5 of us started the trip. Me (Alex) the not as skinny caver. Eh? Chris Shaman. The Check prince Ales, The second Chris (Scaif) & Don, I will fit this time Miller.
The day started of so well, I picked up Ales at Clapham station, the train being only 2 minutes late, got to be a record.
Everyone turned up at Inglesport no messing, so off the marry band went. It was cold on the way up. My left hand-side which was exposed to the wind, was frozen. My right side was too hot due to the fast pace up the hill, I was like an undercooked dinner.
We were relieved when we found the cave, far warmer underground. Don rigged the pitch and sent me down it for some reason. I went on ahead to the second pitch, climbed it and reached the third. I had a bit of a struggle getting through the squeeze until I found the sweet spot and popped through like a cork on a champagne bottle. I rigged the pitch which is fun as its not backed up to anything. I coaxed Don through but as laws of physics had not changed from last time we were here he still did not fit. I went down the pitch and word was passed on that Don would make no further attempts, judging from the grunting I heard while I was rigging the 4th pitch he gave it a bloody good go!
The 4th pitch had 2 bolts on it which is not what it says in the book, so I was running out of crabs already. 5th pitch I borrowed some of Shaman’s crabs for this one as this required 4 and not 2 as the book said. Some one had been re-bolting the place its good but you need a lot more crabs now! I had been here before but I had not rigged it, so was not paying attention to the amount of anchors used then.
Anyway After here the fun begins and I advised everyone to remove their SRT kits, which made gear moving interesting. A narrow rift de-generates to a tubular crawl that deposits you by a short sky dive onto the top of another climb. I am not sure what happened here but as I climbed down the next drop I was suddenly flying forwards almost falling through the gap just before millennium pot. I guess it was rather slippery!
We free climbed that pitch and then made our way to the Stripper, with even me removing all of my SRT kit. Entering the squeeze I had trouble manoeuvring the large rope bag and myself into position, the awkward vertical L shaped passage, required some inventive contortions. Once manoeuvred it was then just a matter of squeezing through, all very committing. Chris Scaife just slithered through like a jellied eel, Shaman now Shaman decided to do it feet first. It didn’t work he ended up tiring him self out and calling it a day, quite distressed. Ales also did it feet first but after
some coaxing from Scaif he made it through. Ask Scaif for details as by this point I was rigging the next pitch.
We all got to the bottom from here without any issues except I could not find the deviation, and neither could anyone else. With careful prussicing rope rub could be avoided. We headed out and things got quite strenuous for some. The hardest bit was the climb just below the stripper, the stripper itself coming in a close second. However, I made the climb easier by building a good platform out of rocks after seeing Ales struggling and swearing going up it.
Nothing note worthy after that except for tackle shifting issues with only 3 peeps for 3 kits and 2 rope bags. Chris had to do the 3rd pitch twice as the bag got stuck when he was de-rigging it. The whole trip was a good little work out and Chris & Ales at least seemed to enjoy it. Trip time about 5 hours, the sun was still up.
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