Last night CRO were called out for a solo caver overdue in Simpson's Pot. He was found safe and well at the bottom of The Pit where he had been waiting for eight hours since pulling down his abseil rope and discovering he'd gone the wrong way. This is of course the latest in a long history of such incidents, but that just makes it more inexcusable, especially as the individual was experienced and familiar with the cave.

I know the person involved quite well and although he understandably wishes to remain anonymous, I can share the following information.

The trip, apparently, was a spur-of-the-moment thing and was intended to be a quick trip 'that didn't require thinking about'. He entered the cave at about 4:30 and after scrambling down the cascades (which are sometimes roped) he was looking for the first pitch, which he remembered as being before the traverse over The Pit. Overconfidence must have been at work at this stage, because when he arrived at the traverse bolts, he set up his abseil without a moments second thought - not even glancing over the pitch head where he would have seen the polished traverse and the clearly visible continuation passage ahead. As he abseiled down, he even registered that the pitch head was tighter than he remembered, and the pitch was bigger and wetter than he remembered. But such was his confidence in this familiar cave that, without a moment's second thought, he pulled down his rope, stuffed it in the bag and set off to find the traverse. It was at this point that the cave became much less familiar, a tight downward slot led immediately to another pitch and most tellingly the cave did not look well-travelled. I think there was an 'Oh Bother' moment at that point. He knew exactly what he'd done.

He did look at the possibilities for climbing out, but sensibly dismissed that as not a sane option. He then set out to make a determined attempt to find the link to Storm Pot, which is mentioned in the guidebook, but which nobody seems to have done. He descended a very wet pitch, using a less than ideal belay, and reached a sump. There was no other way on, so he re-ascended the pitch to commence his long wait.

He had descended The Pit at 5 p.m. and the call-out time that he'd left with his partner was 10 p.m. He was stuck in a cold, wet and draughty place with nowhere to even sit down comfortably, but he managed to stay warm by spending alternate hours exercising and resting wrapped in a thin polythene survival bag.

During his wait, he had plenty of time to think about the anguish that his partner would be going through, and the trouble that the rescue team would be put to, due to his stupid mistake. He is more than a little embarrassed by the incident, and would prefer to stay anonymous.

But he wants to pass on both his apologies and his thanks to everyone involved in his rescue. So, from me, sorry everyone.

Doh! Is there a case for cable tying a small note to a bolt at the start of the traverse? I've been part of a group of (I think) 5 experienced cavers who had done the cave before - the first 3 cavers had all abseiled down the pit on a pull through trip before somebody pointed out the error of their ways.

Sorry to say but I agree, that pit needs a laminated sign, someone's gonna get killed one of these days!

Tsk.. :

Very admirable of that person to make such a post and admit the error of his ways, at least it wasn't anything more serious - sounds like pride dented more than anything else, I guess he has learned a lesson (the hard way) too.. 

He was still kitting up as we got back to the car from our Simpson's pull through. We thought he was a bit 'brave' going in there solo.
Glad he got out safe, shame he didn't manage to recover the 55m we left jammed in slit tho

Glad he got out ok it's one of those caves that can be easy or an epic nightmare!

Well he may have been daft enough to drop the pit but at least he had the sense to gave a location and call out time.

GT said:

Well he may have been daft enough to drop the pit but at least he had the sense to gave a location and call out time.

Click to expand...

No offense mean't to the above individual but it's such examples that give solo caving and it's practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be soloing and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous.

Morning,

As a slight aside - people should also be careful not to get the cave wrong as well. Turbary Pot which is adjacent to Swinsto / Simpsons is blind at the bottom and in the past, parties have abbed in and pulled through thinking they were in either of the former caves. Problems then arise even if they have given a call out time and location.

D.

Simon Beck said:

No offense mean't to the above individual but it's such examples that give solo caving and it's practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be soloing and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous.

Click to expand...

Assuming that its not just solo cavers who have been caught out there could the following statements also apply then?

"It's such examples that give group caving and it's practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be caving in a group and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous."


"It's such examples that give caving clubs and there practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be caving with a club and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous."

Blakethwaite said:

Simon Beck said:

No offense mean't to the above individual but it's such examples that give solo caving and it's practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be soloing and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous.

Click to expand...

Assuming that its not just solo cavers who have been caught out there could the following statements also apply then?

