Notts Pot 4 bag, 3 person, 2nd year, 9 hour trip - Adamson’s Route

Friday November 7th 2025

Members present: Abbie Heathcote,  Asher Goodwin,  Will Barlow

A few weeks ago I decided that this November NPC would be my first ever Friday cave, I finally decided to skip my important seminars for being cold, wet, and underground. Originally the plan was to go to Nick Pot, we had been planning this trip for weeks (Me, Will, Abbie, and Noula) however the weather had been flip flopping between raining and dry and Noula could no longer make it, so plans changed. It was Notts time.

We were advised to do Adamsons route by James (who has never done it), Will was told that it has big pitches and is 'quirky' (flashforward to Will rigging saying 'what the fuck' over and over again) so it would be a good replacement for Nick Pot. We headed off bright and early at 7.30 on Friday and realised we were doing the first ever all 2nd year trip this year, and thats pretty awesome. We stopped at Morrisons cafe and on the way out we discovered the party section and bought a birthday headband (because in Adamsons route, there is Birthday Pot), we are hilarious.

On we went and dropped our stuff off at the NPC and the headed straight off to the cave. Briefly stopped for photos before heading across Leck Fell to do the most miserable part of caving, the walk to the entrance. Right before I rigged the entrance pitch Will warned me that there might be a dead sheep down there, which made me sad, but luckily the shakehole was sheep-less. I rigged until 3 Ways Chamber (which by the way has more than 3 ways, silly name) and found the rigging pretty good with little trouble.

As me and Abbie sat in 3 Ways while Will explored the 'upwards traverse' I plaited Abbies hair because I promised I would and forgot while we were at the car. Perfectly timed as exactly as I finished off the plait, Will said we could start climbing!

The upwards traverse was very awkward, lots of things to get a tacklesack stuck on, and quite polished/slippy at points. The lack of bolts (only 3 bolts total for a 10ish metre traverse) put me off a little. I think I could have done it a lot easier if I was without tacklesack, but I kinda just threw myself up the climb and hoped. Past the traverse there is a stapled climb that we were warned had a really sketchy bolt, so I did not use the rope handline and clipped my cowstails directly into the staples. This led to another short pitch where on the approach i managed to get my knee completely wedged between 2 rocks. I realised that my personal tacksack had wedged beside my knee and my ankle was in a very awkward position and I was keenly aware that I was on a boulder just weged in a rift above an at least 10 metre drop, so while attempting to not panic I got Abbie to pull out my tacklesack and eventually got my knee free.

Past that pitch there is a short small awkward climby crawly section that leads to the beginning of Birthday Pot, here I of course stopped for pictures and attached the birthday headband to my helmet (I kept it on for all 3 pitches) while I waited at the bottom of this pitch Will came back up the pitch below me, complaining of a weird natural deviation and asking me to pass a longer sling - I was then shown later how he had to tie weird knots to actually make the sling fit, it was a badly shaped rock - the previous attempt at a deviation actually just slipped straight off the rock and came up with him which was something to be careful of on the way back up.

This pitch then led onto the next, surprisingly uneventful pitch where we took some more birthday photos at the bottom of Birthday pot. This led to the beginning of the lower streamway. The climb up was really very awkward and Will was very nice and rigged a handline for me and Abbie (I wouldnt have felt very comfortable climbing it with a bag without the handline and would recommend making sure to rig it in future trips). Unfortunately I relied on it a little too much and ended up in a very awkward position where i seriously thought could end in me falling down the whole streamway, however I survived. Once at the top I strongly recommended Abbie to use her jammers so as to avoid the strange position I got myself into.

The lower streamway is not very low, infact I would say its pretty high and want to change the name. The rock is very rough and traversing required lots of wedging, I think that it aged my oversuit at least 4 caves worth of abrasion. There was a very pretty formation halfway through which made it worth it. At the end of the traverse Will rigged a truly stunning tri-hang that I managed to get completely strung up on (entirely my fault) basically getting my locks on my stop wedged in places they shouldnt be and getting them so stuck i couldnt undo them - after getting my weight off of the stop and rerigging it I somehow forgot how to lock it off and had to do it all again. I finally made it down and enjoyed the very odd end of the pitch where you have to go sideways a bit.

