Present: Joseph Cullumbine, Chris Pearce, James Hargreaves, Thurston (ICCC)
Duration: 4/5 hours
I decided that whilst I had caved every weekend but one for the entire term so far, I needed a change of pace from freshers trips and SRT weekends (especially after doing Notts 2 three times in a month). Ignoring the looming coursework deadlines that were worsened by the fact I had already committed to caving for all the remaining weekends of term (and into the holidays), I still chose to go caving for the weekend with some DUSA members, a not-so-old oldie and an Imperial College caver.
We met at the SU on Saturday morning, still not having decided what trips we were doing so both cars opted to head to Leck Fell (Chris had already planned It’s a Cracker and the idea of Pippikin was being floated about). At this point, we realised that there were not enough SRT kits for the number of people going, and since all the club kit was distributed between exec members’ cars and houses rather than the store room, I had to ring Tom at 8am to wake him up and ask if we could get harnesses out of his car. He agreed and met me at the door looking tired. Between this and getting fuel, I was sure my car would get there later than the others (which would be unfortunate for the others since we had most of the kit). However, as I drove onto Leck Fell road, I saw Chris’ car just up ahead (he had been slower due to picking Jakub up on the way).
After a coin flip and some umming and ahhing, Jakob, Ben and James decided to do Pippikin to Mistral and the rest of us would do It’s a Cracker to Notts 2 (Wooo, 4th time this term). After a very faffy kit-up (I had to unlock and re-hide my car keys three times), we headed across the fell to the entrance. The navigation went smoothly and we were soon at the entrance; Chris headed in to start rigging the first pitch, whilst me, James and Thurston followed in that order. James had never done any SRT before so the learning curve was quite steep. I was the example whilst Thurston ensured James didn’t kill himself. As I approached the pitch head, Chris was getting ready to descend, at which point he discovered he had left his descender in the car. To prevent him having to walk all the way back to the car, he opted to descend on an Italian hitch. This pitch did however have two deviations which he somehow managed to rig whilst swinging around wildly, using one hand to stop himself falling to his death and the other to grab the deviation. (I had to swing around lots just to pass it so I have no idea how he managed it with one hand.) At this point James also realised that he had his phone in his pocket, so after much laughing at him, Thurston hid it at the top of the pitch to collect later. This pitch was lovely and I certainly got a lot of time to appreciate it as the ICCC’s 11mm rope led to quite a slow descent. Upon reaching the bottom, I once again met Chris and got the rundown of how his rigging went (it was just as awkward as I had imagined). At this point, we waited for a very long time whilst James swung around trying to reach the deviation; eventually, he did and we were very impressed given it was his first time doing SRT. Chris finished rigging and descended the second pitch (this one had a rebelay which we imagined would have proved difficult for James, however it had a lovely little ledge to put your feet on whilst you leant against the opposite wall). I had expected to hear the standard ROPE FREE when Chris reached the bottom; instead, I could hear him shouting something which I couldn’t fully make out (I still don’t quite know what he was saying because he seemed to be shouting for ages). But I eventually managed to decipher that the rope was 2m too short. I began derigging the pitch and re-rigged it very conservatively, turning the loop for the rebelay into a traverse line. After descending, I found it was now the perfect length (it probably didn’t help that we had brought a 43m rope instead of a 45m). The final pitch was by far the most fun, with you having to swing a long way to make it to a ledge containing the way on – watching Chris do this on an Italian hitch was very entertaining. After we all descended successfully, we put all but two of our SRT kits into a bag and tied the end of the rope to it, allowing us to derig the pitch from the top, but also meaning we could ascend back up if we had to turn back at any point (mostly if we got lost of Chris didn’t fit.
