Yorkshire VI
Arun Paul, Ben Honan, Ben Richards, Christopher Bradley, James Perry, James Wilson, Ana Teck, Matti Mitropoulos, Chris Hayes, Laura Temple, Erica Keung, Edwin Fernando, Magor Pocsvelier, Thurston Blount
Friday
How does this keep happening. We’ve finally left the union. It’s 10 pm. Another saga to write before we’ve even reached Yorkshire.
6 pm. We’re packed in record time with the minibus having driven over from its parking spot on campus. Matti had flown in from Germany for the weekend and Dr Ben, fresh from finishing his PhD, had flown back from Spain for the trip as well. Spirits were high as we loaded the front seats behind the driver, as the side door was utterly destroyed, not opening from the inside or outside. All sat and ready to go, hecklers from the back inquired as to why we weren’t moving. It was at this moment we collectively learnt that the bus wouldn't start.
This was particularly weird since the bus hadn’t complained when coaxed from its resting place and herded over to the union. In fact, for KYW, it seemed remarkably functional with no trail of fluid left behind it, all windows still attached to their frames and all four wheels attached to their bearings. Given this, we suspected that a simple push start would do the trick, and so we all got out and heaved it towards the Royal Albert Hall. No hope. By those big steps, much to the amusement and cheers of local pedestrians, we decided to pull a wild U-turn across oncoming traffic ready for an attempt to push it downhill back towards Blackett for the extra speed. We did pick up some considerable speed but gave up hope when Matti shouted that it hadn’t done anything. Sadness set in.
Chris and I decided to go pester some humans, and Ana and Laura went to pester some others. We returned from the Union security guard with instructions to speak to Sherfield security, just as Ana and Laura returned from Sherfield with instructions to talk to the Union. Perfect. Our next scheme was to go pester Rob Fenner. Returning to the Union, by a lucky and incredibly ironic turn of events it was the Union awards evening and Rob was presumably busy winning prizes for the ultra-modern and shockingly reliable minibus fleet. After dragging him out into the quad, he concluded that not a single one of the other available buses was road-legal (?!) and our best hope was therefore to just phone the RAC. Sigh.
This made us sad. We returned to the bus to find the others fiddling with fuses, claiming that they were definitely the problem. Magor, Thurston and Matti sprinted off to the nearest shops to see if they could buy new ones. Soon messages came back informing us that they had been unsuccessful. After phoning the RAC, even though they probably wouldn’t make it to us for 4-5 hours, James volunteered his large muscular legs to cycle at high speed to Halfords to see if they had any new fuses. After this, a much-needed food break occurred and we went to get food from the Korean reincarnation of HBar. 20 minutes later James messaged that they did have fuses, but of the wrong capacity. No luck. “Genocide beats minibuses” Ana proclaimed, with no context whatsoever. Absolutely none.
Hope was running low. Ana in an attempt to boost morale showed us food enthusiasts around her lab, which I found incredibly cool having heard about these elusive batteries for so many years. We all had to wear lab coats and one by one Ana showed us the various exciting machines, told us not to touch them or else they’d explode, and then explained in great detail why each was completely broken. We walked around in awe of the science boxes, many of which seemed to be beckoning us for a hug. At last, we saw Ana’s baby batteries arranged in a vertical grid, each seemingly wired into the baby battery matrix hive mind. After disrupting some other science humans who were also in the lab we headed back to her office, where she ordered a large quantity of highly explosive Hydrogen gas cylinders. At this exact moment, Chris got a call from the RAC saying that they’d not sent a repair vehicle, as we’d requested, but had instead sent a tow truck. He fought hard to try and reverse this decision but their incompetence was seemingly insurmountable. Chris was sad.
We returned to find the others had tried every combination of fuses, to no avail. Matti and Salwa had gone back to the union to pester yet more humans, presumably eventually working their way back up to Rob Fenner, and the rest of us brainstormed what to do next. Salwa was enraged at how nice the others were being to the union and had discussed horrifying plans too graphic to reproduce here. So many fingers. Ben H had the ridiculous idea of making an enormous sign to flag down drivers as we were still by the side of the road. The others decided that it was best just to wait for the RAC since they’d arrive in 30 minutes anyway. Ben H paid no attention to this decision and returned from stores with an A5 envelope with some long and cryptic message scrawled on it. With this in hand, he successfully managed to flag down an electric taxi driver, who after being asked if he had jump leads promptly laughed and sped away silently.
