30/01/2014
Not strictly a YSS trip or any other club trip but as I used Ian Ball (thanks) as a call out, I think it warrents it more here.
Comments about my caving ability made by a certain person must have got to me more than I thought. This person's friend mentioned he sometimes solo's Prov to Dow, which reinforced an idea I had last year. I also had a very depressing day at work which pushed me over the edge so I acted on this plan, I needed to do something, the weather coming up looked depressing and this was my last chance for a while.
I arrived at Park Rash just after 7:00pm. After getting changed I headed up the hill to Prov passing Hagg Gill house along the way, this walk seemed to take forever, the headlong freezing wind did not help either. I reached Prov entrance at 7:47pm. The passages from here are a blur in my memory now, having done this trip many times before the route finding was not an issue and I just plodded on through. I was at the top of dungeon at 8:01pm.
Reaching the stream I pushed on again thankfully not making any mistakes with route finding and remembered the best route, knowledge you can only learn after doing it a few times. I reached the end of bridge hall at 8:17pm. Water levels were average.
From then onwards I tried to stay in the water as much as I could unless it was impossible, passing the 800 yards chamber (8:40pm) and the narrows, which were fine. I was then forced out of the water by an impassible boulder choke and onto the traverse after passing a barely passible and very dogey, tight boulder choke at stream level earlier. I did not stay on the traverse route for long and after traversing over a very hairy hole I managed to climb back down to the stream where I stayed all the way to Gypsum, passing through the wet, true narrows along the way. Rock window looked like someone had fired off a fire extinguisher in it. The deep water encountered afterwards was what forced me up the rope onto Gypsum as it was just too cold in a furry. My legs were starting to cramp up now so glad I was near the end of the trip.
Down the other side I was happy the worst was over. I practically ran through Dow despite my legs complaining and when I reached the surface, I checked my watch it read 9:40pm, not bad I think. Total time underground 1 hour 53 minutes. I don't recommend people attempt a speed trip in this place without doing a lot of normal trips first and learning the route and making sure you won't completely kill yourself in the process.
Well anyway I hope that is out of my system now and I certainly do feel a lot better for doing it.
