Tales of spelunking
Mar. 31st, 2009 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
belisarius_534Caving tales...
Even after bailing out of Sean’s excellent party at a shamefully early hour, getting up at 7am (6am real time) on a Sunday morning wasn’t nice. 90 min driving later and we were sat in Bernie’s Café in Ingleton for the traditional fortifying fry up. Bellies full, the party of 9 (take note for later), tramped across Casterton Fell to the entrance of Link Pot. This consists of a shaft of 20m depth or so, of which the first half is very narrow. Imagine a post box slot where the width is just enough for me to get my hand in front of my chest to operate the abseil device. Not too difficult, but worrying since we knew we would have to get out the same way.samharber, being somewhat fuller of figure had a horrible time and only just made it down after a struggle.
The chamber underneath, Hilton Hall was wide and spacious. I tested out my new light at this point. 14 LEDs for general illumination plus a halogen spotlight for long distance ☺. To progress, one had the choice of a squeeze through a narrow gap or a muddy crawl. A mixture of stream passageway (variable chest to head height) with crawling led to some nice stalagtites and stalagmites in different chambers. All quite pleasant until we reached the aptly named ‘molten mars bar crawl’ – as in this is what you look like after crawling though it. A flat out crawl (too low for hands and knees, sometimes so low that I couldn’t turn my head from side to side..) over a floor of sharp rocks, clingy mud and gravel. Absolutely horrible and leaving heck of a lot of bruises even through all the protective layers.
Next up: - some ‘exciting’ steps across the so-called canyon – mostly, but not always protected by a traverse rope. This led to Tiger’s Inlet, a nice bit of streamway and the top of the Serendipity pitches, a series of underground waterfalls. The first was boring and avoidable by a scramble. The second was the big one. The rope was rigged from the roof, some distance away which made the transition from a tricky traverse (wedged in a crack with feet on one side and arse against the wall) to start the abseil quite hard. The abseil itself was brilliant, with spray from the waterfall being illuminated by headtorch on the way down. A third, dull abseil led to Easy Street, a nice wide passage.
At this point we realised that it was getting a bit late. All the vertical sections are one at a time, so with a party of 9 it was taking forever. While the experienced guys went on ahead to the end of the cave, the rest of us started back. This is where it started getting nasty. For us all to SRT (using jammers to ascent a vertical rope) to the top of the bottom pitch took at least an hour. People at started to get very, very chilly and poor Chris had developed a horrible cold with projectile snotting.
The second pitch was a bit of a nightmare for most people. A long ascent of the rope got you to the roof bolts after which it was necessary to get back into the passageway several feet to the left. Going fifth, I’d been ble to more or less workl this out – leaving a few feet of rope above me, swing left, grab the traverse line and then (using sneaky climber skills, heel hook a flake in the passage). After using an arse-jam to secure myself, I struggled for a while to free my gear from the vertical rope. With several more to come after me, it started to get even colder, and the party resorted to a big back-to-back huddle to conserve warmth. Then, back through the horrible crawl and retrace our steps to the exit. Looking up, a tiny rectangle of daylight could be seen. Very glad it wasn’t dark.
Now, if its narrow to abseil easily (where all you have to do is press a handle and feed the rope) its much harder to prusik up (where you have to move jammers up and step up in a rope loop) in a confined space. Sam made it out pretty well with a bit of swearing. Chris was next, but as she went to the rope, a rock came banging down and he only just dived out of the way (and has a big bruise on the back of her heel from it). Not good..
At this point, I couldn’t hold a conversation as I was shivering too much. When it was my turn I warmed up a bit and inched up the rope, through the confined space. Very nice to reach the surface and freedom. Back to the cars to get out of the soaking clothes, then home via the services and the fastest demolition of a BK meal I’ve ever managed.
In all, an ‘educational’ experience, but in common with most of the group, I’m never going back down that cave….
Even after bailing out of Sean’s excellent party at a shamefully early hour, getting up at 7am (6am real time) on a Sunday morning wasn’t nice. 90 min driving later and we were sat in Bernie’s Café in Ingleton for the traditional fortifying fry up. Bellies full, the party of 9 (take note for later), tramped across Casterton Fell to the entrance of Link Pot. This consists of a shaft of 20m depth or so, of which the first half is very narrow. Imagine a post box slot where the width is just enough for me to get my hand in front of my chest to operate the abseil device. Not too difficult, but worrying since we knew we would have to get out the same way.
samharber, being somewhat fuller of figure had a horrible time and only just made it down after a struggle.The chamber underneath, Hilton Hall was wide and spacious. I tested out my new light at this point. 14 LEDs for general illumination plus a halogen spotlight for long distance ☺. To progress, one had the choice of a squeeze through a narrow gap or a muddy crawl. A mixture of stream passageway (variable chest to head height) with crawling led to some nice stalagtites and stalagmites in different chambers. All quite pleasant until we reached the aptly named ‘molten mars bar crawl’ – as in this is what you look like after crawling though it. A flat out crawl (too low for hands and knees, sometimes so low that I couldn’t turn my head from side to side..) over a floor of sharp rocks, clingy mud and gravel. Absolutely horrible and leaving heck of a lot of bruises even through all the protective layers.
Next up: - some ‘exciting’ steps across the so-called canyon – mostly, but not always protected by a traverse rope. This led to Tiger’s Inlet, a nice bit of streamway and the top of the Serendipity pitches, a series of underground waterfalls. The first was boring and avoidable by a scramble. The second was the big one. The rope was rigged from the roof, some distance away which made the transition from a tricky traverse (wedged in a crack with feet on one side and arse against the wall) to start the abseil quite hard. The abseil itself was brilliant, with spray from the waterfall being illuminated by headtorch on the way down. A third, dull abseil led to Easy Street, a nice wide passage.
At this point we realised that it was getting a bit late. All the vertical sections are one at a time, so with a party of 9 it was taking forever. While the experienced guys went on ahead to the end of the cave, the rest of us started back. This is where it started getting nasty. For us all to SRT (using jammers to ascent a vertical rope) to the top of the bottom pitch took at least an hour. People at started to get very, very chilly and poor Chris had developed a horrible cold with projectile snotting.
The second pitch was a bit of a nightmare for most people. A long ascent of the rope got you to the roof bolts after which it was necessary to get back into the passageway several feet to the left. Going fifth, I’d been ble to more or less workl this out – leaving a few feet of rope above me, swing left, grab the traverse line and then (using sneaky climber skills, heel hook a flake in the passage). After using an arse-jam to secure myself, I struggled for a while to free my gear from the vertical rope. With several more to come after me, it started to get even colder, and the party resorted to a big back-to-back huddle to conserve warmth. Then, back through the horrible crawl and retrace our steps to the exit. Looking up, a tiny rectangle of daylight could be seen. Very glad it wasn’t dark.
Now, if its narrow to abseil easily (where all you have to do is press a handle and feed the rope) its much harder to prusik up (where you have to move jammers up and step up in a rope loop) in a confined space. Sam made it out pretty well with a bit of swearing. Chris was next, but as she went to the rope, a rock came banging down and he only just dived out of the way (and has a big bruise on the back of her heel from it). Not good..
At this point, I couldn’t hold a conversation as I was shivering too much. When it was my turn I warmed up a bit and inched up the rope, through the confined space. Very nice to reach the surface and freedom. Back to the cars to get out of the soaking clothes, then home via the services and the fastest demolition of a BK meal I’ve ever managed.
In all, an ‘educational’ experience, but in common with most of the group, I’m never going back down that cave….