And then they pulled over. Our two saviours. A glistening BMW pulled over and two guys jumped out with jump leads in immaculate condition. They were apparently Imperial Alumni, one Mech eng and one business. Hope was restored. They clearly knew what they were doing, quickly locating the jump points and revving their engine, a classic tactic. He asked us to start the engine, at which point Matti realised he didn’t have the key. Upturning the front of the bus, it was nowhere to be found. I phoned Laura who had disappeared off to Mech End in search of jump leads, and over a garbled WhatsApp call I heard her sprinting back towards the van, presumably as she’d found the keys. After she returned we tried the bus engine, but nothing. They very kindly decided to wait with us and left their engine running for another few minutes, after which the lights turned on in the bus! Progress! We all lost our minds.
However, the engine still wouldn’t tick over, even after minutes of charging. They complained about how incredibly dirty the bonnet was, finding another spot and reconnecting, even touching the two plugs together in a cloud of sparks just to check their battery was working. Eventually, as we waited longer and longer, the engine did sound as though it was getting closer to actually turning over, with clicks starting, followed by the radio turning on, followed by longer and louder clicks, after which the horn started, however, this was established to be completely unrelated, as someone foolishly tried to lock the bus despite this not being possible.
20 minutes later, and we were beginning to worry that perhaps this wasn’t just an electronics problem after all. Worse, on the horizon I made out a large RAC recovery vehicle and immediately knew from how out of place it looked and from how slow it was driving that it must be for us as it trundled towards us past RSM. The BMW men asked once more to try the engine at exactly the moment the RAC van indicated to pull over and then it happened. The engine started. We were saved.
Salwa promptly began the intense negotiations for us to have custody of the jump leads, promising to return them to our saviours at some undetermined later point, before everyone scattered in all directions in search of toilets. This would be a non-stop service to the NPC. Having returned, explained the situation to the confused and presumably very grateful RAC recovery driver who got paid to do nothing, he suspected that it might be our alternator failing, which was pretty worrying since it meant we’d need more jump starts throughout the weekend. However, these were problems for tomorrow us. Before we knew it we were suddenly on our way, waving goodbye to the union at about 10 pm. Matti had been given strict instructions not to stall under any circumstances, and the rest of us sat in the dense diesel fumes which had collected from us trying the engine so many times. But increased likelihood of terminal illness did not worry us any more, we were on our way North. We were going to the NPC. And we arrived at a quite reasonable 3am.
Mr Ben
KYW was having another tantrum. Having happily driven from the parking spot to the union, KYW now decided it did not want to move. pushing, and pushing as hard as we could, KYW would not be bumped. Rob tried to help, telling the RAC we were at risk, and in danger - this achieved nothing. The RAC spent 2.5 hours to send a tow truck!!! In the meantime, Ana took us on a tour of her lab (So cool!!!!), and two kindly spent 20 minutes pumping their sports cars electrons into KYW's rusty contacts. Then, as if by a cruel god's design, KYW started the SECOND someone spotted the RAC van.
Off we went! Matti trying desperately not to stall as the gravity of the situation settled upon us... If the engine were to stop, it probably would not start, and we probably could not get another jump. The further we drove, the worse the consequences of stalling became.
by some miracle however, Matti did not stall, We left the bus running during our pit stop, and eventually made it to the NPC by 4:30am. The minibus did not start again.
Mr Hayes
KYW revolted for the second time this year. The only two times I’ve been on trips. This time it even concentrated its hate towards me: only when I turned the key did it stay stubbornly silent. James’ Magic TouchTM brought it back from the dead. Only when I tried to abuse the key did it refuse even the warm light of the electrics, let alone the cough of the starter motor. Maybe it just wanted to teach me a lesson, not to use it for fun.
