Thrupe Lane Swallet - 24 Aug 2007

Friday August 24th 2007

Members present: Gary Douthwaite,  Imogen Shepherd,  Kevin Francis,  Lauren Ellis,  Matt Ewles,  Nicola Gover,  Richard Gover,  Simon Herrod

A superb trip. And a REALLY hot day. Locating where to park was difficult, as the location on the maps is misleading. Park in an obvious lay-by, in the village at the top of the hill, next to an apple tree orchard, and opposite farm houses. The entrance is down to the right, and is signposted!

A sharp, and sometimes awkward rift leads downwards from the bottom of the entrance pitch, doubling back on oneself to the head of perseverence pitch. The entire entrance series is free climbable as far as this pitch. Rigging perserverence is interesting, and a little rope rub is unavoidable, and a further peahanger part way down would be rather useful. Going down is easy, however, ascending this pitch is hard work, due to the rope hanging down a narrow crack, and having to work around this.

From the bottom, a short crawl (usually wet apparantly, but dry on this occasion) leads to the waterfall chamber. A climb up the waterfall and then up a large boulder chamber leads to a downward chute into the streamway. The streamway is followed, crawling in parts, to the huge big pitch (can't remember the name). A traverse is rigged around to the left, to a pitch down to a ledge, again, with unavoidable rop rub. A short bit of muddy passage then leads to the final pitch, a superb circular hold which descents approx 30 m to the floor. a walk downwards leads to a flat out squeeze, arriving into a rift where the cave more or less terminates. The other team caught us up, and abseiled down the waterfall route, meeting us at the bottom.

A great trip, with a lot of fun things happening in a short space of time.