Lancaster Hole - 23rd Jan 2010

Saturday January 23rd 2010

Members present: Andy Tricklebank,  Anna Barnard,  Nicola Gover,  Richard Gover

Really good trip. Nice to go off the beaten track a bit and do some SRT in Easegill (never thought i'd say that!). Down Lancaster and Fall Pot, then found the side passage to Arson aven, near Bob's boss. More of a window into the first pitch, which starts about 10 m up. Slightly strange prussiking up ropes you've not been down first but they all seemed good! Up the first pitch, you rebelay and enter a little gully in the side, then pop through a window into a parallel shaft. At the top of this you then pop again into another shaft, and finally emerge in a well decorated rift. A bit of crawling leads to the first down pitch.
Here, Rich rigged a crazy hanging traverse off naturals and dodgy bolts to get into Pristine way. Quite well decorated, but not that pristine, we crawled along for a bit but then decided we were making it less pristine by being there so turned round. Apparently it gets bigger and prettier not long after, oh well. Headed back and down the pitch, then a short crawl and some streamway to the second pitch, which for some reason wasn't rigged. Luckily we had brought a rope, and it was set up for a pull through so all was good! The final pitch after some more streamway had two ropes. One in a very narrow bit of rift, and one which you had to traverse over the pitch (unprotected) to get to the (very thin) rope. Me and Rich went down the latter, but I told Anna if she thought she could fit on the first pitch to try that as the other was scary to get to! She tried, but got a bit jammed in the rift, scaring Andy who thought she was directly above the pitch (I could see the ledge below her). Luckily she managed to squeeze through without losing ribs! A bit more "easygoing" streamway and we popped into the main drain below Stake pot, where we climbed up and headed out.
Very misty outside, but still quite early, 6 1/2 hours trip, but pretty tiring. We were the first back so set to peeling and chopping everything in sight for tea :-)

Well worth a visit :-)