Anyway, Kevin drives it to Beit from the parking spot no issues at all; we load the bus, get ready to leave, and it doesn’t start – not even the electrics turn on. We tried various different methods for 4 hours trying to get it to work, culminating in a very nice man pulling up in a very nice BMW and using his shiny car to jumpstart the fucked KYW. It took quite a few attempts, but finally, timing the starting of the engine perfectly with the arrival of the RAC towtruck lights a-flashing, James’ Magic TouchTM stroking the keyhole coaxed it to life. With Kevin dipping out for Thesis reasons, it was just me and Salwa driving, where Salwa had never driven a minibus before and had rarely driven manual cars. Ergo, I drove very, very carefully out of London, relaxed a bit when we hit the totally deserted motorway, and kept the country-lane-fun to a minimal level. Turns out, if the consequence of stalling is ‘we are all stranded in the middle of nowhere at 3 am and an entire minibus full of tired cavers are extremely angry with me’, I can actually drive without stalling. We finally made it to the NPC at ~3:30 am. I turned the engine off when we were all doubly sure we hadn’t accidentally stopped at the farm, and concluded that, after attempting to turn the key produced no response at all, we would have indeed been very screwed if I had stalled. I’d almost say I recommend starting later though: the drive was super chill and super quick, by most Yorkshire drive standards.
Mr Mitropoulos
Saturday
Vesper to Spectacle exchange: Ana Teck, Laura Temple, Erica Keung, James Wilson, Matti Mitropoulos, Magor Pocsvelier
Spectacle to Vesper exchange: Ana Teck, Laura Temple, Erica Keung, James Wilson, Matti Mitropoulos, Magor Pocsvelier
Due to the unfortunate lack of shopping, and my forgetting to ask Perrun to buy some, I didn’t have any cakes for my 100th trip; so I figured a suitable substitute would be pain and suffering. A few different ideas were thrown around, of which Brown Hill seemed quite tempting, but ultimately a Spectacle – Vespers exchange was the chosen challenge. Rumour had it that Jergus would be crushingly disappointed to have missed a Vespers trip so I figured I’d be in for a treat. Ropes were squished, chocolate was pocketed, and a moderate amount of general faff ensued, during which I managed to kick an entire mug of tea over Arun’s oversuit (sorry). DKP offered for us to use his special ‘car jumpstarter’ which this time we connected directly across the battery terminals rather than the actual contacts underneath the bonnet. This packed more magic than James’ Magic TouchTM, displaying superlative results on the first try, no waiting or anything. It did however remind me that I was driving around with two large malfunctioning batteries directly under my arse, and I didn’t know how I felt about that.
Into Spectacle: it took a little while to find the cave due to a misunderstanding of the description, but once inside I was reminded that 5 months of no caving was too long; I had missed the comforting tightness and wetness and coldness. Then that was quickly challenged as I dove headfirst into Splutter Crawl - It really was extremely tight. But, it was very smooth and horizontal, so you could make steady if slow progress, and it was still pretty fun. The trickling stream through it didn’t do it any favours, and I managed to get stuck right before the awkward 2m headfirst downclimb at the end. With Magor’s help I was down, past some pitches, and into the ‘long, low, gloomy, wet crawl’. “Don’t let the gloom get to you, Matti,” says James. I tried my best, but some of the tighter bits were quite nasty, where turning my head was possible only if I was prepared to dunk my face into muddy water. Which I wasn’t really.
Down the terrible scree slope, into by far the largest chamber in the cave – which also happens to be the crossover point for the exchange. We could hear them high above us, and could faintly see some lights in the distance so figured they couldn’t be long.
They were long – we were approaching/had just surpassed our turnaround time when the entire Vespers team reached the bottom. Ana was unwrapped from the bothy bag, a quick awkward photo was taken, and we were off, the parallel team trying not to kill each other by kicking rocks in each other’s faces and me racing as fast as I could up the rope to re-warm myself. Praise be to whoever’s pantin it was that I had borrowed from stores – many thanks.
Although the pitches were generally ok and my length helped make the trickier pitch heads a little more manageable, the general crawling, squeezing and scooting within Vespers got quite taxing the further it went. Many a time I found myself in awkward positions, uncomfortably shuffling my way through the inhuman shaped passages. Often I only realised midway through a committing manoeuvre that it would’ve been much easier in a slightly different orientation. I did had a fair amount of time waiting at the top of the last big pitch, so passed the time taking stupid selfies. The final stretch was arguably the most tortuous – after 7 or so hours of tightness and wetness, in a state where I was quite ready to be sitting comfortably by the fire in the nice armchairs of the NPC, the infuriatingly close rays of sunlight and the sweet smell of grass taunted to a previously unattained level of frustration. As usual though, that made those first breaths of freedom in the quiet evening shade even more rewarding.
