Cavers: Chris Scaife, X. Ritchie, James Carlisle
Xaaaaaandah wanted to join the Tuesday digging team, but in a strange move we decided to try an evening trip to Lord’s Top in East Kingsdale. The traffic was pretty bad so it was a later start than we wanted; it was also raining so much we all felt like screaming at the sky: “Lord, stop!”*
Too wet for that one, so we went to Heron Pot instead (surely it’s never too wet for a heron*). The normal pitches were ebullient and impassable, but we took the high road. An excellent traverse over the top, with some exciting positions, then a dry hang back down to the stream. I hadn’t done the traverse for a couple of years, and the other two had never done it. They hadn’t lived.
We followed the stream all the way to the end and, even though the normal pitches were impassably wet, James exited through the duck at the end. His body was dampened but his face was completely out of the water. Us landlubbers declined the immersion, only because we wanted to keep our torsos dry – there was plenty of airspace.
Back through the cave and out into fog and rain, then an odyssey of a journey home as the A65 was closed.
*Alex loves puns.
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