As is usually the case these days, Susan wanted to do some horrible, squirmy, torturous cave that I would never be able to fit into even if I had wanted to, so she scampered off with her hard caving chums leaving me twiddling my thumbs. I was overcome by a desire to be nasty to somebody so I decided to pick on Paul Cave Man Horner. "Fancy doing a bit of srt practice?” I asked, Paul seemed quite keen so off we went to Yordas for a furtle about in the middle entrance.
We parked near the gate , went into the Bottom Entrance, had a quick a quick tour of the Main Chamber and Chapterhouse Waterfall then we walked up to the middle entrance.
There was another party using the second pitch for practice so I rigged the first pitch and I spent and hour or so sitting comfortably on a tackle bag and shouting “That’s great, now just go up and down a few more times” to Paul. Eventually I got bored with this and Paul was starting to flag so we left the cave and went for a look at the top of the top pitch which I didn’t bother to rig as time was running out and we had an agm to go to. Back to the Middle Entrance and the second pitch was now free so I rigged it and we dropped down and had walk to the top of the Chapterhouse waterfall pitch which I didn’t bother to rig as time was running out and we had an agm to go to. I suggested to Paul that I would wait while he crawled, flat out through the very cold, wet, horrible stream to have a look at the bottom of the top pitch, he declined my kind offer and I don’t recall him saying “time is running out and we have an agm to go to”, he actually said quite a lot that is not repeatable on a refined forum such as this.
Back to the ropes and I decide that Paul hadn’t suffered enough so I suggested that he derig, which he did with style.
Only when we were on the way back to the car did I mention that the last time I was in Yordas I forgot to fasten a maillon...twice.
I enjoyed myself and I think Paul got something out of it, even if was climbing the equivalent of Titan by going up and down in Yordas.
Team
Alex Wallman and Paul “Cave Man Derigger Extraordinaire” Horner
Time
not long enough as time was running out and we had an agm to go to
