CHECC grand prize - Juniper Gulf, ACC's finest hour

oli

New member
Juniper Gulf had been on my hit list since a New Year a while ago. Jinni and friends had waded to it through snow six foot deep, but despite their best efforts they had failed to dig out any bolts.

ACC doesn?t have enough rope for Juniper, so it had remained on the list till EuroSpeleo. Despite the great directions the team provided we took the scenic route from the car and failed to find the cave. Yorkshire was looking its absolute best through, so you can?t really blame us for staying above ground and enjoying the view. 

We eventually found the cave and I descended. Toby joined me at the bottom of the first pitch, and we traversed along the rift, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Toby did too, he just pretended not to. We ran into a group heading out just before the rift widens, so watched them demonstrate how it was done. They were pretty traumatised; a block on the top of the last pitch had wobbled alarmingly with one of the team just underneath it, and they strongly advised us to give it a miss.

We ?conversation caved? to the top of the third pitch, where we decided we should really wait for the others, who for some reason had failed to catch us up. ?Grandad? Sam is the epitome of competent and we could hear an approaching caver, so weren?t worried. We were extremely surprised however to find that somehow ACC?s Sam had turned in to GSS? Imo. We had a bit of a laugh together. Imo said Sam had wedged himself into the rift, but that no one swearing that fluently was in real trouble. The only worry was that the rest of her group might not be quite as convinced he was fine.

Toby & I caved as fast as we could back to the rift. Sam, Jasen, and Dave all tell different stories about what had happened and why, so I?ll stick to the observation that the GSS were helping Sam and Dave had possetion of Sam?s helmet.
Eventually we ended up with me, Toby and Sam on one side of the hole and Jasen, Dave, Deri and Sam?s helmet on the other. As Toby was planning on giving the last pitch a miss he felt he?d now done most of the cave. Jasen and Dave said they?d had enough drama for one trip. Deri seemed to have missed the fun and wanted more cave. Sam was considerably politer to the GSS than to his erstwhile ACC companions and definitely wanted to do some hard caving then beer. Reunited with his helmet he, Deri and I headed deep into the bowels of the earth.       

It wasn?t long before we met Imo and her gang heading out. Some of them had gone right to the bottom and concluded they?d had looser pitch heads on exped, although if you did dislodge the bolder it would be extremely messy. They said we would probably be fine if we were careful.

Sam definitely wanted to do it. Deri felt 90 meters of prusiking under a death bolder was a bit much only a year after his first SRT trip, so he turned round. I?d done the middle bit of Juniper 3 times now and I wasn?t having people telling me I hadn?t done the trip. All three of us feel we made the right choice for us, although Sam & I also think the last pitch is an integral, truly awesome part of the cave that everyone should do. The boulder was both precarious and hard to avoid, but as the lack of threads about people dying in Juniper suggests we both managed it.

It was still sunny when we got out the cave. It was hard to believe it had ever been so snowy people had failed to find the bolts. Had Jinni lied to us all those years ago? Had she really just gone to a pub?
 

Fulk

Well-known member
Hi Oli, I went down Juniper Gulf during EuroSpeleo and we all aborted when we saw the state of the boulder* poised above the last pitch. I slid down to the first rebelay, wondering if I could rerig the rope from a further bolt, but I couldn?t undo the Maillon rapide.

Anyway, a couple of guys from the CPC, who were up at Gaping Gill, got wind of this problem and decided to ?sort it out?, so they went down there armed with a crow-bar and a lump hammer . . . but they didn?t need them. Apparently, one of them put his foot behind the rock and it moved, so he gave it quite a gentle kick, and off it went. It made, by their account, an awe-inspiring crash as it hit the bottom and fragmented into flying shards.

Given the number of people who did descend the pitch, I think that we had rather a lucky escape . . .

*I must have been ~75 ? 50 ? 20 cm.
 
Ah, juniper. I don't think anything could have stopped me going down there after my brief stay. A lovely pitch - even if the rebelays was directly a metre below said rock! It gave a great opportunity to stare at the inch-thick peanut butter-coloured layer of sediment between boulder and bedrock.
I still need to find Ian and get him a pint!
 

Mike Hopley

New member
We were lucky, arriving just as those Craven guys were coming out. I did some more gardening, removing the peanut sludge and associated bits of choss (after pulling the rope up, of course).

Even the shards at the bottom of the pitch were quite impressive. Being underneath it would have been certainly fatal.

At their request, I also inspected the condition of the rope for the last small pitch/climb. I concluded that it was in quite poor condition, seeing as it wasn't actually there.

Brilliant cave. :)
 

GoneCaving

New member
Fulk said:
*I must have been ~75 ? 50 ? 20 cm.
Rather a cuboid fella! Heard about this during Eurospeleo, and was glad to hear it had been sorted out. Had a similar experience in Simpsons a few years ago.
 

oli

New member
Glad its been sorted out, and am not at all surprised to hear that it only took a gentle kick.

It was definitely avoidable with care, but as you say would have been game over for anyone underneath a caver who casually stood on it (as the polish suggests generations of cavers did before it became loose). I think it is a good reminder not to just take the nice, solid quality of Dales limestone for granted.
 

skippy

Active member
I was one of the fella's who 'moved' the rock out of the way. I have never witnessed anything like it underground. The explosion and subsequent shockwave returning up the shaft was amazing and left us both a little jittery.

 

Alex

Well-known member
I had a similar experience in Matienzo, though we deliberately dis-loged it after pulling our rope as it was going to go at some point soon. It sounded like that skeleton that fell through the mines of Moria in Lord of the Rings an unexpected journey hence as the large rock made it's way down 52 meters. So the pitch was named: Moria.
 
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