Topic

The night before the expedition, Aaron and I made the trip down from Carlisle to the clubhouse at Helwith bridge. On the next morning, we set off from the clubhouse around 10:00 for Lancaster hole. I had no idea what to expect about the trip, but I felt confident because of the training Id had from Aaron and Paul previously. The descent down Lancaster hole was tough for me, but because of the help from Lukas, Paul and Aaron near the entrance to the hole, I got over the fear and made it down, despite some issues with the gear (dead battery in headlamp). At the bottom of Lancaster I set off, following Aaron. From Lancaster until Cow pot was mostly walking with a few short descents and free climbs. At Cow pot we met briefly with the other team who were abseiling down from the ceiling, before splitting off again. The route we were on was physically challenging. There were a few memorable landmarks like a nice collum, the multicoloured curtain stalagtite and the minarettes. The character of the cave changed a lot through the trip. There were wide open caverns, crawls and climbs. Throughout it all it wasnt too wet except Towards the end at wretched rabbit when the cave became more like a tight canyon. We followed the channel of water upwards into a tall underground ravine with some rope climbs and then surfaced through a drainage pipe to a nice pool in a stream. The trip took 4 hours in total.