Trips & Reports

Florby FlimP, in a blimP.

Florby FlimP, in the BlimP.

So my second trip to Marble Steps! A little unexpected as we were originally going for Ireby. After a fairly faff free container stop in the morning and hangover curing breakfast at Bernies it was off to the cave. Faffing soon began when we arrived to find one group was already in the system and another were fully changed and ready to go. Despite a leisurely change, the other group set off about 2 mins before us! When we got... read more

After a faffy start (rigging from the wrong hanger and not having sufficient rope for the first pitch...) I got in a good bit of rigging practice. Slight moment at the top of the bottom pitch where I was sure I'd done something wrong, but it was all fine in the end. We had a quick explore down as far as the duck and were out in quick time with Louise doing some speedy de-rigging. All in all a very... read more

Tony set a cracking pace which given I was in PVC and a wetsuit kept me quite warm despite the very damp conditions. The aim of the trip was to both check the water levels in readiness for CHECC and to also lower the was levels of the ducks in the section known as “The Troubles” so that they wouldn’t greatly slow the trips that would be going on over the weekend. We made it up to Tratman’s Temple without... read more

Perfect weather for the walk up: nice sunny, but cold enough to avoid overheating :-) Maz did a swift bit of rigging practice on the first pitch, and team ChimP caught us up just as we were heading down. The rest of the route down was enjoyable as ever; it's always nice to show people that these places genuinely aren't all crawling-sized! Having said that, everyone seemed to be loving the crawly stuff in SE Passage... With the water levels pretty low... read more

A superb Fresher trip down Long Churn, even with relatively warm sunshine for getting changed. Everyone seemed to enjoy it which was great (Freshers, please feel free to also write a report). Water levels in Long Churn were quite high, making some of the climbs a tad damper than usual but that didn't seem to deter most people from smiling their way through the trip. We even managed to persuade a few people to do the greasy slab after coming... read more

Faff rating of 3 since we didn't get into the cave till 3pm! Lost a MUSCy Ben due to the usual Sunday hangover syndrome. We ditched Al's car down at the car park, and checked to see the lid in the playground wasn't covered by a park bench. Drove the other two cars up to where you park for Jug holes. I had done this trip once before, and gotten horrendously lost trying to find the cave, so had to... read more

Mandy's written something very similar to what I had started writing! A fun trip, the crystals are really cool, the ducks were less fun! Took a couple of mouthfuls of water as I spluttered through the first one and drenched the woolly hat I was trying to keep dry in my oversuit. I'd like to go back, perhaps from the playground side, and look at the other stuff that we had marched past on the way out. There are is a... read more