Northern CHECC Report

Two weeks ago (23-25th March), a group of around 70 student cavers gathered at Bullpot Farm for our annual Northern CHECC event. As with the main CHECC forum, the aim of the event is to get student clubs to meet and cave together, but with a greater focus on training. All the usual the northern crowd were there, with members from Sheffield, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Liverpool, and newcomers Lancaster turning up. We were also pleased to have a caver from Newcastle Uni join us, as well as a group from Reading, fostering some north-south relations.

Friday night was standard fare, with a fair amount of drinking, most of which must have been from the toilet, as the grey water supply was quickly drained by our modest numbers. Saturday morning was made more pleasant by the full breakfast provided (as ever) by Martyn and Dave. While students faffed around finding trips/kit, Starless River arrived to provide them with whatever they'd lost/forgotten. Madphil got on with an excellent course on surveying (made no easier by some goon forgetting the distos, although luckily others had brought some to bail me him out). As the morning progressed it transpired that only one person was looking for SRT training, and they had already been shown the ropes, so the more formal training was abandoned in favour of an easy SRT trip somewhere in Alum. Everyone else went off to do some Yorkshire classics, one group making a speedy run of the Easegill traverse, making it back in time for tea even with faff. Myself, Adelaide (SUSS), and Chris (RUCC) went down Brown Hill Pot at Tony's recommendation. I can't say I enjoyed the original entrance much, but once we'd gone down the newer (right?) entrance it was quite an enjoyable trip, especially prerigged (although one of the ropes at the end not quite reaching the bottom was a bit of a surprise)

Cavers returned in dribs and drabs to once again fill the hut, as dinner was being prepared. However, just when we were all sitting down to eat, we realised that there was still a trip down on the board getting close to overdue. Groups were sent out to check the entrance, and when they returned empty-handed at callout time, CRO was called. Our thanks go to Steve Gray for coordinating the response from the hut. As it transpired, they had been found by a second party who had gone to check for them in the cave, and DCRO and CRO members already present at the hut were able to assist them walking back across the fell. The callout was caused by difficult routefinding within the cave (Wretched -> County -> Wretched if you can believe), and so the team were still in high spirits when coming back, and were glad to find some food had been saved for them.

An auction was then held later in the night, with gear generously provided by Mark Wright, and all proceeds going towards making an online resource for the Berger. This was a roaring success with some notorious gear hoarders, and around ?300 was made.

Sunday held a photography workshop run by Brendan (ULSA), some of the pictures taken can be found here https://drive.google.com/open?id=1w43HNZPnohLL1NYY0Iho4DV9a1aW4Cnp. CRO also put on a cave rescue workshop, well attended by multiple clubs, with at least one sheepish rescuee from the night before. Those of us that stuck around the hut cleared up the hut, allowing a quick departure for most, apart from GUPA, who were staying on a few nights.

All in all a very enjoyable weekend. I hope that those that attended the training learnt something, and that those that went caving had fun. Our thanks to RRPC for putting up with us (Steve in particular), Martyn and Dave for cooking, and to Tony for supplying us with shiny new kit and sage wisdom.

-Botch
 

lbenn

New member
A couple of photos from the weekend - first from the photography workshop and second from the auction.  :)

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