Bar – Bar (Black Sheep?!):Natalie, Karl, Ben, Louise, Martin (nearly)
Flood – Flood: Jenny, Anthony, Bec,
Bar – Flood: Julia
Driver and cook: Al
What with foot and mouth, we thought it would be a good idea to walk up the “real” path. Lots of dour grumbling from stingy Yorkshire men about having to pay (a whole 40 pence!) but it was well worth it from my point of view. It’s a gentler route up, and you can even indulge in a cold drink or ice-cream from the cafe next to Ingleborough cave. Luxury! First time I’d been back to the Dales since going to China. Nothing had changed, it was still stunningly fantastically beautiful.
Carl was new to SRT, and we almost set off down without showing him how to use his dangly bits (?!). Nat was rigging, with me following Carl to watch him on the pitch heads… I’d not been to Bar for quite a while, and, being aware that Carl had never abseiled underground before, I made sure he did it by the book… I made sure his stop was rigged correctly, then told him to feed rope thru the stop until it was right up against the knot. Sound advice normally, except on the first pitch in Bar, where having your stop next to the knot forces you into the tightest part of the pitch head! Carl didn’t seem very bothered, he thrashed around a bit, got free and abseiled down. Having given the worst possible advice for that particular pitch, I remembered how to tackle it, get as low down into the rift as you can, rig your stop beneath the bulge of rock, and slide onto the pitch head below the tight section. Sorry Carl!
Nat and Carl ran off to the big pitch whilst I waited for the rest to come down. Martin had difficulties on the pitch head and decided there was less void than there was of him, so he trundled out. Louise didn’t like the pitch head much but eventually slithered thru’, followed by Ben. Then it was off to the big pitch. Couldn’t quite work out the route on. I was sure it wasn’t down a fixed rope. Ben shouted through to Nat to establish that you need to take the low crawl off tot he right.
Everybody down, we wandered off towards main chamber, reaching south east pot just as the last of the Flood group was abbing down. Crawled/stomped to main chamber and went ‘ooo’. Think some people went to look at Mud Hall. I was the only person who could be bothered to do a thru’ trip, everybody else was boring and went out the way they came in! The deviations on South-East pot were pleasant, rather than being pretty epic as they had been the last time I did flood. I was nervous about getting off the top of the first (last?) pitch, but it seemed that I remembered it as being smaller than it is, partly because I was wrestling with a tacklesac. Exited to a lovely clear night, and back to the vans for luxury slop (with couscous!!), too late for the pub, but that’s life.
Julia