We then began a few hours of horizontal caving which, in all, was very fun and pleasant (at least when I wasn’t carrying/pushing the bag). It was however very muddy and a bit wet in places – all good fun. This was mostly uneventful other than James becoming wedged in a rift; I couldn’t see him, so all I could hear were increasingly louder grunts which eventually stopped as he made it through. This made me slightly wary, but when it was my turn I slipped down without a problem. We only had one navigational mishap where Chris went to check if a turning off was the correct one – it wasn’t and was, in fact, a dig (I wonder where it goes, if anywhere?), after a lot of grunting he emerged back out looking far muddier than the rest of us and claiming he needed to go back to his roots of Mendip caving to become accustomed to squeezes again. After some more crawling, taking the correct left turn and a very fun 10m free climb, we emerged in the Tate Galleries. It was nice to be in a larger section of cave again and the formations were beautiful and very impressive (including the largest helictites I have seen so far). Soon enough we were crawling again in the dug connection to Notts 2 (it’s described as arduous, but I found it to be incredibly fun). My favourite section was the series of calcited tubes that felt like the cave was giving you a nice warm hug – I had lots of time to enjoy these whilst Thurston struggled to take off his SRT kit to fit down one of them (no idea why he still had it on, everyone else’s was either in the bag or left at the bottom of the third pitch, though he kept claiming he felt undressed without it and took it on and off multiple times during the connection). After a very impressive section of the dug connection (supported by lots of scaffold bars), the slightly disconcerting roof that was being held up by expanding foam, and the section that looked like a tunnel from a bunker with curved corrugated sheets as the roof, we finally passed through the drained Bruno Kranski’s Rising Sump and emerged in Notts 2 (It felt like home at this point with how many times I have been recently). The exit from Notts 2 was uneventful, but I did take a moment to ask Thurston lots of questions about his famous trip through Notts 2 in a sleeping bag (which I’m sure most people have seen) and pointed out to everyone where Toby (another leader) had managed to get wedged whilst we were leading some freshers a few weeks ago.
We even managed to emerge from the cave in daylight (although it was so foggy we couldn’t see the sun), and after the walk back to the car we luckily met the other group just as they had made it back from their trip (whether that’s perfect planning or luck I’m not sure). Chris, Thurston and Jakob then headed back across the fell to derig the cave and collect James’ phone, while the rest of us drove to the Craven to start cooking dinner. However, I somehow managed to put the wrong location into my sat nav (having never been to the Craven before, I didn’t realise) so we spent 15 minutes looking around the wrong village, eventually we realised we were in the wrong place and after almost smashing my car into a wall trying to get around a tight corner we made it to the Craven. This was everyone’s first time there and we were all thoroughly impressed by the kit washing room (with a lovely rope washer and a pressure washer) and the drying room (with heating, a dehumidifier, enough hangers, welly posts and pegs for mountains of kit, and most importantly being free – looking at you YSS). After sorting kit, we ventured inside – again impressed, this time by the balcony in the bunk room, well-equipped kitchen, unchained copy of the black book (unlike the Red Rose), and most importantly, the close proximity to the pub. This hut is possibly my favourite in the Dales and DUSA will definitely be back. After a wonderful dinner cooked by James H (much better than the chilli normally produced on DUSA weekends as there was actually seasoning), we headed to the pub where we met one of the other DUSA groups who were away this weekend (Lydia, Rosie and Charlotte). They had been down Pool Sink which we were all surprised to hear wasn’t too wet considering it had been raining considerably in the previous few days. After a few hours in the pub, followed by many more in the lounge, people began heading to bed, eventually including me (but not before I convinced Rosie to buy me some Wensleydale with Cranberries as they were visiting Wensleydale on the Sunday).
When everyone woke up in the morning, we began preparing the best fry-up I have ever had on a caving weekend (photo attached below), it made me reluctant to return to the meagre breakfasts we normally have. We began discussing trips for the day and eventually, mostly due to the heavy rain and lack of sleep, we decided that none of us wanted to cave so we instead opted for a pub lunch. The pub was, however, not open yet so after washing kit, my car headed back to Durham and the other one went to a café.
Overall, it was a great trip and was successful in making me forget about just how much coursework I still have left. I can’t wait to go again – maybe going down Boxhead pot and doing the black book route through the tube instead (although that would mean I wouldn’t get to do the connection to Notts 2 – my favourite part)? Maybe an exchange between Cupcake and Lost Johns then?
