There weren’t many of us in the van on the way up, and we packed everything very quickly, leaving us worried that we’d left something behind. We went up the M1, stopping at Northampton to buy all the food for the week and then at Loughborough to pick up Alex, our second driver, who had Melton Mowbray pork pies for the group. We skipped round Leeds and Bradford to grab Fiona, and then finally on to the NPC, where we arrived not too late for a few drinks and brie laden crumpets. Perfect.

Jack

The next day, we started slowly, waiting for Chris to arrive on the 1132 at Clapham. It was New Years’ Eve, and our original plan of going for an epic all night caving trip looked significantly less appealing in the cold light of day. We compromised, and decided to head underground around 2pm, and stay in the cave just past midnight. To keep our spirits high and our bodies nourished, we packed a load of ready made sandwiches and a stove with soup and wine to mull, and headed to Easegill.

To avoid any SRT we decided to go in and out Wretched Rabbit. I’d forgotten that the handlines are a little difficult, and so getting down took a little while. Down along the winding streamway we met the infamous Phallactite, and the more superstitious of us stopped to catch a drop of water from it’s tip, sure to bring good luck in the New Year. Rhys identified a tedious little side crawl to nowhere and lured some of us down it, but there were some nice coloured rocks at the end. We wanted to avoid the main streamway, as being wet for another ten hours would be tedious, so Rhys showed us the high level bypass that avoid Four Ways chamber and drops instead into Stock Pot. Here we stopped for our first soup break, with my little Optimus stove pumped, primed and making a good impression of a jet engine and boiling the water at an admirable speed. Too many D of E trips have given me a lifelong hatred of the Trangia, so the Optimus was a nice change.

Souped, sandwiched and well photographed, we headed onwards to reach the Minarets, up the ladder with the tight crawl at the top and into some lovely passage. We paused for a while as Rhys tried to imitate a photo from the cover of Northern Caves 3, Tanguy silhouetted in the distinctive onion shape of the Minarets cross section. We thought it’d be good to pop down and see the main stream way, and Tanguy ably and uncannily lead us right there, where we found fossils and minor relief for some of the party. On the way back to the Minarets I got disoriented in a large chamber, but Chris found the way on and we made soup to celebrate. Chris had been cunningly carrying the bag of comf in the form of two terrible roll mats, and these were very nice for keeping warm as the water boiled.

On the way out, we decided to check out Easter Grotto to kill some time. A bit of dodgy route finding lead me up a rather nasty free climb. I cleverly located a nicer free climb, handily marked by a scratched X in the wall. I encouraged everyone up it before realising the X meant ‘No’ - the ‘correct’ route was marked with a tick, a few metres further along! Still, good practice for everyone, and the straws in the ceiling of Easter Grotto were greatly appreciated.

Back in Stock Pot, we made camp in a high level passage out of the wind, and cooked up some mulled wine - I’d brought cinnamon sticks, cheap wine, sugar and cloves, as well as half a nutmeg, and the result was really something. We lit twenty tea lights around us and extinguished our torches as Rhys played the Lion King soundtrack over his Pringles speakers and we all sang along. What a wonderful way to spend NYE! The way out was a bit tough, some of the climbs up Wretched Rabbit proving hard after ten hours underground, but good teamwork (shout out to Chris, whose strong shoulders stoically served as steps) and encouragement got us out around half midnight. It was blowing a gale on the fell with thick mist, and the party was in full swing at Bull pot. Back at the NPC, all was quiet, and we all went to bed pretty quickly.

Jack

The next day brought terrible weather. Through what I can only assume was a terrible misunderstanding, we were advised to go Simpsons. The fast flowing entrance streamway, with its lovely refreshing crawls soon woke me up, but it was only at the head of the Five Steps I realised something might be amiss. I’d been planning to let Chris rig for the first time, but looking at the torrent I grabbed the bag and plunged in myself.

