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Great trip, 8 of us in total, 4 went down via the Gully route and 4 down the Sidewinder route.
Met up in the main chamber, then continued down to Stink Pot then finally down the Ninety.
This is the point where we realised we hadn't the final 30 meter rope, a bit of re-rigging by Martin and we manage to get down the next pitch - the final 10 meters will have to wait for another day.
All returned to the surface by each others routes. On the gully route we met a group of 5 who did a great job weaving themselves into ours and their ropes. .

Martin, Jo. Emma, Gordon and Gordon, Pete, Stu, James.
Time 4 ish hours

sounds like you all had a great trip, shame i missed it as its on my list of caves to do

Nice one guys, pity you didnt make it to the bottom

Marble Steps

Entrance – is an open pot. It was really green and slippery. It reminded me of Jingling the first traverse we did last week (So Paul you would have been right at home here).

As the week before had been fairly dry there was no water flowing into it.

Once down the safety rope Stuart set off rigging the Gully route on the right hand side.
- Which seemed a lot more straight forward/less ropes/slippy and exposed than the other side which Martin rigged. But hey ho, we were going to have to do that on the way out on this exchange trip.

Once down the first pitch we had to be careful going down the Boulder Slope; as the name implies there is a medium risk of dislodging the loosely packed boulders/stones on the sloping floor.- any one of them could, if knocked off the pitch head, easily have killed anyone below.

It was quite funny (for me anyway) at the top of the next pitch (Lower Main Chamber?) where someone had P bolted the last P bolt at about 2.5m? –or in other words just out of reach of Stuart who then had to do all sorts of man-oeuvres to reach up to it. (Where’s Richard when you need him?) Well done Stuart! Got to admire the lad with his dodgy knee an’ all.

Semi ‘Retired caver’ Stuart was being very cautious with the rope, only to find we had loads left at the bottom of the lower main chamber.’ Not sure why we needed a 40m?’

We joined up with the other team, we went ahead, Stuart elected to rig the next bit with my ‘emergency’ 10m of 8mm rope which caused a few comments.’ Washing line free’ was the call. And shouts of ‘for pete’s sake don’t rub it’. LOL.

After a hands and knees short crawl we came to the '90'. A great pitch. Which Stuart rigged at arms length through an 8” wide slot . Hard enough to get through and get onto the pitch head let alone rig onto. A couple of extra slings were attached to help everyone get off the pitch head for on the way up just in case.

Stuart went first then Pete, followed by me. This pitch was wet. More heavy raining than a deluge. Might be different on a wet day? A long straight descent down what felt like a ‘well’ more than anything else.

When I got to the bottom they asked’ have you got the rope?’.’ What rope’ I replied. ‘ The rope for the final pitch’. ' No' - 'someone else will have it' we thought optimistically. We shouted up and sure enough no one there had it either.

Oh dear we thought..or something similar.

So Stuart decided that before everyone else descended and ended up in a crowd in the bottom of this wet ‘well’ that we might as well alternate one up one down. So I went back up. Then Martin went down.
James went down. Then Jo.

I had a conversation with Emma over whether it was worth de rigging part of the upper cave to retrieve some more rope but we decided it probably was n’t the best thing to do.

Meanwhile I think Martin had re rigged part of the bottom of the 90 to gain an extra 10m of descent? before having to give up 10m? short of the bottom due to lack of rope. There was talk of joining footloops and cows tails together - but only joking of course.

On my way up when I reached the bottom of the Lower main chamber I took a bag off James. I’m not really well practiced at carrying big bags yet. I set off up the pitch after Gordon. (Those bags are a real pain wrapping around everything!)

On the way out I think my foot loop was a bit long and I was using too much arm power –which I ran out of very quickly. So I struggled up the long pitch. Not helped by the fact I felt climbing against the 60 degree wall of the pitch I could n’t prussik up as I normally would by putting weight on my foot loop or pantene? So again I was using more arm power than I should ’ve. [Advice needed please].

I was so knackered by the top that I did n’t even notice I had stood on my pantene and knocked it off but luckily those below shouted 'what was that?' - I was so lucky that Pete was able to spot it and Stuart retrieve it so thanks again guys.

I was glad when Gordon was waiting to take the bag off me at the top of the pitch. Thanks Gordon.

Within a few minutes we could see daylight. By the way there’s a small hole in a ledge near the pitch head at the top where several people knocked a few stones down through it, not knowing it was there- so caution needed here.

Only the scary green slippy traverse to do to get to the other side of the open pot. Then up and out the other side of the open pot via the hand line.

A great trip highly recommended.

A big thank you to all but especially Martin and Stuart for rigging and de rigging.

How did you ascend Gordon if you couldn't use your foot loop or foot jammer? Did you pull yourself all the way up?! He-Man

paulgeddes wrote:

sounds like you all had a great trip, shame i missed it as its on my list of caves to do

Its a very nice cave Paul - look forward to re-visiting

Paul, if and when you do go, make sure you take enough rope

Gordon's 8mm emergency washing line is the way to go - twang! What was Gordon's comment?!
Great trip and Pete's amazing route exchange was inspised by watching that film of those guy's swinging around a Cathedral.