Oh shi

[Loki]

Saw this and thought about I think it was joe Simpson who lost all their gear when their bivvy ledge vanished in the night leaving them hanging on a dodgy bit of rope. Anyway I couldn’t think of any actual incidents where something similar had happened underground.
All I could think of was if you were on some big committing pull through and you accidentally or by force of nature dropped the bag with all the rope down a pitch or worse off a hanging belay mid pitch and had to wait til your call out expired. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2...er-being-stranded-in-himalayas-for-three-days

 

[Pitlamp]

The Lost Pot collapse?

 

[langcliffe]

This is sort of in the same vein...

I remember two of us going down Bull Pot a few years back. The place was already rigged, but after wondering whether to go and do something else, we decided that there was room for two parties, and rigged under their rope.

When we got to the top of the fourth pitch we could see lights beneath us, and hear shouting that we couldn't make head or tail of. We
descended the pitch to find two poor souls with their descent rope out of reach above their heads.

As it turned out, they had only been there for half an hour, but if we had decided to do something else...

 

[Loki]

Oh yeah that nearly happened to us down tatty wife on a new rope that shrank while we were deeper in the cave. It was just right when we rigged it but shrank about 2m in a couple of hours! Think I could just reach it and clip my jammer on.

 

[Brains]

The club I was in had a tale of GG main shaft on new rope. On return a human pyramid was required to reach the knot!

 

[langcliffe]

Oh yeah that nearly happened to us down tatty wife on a new rope that shrank while we were deeper in the cave. It was just right when we rigged it but shrank about 2m in a couple of hours! Think I could just reach it and clip my jammer on.

With the longest drop in Tatty being about 10 metres, that's one hell of a shrinkage!

 

[wellyjen]

Oh yeah that nearly happened to us down tatty wife on a new rope that shrank while we were deeper in the cave. It was just right when we rigged it but shrank about 2m in a couple of hours! Think I could just reach it and clip my jammer on.

A similar experience in Rowten. Needed a human pyramid for the first to reach it, then tying on a tackle bag filled with rocks!

 

[Lankyman]

Not human but one very lucky sheep. I only passed that way because I was tired and decided on an easier walk.

Sheep in a crevice, Potter Sike © Karl and Ali cc-by-sa/2.0

At first I assumed this sheep, jammed firmly in this crevice, was dead. When I took a closer look I could see that it was breathing and completely exhausted. No amount of pulling could budge it and its back legs were wedged out of sight. After several attempts I was exhausted and on the point of...

www.geograph.org.uk

 

[mrodoc]

A few years ago I filmed a very expensive exploder slide into a hole in the boulders when placed on them by a well known Mendip caver . The contortions required to retirieve it were a sight to see!

 

[pwhole]

I once followed a certain caver called Martyn down Leviathan in JH, and halfway down the last pitch found the rope finished 15m off the floor, with a fig 8 knot and and another coiled rope clipped to it, with a krab. He'd secretly taken another short rope down, rigged a pull-through from the krab, and was now on the floor laughing his head off. There were about five more cavers behind me, so that took some concentration to sort out

 

[mikem]

Doug Scott broke both legs on the ogre, then abseiled and crawled down with assistance, although bonington also managed to abseil off the end of a rope and break a rib

 

[Pitlamp]

I once followed a certain caver called Martyn down Leviathan in JH, and halfway down the last pitch found the rope finished 15m off the floor, with a fig 8 knot and and another coiled rope clipped to it, with a krab. He'd secretly taken another short rope down, rigged a pull-through from the krab, and was now on the floor laughing his head off. There were about five more cavers behind me, so that took some concentration to sort out

You should have just prussiked back up and left him to cogitate on how to get himself out. He'd have stopped laughing soon enough!

 

[mikem]

They were presumably doing the through trip to peak...

 

[mrodoc]

Sounds foolhardy to me. You would have to know the next person down very well indeed to try something as potentially dangerous as that.

 

[Pitlamp]

Don't worry; he does.

 

[pwhole]

I used him as a crashpad a few weeks ago, when a large rock briefly landed on my head (see scaffolding thread!), so it's all relative. And yeah, he knew I could get out of it - to be honest I appreciated it, as I'd never joined two ropes in mid-air and then done a knot-pass before. Never know when you might need it

 

[Loki]

I got almost to the top of that pitch once only to suddenly drop a couple of feet when the sheath failed. I then had to gingerly take my hand ascender off and reach past the core to place it back on the sheath again. It was a very ratty fixed rope that must have been there ages. Character building stuff.
The same thing happened to my housemate on I think garbys or cairn in the Berger.

 

[alanw]

When dealing with ropes above a drop (I think there might have been another relevant post in the Simpsons Chains thread), after my experience in the Barranco del Infierno near Calpe and Dénia in southern Spain (fortunately I had a spare rope in my rucksack): always ensure the rope is tied onto yourself before threading it through anchors or tying a knot.

 

[caving_fox]

I don't think Ian from my club posts on here, so I'm sure he won't mind my posting his story of bottoming the berger, and then on the way back out after a rest, looking up the pitch to see how much more prussicking there was, only to feel his helmet (and light!) slide off the back of his head and smash on the floor below. (He'd undone the chinstrap when resting and then set off without refastening it). Fortunately for him he had a separate light around his neck and was only another pitch away from the exit. A following party rescued the light and it was eventually restored to full working order, unlike the helmet.

 

[aricooperdavis]

He'd undone the chinstrap when resting and then set off without refastening it

I've done that through the Rowten sumps. It stayed on for the first two sumps and fell off mid-way through the long one. I surfaced in the sump pool (Rowten side) in darkness, but dipping my head underwater was able to see my helmet and light glowing on the sump floor, so was able to dive back through and pick it up. I'll never make that mistake again!