Present: Anthony, Ben, Gwyn, Katrina, Bec, Adam, Andy, Dave, Julia
Four DUSA members had just forked out a painful sum of money for SRT kits, and were keen to try them out, hence the choice of cave. With our shiny bits of metal and Ben’s brand new oversuit we looked almost too respectable to be cavers, although Adam with his oversuit did his best to give a more realistic picture… Wandered over the moor looking for a cave, found it eventually, then sat and had a major SRT checking session. Anthony and Bec had set off ahead of us to rig, so after Adam had firmly convinced himself that we weren’t going to fall out of our harnesses (some chance) we descended. Now was the time to see whether the hours spent pissing around in the tree had been of any value.
Sell Gill Holes basically consists of three pitches, which seem to increase in difficulty, or maybe that was just my hangover worstening… The first pitch was quite pleasant, having the advantage of both being in daylight, and having lots of handy ledges, which made the re-belay quite easy. Or was it just easy in hindsight?
Second pitch was also quite decent consisting of a short traverse then a deviation before the descent into a large chamber. Hardened SRT types started to get amused by some folk referring to this pitch (40 foot) as ‘the big pitch.’ Well it felt like a long way down, and even further back up.
We caught up with Anthony and Bec at the head of the third pitch (I think) and watched their expert rigging technique. Bec, Dave and Andy then went down, whilst Anthony stayed at the top to offer advice. Good job really… I descended down the first bit, then spent ages pissing around trying to negotiate the re-belay. Dunno what happened, think I descended too far, but everything was blurred and I couldn’t work it out. Anthony was getting more and more annoyed but this didn’t help, since I had temporarily lost my ability to understand English (worrying for a linguist).
Somehow made it down into a larger chamber with a massive waterfall in it, which people may have stood under, but I can’t remember. Explored the cavern which was rather pretty in places, wandered down the stream, then there was a very short crawl to find the sump. Found it, and then set off back.
Emerged into daylight, which was nice for a change, and met up with Martin who’d spent the afternoon in the pub (I think we ran out of cells). Sensible guy. Got changed and then headed for the Dalesbridge center, for a night of beer, beards and rather tight chairs… But that’s another story.
Live long and drink real ale, but not the night before caving!
Julia Bradshaw