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?
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?