Present: Dome – Centipede: Chris, Louise (me), Richard (CUCC), Mark (CUCC), Centipede – Dome: George, James, Anthony, Julia
Dome – Centipede
Lost Johns is situated on the ‘wonderful’ place that is Leck Fell. That usually results in a trip report along the lines of ‘we arrived, it was raining and cold and horrible, we went home’, due to the joy of freezing whilst getting changed in sleet on Leck Fell i.e. Short Drop and Gavel trip. However, I managed to avoid this misery thanks to Mark and his van, so I’ll try and give a more cheerful account.
We woke up early on Sunday, and had been organised enough to pack the rope the night before, so managed to get to Leck Fell about 11.30am. (a first for DUSA this term I think as we seem to have trouble leaving Bernie’s by 12 on a regular trip these days!) We got changed into our furry suits at Bull Pot farm, so only had to put on oversuits and SRT kits outside. Mark was even kind enough to park the van at a very odd angle so that you were sheltered from the wind.
We split up into 2 groups to do the exchange (hopefully to be the first successful one this year. Was it to be third time lucky after Simpsons/Swinstow and Gaping Gill?) Chris, me, mark and Richard went down the Dome route with Chris rigging, whilst Anthony, Julia, James and George went down Centipede with George rigging (his first solo attempt at rigging underground!) I can’t say much about the other group’s trip, but they got to the bottom in one piece so we can assume George’s rigging was a success . I presume they had no major incidents as they reached the bottom before us and were obviously in high spirits as we could here Julia singing quite a lot
Our trip had no major dilemmas, although there were a few ‘little’ ones. We got most of the way down the Dome route fine, although it took us a while (better safe than sorry). However, the last pitch didn’t quite go to plan. We were using Cambridge’s 9mm rope (which is really exciting when you don’t have a breaking crab and have to wrap the rope around your leg or you would descend like a rocket melting the rope as you went!). Chris rigged the Y-hang and was just about at the ‘window’ when Mark noticed the rope was rubbing, so Chris went carefully back up the rope and rigged a deviation. Problem solved and we met the others at the bottom.
On the way back up James de-rigged Dome (and apparently had fun with the deviations!), whilst I de-rigged the Centipede route. All in all I think it was a very successful trip as the exchanged worked, Chris and George did a good job rigging, and James and I de-rigged for the first time with no incidents. And to top it all off I didn’t have to get changed on Leck Fell on the way home either (although Chris and I did have to start getting changed outside Bull Pot Farm until Anthony arrived with the keys).
And it didn’t rain on Leck Fell :).
Louise M.
Centipede – Dome
I’m writing this report a fair while after the trip so I’m notsure this is what actually happened, but never mind. Well, it was a glorious day on Leck Fell, the sun was shining and the birds were singing….well of course that certainly wasn’t the case, it was Leck Fell so it was probably cold, windy and drizzling, a grade III change (for the connoisseur).
The cave entrance was quite nice, and there are no scrotty bits to contend with, so I was fairly happy. It was my first time rigging, which I had been looking forward too for a while (I’m a control freak). Everything went to plan, the only thing I wasn’t expecting was the weird feeling I had when I got to the bottom of the pitches and realised that everyone else was going to have to come down too! I was far more nervous standing at the bottom when everyone was coming down than when it had been me dangling of the rope.
Unfortunately we had to wait at the bottom of the pitches for a couple of hours until Chris and party arrived, after coming down the more complicated Dome Route. Julia and Anthony sang and, myself and James explored to pass the time. Going out was fine, James de-rigged competently; we had fun on Cambridge’s bungee string though.
George.