County Pot

Saturday April 12th 2008

Members present: Andy Tricklebank,  Chuck Holder,  Kevin Francis,  Nicola Gover,  Richard Gover

A fantastic trip! Due to the really varied, interesting route we took and a crack team :)
Water levels were quite high-ease gill beck was flowing which i've never seen before! We stayed fairly high up, with many alternative escape routes though so not too scary!
We went via the alternative route in via upper trident that misses the second pitch, and so used a ladder for the first pitch so we could go sans SRT kits. This is also a much more interesting route! we then detoured to White line chamber which has two very impressive thundering waterfalls (in these water conditions anyway!). Back down the fun streamway to Eureka junction, then through the boulders in the stream to stop pot. This was quite wet! another detour to straw chamber then on up thakrays passage to whiteway and easter grotto. The water levels were quite high so going upstream in waist high water was very tiring! almost got pulled backwards a few times!
We then headed back to holbeck junction and out via the ignorance is bliss route. only navigational problem we had at all was finding the way up to cotton chamber from pierce's passage (the hole through from the rift is not obvious). Finally we went out via razor passage which brought us back to the pitch bottom.
Water levels had dropped considerably which was nice :-)
Then out after 5 1/2 hours, and off to martin arms for tea (not as big portions or as much choice anymore :( )

The Braemoor descriptions we used for this route are really good, and interesting routes!
We used 1 and 3 (and i consulted them for this as my memory is shoddy!)

http://www.braemoor.co.uk/cavingtrip/route3.shtml

We randomly met the guy who wrote them in bernie's-he seemed pleased to see his work in use :)

All in all a fantastic day. More Easegill please!