Having enjoyed a leisurely trip down Lost Johns' via Centipede a few days ago, I was tempted to look out my notes from my first trip down  the same route some 49 years ago in December 1968. It was back in the days of tatty wetsuits, Nife cells strapped our waists, hawser-laid ropes, and electron ladders. There were four of us - how we managed to carry all the ladders and ropes between us, I have no idea. I have a distant memory of staggering along the New Roof Traverse with two ladders on both arms, a long rope over my shoulders, and carrying an ammo box...

The following is a section from my notes written just after the trip:

"A ladder was left on Candle, Shistol was free-climbed, and we were then looking down the Battle Axe rift.  Here we decided to take the advice given previously by Dave Newell, and rather than ladder straight down, we traversed along the roof of the passage to the left. This traverse is about 50' long, at first 30' above the stream flowing below, and towards the end, some 100' above. Holds were at a premium, but four stemples had been placed across the rift at not very strategic intervals. I used the first three, but for some reason avoided the fourth and shuffled along the last ten feet using shoulder friction. There was no point in using a lifeline as there were nowhere to place any running belays, and a fall would have probably resulted in two deaths.

Beyond the fourth stemple there was a small ledge with a convenient flake to which we belayed the ladder. Bob climbed down first belayed by Mel, and I followed. It was a beautiful pitch, free-hanging for the bottom 90', and for the bottom 50' adjacent to the waterfall, passing a ledge en route. Whilst Ian was climbing down the fourth stemple somehow became dislodged narrowly missing him, and landed on the ledge.

The lifeline wasn't long enough to double the whole pitch, so Ian re-belayed the ladder at the ledge, and double-lined Mel. Mel then had enough rope to line Ian down the rest of the way, before coming down himself, leaving the top section double-lined."

After exploring the passages below as far as the Long Pool downstream, and Lyle Cavern and the start of the Tube upstream, we made our way out. Ian climbed up to the ledge unlined, lined Mel up, and then continued to the top taking the stemple with him, which he replaced.

The whole trip took 7? hours.

We survived on luck in those days. I now prefer to rely on bolts!

It sounds like a very different experience to doing Lost Johns these days. Although I have a huge respect for the way caving had to be done, accounts like this don't make me jealous in the slightest! A great insight.

Fascinating blast from the past.  I expect most trips were a bit like that in those days and you clearly knew what you were doing.  I remember coming across a large club group ladder and lining on Centipede in the early eighties.  Many were just novices and freezing cold.  We were invited to go ahead thankfully and met them in the same place on the way out.  That sort of trip was quite normal too. 

I was there yesterday.  A mate recalled the stemples from the '70s, and bemoaned their absence - but if they were prone to dropping into the abyss, I can see why they were removed (or removed themselves!)

Badlad said:

... and you clearly knew what you were doing.

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I'm not so sure - climbing a 25 metre ladder pitch at the bottom of Lost Johns' wasn't the most sensible thing we did, although we did tend to cave with confidence which helps. At the age of 20 one is convinced of one's immortality; at the age of 70 doubts have started to creep in. I trust that the new generation of LUSS will be more safety conscious...

The trip was on a Wednesday, and we got underground at 6:30 in the evening, so I suspect that we might have forgotten to apply for a permit.

Well, langcliffe, I?m glad you survived!! I recall laddering trips down Lost Johns? and going straight down with the water ? once!!! Normally we traversed partway along the Battleaxe Traverse, and descended from partway along. In those days we used a lifeline, though whether this was more of a psychological bolster than a real thing, I?ll never know ? I never fell off. Though on one occasion I remember thinking ?I?ve done this before, lifelined, I can do it without? ? and for some reason setting out along the Battleaxe Traverse totally unprotected. Partway along I came to my senses and thought ?Uh oh, there?s a fucking great drop beneath my legs . . . 100 ft +; time to beat a hasty retreat?.

It?s MUCH better on rope.

I have similar memories of a trip down Lost Johns in October 1975 with six people in the party ... Some way down the system we discovered we were four ladders short of the number recommended for the trip. We decided to press on and go as far as we could, economizing on the use of the ladders wherever possible.

The first saving came at the bottom of Centipede where we found that we could free climb the last 25ft and so save one ladder there.

The next pitch, Candle (15ft), we put a ladder on. Two of the party stayed behind to make their own way out, but before they did so they said that they would leave a rope with knotted foot-loops for us to climb out on and dropped the ladder to us for reuse lower down. Shistol (12ft), was managed by dropping the ladder down after the next to last last man, and then me (as lightest in the party) hanging at full stretch from the lip of the pitch and letting go to be caught by my companions. (We reckoned that we would be able to get back up by combined tactics.)

The final saving came on Battle Axe which we split by taking to a series of ledges on the side of the pitch. By standing on a sloping ledge about the size of a card table over the drop with someone holding on to me, I was just able to reach a join in the ladder and detach the lower ladders to re-use lower down.

The final pitch of 25ft into the passage leading to the master cave was reasonably straightforward, the only problem being that we had no life-line for this having previously used it for the foot-loops.

Having spent some time wandering most of the length of the master cave we started out for the surface. The first adventure came when I tried to re-attach the ladder I had removed earlier. The ladder hanging down the pitch was only just within reach, and when someone took in the slack on the double life-line on the pitch it started to carry the bottom of ladder up with it!

At Shistol the rest of the party managed to get me back up to the top of the pitch and throw a ladder up to me, but before that happened a not insubstantial member of the party managed to get his boot fairly seriously stuck behind a flake while trying to free climb the pitch, and I had to stand for some time with his other foot on my shoulder while we undid his boot and released his foot. At Candle with the rope foot-loops we learnt the lesson that if you do use this method of ascent you have to put the loops much closer together than the people who tied them did for us. As far as I remember the rest of the trip passed without incident.

I think there are two ways of looking at this kind of trip - either it was a group of fit and experienced cavers taking acceptable risks to complete a trip with a minimum of tackle or it was a bunch of wallies who were lucky to get away with it. To a certain extent (perhaps understandably) I tend towards the former view. However, in retrospect it's somewhat scary to think about what might have gone wrong.

Dave

Catch me!  Hmm

This sort of trip was the epic of great pub talk.  Our club (NCC) was full of epic stories when I joined and with some great story tellers.  All fine unless it goes wrong of course..... and for some reason I'm really enjoying these stories.

Badlad said:

This sort of trip was the epic of great pub talk.  Our club (NCC) was full of epic stories when I joined and with some great story tellers.  All fine unless it goes wrong of course..... and for some reason I'm really enjoying these stories.

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Talking of NCC reminds me of my first SRT experience in about October 1972. We were off to Venezuela for six months, and anticipating big shafts and little ladder we thought we ought to become familiar with single rope techniques. Mike Wooding made me a harness, and foot loops for a rope-walking set-up, and I wandered up to Jingling Pot with my Clog ascenders and big beefy Clog figure-of-eight descender and a hawser laid rope. I threw the rope over the tree, and abseiled to the bottom, and then spent a few minutes working out how to get out again.

When I eventually emerged over the lip, I was confronted by half a dozen NCC members who were most intrigued. It finished up by all of them insisting on having a go!

That passed for training in those days... 

It stood us in good stead - we finished up in Venezuela doing some big shafts using very primitive (and not very safe) techniques. Cows tails were unknown, and passing the occasional rebelay involved wrapping one arm around the rope whilst the other was used to thread one's second figure-of-eight onto the lower rope. Of course both ascenders and descenders had to be totally removed from the set-up when changing over, so one couldn't really afford to drop anything.


This is a picture of Mick Farnworth preparing to go down that particular shaft:

Great photo!