Notts Pot - 03 Feb 2007

Saturday February 3rd 2007

Members present: Adam Wilkinson,  Charlie Dixon,  Chris Ward,  Chuck Holder,  Debbie Flowers,  Dominic Galliano,  Ellie Jones,  Gary Douthwaite,  Josh Vale,  Lauren Ellis,  Matt Ewles,  Peter Scowcroft,  Simon Herrod,  Steve Gilbert

A long days caving!

After faffage at the top, and all three teams catching up with eachother, Dom made and excellent job at rigging Adamsons/Birthday Pot. We arrived at the streamways at the same time as Twilight team, and only just behind Centre team, who were ahead rigging the lower streamway.

Twilight team turned back, which was a good job as there was little room down the lower streamway. My team followed the rigging team down the traverse to the little chamber you climb up into, where we met Debbie at the back of the rigging team.

The sensible decision was made for our team to turn back. Nine people at the bottom of the big pitch, or at the sump, was not feasible, as it would have resulted in extreme coldness and lots of waiting in water-saturated cold air.

I transferred from my team to the rigging team at this point. Gary was the only one in their team who felt comfortable derigging, and as he had rigged the entire thing, he needed a break. Plus four tacklesacks for four people put a lot of pressure on our freshers to carry one through the entire cave.

So down we went to the sump, and then set off back up, Gary at the front, followed by Lauren, Josh, then Debbie, who helped me pack bags, and me at the back derigging. I hadn't intended to be derigging the entire cave, and my fingers got numb very quickly. The upwards journey was slow, as Twilight it a tricky route with some hard SRT and exposed traverses. Everyone did brilliantly though, and four tacklesacks of derigging later (my fingernails were bleeding slightly!) we made it to the entrance.

A little bit of effort to get over the slab near the entrance. A ladder might be useful in future for this, but we were relieved to get to the surface. And surprised to find Dom and Steve coming up to find us. It was after 10pm, three hours later than we expected, and they had all been out for hours. Our ascent must have been slower than expected, and we were nearing call-out. We had been underground for 10 hours, and were all knackered.

Thank you to those who came up to meet us and take our tacklesacks for the walk back :-)