Kiln Piece Hole to Wet Sink through trip! 19/7/25.
Through trippers: Tim Nichols, Pete Hall, Ian Healey, Rhys Williams, Joel Foyster, Dan Sandford.
Underground support: Falkland Anderson, James Higgins
Overground support: Paul Taylor, Jon Forster, Danny Copeland.
For 31 years, there has been a dream of a through trip from Kiln Piece Hole to Wet Sink in Slaughter Stream Cave. On Saturday, a large team worked together to achieve that dream!
After various discussions throughout the week, it was decided that a one way trip was on from KPH to WS. (A proposal for an exchange trip was discussed and dropped on practical and safety grounds).
Pete and myself went down KPH first, just before 10am, followed by Rhys, with the job to pump the dams and clear the way for the rest. Pete saw the 2nd duck was lower than when he first pushed through, so decided to go for it, with his neoprene hood on. He planned to push forward, to enlarge the slot in One Nostril chamber, and then start digging the squeezes bigger. I looked at it and decided that it was far too high for us all to go through and would need pumping. The only way we could do this was to get everyone to Blind Optimism chamber, then pump the water back to fill sump 1, in effect trapping us in. We eventually got everyone through and started pumping back. James manned the dam, and agreed to hang around for a while, after we had all pushed through, just in case we had to return to the KPH entrance. Thanks James – You were an important safety ‘cog in the system’.
We all slithered through the wet, cold, muddy ducks and crawls, and popped out into the Coal Bunker chamber. The next crawls were a real struggle - everyone was really blowing hard. We had hit a section of bad air in the low passages. We got to a small higher aven and regrouped. We were all quite worried and we hadn’t yet found Pete! No other choice but to push on, the air gradually got better as the passages got a little bigger.
We eventually found Pete, thankfully still conscious, in the tight squeezes that had been recently surveyed. He had been enlarging he as went with a spade. He was very glad to see us, as by now it was at least 2 hours since he had left us. We speculated that his efforts may have used up some oxygen and digging up the mud and gravel may have release some CO2. With the extra 5 of us coming through, O2 levels had been used up quickly!
Rhys and myself took to the front, with crowbars, and enlarged the tight passages as went (I’m not sure Pete was convinced we had widened them!) Joel and Tim wanted to survey a side passage, as rightly, it was assumed that it may be a while before anybody gets back there, whilst Ian got all the drama on video.
Finally, the passages started to get bigger heading down Pirate Passage - hands and knees crawling was quite a relief. Ploughing onwards, it seemed to take ages to get to Star Shaft.
We came out in drabs and drabs, all thoroughly knackered and vowing never to do the trip again - all out by about 6pm. It was great to be greeted by Falky and Paul at the entrance and there was a good bottle of Champagne waiting for us to toast our achievements! (I’m not sure I savoured the fizz much – it was gulped down!)
Massive kudos to Paul and Dave Appleling, who managed most of the trip 30 odd years ago -They were so close to KPH!
A great, hard day for Forest caving and a magnificent team effort. Well done to all involved.
More pics and video will be out soon + write up in Descent, and of course full report at Hidden Earth!
