Present: Anthony, Julia, James, Jenny, Tom, (Andy, Arthur and Dave from CUCC)
We got up very early and left Durham and drove to Bernies for Breakfast, then we faffed a lot and played with our tackle. Tom and Jenny had to adjust their harnesses to make them fit, Tom had the small – medium harness (new) and Jenny the XL one (hence I put my foot in ti and said she must be very big to fit in it without falling out). They were all something funny, to continue we went caving. Dropped down Short Drop wiggled along a canyon and crawled for a while then found a tight bit. Here Dave discovered that the cave was smaller than him and jacked, so then there were six. Everyone else was dead hard, so we carried on. Tom’s feet got very wet but mine (Jenny’s) were dry for ages. We walked thru’ lots of cave and saw some big stone knobs (aka stalactmites/tites) as well as a bridge which didn’t look very stable (supported by a very dodgy little stone). After we sat around for a while and met some stupid Germans who don’t know what order things happened in. Went down some cave I have no idea where we are meant to be. Then we went down the pitch. Everyone SRTed except Andy whom I belayed. Then we walked more and saw more exciting cave and got wetter feet. Then we came round the corner and found some random yellow Cambridge bods (Becca, Julian, Mark, Mark, Clive) at the bottom of the exit pitch. We began to ascend and fell down some pits. As Tom (me) was first I had to wait at the bottom and freeze my balls off. Finally as the last person descended we walked some more etc., as has already been mentioned…actually we had reached the up pitch into gavel, and I (Julia) was first. The pitch head and traverse were a little tricky but eventually passed by everyone, and derigged with much wittering. Some of the traverse line was a little loose (ie badly rigged) but none of us died so it was okay, then we could see daylight and we sat and got cold for a bit then Anthony derigged the traverse and we started going up the pitch. One by one we got out of the pitch and went to the car. We stripped so we could admire each others magnificent physiques and went to the Marton. However the most entertaining (?) aspect of the trip was each others magnificent physiques, obviously. No actually it was James’ harness which decided to come completely undone, but luckily (a) he has a Fracto, so he didn’t die (b) we didn’t notice until he had got off the pitch. What was even more exciting was that I learnt how to tie an Alpine Butterfly and a Y hang knot. So did I!
Jenny, James, Tom, Julia, Anthony,