St Valetine's sump

SamT

Moderator
Giants - How long does it take to bail this - anyone know. Also - are the filthy five pitches rigged??
 

seamoose

New member
After 10 minutes of bailing, the 'hole' where you pour the buckets seems to back up and bailing becomes difficult / impossible.

This was about 18 months ago, so I don't know if it's changed since then.

Last time I went the 'Filthy Five' were rigged, and I presume they still are. Some of the rigging is a bit dodgy though, to say the least.


Did you go last night?
 

SamT

Moderator
Yup - great trip.

Did it on Carbide which was nice (Johnny's training for mexico), Had to improvise at garlands since the ladder wasnt long enough
(I read in Caves of the Peak District yesterday that it was a 12ft ladder). John says "will a five meter ladder do" - 5*3 = 15 plus a bit - yeah no worries. Bout 8 feet short. Some uming and ahring and debating whether to go back to the car. 2 mins later - ladder rigged to natural belays near lip with johns cows tails and the drag cord off his bag. luverly juby - good bit of expedition training.

Had a look at valentines sump - looks good, but agreed that it would take some bailing, Hope that hole isnt blocked.
Then on to ghost rift. Next bit of improvisation was to fashion a cows tail out of the draw cord on my bag (recently replaced with 7mm tat - perfect.
Ghost rift is a nice - relatively untrod bit of cave with a rather interesting if not dodgy looking choke at the end. Needs some heavy duty attention.
A top trip. :D
 

SamT

Moderator
HaHa.

Well actually you cant. Garlands is about 5 meters high - from the lip to the floor. A five meter ladder used to be rigged from the various threads and natural belays on the lip. However the P bolts are now some distance above the lip (quite rightly) so you need a longer ladder.

It can actually be free climbed quite easily on the right (looking down.) but it is steep and juggy, fine so long as the cherty jugs dont snap :uhoh:
 

underground

Active member
Me and Nige went up the Filthy Five from East Canal last year and they were rigged completely- with both polyprop rope (!) of uncertain vintage, and also with what looked like 9mm dynamic kernmantel. There are some steep sections, and some less steep sections. The main problem if they weren't rigged would be seeing a thing to rig to or grab hold of, cos they are seriously filthy!!!! I got stuck in cack up to my knees at one bit, another I was swimming through it.

You can't bail the sump from that side......
 
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