It was time for our annual winter trip to Grange Rigg pot, this time with a bit of a twist. For a start far more than usual were interested we had five in total. (Me, 2x Chris (Shaman & Scaif), Dan and of course Don).
The idea this time was to do an exchange trip between Grange and Xmas. With the snow it was appropriate. Me and Dan took on Christmas as we had not done it before and wanted to see Santa, the rest took on Grange Rigg as their entrance of choice for the same reason. So no one knew what to expect other,
Christmas pot was however a straightforward affair, the start of the entrance pitch is actually a series of free-climbs onto large ledges, however not knowing this I rigged the lot, as it was all on Ps anyway. Once down the pitch proper me and Dan were confronted with an easy crawl, stoop and occasional easy squeeze though boulder filled rifts. After about 10 minutes of this we reached what was the second pitch. Again the first part is actually a climb (even according to the topo) but as I had brought an excess of rope we rigged that too, off of naturals using a large rock on the left and a stal round the corner on the right. Dan took over rigging and had an interesting time trying to work out what naturals to use, most of the pitch is on naturals, and half of it is again climbable.
We were soon in Grange Rigg with plenty of time to spare, so we went downstream and rigged the bottom two pitches though this time we did not bother to descend the last one as we had done it before and I had been through the tube before. We started to head towards Grange Rigg where we met them just before Battleship passage. After a quick hello and a set of directions on how to find Christmas “Turn right just before the formations”, me and Dan exited via Grange Rigg where nothing really gave us much trouble really, as we had both done it several times before and remembered all the “tricks” to it.
Still Christmas being a far easier way out we were still surprised and a little concerned to be honest that the others had not exited yet. We went back in Christmas as it was far warmer and started hollowing. After about 15 minutes Don appeared at the bottom and told us the delay was Chris trying a super-tight squeeze (not the one I used last year) at the bottom.
Would love to hear what the others through of Grange Rigg, to me it was a not too difficult but fun trip, the Grades for both caves are about right in my opinion.
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