It was just like canyoning, raging water knee to waist high, grabbing the tackle sack and adding a good extra ten kilos to the harness. The rigging is meant to be a handline/traverse line, but I rigged it for SRT given the strong water flow. The second bolt wobbled alarmingly, so I retreated to ask advice from Rhys. He was unimpressed, and we rigged from a natural above the bolt with a sling. I kept rigging down five bolts, each one progressively more flooded, and until at the last bolt I realised I was out of rope for the final drop. I shouted to Rhys to join me, and we sat above the torrent shouting our conversation.

We quickly realised we were out of our depth - the water was too fast, and we didn’t really know what we were doing or how the cave would respond. We beat a retreat, with me derigging in the full force of the water. At least with canyoning you rarely ascend the rope! On the way out, the water in the entrance crawl was a good six inches deeper, and this in only half an hour - probably for the best we left then! Walking down the hill we could see that Kingsdale beck had burst its banks, flooding the valley on either side and washing over the now-wet stone walls. It was truly apocalyptic. We changed hurriedly in the freezing wind and bailed back to the NPC for burritos and hugely exaggerated tales of derring-do.

Jack

On Friday 2nd, we had a permit for Gaping Ghyll. Lacking the cavers for an exchange, we made it a rigging training trip, down Flood pot by Wade’s entrance. I’d been waiting to do Gaping Ghyll for over a year, and Tanguy was equally eager. It was a beautiful day for the walk up - clear, sunny, but cold enough to prevent too much sweating. Chris rigged the first tight drop followed by a rebelay to a long hang very admirably, and we all followed him down to the drippy passage that followed. Alex took the lead, and after a bit of route finding and exploratory crawls we got to a nice pitch head with am open y-hang, which I advised him on how to rig. He did very well, and was soon off down the cave again. We met another group coming out of Flood who were quite friendly, and we rigged the pitch off of some interesting naturals down through a waterfall to a winding narrow passage.

At this point, I took over the rigging for the big pitch. I took longer than I’d hoped to, with lots of advice on my y-hang, and then getting a little scared at the hanging rebelay. I got back into the swing of things for the two crazy deviations, wildly kicking off the walls to create a spider’s web of rope criss-crossing the shaft. The final deviation hangs you perfectly so that you descend to a ledge off to the side of the shaft, and I landed there and waited for the next person down to check we weren’t meant to go to the bottom. I waited patiently, perfecting my caving zen as various people struggled with the rebelay (my bad rigging? Their bad technique?) and finally as everyone was down I did some push ups and penguin danced myself warm for the push through to the main chamber.

It was a surprisingly long way, and the walls were disappointingly well graffitied. I played with breathing down passages to check which way the strong breeze went, and finally entered the main chamber, which was truly stunning. We were here past sunset, so the only light came from our powerful torches playing off the twin cascades that dropped a vast distance to the ground to form a mighty river. Quite overwhelmed by the sight, I stumbled and wandered around until I caught a glimpse of dark blue sky through the hole at the top. Rhys waved my over to a sheltered sand bank and I started making minestrone soup to complement our sandwiches - it was surreal to be cooking in the presence of such overwhelming power, but the soup was so warming and filling that I was happy that we’d stopped.

The way out was unremarkable, but tiring. My leg loop was the wrong length for the first pitch and I exhausted myself going up. Tanguy derigged at terrific speed, and we were soon on the surface (I think it was four hours down, two hours out - remarkable!) and walking down the Nature Trail back to Clapham. Tanguy went a little insane and started gibbering nonsense as we walked along the moonlit path - a literal lunatic? Back at the hut, a lovely gratin was waiting along with the others who’d been to Jingling that day.

