17th April 2004
People present - Duncan Jones, Pete Dale

It was a strange day, rain was forecast later in the day although the clouds looked menacing in the morning, the cavegod turned couchgod was making a return after his near two month break and to celebrate one of his cats had used his caving box as a loo, classic!!

We had decided to park at Crummack as we figured it was less walking, in both distance and height gain, than Clapham (always a good point). Our long trudge began and gradually we gained height until we passed P5 and we could see a fenced hole, this turned out to be an impressive looking dig, Christmas Cracker I would assume..?

After a short deliberation we opted to give Grange Rigg entrance a miss this time and enter via the Christmas Pot entrance - all too soon we were beginning to regret the decision..

The entrance is somewhat filthy, large quantities of soil/mud/stones have slumped in and makes progress sticky and interesting for those below. I was volunteered to rig so off I went, down the first little climb and round the corner and down the second climb. I was thinking to myself that this is a bit miserable and was it wise coming in this way? But I needn't have worried as at the bottom of the second little climb the surface debris stops and a nice shaft disappears down. I waited for Pete to arrive so I didn't get bombarded with stones whilst on the pitch, although he still knocked a fist sized one down on me when I was further down, thankfully it missed (just)!

At the last rebelay I ran out of rope and had to resort to using rope from another pitch, which meant we wouldn't make it to the bottom. Our guess at 36m covering the 27m pitch didn't take into account the rigging from the surface or the number of rebelays!

Straightforward passage followed to a climb up a drystone wall followed by an interesting 3m climb down which deposits you at the second pitch. This is a small hole at the top but soon opens out, near the top it also has an annoying rock sticking out of the wall that digs into your back when you're trying to get back up! A nice climb down followed by the short third pitch and we were in Grange Rigg Pot.

A short bit of passage and we were at the formations - very nice, worth the effort. We quickly reached a p-hanger denoting the fourth pitch (Grange Riggs 5th) which we set about climbing, the top part being very easy. The second part of the pitch is more vertical so we employed a few slings and krabs to make a simple handline! A couple of short drops and we were staring down the final pitch, with no means of getting down we had no choice but to beat a retreat.

All in all a fine trip, despite the grotty entrance, one that I will definitely make a return too..