County Pot

Sunday February 13th 2011

Members present: Andrew Vick,  Catherine Moody,  Chuck Holder,  Laura Bennett,  Nicola Gover

This was a trip to explore some of the less visited parts of County. A short but fun streamway round trip, then off exploring the Trident maze. Instead of the usual way off Splash Chamber to the Trident streamway, we took the first passage on the left. This pops out at a big drop you can rig a rope down to drop you on a rock bridge. Once down we headed left, then turned off right to get to Crystal Floor Passage, which was quite pretty but not as much as I had hoped. Back in the main passage, I continued to Lower Trident Roof Passage (a very nicely formed bit of passageway) and popped out above 3 fag climb, which looked very hairy indeed without a rope (not to mention the water levels below looked a bit choppy). At this point we headed back out. Going back up the pitch, someone remarked there seemed to be a bit more water than before. As we neared Splash Chamber, water was pouring out of everywhere and running down previously dry passages; the waterfall in the chamber was immense. A river followed us through to Battle of Britain and down into the start of Manchester Bypass. On realising that the cave was flooding we got a bit nervous, but although the water levels were extremely high we had no troubles getting out and I think this would be the case in all but a biblical flood; the streamway was sporting but not dangerous.

Great trip, always fun to do some exploring and very interesting (and sobering) to witness a flood pulse.