Yorkshire V
Ben Richards, Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Kai Vice, Rian Austin, Rosie Hendriksen, Sheng-Wen Wong, Hoi Hin Leung
Friday
A relatively swift getaway from the Union in the trusty minibus (no thanks to me arriving late from work) meant plenty of time to enjoy sitting in traffic. Chris had already done the shop for us and in return we were forced to visit his adopted hometown of Leamington Spa.
One suburban pavement picnic later and we were off once again, with much cackling from the veterans when a novice realised in horror that it was 11 pm and we were still 4 hours away.
Chris and I constructed elaborate sleeping setups in the back seats out of sleeping bags and ropes, and Thurston then did his best to keep us awake by taking the smallest and most turbulent roads he could possibly find. We finally made it into the NPC at around 3am.
Ben
Saturday
Intended: Top Sink to Mistral; Ben Richards, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Kai Vice, Rosie Hendriksen
Everyone sleepy. Slow breakfast, finally finished at 11. Today was Easegill open house and given we had Hoi Hin and Sheng-Wun who were on their first ever trips, as well as Julien feeling a bit ill, we decided to split into an easy trip group and a hard trip group.
We shortly arrived at the absolute rave at Bull Pot Farm. The hard trip group decided to give a full traverse a shot, Top Sink to Mistral, but given the time it seemed very likely we’d bail through Lancaster.
Lovely hike up the beck, no flow so had dried off a lot given the rainy week beforehand. Once again the trusty Garmin was very helpful in finding the entrance. Which was surrounded by highly vocal sheep. Entered the cave about 1pm.
Top sink was good fun - lots of lovely long winding canyons, punctuated by occasional surprisingly large pitches. Kai became obsessed with crab walking. The larger cavers had to crawl in the stream because the crab canyon was too narrow.
Finally we made it to Nagasaki chamber, which was reasonably large. To celebrate this achievement, we promptly went through wrong way towards Boundary pot, by going down the hand line into the floor. Note to self, don’t do this next time. As we returned to Nagasaki we found another lost group who were heading to Easter Grotto, and we followed them along until when the two routes split.
Instead of heading up to Easter Grotto (which I’ve still never seem come to think of it) we carried on down into the stream. The time finally came for water to top my boots after having dodged the water the whole way in. Most of the navigation was quite obvious, and the streamway that got lower and lower did thankfully have an obvious escape route off to the side just as you thought the roof couldn’t get any lower. Thankfully it only ever reached stooping height, never crawling.
At last we made it to stop pot. This took us five about 3 hours at a reasonable pace, and with some getting lost, plus some minor traffic after Nagasaki chamber.
Stomped along the main traverse we zoomed down to Steak Pot, at which there was the first inklings of the open house traffic jams. Given the time was already 6 pm and we wanted to be out by 8, we felt the Mistral diversion was fairly ambitious. To confirm our decision, we then realised that the mistral description wasn’t on the main Easegill CNCC PDF, and also that the photo of the black book Thurston had taken had a big reflection over the key part of the description we weren’t sure about when getting between Link and Lanc. The connection was not to be. Lanc would be the easiest way out, but we decided to go for Cow Pot because it would be marginally more fun.
We waited about an hour total here before we could pass the down and up pitch, and I took the time to explore both directions of the main drain. As the minutes continued to tick by, we played with cave phone’s rainbow lights, and finally after much waiting we passed the ridiculously short pitch and were once again on our way.
I started heading up the direct hang in Cow, and found the rebelay surprisingly twatty. After passing this, and having spotted the next deviation, and annoying ceiling traverse above the pitch, I shouted down to Kai that she should go to Lanc instead, since she said her shoulder was started to play up.
Rosie, Edwin and I then pootled out of Cow Pot, and after some wriggling we all finally made it out of the fearsome tube, emerging into the beautiful soft light of sunset.
Wandering over to Lanc, we first realised the true extend of the queue. Apparently it was 20 people long, and Kai and Thurston were right at the end of it. What’s more, one of the MUSC cavers had just made it out, and said it had taken him 45 mins to do so. Oh dear.
This meant that the various 9 pm callouts that MUSC and Southhampton had set were now all expiring, and so the two MUSC cavers we were chatting to headed off to the horizon, initially looking quite lost, but then finding their way. We stayed to explain the situation to the final MUSC member who was still coming up the pitch, not that her team had abandoned her.
Walking back with Kris from MUSC, we chatted away and heard of all the queue dramas below - there were apparently still plenty more novices to come, and Kris had been waiting there for an hour already.
