Lancaster Hole round trip - 4th Apr 2009

Saturday April 4th 2009

Members present: Adrian Turner,  Angela Ballantyne,  Catherine Moody,  Chad B,  Chuck Holder

I’d finally convinced Angela to come on her first caving trip!! She’d done some training in the sports hall but was yet to go down a real cave, so I wanted this trip to be relatively short and easy, yet inspiring and slightly challenging…. It had to be Easegill!

As I was going to be leading, I decided to repeat the route Chuck, Tom and I had done a few weeks previous. This involved going in Lancaster to practice a bit of rope work, then a short detour to see the Colonnades before heading into Kath’s Way and Bill Taylors passage, then a round trip via Montague West and Wilf Taylors Passage up to Fall Pot.

We had arranged to meet at half 8 for a leisurely start.. Ade was actually early picking me up (shock horror!) but I then had to remind him we were supposed to be collecting Chuck as well…

We got to Bernies at around 11, where Angela was pleasantly surprised at the array of veggie options… so far so good! I also decided I was finally going to buy myself an oversuit.

When we got to Lancaster there was another team on their way down so we had a bit of a wait at the top before I went in to rig. It was a little slow as at the second rebelay I managed to get myself tangled in the other rope a couple of times, but got there eventually!

Remembering the way from last time, we made speedy progress as I led the way to Double Decker Pot. I could definitely notice the difference caving in pvc – I was roasting! At the pitch, I rigged normally for the others, then Chuck shouted up instructions from the bottom while I re-rigged as a pull-through. It was a little scary, but I got to the bottom incident-free! Retrieving the rope turned out to be a little tricky and caused some faff. The stiff plastic at the end of the rope was abnormally long and it didn’t want to come through the p-hanger… it eventually took chuck putting all his weight on the rope and giving it an additional tug for it to come free. (Note to future tackle masters: keep the labels short!)

Shortly before entering the main streamway is a small drop – I seemed to remember last time simply sliding down into the pool below. However when I did so, I discovered the water was a lot deeper than I remembered and ended up being up to my waist (Hence a rating of 3 for personal scummyness! Thank goodness I chose to buy that oversuit!) Ade, who was just behind me, naturally found this absolutely hilarious.

This time we found the way up from the streamway to Fall Pot with no problems at all. At Fall Pot itself, Ade Chuck and I went up the awkward climb (which seemed a lot easier than last time), so that the pitch could be rigged for Angela. Chad stayed behind to derig.

Back at Lancaster, I took Chad to see Slug World whilst the others ascended. On the surface it was still daylight and I had a nice lounge in the sun as we waited for Chad who managed a speedy bit of derigging.

The trip was quite a bit longer than originally anticipated, but we hadn’t been intending to be particularly efficient. It was a nice leisurely and fun trip – and Angela seemed to enjoy her first caving experience so bonus! :)