loonylovegood93
New member
Tldr: big collapse on the approach to dickory (2nd) pitch.
On our trip down Craftman's pot today we were somewhat surprised to find one of the pitches missing.
Below hickory pitch it is still possible to squeeze through the boulder choke (although a previous in situ rope is well trapped so this has clearly moved).
However below the choke, the black book suggests we should have found a smaller passage leading to the top of dickory pitch. We instead found a 40 degree slope of rubble/gravel/boulders leading directly to the roof tunnel (which was previously described as something you swing into after abseiling 4m down the pitch). Above us in the ceiling were the previous bolts, these are now around 3-4m above the floor so can't be reached. There is currently an old in situ rope rigged on these which can be used to vaguely protect the walk across (as clearly the floor here is all resting above the void of dickory pitch).
Unsurprisingly, the flat out crawl after dock pitch was totally filled to the roof with rubble too. All in all, not recommended. Would take some pretty serious engineering to make the choke/slope safe.
On our trip down Craftman's pot today we were somewhat surprised to find one of the pitches missing.
Below hickory pitch it is still possible to squeeze through the boulder choke (although a previous in situ rope is well trapped so this has clearly moved).
However below the choke, the black book suggests we should have found a smaller passage leading to the top of dickory pitch. We instead found a 40 degree slope of rubble/gravel/boulders leading directly to the roof tunnel (which was previously described as something you swing into after abseiling 4m down the pitch). Above us in the ceiling were the previous bolts, these are now around 3-4m above the floor so can't be reached. There is currently an old in situ rope rigged on these which can be used to vaguely protect the walk across (as clearly the floor here is all resting above the void of dickory pitch).
Unsurprisingly, the flat out crawl after dock pitch was totally filled to the roof with rubble too. All in all, not recommended. Would take some pretty serious engineering to make the choke/slope safe.