This led to another short rifty traverse and the pitch head following it was where Will said 'what the fuck' the most. Rigging it involves leaning out over a 40 metre drop with only one foot on solid ground. I did not envy him in this moment. Once rigged, the pitch head is not too difficult for those following, it just involves taking a little swing. This nice long pitch with an easy deviation leads to the final traverse and pitch. It was super fun and involved traversing around an almost perfectly circular shaft and then dropping down only to stop halfway and pull yourself into a little passage.

Throughout the last hour or so (while being in the lower streamway section) there is thundering water, this last little passage finally lets you hear each other talk and is perfectly round and cute (if a cave could possibly be described as cute, I would say that this is the epitome of it). This lovely passage leads to the sump. We had made it. 4 hours in and we enjoyed a chocolate bar, a chat, and some selfies. We hung about for 20 minutes or so as Abbie hadnt seen Will since 3 Ways and then we were off.

I led the way out and planned to derig once we were past the lower streamway, since I didn't want Abbie/Will to be waiting around at the bottom of the big pitch for ages we decided that the 'rope free' for the first pitch out would only be called once I was past the deviation of the big pitch, I really recommend doing this as it worked out well.

As a warning for the first pitch out though, the rope can very easily get stuck in a notch in the rock near the pitchhead, when I began ascending it popped out and made a scary noise and swung me out into the shaft, very scary, saw my life flash before my eyes. I used my whistle for the rope free I called halfway up the big pitch, and then ascended the bit pitch with no further issues. I hung about at the top for Abbie and then we headed on through the traverse and up to the lower streamway traverse. The tri-hang was very very awkward to dismount. I managed it, however Abbie had a tacklesack which made things infinitely harder, assisting with her getting off the pitchhead involved a slightly sketchy manoeuvre of putting my short cowstail in a bolt and having her clip her short cowstail into my long, as they couldnt reach any other secure place from where she as hanging. I would absolutely recommend that you stick around for the next person at this pitchhead no matter how confident they are, its so awkward especially with tacklesacks that its worth staying incase you need to help.

I stole Abbies tacklesack for the traverse and ended up decending on the handline as it seemed the least awkward way down. Once we were all at the bottom of Birthday, I took over derigging. I had very few issues however got tired quickly as I was carrying a full tacklesack as well as the rope/tacklesack I was actually derigging. I made it up most of the way before doing some quick mid-air rope packing which is where I realised that I had broken my delta maillon on my chest jammer and started imagining that I could hear Will and Abbie ahead of me (I'm fairly sure I couldnt actually hear them and was completely making it up, so that was interesting). I took off the weird deviation and continued. Once I made it to the last rebelay of Birthday I started actually talking to Will and Abbie and passed on my full tacklesack, which made life a hell of a lot easier.

I derigged the second to last bit of Adamsons route and got quite stuck with the tacklesack again but oh well, I was used to it by this point. After climbing down the staples and swapping around tacklesacks a bit so I was back to 2 full bags, I got Will to derig the 3 bolt traverse as I was not confident enough for it. Once back in 3 Ways I punched a tacklesack to get my anger out and then continued calmly onwards. The climb out to the shakehole that is handlined is especially hard on the way back and Will rigged a rope that we could ascend on, we also passed all the bags up. Abbie went first and I followed at the back, while at the top of the climb in the crawlspace a bat flew right next to my head!! It made my day.

We were then out in open air (in the dark) and made the short trip out the entrance pitch where Will derigged and me and Abbie collapsed onto the floor. We got out 9pm-ish after entering around noon. (officially the longest time me and Abbie have been underground at once!) We made the trek back to the car and got changed, met some other cavers and chatted and then headed back to the NPC while listening to Dangerous Dick and Taylor Swift. We were welcomed by the warmth and good vibes of a full cave hut and got to eat and drink and cheeseboard, a fantastic end to a long cave day.