Craftsman's Pot

Saturday September 7th 2013

Members present: Andy Hurlbatt,  Mark Sims,  Toby Buxton

Craftsman's had been mentioned a few times over the summer, and at the pub earlier in the week Toby & I thought we'd make the best of a wet forecast and see what it was like, and Andy soon decided to make it a three.

I'd not read a description recently, so I was slightly off put the night before when I read about flat out crawls, mud, and loose rock all the way down, but it's always worth visiting somewhere once. After a bit of a faff leaving all the metalwork in the car, we were heading down and immediately into some fairly narrow climbs. It was only at this point that I realised I was in an unfamiliar position; I was the largest person on the trip, apparently by some margin.

Nevertheless, the rifts were easily passable sans SRT kit and we were soon at the first pitch. This was pleasant enough and I was pleased to find that the apparently awful choss-fest at the bottom was much more stable than I'd imagined.

Unfortunately this couldn't be said for the second pitch, but it's not especially problematic, since you never actually get in the firing line of falling rock. Having said that, I'd be impressed if anyone managed to go down or up without dislodging anything! Certainly none of us managed.

Things got slightly more interesting for the last drop, with a few dubious bolts and naturals, but the end result was good enough and at least there were no rocks falling down the final drop.

Since there wasn't any rain forecast until later on we thought we'd head through to the bottom section, and Andy informed us as I descended that the crawl looked fine.

Once we got to the crawl, we were slightly bemused by that comment as it became apparent that Andy hadn't actually looked at it... He headed in first and after a few forays forwards and backwards to move rocks out of the way he was through. Toby followed after his usual ranting about water, before it was my turn.

This is where it really became noticeable about the size differences. I quickly became wedged between the floor and the ceiling, struggling to move forwards or backwards. After some fairly unorthodox digging beneath my chest I just managed to thrutch through, and it was certainly worth it. Lots of pristine straws, curtains and a crystal pool were a suitable reward for a trip that was much more pleasant and varied than I'd had in mind.

Returning through the crawl was less pleasant with the water backing up ahead of me slightly, but after a particularly unpleasant wave of muddy water went over my face while I was digging the floor, I was through.

The rifts near the entrance were certainly more challenging on the way out than the way in, especially with kit bags, but it meant that we surfaced feeling like we'd certainly been caving even though it was a fairly short trip.

We rounded off the day nicely with a rather nice lasagne in a giant Yorkshire pudding at Bernies. I'd certainly recommend Craftsman's as an entertaining, varied afternoon's caving