Topic

As it was the BPC winch meet, it was felt that it would be rude not to do something up at Gaping Gill.
I have for a long time wanted to do Corky's Pot and have a look at the connection from near Bar Pot to Hensler's Streamway. The plan was to go in Corky's and out of Marilyn.
The weather having broken, the sky was overcast with a significant amount of cloud making the walk up the hill a lot more pleasant than it would have been under a blazing sun.
We registered at the winch and headed off in the direction of Corky's. After a few minutes of faff, we found the right pot hole and climbed down the steel ladder.
The description says you need to approach one of the pitches feet first, but we could not remember which pitch. 
James was in the lead and encountered the first pitch head first, he said it would be better feet first but put his cows tails in and did an elegant (for James) tumble turn before descending the pitch.
I was second at the pitch and suffered the same fate, some of those further back managed to turn round before getting to the pitch head.
Generally the way through Corky's was a short pitch (often a bit tight) followed by an unpleasant crawl. There were a couple of points where I did not think I would fit, but fancied the return trip less than the way on so pushed a bit harder.
The last pitches were from larger chambers with some decoration and the final pitch into Mud Hall was splendid. These pitches had a large arsenal of loose rocks at the top, requiring a careful approach to the pitch heads to avoid bombarding the people below.
The team slowly assembled in Mud Hall with a very long gap following Andy. So long in fact that we started to wonder if Lukas & Alan were okay. Someone suggested that they may have been attacked by cave zombies and would (eventually) descend the pitch to eat our brains.
Just as we were beginning to get cold, voices could be heard from above. Some time later there were lights and eventually Alan came down the pitch. I think Corky's had stretched his definition of type 2 fun.
Having reassembled, we headed off to the Main Chamber. This did not seem to be as busy as normal. Maybe the inclement weather had put people off or perhaps the new ticketing system was not letting as many people into the cave.
From Main Chamber, it was a straight forward walk/crawl to the bottoms of South East Pot (Wades/Flood entrance) and Bar Pot, then a short walk to the large chamber with the connection to New Hansler's.
At this point three of the team elected to head out of Bar Pot to avoid any more tight crawls and pitches with an excess of loose rock.
James (still at the front) negotiated the tight bit into New Hensler's feet first, this worked okay until he emerged in a crawl and had to do that feet first too. I followed using the same approach.
We then had a fairly long crawl, made longer by missing the turning on the left and having to go back to it.
Eventually the passage gained height and just before the right turn, we met a group who were staying at the school.
We popped into Hensler's Streamway to admire the passage before heading towards the start of the ropes for Marilyn.
Having negotiated the boulder choke at the bottom of Marilyn, it was a case of following the water/rope out.
I had forgotten the narrow pitch near the entrance, but it was far easier than some of the tight bits in Corky's.
Alan declared that it was type 2 fun, I thought that it was mainly type 1.

Team: James, Dave, Fran, Lukasz, Andy, Alan & Lukas
Time: About 5 hours.
 

nice

I disagree with the names of places but I will not get my pendant award out.