"It's such examples that give group caving and it's practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be caving in a group and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous."




"It's such examples that give caving clubs and there practitioners a bad name. Contrary to the original statement, obviously he wasn't familiar enough with this cave or prudent enough to be caving with a club and 'experience(d)' well that's just dangerous."

Click to expand...

In response to the above retort...... This is an isolated thread about an isolated incident and my isolated comment was in response and relevant to that...... If i was taking the whole spectrum of past cave rescues into consideration then i would agree with the above, but! that's not why you posted the above is it?....

Simon Beck said:

In response to the above retort...... This is an isolated thread about an isolated incident and my isolated comment was in response and relevant to that...... If i was taking the whole spectrum of past cave rescues into consideration then i would agree with the above, but! that's not why you posted the above is it?....

Click to expand...

I posted because I did not agree with your statement.
He made a mistake plainly, but he was adequately prepared for that mistake - call out time - survival blanket - wherewithal to keep himself busy/warm etc.
I simply cannot see what being a solo caver has to do with his predicament. Groups of cavers get into the exact same situation and there is no reason to believe all of them will cope with it as well as he did.

You're welcome to your opinion bud, and maybe mine was misplaced and un-neccesary, but when the rescue gets published in the local papers, the fact he was a solo caver, soloing, will be of great relevance to the readers. And to those unaware of the fact people do such things alone, soloing will seem to them like the cause of this incident(in the public eye, that is).
I managed for years operating alone in far harder caves and onsight most of the time and although i never thought i was infallible, i was always aware i had no one to watch my back in the event something bad happened, so i acted accordingly.... If there's ever any doubt, there is none. I just can't get over how silly a mistake this was from someone who was apparently familiar with this place...

Btw this is not a dig at solo caving, far from it..... a reaction to an isolated case that's all...

As someone who mostly caves solo I don't understand the hostility shown by some to solo caving.    Groups have been stranded for some pritty stupid reasons in the past.

Solo caver is likely to memorise survey and description before starting (not that  that always helps).  Solo caver knows help us very far away. I cave much more 'conservitivly' when on  me own.

Thing about solo caving  is it can be quite mentaly challenging as well as physically - gets adictive it does.

As for public perception-ignorance. ..  I've  heard otherwise sane person say climbing should be banned because it puts rescuers at risk - attitudes like that are not worth concideration IMHO.

Solo caving is great, you get to explore all the small creveses that no one wants to wait for you to explore, take as long as you want with photo's. I am in the process of trying to find some interesting caves to explore solo near me.

Yorkshire Dales has a few caves about the place Alex 

From my expectation if you ended up down turbury in error then at least the police would know you're somewhere as your car is still there.

As for heading into the pit, what a long time to feel an idiot. 

I find that since that 127 hours came out, the reaction to solo caving is more disapproving than it used to be.

There seems to be two sorts of solo cavers. Those who just do it, and those who do it and take every opportunity going to let everyone else know that they do it.

Yeah, I think the solo aspect was incidental in this case.

In response to Simon's other comment, specifically "I just can't get over how silly a mistake this was from someone who was apparently familiar with this place...", nor can I.

Yeah - the poor bloke's suffered enough for his mistake. Let's not pillory him on a forum.

Solo caving is an entirely legitimate activity. Done properly it's actually very safe. There are some situations where solo is actually safest. Simon is very experienced and has done more difficult solo caving than most - I think he's trying to disassociate the fact that the rescuee was on his own from other reasons for the incident.

I hope I'm not the only one who feels uncomfortable about putting a sign on the Pit though. The implications associated with this response to the incident go much further than just dealing with this one hazard. I can see pros and cons and I'm more than happy to go with the flow if there's massive support for it. But I don't like the idea. In the same cave system not so long ago there was someone who free dived into Mud River Sump 1, believing it to be Rowten Sumps. Mud River Sump 1 is getting on for 30 m long. There was talk at the time of putting a sign there to warn people that it's not the Rowten Sumps. We dealt with this in what I feel is a more appropriate way (the line was rebelayed underwater so "normal" cavers probably wouldn't see it).

You can't put warning notices up on every hazard in a cave system. Think what happens if a sign disappears, say, due to a flood, or someone who disagrees removing it; the next group assumes they're going the right way because there's no sign telling them otherwise. There may be better ways of achieving the desired objective.