Topic

This was a CCCC trip organised by Jane but including some YSS members. (Mike Clark, Gordon Scott and Neil Burgess, CCCC+YSS, Bill Buxton and Donald Allwright, CCCC, and Alex Wallman and Sue Blackburn YSS). Neil rigged the entrance pitches and then headed off to do Central Route followed by Gordon and Donald, whilst I opted to have a go at The Twighlight Zone and followed by Sue, Bill and Alex. This was my first time in this cave and I quickly realised how extensive and complicated it is. I managed to work my way to to the 2nd Y hang, which I found to be quite an airy position. Having got the Y-hang rigged I was then uncertain of where I would need to change over to the 2nd rope. I hung at the pitch head reading the rigging guide whilst Sue borrowed my camera and took some pictures. Eventually I decided to set off carrying the 2nd rope bag on my back. I was looking for a deviation for some way down but didn't find it. Is it a P hanger, natural or something else I missed? Anyway I eventually found myself dangling opposite what I assumed was the window I was supposed to go through. I could clearly hear the voices of the others on Central route through the window. I've never done a pendulum before so I started to kick off from the wall and tried to reach the window, but I failed. I tried adjusting my height on the rope and still failed. So checking the rigging guide again I then thought I might be able to continue directly down as if I was on Left Hand Route. The question was, would my rope be long enough to reach the re-belay? The answer was no! OK I thought, time to practice my change overs from descent to ascent. I did this carefully and with lots of double checking (trying to remember everything Damian had shown us last year). On the way up I had another go at getting to the window but again failed. So checking my watch I realised that being Sunday and with a need to get back to Cambridge I wouldn't have time to go back up to the Y-hang and start again with the 2nd rope. I shouted through to the other party that we wouldn't be doing an exchange and that we'd meet them at the entrance series and I then made my up, apologised to Sue and Bill for failing to complete the route (Alex had earlier turned around at the top of the first Y-hang). De-rigging was uneventful and I eventually got out with Gordon and Donald who were de-rigging the other route at about 4.15pm. We'd set off in the morning at around 10.30am so it was a reasonable days caving.

I'd like to go back and explore this cave some more. Rigging the traverses to the Y-hangs was fun and reminded me of rigging Battle-axe in Lost John's. I'd like to know where I went wrong with finding the deviation and also learn how to do the pendulum!

Thanks to Sue for taking some pictures and also carrying in the 2nd rope bag for me and apologies again for not getting you far enough down to at least be able to do an exchange with the others!

Pictures from the day are on my FB account and linked to the YSS FB page. The direct link is

www.2343ec78a04c6ea9d80806345d31fd78-gdprlock/album.php?aid=260437&id=646238571&l=b9f180f32d

Mike