only picture I really have from the weekend (and Tim has mentioned that it’s not the most flattering of photos! Haha gotta stay warm, though!), so I’ve included a link to some pictures that some other group took on their trip to the same place.

Basically, the cave that we did involved walking through cave streams, skirting around deep pools of water, climbing up a waterfall, crawling (or rather slithering) through one of the tightest spaces I have ever found myself (The Cheese Press) in...honest to god I really though I was stuck for a little while! Check out (again) someone else’s video of getting through the Cheese Press. It really makes you think twice about eating too many sweets and not going to the gym! In the end, we used some caving ladders to descend down onto the ledge that you can see in the other girls photos and were treated to an amazing view of the waterfall and entrance to a deeper cave below us!

All in all, I had a fantastic weekend learning a new skill and meeting some cool new people! I can’t wait to go again!! J