Jack

The next day was a caving classic, Lost Johns’. Tetley had arrived, and took Chris on a rigging trip down Dome whilst Rhys and I took Rosanna and Alex to rig Centipede. Rosanna rigged the first short pitch very well, and we dropped down Centipede quickly, picking up the Dome crew who rudely commented on the speed of the rigging in Candle and Schistol. I’d never done Centipede before, having been down Monastery the last two times, but I can’t say I thought it was very interesting. Some complicated exchanges of cavers occurred at the head of the Battleaxe traverse, and we gained Tanguy and lost Tetley. I’d been desperate to try rigging Battleaxe, and it was a real hoot, swinging to the next bolt and clipping in whilst wedging my knees into the wall above the long drop into oblivion. I was sweating profusely as Alex kept pace behind me, but the traverse was not as long as I’d remembered and we were soon at the beautiful y-hang down into Valhalla.

There’s nothing quite like going first on a long drop, and fortunately we had just enough rope, having rigged Battleaxe and Valhalla with just one. At the bottom I waited for the others, and we set off to Final pitch and the main streamway. This was a good little bimble, and at a nasty looking duck upstream we stopped, took a photo and then exited, Tanguy derigging at his usual ridiculous speed.

Despite careful negotiation, the Centipede derigging team (Chris and Will) declined to take a rope bag from us, and informed us of this decision by promptly buggering off, leaving us with a bag each to carry out up Dome. This proved a little tough for Alex and I, and Tanguy was always close behind despite stopping to rerig Battle Axe for what I can only assume was shits and giggles. I sang every song I could think of waiting for him to rejoin us, and then we were off up again. On the surface we strobed the van for a response - Rhys had been waiting two hours, the Centipede team around an hour. Hey-ho. Back to the NPC for sweet potato stew, undercooked by yours truly due to a lack of patience.

Jack

Rhys had been talking all evening about going back to Brown Hill, a terrifying cave in Not for the Faint Hearted that he’d been to on his first winter tour. His principle memories seem to be crying with exhaustion and terror on the way out (good work, Jarv!). He was drunkenly trying to recruit people for a trip there whilst Tanguy was trying to organise one to Rowten and I was proposing King. In the end, I decided Brown Hill sounded challenging enough, and Tanguy went for Bullpot so that the SRT for our newest caver, Katy, was feasible.

At Kingsdale I realised I’d forgotten my knee pads, which could be quite useful for a crawling trip. Everyone became strangely deaf as I repeatedly pleaded for someone to lend me theirs, until Rosanna graciously agreed. It turns out she had Oli’s knee pads, so was it really so bad for me to steal them off her? Yes, probably. I decided to show my ingenuity by fashioning Rosanna kneepads out of cut up roll mat and gaffer tape. This was not hugely successful, apparently, but it was fun to try. Off up to East Kingsdale went Rhys and I, watching the slow and meandering progress of Tanguy’s team trying to find Bullpot as we tried to find Brown Hill. Eventually we spotted a wide plastic pipe sticking up in a small shakehole with a wooden lid on the top.

We quickly rigged a handline down and Rhys dropped into a really nasty entrance squeeze, kindly pulling my tackle sack with him. We’d been unable to find thin rope for the 80 m section, so we had 10.5 mm in the bags, which was really quite unpleasant. The entrance crawl is meandering and very tight, so you have to crawl on your side, changing which hip is down depending on the curvature, and pushing the tackle sack ahead. Despite it being only 14 m, I think it took 30 minutes to get through. We debated about whether the next bit was a rift traverse or a crawl - Rhys tried out the options and decide the rift traverse was the least bad, but it was pretty unpleasant., just wide enough to lose a tackle sack in. Rhys was giggling a little hysterically rigging the first pitch, which was tight and unpleasant and already rigged with the most awful looking brown 8 mm divers rope (thanks, Tony Seddon). We apparently rigged two pitches in one for a canyoning style drop off - the rope ended a metre above the ground, making it easy to get the descender off by just sitting down.

