Sell Gill Holes - 7th Nov 2010

Sunday November 7th 2010

Members present: Adam Wilkinson,  Adrian Turner,  Andrew Vick,  Caitlin Brumby,  Catherine Moody,  Mark Sims,  Sam Briscoe,  Terry Leung,  Toby Buxton,  Tom Gregory

Very nearly gained a faff 5 - only just missed out because we did actually get (part way) down Sell Gill - eventually!

When we arrived the dry route already had 2 teams just about to descend, so we made the decision to walk up and do Calf Holes instead. After about 20 mins of walking, we met a cave rescue guy who asked where we were going and was shocked at my reply - apparently Calf Holes was 2 miles away, not 200 yards as Mark had seemed to recall!

He told us however that we were merely yards away from Pen-y-ghent Long Churn so suggested doing that instead. I found the cave easily enough, but we had left all but one rope back at Sell Gill, and the one we had wasn't long enough for the entrance! Mark volunteered to go back and find them while we waited. About half an hour later he returned empty handed - the other group had taken the tackle sack inside the cave and since Mark had left his helmet with us to shed weight, he was unable to follow them.

Onto plan D! Back to Sell Gill it was... The other 2 teams were now on their way out. Caitlin was able to rig the first pitch while the first group waited in the chamber below and I followed to help assess the situation. The next group were coming up the second pitch so we did some unorthodox rigging so that we could get down whilst sill avoiding them. The first team kindly waited while we brought the freshers down the first pitch. Meanwhile the wet team had re-surfaced so Andy decided to sack it off and follow them back to the car.

I continued down the second pitch while Mark and Caitlin stayed at the top to help Tom and Terry. As soon as they were both down we all headed back up again as the first pitch had become free of the other group. A quick de-rig and we were off again.

So a minor success in that 9/10 of the team managed to get underground (though Mark and Caitlin didn't really get out of daylight...), and the freshers did pretty well at handling their first ever deviation!