With only a small turnout for the Mendip weekend, Keith organised a trip down Charterhouse cave.
This is a well decorated cave with a tight, awkward section near the beginning.
It also has a leader system to protect the formations and is restricted to leader plus 3.
Given the nature of the entrance, I decided to let the racing snakes have first refusal on the trip.
As there were no refusals Monica (our leader) took Keith, Phil & Rich; Leaving myself and Ros to our own devices.
I decided to go and have a look at the passage across the Black Hole in Swildon's.
This requires a short decent into the Black Hole, then a swing across into the passage.
I have done this before on ladders, but was not keen on the swing across, so I elected to take SRT kits for this manoeuvre.
Given that we would have SRT kits, we may as well do the 20 as an SRT pitch as well.
On entering the cave, the water seemed to be going a different way to which it used to, so the entrance was fairly dry and the water appeared on the slab just inside.
We went in via the Zig-Zags and then down the short dry way to the Old Grotto, Parting of the Ways and down the Old 40 to the 20.
I rigged the pitch for SRT and headed down & straight to Sump 1.
I laid in the water and decided that it was cold and wet, and that I did not really want to continue.
So I wimped out and we had a leisurely return trip back the way we had come.
We did not do the Zig-Zags on the way out, but climbed up over the hole and along the slab, getting thoroughly drenched in the process.
Team: Ros & Dave.
Time: 2h30
