Present: Jakub, Ben B, James B
Duration: 4 Hours
Conditions: Cold and damp outside, but once in the cave not too bad.
Highlights: Relatively tight (for me) squeezes, Jakub’s new rope getting muddy.
Haiku:
Pippikin Squeezing
Getting stuck, hurting my balls
Depressing walk back
Notes:
Arriving at the cave Ben realised he had only packed his 3mm wetsuit and was going to get a bit toastie.
Arriving after a short walk, Jakub was pleased to see a nice (relatively) new in-situ rope, meaning his brand-spanking-new rope wouldn’t be tainted by the mud and our fantastic SRT.
I found the first couple of squeezes were ok in SRT, but the third was a different story. Positioned just before the second pitch I had to remove SRT kit. It took me 5 attempts, various angles, and pain in certain sensitive areas to get through. It was depressing seeing both Ben and Jakub going through first time. 10/10 would squeeze again (though maybe in a month or two).
When approaching the 4m drop directly after one of the squeezes, Ben and I decided (much to Jakub’s worry) that the best way to get to the bottom was to swing, gab on to the scaffolding then drop down. In hindsight this may not have been the best idea as we both fell a few meters, and thankfully escaped with minimal injury.
The subsequent squeezes nearly all required a single attempt, except when my descender (after refusing to come off my D-Ring after the previous pitch) got jammed. This caused to me to be suspended, pushing the descender into my nether region. Again, it was depressing seeing others get through easily, I really need to work on my squeezes.
Then it was Traverse Time! Over a narrow streamway, Jakub enjoyed watching Ben and I get tired and “suffer”. After slipping multiple times down towards the stream, I was relieved to see the end and to eat my dried sausage!
Much to Jakubs dismay, we took a detour to the hall of the mountain of the mountain king. After getting caked in mud and enjoying a few slides, we paid respects to the king’s “GAINT COCK AND KNOCKERS” and carried on our way.
After a more relaxing crawl than earlier, we passed by a mould colony. We considered setting up conservation tape, but sadly realised we’d left all our tape in the car.
Thinking we were being ejected into light, we found ourselves surround with depressingly cold mist and a 45-minute wet walk back to the car.
After trudging through the half-frozen fields, we arrived back with a sad Jakub, who had found his new-rope damp and muddy.
Overall, it was a fun but challenging cave for someone not too used to squeezes. 10/10 would cave again.
James Baxter