Rowten Pot - 30th Jan 2010

Saturday January 30th 2010

Members present: Caitlin Brumby,  Chad B,  Sam Briscoe,  Toby Buxton

Really enjoyed the trip :)

The entrance pitch was gorgeous, (lovely to abseil down in the daylight !) went across a little traverse by the side of the massive hole, then abseiled down (or for Chad swing into..) into the rift, traversed along some more - quite a bit tighter this time.
We all abseiled down the longest pitch - with just enough rope!! (stupid rigging guides). But all was fine, no one disheartened at all. This chamber was very impressive - a lot of water! And we could still actually see some daylight from the entrance, even though we were about 60m(?) down, quite unusual, and very very pretty.
The next pitch proved a little interesting for Chad to rig I think. It involved abseiling way too far down - down to the 'ground floor'. Completely missing the well concealed P-hangers tucked inside the second rift that needed swinging into!! After a monster Y hang (not the easiest to get round) and then another re-belay we came to another traverse. So we all traversed along like good little cavers. and got down to the last pitch head! We did the last pitch and came to the end of the cave :)
We sat on some rocks (like you do in a cave :P) and had a little mutter, then we decided to go find the sumps. I think we all managed to keep our feet dry on the way down there - fairly good going. The sumps were quite nice, really clear water - non of us were at all tempted by them.. of course!!!
Then we went back to the bottom of the last pitch and followed Toby up some boulders to a little chamber with lots of calcite one side of it.! (shame about the graffiti). (and also the silty water I got in my welly :P)

Then came the interesting part - the accent!!
I was a bit nervous that I'd be exhausted before the top of the cave having not de-rigged before, but that was silly, I was fine. (I love adrenaline.) Anyway de-rigging was amusing. Lots of swinging out into chambers after de-rigging re-belays. I now appreciate how heavy tackle sacks are when wet and being tugged up lots of meters of rope.! Nothing was that problematic, I was just probably a bit slower than most. I also hate loaded knots! Bugger to undo.
The last pitch had ice at the bottom - quite interesting, definitely wasn't there on the way down. Was nice to finally get to the top and see stars though! Then after I untied the last re-thread fig 8, I was presented with a nice cup of coffee, and orange moon lighting up a frozen river on the other side of the valley :) Lovely!!

Rowten is awesome :)