Ireby Fell Cavern - 01 Mar 2009

Sunday March 1st 2009

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Alastair Gott,  Andrew Vick,  Anna Barnard,  Catherine Moody,  Chuck Holder,  George Bunyan,  Jennie Hill,  Luke Brownbridge,  Mark Sims

I rigged my first cave, woohooo! :D

Some efficient packing and the usual race to Bernies (while I practiced my rigging across the back of Chuck’s car) meant that even after a leisurely breakfast and a fair amount of shopping, we were parked and getting changed by around midday.

As there were 10 of us we split into teams and went down all 3 routes. Chuck, George and Luke went down Bubbles, Ade, Mark and Anna down Shadow. I was with Andy, Jennie and Alastair going down Ding-Dong-Bell. This was the first time I’d been to Ireby so I had no idea where I was going and had been thrown in at the deep end slightly for my first cave-rigging attempt! Handily though another group had already gone down so I was able to follow their rope along the traverse lines and Andy was right behind to double-check I was doing everything right. Although progress had inevitably been fairly slow, I was rather chuffed with myself when I got to the bottom of Bell pitch :)

We were met coming the other way by Chuck, who was on his way out with Anna Luke and George as they didn’t fancy any wet crawly bits, and Anna was already frozen after coming down the waterfall which was currently flowing down the shadow route. Mark and Ade had already continued into the cave. Jennie wasn’t keen on going any further so we swapped her for Luke and while they headed back up Ding-Dong-Bell, the rest of us ploughed onwards. A few crawls and a couple of short pitches along with some nice stompy meandering streamway lead us to Duke Street. A short way along we found the in-situ rope up to Ireby II and next to it a yucpc tackle sack – Ade and Mark must be up there then! We left a couple of messages in the mud for them, one telling Ade that he smells, the other which we were quite proud of, written in crabs and slings telling them to de-rig Bubbles. After a quick look at the drained sump we made a speedy return trip to the bottom of Bell/Shadow. The group that had come down Shadow had told us it was very aqueous… it was only when I started prussicking up the waterfall that I appreciated quite how wet it was! De-rigging the deviation was a bit of a pain and got me rather soggy. Having had a reasonable amount of practice by now at derigging rebelays and traverse lines both in and out of caves, the rest was fairly quick aside from the odd crab or knot that was awkward to undo.

We got back to the start of the route quicker than I’d anticipated and I was almost surprised when I got to the end of the rope. Slightly damp but nevertheless still happy, I caught up with Andy then rounded the corner to find Luke and Alastair waiting for us just before the entrance. The 4 of us headed back through the fog across the moor to the car and Andy and I debated whether or not Chuck’s car would still be there or if they’d have buggered off to find a pub. Turned out they had manage to occupy themselves during the previous couple of hours by rigging the inside of the car and practicing some traversing… as you do! We’d barely finished getting changed when Ade and Mark sauntered back down the track after their epic trip up into Ireby II. The obligatory stop at Bodrums and we were back in York around 10pm for a relatively early night!