Borrins Moor Cave with a little stroll into Long Churn and Diccan
Monday June 4th 2012
Members present: Sophie Hentschel
Report by Sophie Hentschel
Knowing that the Diccan party would need some time until they’d arrive at the bottom of Alum, we tried to make ourselves comfortable on the rim of the shaft, tanning in the sunshine. However, soon enough midges started to attack us and we felt like getting eaten alive. At some point we began to feel impatient, and Andrew proceeded to rig, using Mike’s shiny new and scarily thin 9mm rope, which looked more like shoe laces than actual caving rope. Whilst still standing safely with two legs on the slope, he looked rather cheerful, despite the midges attack. As soon as he arrived at the ultimate ledge where he had to rig the free-hanging rebelay, he suddenly did not look that relaxed anymore and had a highly philosophical debate with Toby about “Why are we doing this?!”.
At this moment I started to worry about the prospect of trying out 9mm rope for the very first time in my simple and on a massive 65m pitch. The rigging looked perfectly correct, and yet due to the thin rope, the knots appeared pointless and insecure. Then Andrew disappeared out of sight, whistling the Jurassic Park theme song – sign of nervousness? Lucky him, he had a rack. For once I wished I owned one of these alien descending devices, because I was concerned about going down too fast on my simple and melting the rope.
A few minutes later Andrew’s “Rope free!” echoed in the impressive shaft of Alum Pot, and Toby prepared to leave. Like Andrew he seemed alright on approach of the pitch, and then went all quiet and pale once he was hanging in the rebelay. No way of telling him then that there might be a possibility of me chickening out of the plan, and suggesting them to carry on if that were the case. So I was left sitting at the top not knowing what to do. Soon enough I heard Toby shout, “Rope free!”. My short, spontaneous and honest answer: “Nooooo!”
I did descent until the last ledge before the actual pitch and peeked down, whilst being attached to the flimsy rope with all that my harness had to offer. There were so many little birds flying in and out, and then sitting happily on a tree trunk that reached half-way across the shaft. Observing the birds made me even more realise how deep the pot is, and I felt rather sick. And yet it was such an extraordinary place, so green and sunny. Nevertheless, I did not feel like descending and was worried that in my state of terror I’d do a terrible mistake and take the fast track down the pitch. So I screamed my head off for about twenty minutes, trying all different formulations from “Carry on! Not coming!”, “I am too scared!” to “For f’s sake, bugger off!” Nothing, no reaction. I decided to stay where I was, as I was certain that they would try to communicate with me.
Suddenly I could hear Andrew yelling, “Sophie, what’s the problem?” and that much closer than I would have expected. So I told him to carry on with the trip without me and meet me later on the surface. For the rest of the afternoon I tried to enjoy as much as possible the sunshine, walking around in circles around Alum Pot, as I had no clue as to when someone would emerge from there. As I had no means of leaving them a message about my whereabouts at our pile of gear, I couldn’t go on a longer walk. Luckily a cavers family came along and told me where to find Borrins Moor Cave, and I set off to find it, which I did. I poked my head into the entrance, deciding to come back with whoever didn’t feel too exhausted from the trip. On completion of my last, largest circle around Alum, I could hear the faint clicking noise of cow’s tails just out of sight: Someone was at last coming up the pitch! It was Mike, who was a bit shattered, because he had his own little shocker in Diccan. About ten minutes later John emerged from the depths and offered to go “rat holing” in Borrins with me after a short rest.
We quickly crossed the plateau and soon enough entered Borrins. I expected a really small rat hole that can be done within five minutes, but it turned out to be an extensive system of tunnels ranging from crawling to up-right walking passages. We spent some twenty minutes bimbling around and then came back to the surface, confident that we have just discovered a perfect hangover freshers’ Sunday morning trip. Then we went over to the entrance of Upper Long Churn and walked around in the water for a while. Having spent the afternoon on the surface, I was hot and sweaty and was longing for some cool water. Next we poked our head into the beginning of Diccan, as I didn’t know exactly how it was connected to the crawl leading to Dolly Tub. At last I could get wet! And then we saw Toby and Andrew’s light just at the top of the first pitch. I swam over the pool before the pitch and offered help with the tackle bags.
Some time was spent in the fresh water to cool me down and to get rid of Mud Hensler’s curse. But I was still too hot, and went four times through the flat out crawl in the stream just before the entrance to Diccan. Relief! This caused some funny looks from the men, of course.
After initial disappointment of not having had the courage to go down Alum and therefore missing out on a fantastically wet trip, I was grateful for the bits and pieces of rat holing in the evening!
Upon arrival at the hut, I looked up Borrins Moor Cave and was surprised that it actually measures about 1.5km (if I remember it right). Plans were hatched with John to do a through trip all the way through Borrins, Long Churn and Diccan, either using Dolly Tub or Alum as exit... To be continued.
(Also I solemnly swear to Toby's holey oversuit, that I WILL BE BACK and get down Alum!!!)