Back at the NPC, Salwa had already prepared a superlative pasta bake (many thanks), and due to the lack of a Friday shop I enjoyed an unusually sober evening. Shared a deep chat with Chris in the pleasant warm night, and ended up staying up quite late since Salwa was strangely keen to make Ben - specifically Ben - stay up till 4am.
Mr Mitropoulos
Rowten eyehole: Ben Richards, Chris Hayes, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Arun Paul, Ben Honan, James Perry
Woke up to glorious sunshine. Cooked some amazing mushrooms. Many scheming plans, eventually settling on twin epic exchanges in Rowten and Spectacle to Vesper just to spite Jergus. This was actually incredibly ambitious in retrospect. Everyone initially signed up for the Spectacle extravaganza but many bailed. While packing ropes Matti ran over and managed to kick Arun's mug of tea onto his oversuit. A man of such skill.
After this, we had the next round of trying to get the bus to work. DKP had a magical power bank capable of powering not only phones but also cars. Remarkable. We tried jumping the minibus from the same points as the day before, but nothing happened due to the inch-thick deposits of grime everywhere. We then thought we might as well try across the battery itself and shockingly this worked the first time, not even taking any power from the magical power battery.
With the minibus going we zoomed up to Kingsdale at about 12, rocketed up the hill and bimbled over to Rowten. Our team went in the eyehole route. Many local hikers and dog walkers came over to see what we were doing, including a man called Alan with a lot of knowledge and a lot of beard. He talked about how he loved ladders, particularly those he made himself. He also commented that he'd caved with Imperial, back in the 60s of course.
Thurston rigged and immediately got tangled up in the first Y hang he'd just rigged. He managed to escape as Chris came down to help him, and I bimbled off to poke around in Rowten cave for the cave count (it is once in a lifetime after all). Before returning to chat with Edwin and begin the descent. Thurston did a great job and I descended into the beautiful mist-filled green rift, coated in ferns and moss, to see Thurston swinging into a hole in the wall to rig the next pitch. Below this was another pitch which then went into a small rift in the roof. This must have been a massive pain to rig, so respect to Thurston for that. This rift has no floor, instead dropping into the main chamber in a rather terrifyingly impressive way. We then one by one scooted along and dropped down the main hang into the stream at the bottom, with my descent being all the more terrifying as I struggled to get used to the snatchyness of the Raumer Handy and new Stop I'd bought.
At the bottom, we met the other team and together carried on down the dry bypass walking route which had some very slippery and quite tricky to climb back up bits. Beyond this was a mysterious tube that Chris disappeared into for many minutes, apparently reaching about 50m in before turning around, having even taken his SRT kit off mid-squeeze.
We rejoined the bottom of the next waterfall which was deafeningly loud. Thurston, Edwin and I looked at all the pretty fossils in the walls as Dr Ben rigged down the next pitch, and before long we were all at the bottom taking a look around the scary sumps. After getting scared by these and having a piss in one of them we headed back. Chris then found some random chamber with loads of broken stals that had themselves been calcited together. Then there was also a cool large white flowstone thing and some toilet brush straws covered in mud around the floor.
After giving Edwin a changeover refresher he headed off with Chris as Thurston derigged and I put together my latest innovation - the hands-free rope walking setup. This consisted of my locking pantin, my croll, a knee jammer on a bungee cord and a pulley on my chest harness. The key innovation was that the knee jammer was just the hand jammer, and the krab that's usually used in the middle for adjusting length is clipped into both the foot loop and the hand krab so that it becomes the right length. The bungee then clips to the top on a tiny krab, which can be further optimised, and the other end goes over a shoulder and clips into the gear loop on the opposite side.
With my faffing around with my four attachment points, Thurston derigged and we made our way up the cave at a leisurely pace. Apparently Chris on the way out had to contend with a tackle sack full of rope plummeting from the sky as the tail snapped off of the bag, making a very large boom as it fell back to the bottom of the main pitch. Chris also apparently frantically returned thinking he'd removed our rope or something.
