Titan Shaft - 19th Jun 2010

Saturday June 19th 2010

Members present: Christopher Jones,  Karim Shokraee,  Mike Rippon,  Sam Briscoe

Titan is one I have been looking forward to since I started caving. You can read the numbers and look at the pictures but it really doesn't show the scale anything like being there.

First impressions was Mike beckoning me to the edge as I was second in then shouting "HELLO!" and hearing it echo around the whole chamber for 10 seconds. Incredible!

Then the abseil.....it just goes on and on and on. Then you hit the all familiar event horizon that you see in a lot of the pictures.

We went for a wander down the bottom of western route but given most of us had little sleep the night before we decided not to push on through some of the tighter bits and instead waited it out in a chamber while Sam and Chris made their way out.

I had some pretty interesting times messing about with sensory deprivation stuff when mike left me for a bit as he popped out to check on progress. strange stuff.

The exit certainly isn't to be underestimated. I took my time going up the first pitch. Once I hit the event horizon I just put the foot to the floor and powered it out as I'd had enough of dangling in a massive chamber :P The final exit pitch was deceptive in size due to the manhole style construction. Having said that I got up it without flinching, a massive grin on my face as I'd just completed a cave I'd been thinking about for a long while. Fantastic feeling.

The four of us got out within 3 hours to be greeted by the fantastic countryside in the warm and a field full of cows (and a dead lamb with rigor mortis :P)

3 hardcore due to long bits of rope. Would go again without question!