Bar Pot

Saturday February 18th 2012

Members present: Sophie Hentschel

My last minute decision to come on that trip meant that there was no space in the cars left, so that I had to take the train up to Clapham, where someone was supposed to pick me up and take to the cave. However, when I arrived at destination, I got a call that the car was still miles away, and I phoned up John Holloway whose group had already arrived at Ingleton for breakfast. At last the second car made it there, and after having fed all the freshers, we spent what felt like an eternity to figure out where to go considering that only a week before, the Dales have been covered in snow and that there was a lot of melting water. On the train ride I had noticed flooded fields and streams that had transformed into mighty rivers. So one group decided to go to Mistral and John proposed to take the other to Bar Pot. Having finally managed to set up plans for the day, it took another half an hour to sort out the cars: me being the extra passenger meant that we had to squeeze six people in a car… Eventually we got the hang out of car origami, cramming four into the back with their luggage piled on top of them, and me in the front trapped behind tackle bags and my stuff. I was surprised that the car was still able to move! We had to hurry up a lot, as I planned to catch the last train from Clapham at 8pm – by the time we reached the car park in Clapham, it was already 2. Changing was done in top speed, and we managed to literally run up the mountains in only 40 minutes, thanks to William’s alternative route that avoids the touristy walking path. The view over the sunny Dales was breathtaking. It was great that Périne was in the group so that I could speak some French again. John was getting really pale by then but continued. Arriving at Gaping Gill, the stream was quite impressive, and the freshers were amazed by the huge hole into which the water vanished. Now John was seriously feeling weak and ill due to partying the night before and decided to head back to the car as soon as we would have entered the cave, and offered to be our call out instead of Andy H. I was the last to go and had to wait more than 45 minutes for Jamie to get through the entrance pitch. He later told me that he had to rig his descender several times to get it right and to make it through the tight top part. In the meantime I started to get a bit chilly outside as there was a very unpleasant wind and it started to snow. But he managed to get through in the end, and I was happy to get into the relative warmth of the cave. William the Frenchie did the rigging, and I was looking forward to the derigging. Jamie was very impressed by the main pitch, in fact he has never sat on top of such a deep drop in his life, and got very nervous about it. I could tell by his fiddling with the descender that he was not really keen on going down. After a few words of encouragement and advice he abseiled into the dark very very slowly. Watching him I was considering taking the rope of another group that had been there when we arrived, but then just waited for Jamie to land safely at the bottom. The descent was great fun, comparing to the first time I came here in August last year, where I was quite scared – very much like the poor Jamie. We only had time for a very short visit to the Main Chamber. Already from far away we could hear the crushing sound of the waterfall which we expected to be massive. And it truly was huge! I left the freshers to have a walk around the chamber, and disappeared into a tunnel for urgent needs and also because I found the sight of the masses of water rather terrible. Soon enough the others came back, as we really needed to hurry up: call out time was approaching. To speed things up at the main pitch, we sent up two people on the two ropes, and Périne was delighted when saw a little bat half way up. Of course it was gone when it was my turn. The two freshers took some time and I was getting really cold and tired. Prussiking took me longer than expected because of that, and I was swearing all the way to the top. William helped me derigging because we were running out of time. We made it out of the cave at half past 8 and arrived at the car an hour later, by then the last train from Clapham and Skipton were gone. The Frenchie had the glorious idea of bringing beer for everybody – except for the driver of course – which helped me forget my state of severe starvation for a while. Again we had to play car origami and hope that the police wouldn’t stop us on the way to Leeds. Having tons of caving gear on my knees, I soon couldn’t feel my legs anymore and started to feel drowsy – because of inhaling the odours of other people’s sweaty caving clothes?? I arrived at the train station of Leeds at midnight and an hour later at York, where I still had to cycle home… I think that the rating should include ‘cold and bored’ :p But it was a fun trip again, and another good opportunity to get to know the new LUUSS members a bit better. It felt funny to be ‘on the other side’ this time and not being the fresher but one of the people the freshies rely on :D That’s worth the waiting and getting cold and bored.