Thurston carried on the derig and we started heading out the big gulley route, and I zoomed off ahead through the waterfall to wait on the other side. Thurston called for me to come back, and it was hard to hear anything else given the deafening roar of the waterfall echoing around the chamber. It turned out he couldn't remove either of the Y hang maillons since he was loading them without realising. After we both made this realisation he was able to carry on and I went back to do the waterfall for the third time. Chris came back to see how we were doing since we were taking our time, and I showed him my new fancy setup. He zoomed back out with one of our bags and we continued on up to the entrance where we found a fun sign saying "Don't use the resin anchors until: ..." with the critical info rubbed out. They seemed fine to me anyway.
The sun was setting and the wind had completely stopped, bathing the valley in the warm summer glow I reminisce about during the long winter months. Thurston and I wandered back down to the bus and changed, glad to find we weren't the last team out. As callout approached we began wandering over to see the spectacle team, but saw their lights approaching as we neared the farm. All was well, they'd just taken a while longer with some heavy bags apparently. Both teams spoke of horrific rifts, crawls and squeezes, with no one seemingly enthusiastic for a return trip. Sounded great.
Chris and Edwin had apparently also gone in Rowten Cave and Valley Entrance before we'd finished the derig to rack up the cave counts, and as soon as someone other than Matti tried to start the bus it lept back to life and we headed back to the NPC. After a top-tier pasta bake from Salwa we stayed up late chatting about all sorts of nonsense, including Laura's ganglial cysts and Salwa's infatuation with my veiny arms. Salwa insisted I stayed up until 4 am for seemingly no reason other than it would become a tradition were I to do it, and so at 4 am we headed to bed.
Mr Ben
Dave had a portable jump-starter!!! KYW liked the jumps-tarter! After a quick little zap to it's batteries, KYW started up, and got us to Kingsdale! A Vesper <-> Spectacle exchange for some, Routen for others.
I went to Routen with BenR, Edwin, and Thurston on the rigging. We made our way happily down, meeting Arun, Perry, and BenH halfway, before descending to the sumps together. By the rifty climbs I found a cool inlet on the right that goes for 50m+ with some good crawling, squeezing, and pretties (worth a look for 1-2 people if you have 30mins to kill). The sumps looked scary, but the second from bottom pitch can be free-climbed around the back.
On the way out Perry tried to drop a tackle sack on us. He missed.
Mr Hayes
Rowten cave: Ben Richards, Chris Hayes, Edwin Fernando
Edwin and I had some more time to kill as Thurston de-rigged so we quickly ran through Routen Cave.
Climb down from the surface to the large grassy ledge (not that dangerous), then drop into the streamway and follow it updstream. There's a right turn about that leads to jingling cave (will definately do this at somepoint). keep going upstream then you come out 100m up the hill!
Mr Hayes
Valley Entrance: Christopher Bradley, Edwin Fernando
We still had some time to kill, so we also went and did valley entrance.
I forgot how annoying the stooping is! we quickly ran to the pitch head, looked down, and left.
Mr Hayes
Sunday
Turbary pull through: James Wilson, Ana Teck, Edwin Fernando
With many not caving (Laura had an exam...), we opted for two short trips. Simpsons, and Turbary pot to Valley entrance pull through. This was a great plan, as neither Thurston, Matti, nor myself had ever rigged a pull through! I ran in quickly to rig valley entrance, and joined back up with everyone as we walked up the hill. James, Edwin, and Ana were a lot faster, but for Thurston, Matti, and I, there was a richer prize available - knowledge! Simple pull throughs are way easier to rig than normal pitch heads! We should do them more often!
Mr Hayes
Swinsto pull through: Matti Mitropoulos, Chris Hayes, Thurston Blount
A very lazy start to the morning culminated in me landing in a speedy Swinsto pullthrough group, possibly joining up with the Turbary group halfway through depending on whether a lucky conglomerate group would form or not. None of us had ever done a proper pullthrough trip before, but Chris knew his way around ropes, Thurston was confident he could figure it out based on vibes, and I had technically rigged a single pullthrough pitch somewhere in Wales, an unknown time ago, so I was sure we’d be fine. Finding the entrance wasn’t too tricky, only a little bit of guesswork, and soon we were in the Swinsto Long Crawl. Thurston proved himself a maniac by rolling around in the stream to stay cool. I, meanwhile, did my very best to keep my torso out of the water wherever possible cos I was getting quite cold.
