Back in the eighties, four of us decided to do a through trip from Rowten to KMC with two of us using bottles and two of us free diving.
After abseiling down Rowten one of our number who was to use a bottle decided he didn?t like the idea and would SRT back out using the one set of SRT kit we had with us, just in case.
Then came a slight hiccup when colleague No 2 decided they didn?t want to dive through and also wanted to go back up the rope.
After some discussion it was decided that they would share the kit and start on up while two of us would dive out as planned and go to the car, get another set of SRT kit and run back up to the top of Rowten with it.
Now I know this sounds silly now but the plan was to shout and alert our mates and lower the kit down to them.
Trouble is we hadn?t reckoned on the noise of the waterfall drowning out our voices and couldn?t make contact which in hindsight was probably a good thing, as a set of STR kit hurtling a couple of hundred feet down the rope was not one of our brighter ideas.
So, we waited in the gloom on top of the fell in wet wetsuits occasionally doing some mad jerking dance to try and warm up.
Eventually our colleagues appeared at the top and we left them to de kit while we ran down to the car to start the engine and try and warm up.
However, on returning to the car the battery had gone flat.
Never mind says I, you steer and I?ll push you down the slope into the drive of Braida Garth and you can jump start it...........didn?t work. It coughed a couple of times and juddered to a halt in the middle of the drive......bugger!
So we are cold, in wet wetsuits as our clothes were in a caravan in Ingleton, the car is lifeless at the bottom of a slope and a thick fog is coming down and we have no idea where our mates are.
Eventually, out of the gloom we heard a strange rustling noise which turned out to be our absent friends, one of whom had donned a survival bag like a poncho and was rustling his way across the hillside.
We finally got the car started as the farmer at Braida Garth very kindly gave us a tow with his tractor to get it bump started.
And as all good caving trips do, it finished with an evening in the pub, The Marton Arms if I recall.