Alum Pot Operation Cake (Flynn's birthday)

Saturday December 20th 2025

Members present: Abbie Heathcote,  Antje White,  Erika Lang,  Flynn Robertson,  James Goldberg,  Will Barlow

How would YUCPC’s official Snack Master wish to spend his first birthday as a caver? By making pancakes in a cave of course!

Alum Pot was the destination of choice for the party and the weeks leading up to the trip were filled with excited anticipation from those of us attending, and fierce jealousy from those losers who would already be home with their families, or on ‘non-fancy’ skiing holidays by the 20th of December.

Will picked me and Abbie up from our houses at 7:45am. I jumped into the car and began my usual whining about how it was too early and cold to be awake (the sun wasn’t even up!!!). We lamented those who could not be with us - Nuala was busy elf-ing, and bringing Christmas magic to the children of Web Adventure Park, Asher had booked his train home too early, and Sophie was stuck in a tiny house in the mountains of France (it’s NOT a chalet).

Arriving at the store we were devastated to find out our numbers in York had dropped to only 5 people, but oh well, lucky us, we all got to shove ourselves into one car!!! On the way to Ingleton we saw cool fog, pretty clouds and adorable highland cows, and we met James at Inglesport. Antje and I were led into temptation by the sale box, and the sealskin wetsocks in there, which we quickly bought before we could change our minds and then ran upstairs to order breakfast. Once at the table I smugly pulled out my homemade chocolate chip banana bread which I had baked the night before and had miraculously turned out amazing, and wished I had brought twice as much with me because it was delicious and I was hungry. But fret not, cave pancakes await!

At the allotment car park we met a lone caver on his way for a solo bimble around Long Churn and we wished him luck, quickly got changed, and then followed him shortly after. We had 5 tacklesacks between us, three with rope and two full of food and cooking stuff.

We got to Long Churn and took some group photos, then ventured in. Traversing the numerous deep pools was slightly nerve racking, given that we had a couple bags that we were very reluctant to get wet, but somehow we managed to keep those ones dry and we made it to Dolly Tubs in one piece. We went down one by one, until Antje and I were left on a rock by ourselves. We sang a wonderful rendition of Let It Go, and when we were done realised that there were voices coming from the climb and hurried to descend the pitch so that we didn’t have to explain the racket to these strangers. Unfortunately Antje didn’t make it down in time and had to admit to them that it was us.

Having made it down Dolly Tubs, we admired the wonderful view from the window. Then, not wanting to get tangled with the group behind us, we began our further descent down Alum.

I love Alum Pot. It’s one of the most beautiful places I have ever been and I’m not sure it will ever get old for me, so descending it was obviously great fun. As soon as we made it to the bottom we went for a quick look up at Diccan, then turned right back around, not wanting to leave James up there by himself for too long and excited for our bacon and pancakes.

Flynn wanted to derig, so Will stayed with him and I headed up first. Once back at the window, James and I began setting up the cooking stuff. And thus began the saga of figuring out how in the hell to work a Trangia.

We quickly realised our first issue: neither of us knew how to set up a Trangia. We had two: Flynn’s, and Ade’s, and they both looked different. We took out all the parts, holding them this way and that, but could not see how they fit together. Oh well, I said, Abbie is coming up next, maybe she’ll know.

Abbie appeared on the ledge.
“Abbie! Do you know how to set up a Trangia?!”
“No, sorry!”

Abbie sat down and watched me and James fiddle with the metal pieces while we waited for Antje. James said that one of the pots looked like it was for solid fuel, but we only had liquid fuel, so that was a bit of a mystery. It’s fine, I thought, Antje is a mega-smart stem student. She’ll definitely know how to work one of these.

Antje appeared on the ledge.
“Antje! How do you work a Trangia?!”
“I have no idea!”
Damn.

Antje came over, and we continued playing with the pieces. Me, Antje and James had the following interaction a couple times:
Me & Antje: “this looks like it should fit into this, but it doesn’t”
James: “can I see?”
Me & Antje: *hands over metal things*
James: *tries same motion me and Antje did*
James: “hmm, they don't fit together”
Me & Antje: “yep”

At this point I believe we managed to get Flynn’s fire thing to work, and James started cooking the bacon on that, but Ade’s Trangia still looked like an escape room bomb puzzle.

Eventually, Antje figured out that the hob bit fit into one of the metal bowls with a hole in the top, and we got very excited.
James then helpfully said “yh that’s what I said to do”
Me & Antje: “no, you didn’t!”
James: “yes I did!”
Me & Antje: “then why didn’t you do it?!”
James: “…”

From here, we did not know how to proceed. It’s totally ok, I thought, Will is next, and he’s a guy! He’ll DEFINTELY know how to work one of these. They teach it in man-school.

Will appeared on the ledge.
“WILL! Do you know how to work a Trangia?!”
“Um, I’m not sure.”
Shit.

Flynn was our last hope. This was his idea, his master plan, his moment. His job is Army. He must know how Ade’s Trangia worked. He had to.

Flynn appeared on the ledge.
“Flynn!” We cried, cold and helpless. “How do you work Ade’s Trangia?!”
“No clue!”

For fucks sake, what was even the point of bringing all these men along?

All together once again we huddled around, bashing the metal pieces together like babies trying to fit wooden shapes into the right holes. Finally someone said to pour the liquid fuel into the pot, and then we had fire! James once again attempted to take credit for this revelation but Antje and I were having none of it and shouted at him until he put his head back down and finished cooking his bacon.

Once we had the second Trangia going, I started cooking the pancakes with the pancake mix I had made the night before after seeing Flynn’s messages panicking about not knowing how to make pancake mix. And if I do say so myself, they were delicious. We had two pancakes each and then started packing up and heading out because it had gotten dark and we were quite cold.

We hurried back to the car and got changed and then headed home, of course stopping off at Rehmans for dinner, who welcomed Will like a son they should just adopt him already he basically lives there anyways. Back at the store we unpacked the rope and separated the food out again. We said goodbye and wished each other a Merry Christmas, agreeing that for our last trip of 2025, this had been a pretty good one.