Topic

As a few of us wanted to pre-burn some calories off before the bonfire banquate we decided on a harder trip than marble steps or Illusion. The weather scuppered our original plans of Growing hole so Trapdoor was choosen.

After the too long trudge up the cave, we rigged the small hole that was the entrance pitch and headed on in. Smallness and looseness seemed to be a theme in this cave. At the bottom we dropped down smallish shored hole then down a second drop, which was interesting when you could not see where you were going. We followed the route up through another hole on the far side before dropping down a more difficult climb (which I later read was a pitch).

Me and my mate lagged behind at this point due to the next obstacle (the Gripper) which I tried to tackle feet first, not a good idea! I have a good knife and whistle shaped bruise on my chest for not removing them from my pocket. After extracting my self and re-attempting a couple of times I tried a different approach (standing up and facing the right hand wall) and I then just fell through it (literally). My mate however was too large to physically fit though so this was where the trip ended for him.

From here the trip went like this: Down the next pitch, through an unstable boulder onto another small akward pitch at the bottom of that choke, through a wet hole, down another loose pitch. I then followed a crawl down some more akwardish holes, free climbed a pitch and then followed a rift until I dropped down into an interesting obstacle. Here you have to slide down part way and then lean sideways into a tight tube, which was off to a 90 degrees angle. If I had seen the opening behind me this would have been a lot easier as I could have simply chucked my legs into there. Rich had trouble with this and strangely the solution was to take his wellies off!

At this point I had caught the others up and we all dropped down the last two impressive pitches which were the only real redeeming feature for the cave as it opened out into a massive though dead ended chamber. Overall there was nothing particially hard or horrible in the cave unless your tall/bulky, which is the way with most NFTFH caves.

To add to the above:

Party: Rich, Alex, Damian
Time:4hrs 30?

Much more interesting that I thought it was going to be based on the reports / write-ups I'd read. The only real squeeze is the first one, which I think is actually called the Ripper. The Gripper barely exists and the Stripper is more a technical crawl than a squeeze. Will definitely go back to do the They Think it's All Over pitch at some point.

alexr wrote:

we rigged the small hole that was the entrance pitch

Read: Rich and Damian rigged and derigged the cave, whilst His Lordship cruised in and out with his Manbag. The only thanks being dislodged rocks sent flying down pitches .... on more than one occasion!!

alexr wrote:

Rich had trouble with this and strangely the solution was to take his wellies off!

Makes all the difference. Also helps coming up the Skydive in Car Pot and both ways through the Blowhole (GG).

richardrae wrote:

alexr wrote:

we rigged the small hole that was the entrance pitch

Read: Rich and Damian rigged and derigged the cave, whilst His Lordship cruised in and out with his Manbag. The only thanks being dislodged rocks sent flying down pitches .... on more than one occasion!!

alexr wrote:

Rich had trouble with this and strangely the solution was to take his wellies off!

Makes all the difference. Also helps coming up the Skydive in Car Pot and both ways through the Blowhole (GG).

That's told him

I only knocked one tock down a pitch the other was a climb. No idea where the big rocks came from, I was ron the y-hang not touching anything when a rock somewhere nearby decided to end it all so I got the blame!

P.s. Next time Rich I will leave you with the bag as Rich failed to mention I took 2 bags out most of the way, if thats the gratitude I get.

Well done for writing the report Alex