Bull Pot Rigging

[malcolm smith]

Thanks for that, you are a lot more experienced than me, mine was a far less experienced/competent way of doing it the first time, I'd managed fine with the old rigging. I'd be interested in how other folk, experienced and new to it find the pitch head which is a good cave for the less experienced. I'll try your way next time : )

 

[JasonC]

Did it not long ago and don't recall any difficulties getting off, possibly because we rigged a traverse line as Langcliffe describes (though this does use up a fair bit of rope, so you need to allow a bit more than the official 15m).
It was a bit of a challenge to get a completely rub-free hang - in the end we managed with an asymmetric Y, hung off double krabs.  To be fair, if you hang it with a standard Y, the contact with the rock is only slight and I probably wouldn't have bothered trying to achieve perfection if I hadn't been on a rigging course

 

[Hammy]

I did the entrance pitch recently with a group of young SRT novices on their first underground experience of SRT.

Since I am trying to teach and develop good practice on the approach to pitches I chose to run a traverse rope from safe ground well to the left (SW)of the pitch starting from the drilled thread, with an intermediate anchor arranged on the two spits on the back wall to the recently installed IC resin anchors over the pitch. It was then a simple matter for the novices to approach, and take a comfortable seat while installing their descender on the rope. With a competent second person at the base of the pitch to manage the landing the novice cavers had no problems descending and reascending the pitch.

While we were there a group of experienced cavers arrived, and anxious to get on with their trip they rigged the ?traditional? descent just off the two spits, using the still existing ?P? anchor on the far wall as a deviation. Because the spits are low and the experienced cavers seemed unconcerned, there was considerable rope rub over the edge. Perhaps shortening the length of the deviation sling might just have prevented this, though giving a particularly awkward deviation to pass.

My observations above lead me to make the following comments and suggestions.

Bull Pot is a popular training cave and having the suggested rigging with the IC anchors so close to the edge makes it difficult to teach good practice.

Having the facility to rig the entrance pitch in two ways would be beneficial in such a popular venue.

Although an alternative rig is currently possible it would be preferable to have secure modern anchors rather than the two rather tired spits.

If it is decided that an alternative rig is unnecessary and contrary to current thinking regarding placement of BCA approved anchors, then it would be prudent to remove the existing ?P? anchor and fill in the spit sleeves to prevent poor and potentially dangerous rigging.

From a personal point of view it would be great to see the original arrangement of anchors replaced with IC anchors thus giving two possible descent routes, one with a deviation and giving an excellent daylight training venue.

 

[Rachel]

I agree with the previous poster that although the new bolts give a serviceable hang, it would be a good idea to have an alternative in place. On my last trip earlier this week, I found that there was already a group in the cave, so had to rig under the rope that was already there. It was doable but I would have preferred to be able to use a different spot. Since the deviation p bolt is still there, perhaps a couple of new bolts placed in the rock near the plaque would do it.

 

[Alex]

We also had the issue of others rigging off there (two ropes already) and rigged off some bolts further back and used the devi to reduce the rope rub not perfect. On return with the other ropes gone, we found someone had moved our rope onto those two anchors. I am sure it was done with good intentions, but I thought it's not the done thing to mess with other peoples rigging?

Anyway it enabled us to test the new anchors and getting on and off. I found getting off easy, all you have to do is reach up and grab a hold of the rock at the top of the picture, then simply stand up. Like other's said you then have to edge away, however I did not feel at much of a risk of falling in.

 

[Hammy]

Alex the reason that your ropes were moved is because you had rigged your ropes off somebody else?s ring hangers! Presumably when they left (after us) they wanted their hangers back and didn?t want to wait around. It wasn?t me that moved the rigging.

 

[Ian Ball]

I didn't realise Bull Pot was so popular.

 

[Simon Wilson]

I didn't realise Bull Pot was so popular.

I did. Not only is it very popular but very popular with beginners; beginners leading themselves and beginners being led by beginners at leading.

If a cave has more than one route then more than one of those routes might be provided with anchors. We will take into account how popular the cave is. For example, in the case of Lost Johns it is a very popular cave and has multiple routes where the routes diverge before the first pitch so more than one party can be in the cave at the same time without rigging more than one rope per anchor.

We take into account if a cave is likely to be use by beginners but conservation must come first and we do not rig caves specifically as training areas. Training areas exist outside caves. We do not put extra anchors on a pitch to enable multiple ropes and to do that would set a bad precendent.

 

[kat]

Since it is popular with beginners, including those leading themselves and beginners being led by beginners, it may be useful for the topo to show use of a traverse line to the natural belay to the right.  Otherwise its a pretty exposed pitch head to get on and off and is frequently slippy.

 

[Hammy]

?ALWAYS rig caves to consider possible points of failure; ALWAYS ensure more than one anchor is used in any rigging; where possible use Y-hangs at pitch heads to spread the load directly across two or more anchors to minimise fall factors in the event of a single anchor failure, and always include at least one (ideally more) anchor (or naturals) as backup away from the pitch head (i.e. in a distant piece of rock to negate the risk of failure of the limestone).?
Ref CNCC Anchor Safety

https://cncc.org.uk/fixed-aids/safety.php

 

[Alex]

Hey, Hammy. I did not rig the cave myself, thought I genuinely thought our guy had rigged on in-situ anchors. As there was no rope on them, it seems rather weird that hangers where left there but nothing attached to them so I can see why he thought they were in-situ. I personally assumed he had just used P-anchors set further back but looking at this thread I guess there was not any, as I recall there used to be.