Present: Ian, Pete, Ralph, and a chap from Shepton Mallet – sorry, but I can’t remember your name. If you read this, let us know…
Phrase of the trip: ‘Now let us never mention it again.’
As with the last cave, a ladder leads down through a manmade shaft to the cave proper. But this trip turned out quite different from the last, despite their entrances being not 100 yards apart. A long section of steeply slanting plane leads downward. Further on there are some pretty formations and a dig or two to see. The cave turns back on itself (necessitating a short climb) and comes to a 60 foot pitch. Some quite dodgy descending on the fixed rope / ladder followed, despite us having brought the necessary kit and a tackle sack of rope all the way to the pitch head. Once at the bottom, there is sumped pool to the right which contained either a dead body or a discarded glove (we could not tell, despite Ian fishing around for it). On the route to the left the roof comes down toward the water – care had to be taken to avoid getting too wet. Immediately after this there is a nice traverse across a menacingly deep-looking flooded rift. Again, the handline could be seen to be a make-do affair; quite adequate, but do keep it taut to avoid it slipping off the two inch stal it is lapped over! On the other side of this is a large dry chamber heading upwards, in which are yet more pretties, largely undisturbed. The return to the surface went well, but once we were all in the car park, we realised that none of us knew how a sling and karabiner had become wrapped around the entrance gate. We couldn’t see how anyone else could have been in there without our seeing them. We stood there a while joking about the effects of padlocking the gate, and then left for the hut, gate unlocked. We all enjoyed the trip: SMCC chap did us proud.
Al starred and had a nice hot meal ready for after we’d showered/changed.
Later on that night (but into Friday morning) the rumours of a night-ride to Yorkshire resurfaced. A rather ambitious plan was hatched, involving I think nearly three hours sleep. Five hours later three of us were on the road to Helwith Bridge. The timing of the journey was impeccable, missing all the peak-hour traffic and nicely sailing through Brum despite several accidents in the nasty motorway spray. Al’s dieselmobile ran rings around Ralph’s steadier VW, overtaking it several times along the same stretch of motorway by way of cunning (though not necessarily proper) use of motorway slip roads and round-a-bouts. For those not alone in a car, much merriment was had by and the time passed quickly. We arrived around one o’clock and had a pleasant snack of such cheesy, eggy goodness it surpassed even the toasted apple-and-cheese concoction of the G&T man in Mendip. Eager for more caving, Ralph and Ian made the necessary arrangements and left late on in the afternoon. A brisk dusk run through damp weather and slushy back roads led us to the valley bottom, where we changed into our already damp caving clothes.