After getting back to BPF, I chatted to Becka and Rosie and I went back to rig a second line down Lancaster Pot, having been handed bothy bags, thermoses of Tea and a large bag of rope to do so. It was a lovely evening for a hike anyway, so I accepted my task quite happily. On the way back we bumped into Chris and Hoi Hin, who update us that Rian had gone out of Cow with Thurston and Kai, but that there were plenty of Southampton cavers stuck and waiting at the bottom still.
At Lanc once again Rosie popped over to Kai to see if there was any sign of the Imperial Cow second wave, and I headed down to the main hang of Lanc to rig a second line. After reaching there and chatting to Ollie from Southampton, it seemed as though the queues were overblown and that there were only 3 remaining Southampton cavers yet to ascend, two of which were novices but one of the novices was already halfway up. Beyond that, the plan had been to rig a new line as a straight hang in order to avoid the deviation that was rigged there at the moment. However, there was no deviation in sight, and the Lanc entrance was so narrow that a second direct hang would have probably made things far worse for the novice already halfway up the main pitch. Ollie decided it wasn’t worth rigging another pitch since it wouldn’t be long before both novices in his group were out and they had enough bothie bags down there anyway, so I left them some tea and headed out.
Rosie returned and reported no updates from Cow. This was concerning since the 10pm callout was nearing, and a couple of hours had passed since the other Cow team had apparently broken from the queue and headed out of Cow. Since the Lanc queue was now under control we headed over to Cow, still with no head torches or eh-oh responses to be seen, so I decided to head in to see what was up, set a 12pm callout with Rosie and asked her to push back that of Imperial three still in there to 12 pm as well.
After my second passing of the tube, I quickly bumped into an exhausted and quite ill Thurston crawling out of the cave towards me, with ominous retching heard coming from behind him. I was updated that Kai’s shoulder was pretty bad, and that she was also feeling pretty ill, and also that she had thrown up over most of Cow Pot. It seemed that once again I would be hauling people out of Cow Pot. I ascended the tube once more.
There was no handling rigged, only a small rope for the drop immediately after the tube, so I derigged this and repurposed it as a z-rig. One by one Rian, Kai and Thurston were each pulled out, although I think most of the value of the winch is in capturing progress more than anything else. Something Kai seemed very keen to remind me of between retches.
At last all were out, but I had been informed by the Southampton team that there were three more MUSC cavers who had headed out of Cow as well as the Imperial three, so I descended once again to go see if I could find them. Heading back down the tube I could see nothing but the occasional fresh puddle, and after much shouting headed back up to ascend the tube once again to de-rig the z-rig. Down the tube once again I re-rigged the pitch, and one final fourth ascension of the tube later, a voice floated down telling me that there were no more MUSC underground, so all was good.
Thurston gave me his bag, I gave Rian my chocolate bars, and we headed home up entrance pitch.
At BPF we were given a cheer by Becka out the window when seeing us return, and despite being ravenous I turned down the offer of a hero’s meal at BPF on the house, and instead helped the bus leave 5 mins sooner. The things I do for this club.
Back at the NPC I tried to light a fire, woke up all the TSG people who were already asleep, tried to get more wood from the wood store only to find a pigeon staring back at me from an inconveniently placed nest, and decided to accept my fate and stop doing things for the day. As 2 am rolled around, we were finally tucking into the nachos that Thurston had cooked, and it was finally time for bed. Then again, compared to the 3 am night last night, today was luxurious.
Ben
Intended: Lanc to Lanc; Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Sheng-Wen Wong, Hoi Hin Leung, Rian Austin
Sunday
Yordas Surveying Bimble: Ben Richards, Chris Hayes, Julien Jean, Edwin Fernando, Thurston Blount, Kai Vice, Rian Austin, Rosie Hendriksen, Sheng-Wen Wong, Hoi Hin Leung
Everyone was tired. Oh so tired. Most people were also ill from the mysterious nausea that was tearing through the club.
Therefore we all agreed that a survey session bimble in Yardas followed by a reasonably early return to London was the best course of action.
This bimble was indeed lovely. We stopped by Keld head on the way there to go see the resurgence. Edwin was amazed to see sheep’s wool on the floor, and asked if it was real. He took it home as a souvenir.
Yardas itself was pretty busy with tourists, about 3 or 4 of them being in the main chamber at any given time. This didn’t stop the surveying though, and Chris also got some great photos.
I decided to join Julien in passing out on the grassy picnic balcony opposite the entrance, and slowly the others joined us one by one.
We left the hut at about 3:30 and made it home at 9:30pm after a 30 min dinner stop. Not bad at all, and Thurston was a hero for driving all the way there and back, especially given he was ill for most of the time.
Reflecting on the past year, I was glad to see that the club was in such a fit state for the expedition in three weeks time after a year of preparation. Some things don’t change. Bring on Slovenia!
Ben
