Topic

As it was Nigel's birthday weekend and he wanted to have a look at Colossus, this meant we were obviously on for a trip down Large Pot.
Five of us set off for the scary drive up the now very rough Turbury Road track, once parked and kitted up, which did involve a bit of harness faffing and several photos, we were ready for the now short walk to the entrance.
The birthday boy offered to rig, so once down the entrance pitch we were soon at the start of the awkward second pitch, this is where rigging duties were passed on to me. After a while we all got down OK and straight onto the third pitch, from there we set of for the next objective which was Colossus.
This section involves a varied selection of caving with some crawling, stooping, tight bits and thrutchy rifts with lots of photo stops on the way to eventually bring us to the top of the very impressive Colossus, this was soon rigged and we popped down to the bottom, at this point time was against us so instead of exploring the further reaches towards the connection with Rift Pot we started on the task ahead, retracing our steps back to the surface.
Once changed and sorted it was time for the scary ride back down Turbury Road, didn't know Susan could hold her breath for so long
Trip time 7hrs
Susan Blackburn, Nigel Steel, Rich Rae, Stu Weston, Keith Mason

Excellent driving from the 'one and only' you should be on TV with those skills keith. An excellent trip with beauties and horrors, the second pitch was a tricky proposition on exit, poor stu behind me must have been worrying about the risk of suspension trauma the amount of time it took me to get off the rope. Collosus was amazing, i presented with the now too common problems with deviations, thanks Keith for pointing me in the right direction. One trip before the end of the universe i may be able to pass a deviation properly, god forbid the time and effort everybody puts into helping me around these problems. It was good Berger training, i am sure when we are all in France these problems will be ironed out All i can say is bring on Penyghent Pot we are all waiting to eat you up

Nigel, lets not run before we can walk.....
Anyway I thought you had moved onto Mulu training

Keith, still officially on Berger training
Maybe we should try Echo or Quaking before the Penyghent trip

We could complete the Large venture with a trip down the Red Herring Series

You ready for the second pitch again already Nigel

Sounds like a really good trip chaps. The YSS have some ancient history down Large Pot. Just after it had been found and surveyed we were there. Garth, Tim Rayner (in Melbourne now but talking to him last week), Chris Ellison (previously of Airedale CC and now living near feizor) and myself headed down there in one of the first trips after its discovery. We had been sitting in the Helwith on a Friday night and Garth who was keeping all the young guys in check was talking to a good mate of his, Bill Pybus (ex underground controller for CRO) who had been involved in the original exploration (as he was in Pip/ link) and he told us about it and to keep quiet re the location etc. We set off on the Saturday morning with the description written on the back of a beermat. The first underground pitch gave us some fun because of its tight nature and the trip down to Collossus was not without incident as it was really muddy and awkward at the time. There was a section in the middle that the nguys had called the C---
because of its shape and the fact it was really difficult to get into and spit you out at the far end.(the moderator can cut that bit out if it is not PC). The whole effort was so worthwhile just to ab down Collosus. Stupendous. We went down the following week and took Simon Smith from BPC. Howevr Si although being a skinny runt like the rest of us is 6' 4" and we could not get him round the wriggle at the head of the first underground pitch. We must have spent nearly an hour extricating him from it. A top drawer trip for a birthday do Nigel. A Dales classic.

Was a good job it was your birthday Nige! Any other time we would have left you fannying around on Collosus and Stu could have got out entrance side. I just hope the photos were worth us freezing our tits off!

Will have to remember to look out for the C--- next time I’m in there. Unlike Anal Inlet, it isn’t mentioned in the NFTFH description.

I think the c_ _ _ was the tight squeeze that gave the option of up and into the C or the squeeze at ground level (you took the lower route). The upper route did seem to 'spit you out' as the floor dropped away.
I think it is fair to say that both you and Stu thouroughly enjoyed the wait at the top of Collosus, what a magnificent place to wait for a fellow chum. Indeed as a approached the top i am sure i heard you both comment on the fine and pleasant wait that you were both having and that you wished that i would take a bit longer, infact, were you both contemplating taking a few specimens for the next YSS build... CAVELAB

Nigel
WTF are you going on about?

I don't think he knows