Present: Ralph, Ian, Stacey
The return. Ralph, Stacey and I ran off early in order to bottom the cave.
We knew where to park (we parked by the gate on the left after the left-hand fork into the farm at the north end of the wood). We knew how to get to the cave (along the footpath from the gate, through a further gate then immediately right up the bank and across the field – from the corner of the field take the style and follow the path through the wood for a bit. Cave entrance is up a smaller path leading away at ‘five o’clock’. Ish. Cave is on left of this second path, takes 10mins to get to. Good luck.). We knew the character of the entrance series (sloping crawl leads quickly to head of first pitch, ledge traverse to second, further ledge to third).
Having left the knots in the rope from yesterday, we were soon down the three, large pitches. After the third pitch, the cave changes character greatly, which was rather surprising. From the bottom of the chamber a calcite-floored streamway leads through a few small, tight vertical climbs to the fourth pitch. I, leading, didn’t realise that this was actually a pitch (there is a knotted handline in place much like the previous climbs). Halfway down, the tacklesack lived up to it’s reputation and I fell the remainder onto the sloping calcited ledge below (about 12 feet). I had badly sprained my ankle, so I called Ralph down, we had a bit of flapjack and began the journey out. The chamber into which the fourth pitch drops is in fact the final chamber, and around 500 feet below surface (though there is a dig in the bottom). Luckily the climbs out of the streamway weren’t too strenuous and SRT was easy (with one-legged prussicking). Ralph and Stacey managed between them to leave a tacklesack at the bottom of the third pitch (after derigging the third and second pitches – d’oh!) so Stacey passed me the car key and I made my way back to the car (40mins) and waited. Callout time wasn’t far off when they finally, thankfully appeared and a swift run back to the hut followed for to cancel callout and begin the new-year celebrations. Rhino Rift comes highly recommended – go and do it!