paul said:
Paul Marvin said:
You would be surprised Mark just how many people go underground not dressed properly
A few years ago a group of us were surprised on a trip to Oxlow Cavern in the Peak. We arrived at the entrance to find three cavers about to descend the entrance shaft. They appeared to be a man and his late teenage / early twenties sons.
They had brand new gear: everything from top to toe, oversuits, SRT gear, ropes, tackle bags, karabiners, the lot.
BUT between the three, not a single helmet!
Reminds me of a trip in Ease Gill several years ago. A couple of us were on our way down from Top Sink and caught up with a group around the area of Snail Cavern (if I've got the right name?), shortly before reaching the Minarets.
The group of three were all wearing matching brand new oversuits, helmets and lights, with a brand new harnesses and brand new tackle bag (presumably containing the rest of their brand new SRT kit).
We paused and asked them where they were going and the group leader said they were doing County to Wretched Rabbit, "this is the right way isn't it?"
We offered to take them to Lancaster Hole, as it would not be too much of a detour from our route and it was rigged. I then checked that they had SRT kits and knew how to use them. The leader assured me they would be fine. I described the rebelay and asked if they were ok with that and the leader again assured me they would be fine.
As we were about to set off, one of the group spoke up and said he wasn't too confident about the rebelay and what other options did they have.
It transpired that the "leader" had been lead on a Wretched Rabbit to County trip the week before and had brought his mates along to reverse the trip. Their total SRT experience involved going down the County pitch earlier in the day. The leader hadn't noticed (or at least admitted) that on his previous trip, he'd been travelling in small passages, but was now in a stonking great cavern!
I too them back to Main Line Terminus, where we fortunately bumped into a group who were heading out Wretched Rabbit and kindly agreed to escort the three numpties out. I say three numpties, it was really one numpty and his mates, who, had they not spoken up about not being very confident at SRT, might have ended up in an even worse situation.
Having bought all the kit, I sincerely hope that the two mates found someone more reliable to take them caving in future and I hope that the "leader" realised how lucky he was to have met two groups who were prepared to help them out, otherwise they would have had a long wait for rescue!
The phrase "all the gear, no idea" springs to mind.