I drove up to the hut at 10 am to see Julie loading her car; who informed me that ‘they set off about half an hour ago’. I had to laugh as it was Julie who told me the night before that ‘there’s no chance of them setting off before 10 tomorrow .’ So I dashed straight off in the direction of Alum, paid my fee at the farm, parked up at the top of the lane got changed and ran for the pot.(Ok so it might have been an amble).
Met AlexW on the way who explained ‘all three routes were being rigged’. I wanted to do the North West route, but did n’t know it or whether anyone might be coming up and it’s too far to shout to the bottom. So I opted for Diccan instead.
It had been fairly dry for the last two days but before that there had been quite a lot of rain and the ground was still pretty wet. I knew this was n’t one of those pot holes you want to do when there’s a lot of water going down. So I was a bit nervous being on my own, but I thought ‘well if there’s ropes on it then Keith must have done it!’- so on I went.
I have done this trip before, but it seemed a lot wetter this time I was even more nervous as Keith had used 9mm on the top pitch which was so bouncy and fast that it was really making me knees knock.
Damian passed me at the top of second pitch after he double checked that ‘I was aware of the 3 awkward deviations I was about to come across on the bottom pitch'. He also pointed out that ‘I was on the most dangerous bolt in the Dales’ and then disappeared – very reassuring. LOL.
I was thinking no matter how hard the deviations on the last pitch were then I would n’t want to have to go back up Diccan through all this water! As it turned out I found no problems with the deviations so all this practise must be paying off.
When I got to the bottom I climbed up to bottom of North West pitch. Where I met Ales taking pictures. He then went up it– taking photos as he went! So I opted for the queue free greasy slab route. Stuart advised me ‘we are going to de rig it. And I was to ‘wait at the top for the bag ’. 10 mins later I met Jo who was coming up and then Martin who it turned out had swapped with Stuart and Damian, who were now going to derigg Diccan instead.
I commented to Martin how small the pitch felt this time as the first time I did it (three years ago?) it felt like I was going to die prussiking up! Again it just shows what a difference a few years of caving can do – I now wish I had gone up after Ales on the North West route which might have been slightly more challenging – even if it did mean queuing! – Next time then!
On Dollytubs Jo Martin and I (posh eh) were thinking what a good photo it would make as the sun shone down. Then we headed out through ‘traffic’ as Bradford were training on Dollytubbs. We spoke to an interesting guy called Ralph who was telling us he had celebrated his 70th down there!
Excellent day out really enjoyed it.
Thanks to all the riggers
