With no one around on the sunday and Outi off on a fell race me and Stu were wondering what to do. Sharron had mentioned she had some permits under the YSS name and they weren't using them that day. One of them was for Lost Johns and we hadn't bin in there for a while so that was the plan. We couldn't recruit any rope carriers so it was just us.
We opted for the Dome route to Sink chamber as couldn't remember it even though done it before. We arrived on a beautiful Sunday, prefect walking weather and started kitting up. Stu then let out some expletives!!! 'Whats up Stu?' I enquired. 'Ive only gone an left my bloody wet socks in the drying room!'. I had to calm him down as he was in quite a bad way over this.
Crisis averted and we set off for the long and dreary walk to the cave. 5 mins later and we were underground. The first ten mins went well but had mostly forgotten this. We recognised the start of the traverse well and headed up. Its a big drop but nice big foot ledges. At the first hole we started down Dome route. Stu rigged nearly all the way down and all went smoothly, the second 30m pitch being a really nice pitch, big dome shape with a nice ledge.
We arrived at Sink chamber which was a nice finish pretty quickly. It had only taken just over an hour to here from the entrance. Fearing an early exit we decided to swing into the window and go to Dome Junction. I left Stu de rigging and ran ahead to re-rig the pitch to swing in. There was just enough rope to use the end off the floor to rig down the other side of the window and a traverse in the window to leave a loop long enough for Stu to reach to climb up.
I heard Stu approaching with lots of bag scraping whilst i was rigging in the window, then all went quiet....................
I looked out and no Stu!!! I shouted several times but silence. Shit! Stu has gone straight past into the other passage. I then started thinking I have no idea where that goes or for how far!! Shall I abseil down and go after him? Luckily I heard him coming back after a few mins, phew!!!
We then rigged as far as we could but our ropes weren't enough to get down the last small drop. No bother we had had a really nice trip so we headed out. I de-rigged as Stu had done most of the hard work. After the traverse I headed down the passage until the right hand junction. I briefly wondered if Stu might have gone that way and headed out. I couldn't see him outside!!!! I climbed up a bit and saw him chilling in the sun, phew!!!
We trotted back to the car and de kitted on a lovely afternoon and headed back to the school.
A great trip, great companion in a great cave.
Martin Jackson and Stu Weston
Time 3.5hrs.
