Trips & Reports 2013

It's a hole with not much at the bottom. Nothing in fact, apart from rocks and a dead duck. I went up a climb that petered out to nothing and at no point threatened to be interesting. In fact the fun was coming back down again once I realised I had done a silly climb. About halfway up the main shaft next to a pool of water there is a passage that one may be able to traverse into, if... read more

It must have been about 4 years that King Pot had been on the to do list, and finally we'd got around to it. Walmslers and I had been chatting about it on the flight back from Mexico, and Toby was on board as soon as we suggested it. A 7:30 meet at the container in the sun was followed by some irritating rope packing with the usual wire-like ropes (will we ever get a water supply?!). This was made slightly... read more

In my experience, rescue practices have always been a good opportunity to experiment with techniques that we rarely use, but above all they have always been a valuable lesson in why not to get rescued. Our aim for this trip was essentially no different: there can never really be too many reminders of how important paranoia is for when we're in Durmitor. On Saturday at the Dump we managed to run through basic Z-rigs for the people that hadn't used them... read more

Entrance - Speedy Caver - Bedding Chambers - Abseil into Gnome Passage - Edwards Shortcut - Shatter Pillar - Skyhook - Selenite Tunnel - Salubrious - Corkscrew - Exit Awesome trip :) The abseil into Gnome was good fun, and the formations at the top of the Skyhook are stunning. And I proved to Mike that Wales caving IS good! 8)

Attempt number two for Ireby! This time with greater success seeing as though no one else was up masongill this time! Rigging through the Shadow route proceeded fairly smoothly all the way to the bottom with only minor faff to re-rig bits so we had enough rope for the last big pitch. Squeezing and crawling through the streamway is more than made up for by the view in Duke Street. Lots of impressive formations throughout which seem relatively undisturbed really make... read more

A good little trip to a well decorated cave. Take note, if you find a rigging guide, the rope lengths are wrong. The guide says take a 25 and a 45, with a 25 and a 60 I still hit the knot near the bottom, so a 25 and a 65 would be best. Arriving on Leck Fell to some pretty rough weather I was gratefull when Walmslers said we could get changed in his car boot. Thankfully the navigation to... read more

A Friday night bimble

Pie?

Fairly straightforward to the bottom but derigging from the sump to the top via adamsons route took about 5 hours and made the trip a bit more difficult than we were expecting for Notts. After reaching the surfaces with lights dimming and bodies aching we were looking forward to a quick walk back to the car and some food and drink at the NPC. Leck Fell had other ideas and we spent an hour groping our way slowly accross the... read more

After water and an uncertain forecast made a retreat sensible a couple of weeks ago I was keen to return and finish this route. As the sky was blue and the stream-flood exchange was full I thought that now was the time so off we went. We were soon at the cave and before long I was where I left off, rigging the main pitch. This is a really great section of cave and really feels 'in the thick of... read more