The next crawl was lovely in comparison, through to a high aven with a nice waterfall. After this was a rift traverse with a 3 m fre climb down to another rift traverse. Reading the directions off a photograph on my camera proved misleading, and we climbed a really slippery sloping traverse to the roof only to find we were meant to go straight on instead of up. The next section was a nasty crawl traverse, though sensing my weakness Rhys kindly took the fullest rope bag. I practised crawl traversing by falling forwards onto my hands and swinging my legs through and under me, rinse and repeat. Finally we got to the pitch head, which had a short traverse round a corner to a tight and awkward y-hand. Tony’s 8mm rope was much in evidence, as were many encrusted and rusted krabs. Rhys rigged quickly, and whooped at the long drop. I followed, my new descender so full of friction that I had to pull rope through it with both hands to get anywhere at the top. By the bottom it was steaming alarmingly, and I held it away from my oversuit for 30 seconds to let it cool down.

Rhys had rigged the next long drop from a rift traverse. This one was rather wet, and the deviation didn’t seem to make much difference, dragging you directly into the spray the was launched when the waterfall hit a well angled slab. At the bottom I was quick to scurry into the beautifully scalloped streamway. Edging down it we got to the final pitch, a short traverse and a y-hang to a chamber with a foam filled terminal sump. We sat, ate some chocolate bars, relieved ourselves and them began the ascent.

The first few pitches weren’t too bad - I was exhausted, but my technique was solid and I just kept going. I waited for Rhys at the top of the long drop, slightly soaked from the bad deviation, as he packed the 80 m of rope away. I kept very quiet about taking that bag from him, and he didn’t say anything either, so it was off back through the crawl traverse, falling and swinging as I went. At the end, I graciously took the heavier bag from Rhys, before we filled our water bottle at the Aven for the last nice crawl to the first pitch. Here we sat for a while, contemplating the awful crawl to come. I searched for a hidden magical door that would give an easy exit, and we chewed the increasingly tasteless chocolate bars for energy.

Finally I could wait no longer, and I had to climb up. The massive rub point on this pitch made us appreciate the thick rope now, though the rebelay was painfully tight and the pitch head no better. I struggled to get the tackle sack out of the rift for some time as Rhys crept up behind me. At last I was free and I went back along the narrow rift traverse to a stopping point where I removed all my SRT gear and packed it in the SRT bag. Rhys was making odd noises at the pitch head, so I sidled through the rift at ground level to collect the tackle sack from him so he could quickly get through and get his SRT gear off.

The final crawl was far from pleasant, but without SRT gear it was a lot better. The pebble strewn floor made pushing the tackle sack tough, and it frequently fell back on my head as I tried to shove it over a rock. I could feel the cold air though, and that gave me the strength to push through some tight spots. At the final handline I realised that the metre wide smooth plastic pipe was just the wrong width for my legs, and in a burst of desperate strength I hauled myself 3 m up the rope with my arms, punched the wooden lid off with my head and flopped out onto the cold frozen fell, the full moon perfectly lighting the scene. I hauled up my tackle sack and Rhys exited. On the way down we could see lights on the other side of the dale, and we got back to the van about 30 minutes before the Bullpot team. Dinner was some delicious cabbage and bacon concoction of Tanguy’s with a last minute impromptu spinach gratin. Caving games were played (Rhys and I somehow lost the pot and sling game to Alex and Chris, which I was gutted by), skin was removed by the squeeze machine and a lot of half price port from the Coop was consumed.

Jack

Our final day was cave rescue training with Tony Seddon. I’d been really looking forward to this, and it was excellent. Tony took us to Ingleborough Hall where they have a classroom with anchors and an outdoor SRT tower to practice. We learnt how to built locking pulleys out of SRT equipment we carry, how to raise someone up a rope and then lower them, how to rescue someone stuck on their rope, and how to cut a rope to lower people to the ground if raising them is too dangerous. I feel a lot better about being able to get someone out of a cave if I need to now, though I hope we won’t need these skills any time soon!

Jack