We really did faff about quite a lot with ropes overall – Chris wanted to try out rigging a pullthrough traverse line on the first two pitches, which worked well but took quite a while. I rigged the third pitch according to the way I knew it, which works very fast under the one assumption that there is already a knot in the middle of the rope – which Chris had removed to try out his traversing. So I spent an awfully long time first finding the middle, then tying the knot, then rigging it safely. I also managed to mess up at the bottom of the pitch by waiting in the wrong place, caused a lot of faff, and ended up making Thurston wait in quite an unpleasant windy place while I rigged the next pitch (sorry). Fortunately after that everything moved quite quickly, and we reached the bottom of the Valley Entrance rope soon after.
Chris naturally decided to not use the rope that he had placed, instead using an extremely sketchy bolt traverse on only his cows tails. I opted for the rope, meeting a nice Austrian man at the top. We chatted briefly while Thurston derigged, during which he told me how I could get into Alpine caving if I wanted to, and offered that I get in touch with the club he chairs. After we say our farewells we exit swiftly, a little closer to call out than would’ve been ideal.
Mr Mitropoulos
Alum: Arun Paul, Ben Honan, Ben Richards, James Perry
Many were knackered, either from the late night on Friday from the minibus, the long day's caving on Saturday or the late night socialising until 4 am. We woke to well cooked eggy bread, ulta maillarded bacon and incomplreshesnibly mutilated beans mixed with water and sugar for seemingly no apparent reason. I liked the sound of Alum as its already one of my favourite caves and the weather was amazing. On the way Arun greeted various random cyclists and hikers, greeting one of them as Barry while leaning out of the window of the moving car. Most of Yorkshire seemed to be either be doing the three peaks hike or walking their dogs by Ribblehead viaduct. When we reached the Alum layby there were loads of cars there too, and a group of cavers with children apparently heading off for long churn.
We kitted up and Arun realised that simply grabbing Erica's bag was a terrivle idea, as he had size 4 wellies, no descender, an oversuit big enough to fit Jan as well as Arun, no chest harness and two crolls. Dr Ben forced his feet into those boots as though he was stuffing a tackle sack to bursting. We waddled over to the cave, Ben H realised he left the survey in the car and headed back but finally we made it up the hill and started looking for our two routes. Perry and I went down the South East route next to where the path meets the stone wall and Dr Ben and Arun went the North West route on the far side. Perry tied a bomber anchor from some tree routes and went off over the edge while I got attacked by midges at the top. To escape them I went on a lap of the top, before following him down the epic shaft with blue skies and flowering wild garlic all around. The mist from the waterfall rose up and formed sunbeams as the light filtered through the trees, as I descended and looked below me I saw a BRoken Spectre as my shadown looked back at me wihtin a full ring of double rainbows. It was pretty incredible.
Arun descended on the other side after hauling up Ben's from 80m below, having down prussiked to the main pitch, and I watched as he descnded down into the thick spray out of sight. At the bottom we met up, realised that Perry and Dr Ben had forgotten the final rope and so we stopped and took lots of photos. I then zoomed up the 80m, dodging a maillon Perry managed to drop, and we were back at the top only an hour and a half later. A quick stop was required at "the fourth peak" ice cream shop by Ribblehead viaduct, where we inquired how much ice cream we could get for the one £10 note between us, which was very nice indeed.
We got back, met all the non-cavers, cleaned the hut, I washed my already quite clean kit, chatted about random stuff and then waited around for the Kingsdale enthusiasts. They came back, we packed the minibus, James inhaled a brie and Salwa led us back home. One stop off at McDonalds meant that Erica could exercise her galaxy brain and figure out how to get an entire meal for £3, and then we violently swayed home as Matti took the wheel, with Thurston expanding our brains with tales of walking fish, giant sea woodlice and the tiny detached legs inside whales.
This brings us to now, as we roll through Acton, half the bus asleep in dairy comas and the other half recounting tales of bygone years in North Acton McDonalds. A great weekend indeed - two superb caves and a triumphant victory over KYW. Bring on Y7!
