Oscar D
Active member
Present: Will A, Mendip Andy and Oscar D
Following two previous attempts on the two weekends prior; Will, Andy and I had decided that this weekend would be the one - Crusader or bust! Andy and I shot down Oxlow in record time on Friday morning to Pre-rig the pitches down to the start of Pilgrims way whilst Will was at work. We were all set to give it a crack on Saturday, however a very merry Friday night caused us to re-schedule for Sunday instead - we wanted to be on top form to face the squeezes and crawls. After an evening of making sure my fellow cavers had drank plenty of water and were in bed at a sensible time. Sunday morning came around in a flash and I was soon coerced out of the bunkroom by a combination of my alarm and the heat. I roused my companions and we made a quick fry up before driving up to the Oxlow layby.
Thankfully it was a cooler day than Friday so we didn't get heatstroke on the walk up to the entrance lid. We had bought small bags for our SRT kits and plenty of Snickers bars and water, lessons we had learned from the last trip as being the poor sod who has to push a full sized tackle sack with 3 SRT kits in through the crawls is not an enviable position - even less so when you're dehydrated! We raced down the Oxlow pitches and only got the pull-up rope a bit tangled in the pull-up cord and soon we were in Pilgrims way - where we opted to keep our SRT kits on to save the faff and soon we were blazing a trail to North chamber. On the way Will decided that he didn't trust the last section of walking passage to the chamber and instead decided to inspect the gravel squeeze on the way to Giant's first - before realising his mistake and joining us above the up pitch. We had stripped our kit to the minimum to minimise drag and increase our Speleo-dynamics and packed them into our tackle bags for the flat out crawls.
Will and I reached the aven containing the first Crusader squeeze to find Andy had already employed his Mendip trickery to phase through both squeezes and was waiting at the top of the downclimb beyond. Some greasy thrutching up the aven and a bit of contortion and we popped through the eyehole and we were through the first squeeze and into the small chamber that lead straight into squeeze number two. After shoving the bags up to Andy on the other side - Will thrutched his way up the rift and then pivoted 90 degrees employing various profanities and primitive grunts along the way - soon joining Andy on the other side. Then it was my turn, the biggest and most wimpy person when it comes to tight stuff of the three, remembering the hard time I'd had with it last trip - but after some sustained complaining and statements that I was most definitely stuck - I dragged myself out the other side and followed Will and Andy down the climb.
The climb down had been our limit on the previous trip as we assumed it was blind as we couldn't see a way on at the bottom and it looked like a bugger to climb out of (Which was later proven to be true) so we'd turned around. This time however, after consulting the TSG sage for his wisdom , we'd been informed that the climb down was correct. Slithering down it into hands and knees muddy crawling we pressed on looking for a pitch up. Locating a chunky black rope hanging from above we raced to get our harnesses back on because we knew we were close to the prize. Once up we descended a slightly longer pitch on the other side and we landed in long, narrow but very tall chamber with a bolder slope on one end. Before the slope was a short pitch down into what we assumed was Poisoned Chalice (more like Poised-death Chalice) with a few microwave sized boulders perched above it who looked keen to make the acquaintance of anyone who tried to go down there - we opted to traverse over it and ascend the up pitches . These pitches weren't without risk either and you definitely want to tread with care, the ramifications of even a minor injury somewhere this remote won't be lost on anyone who visits. Thankfully it was certainly worth it to see the vast chasm at the top. A large void in it's own right - most likely more so to us after being confined to rather tight confines for the preceding couple of hours.
The journey out was uneventful, the squeezes are easier as you don't have to fight gravity and we made it back to the surface to watch the sun dip below the hills, feeling triumphant that we'd done it at last and that we could avoid going down Oxlow again for some time.
Following two previous attempts on the two weekends prior; Will, Andy and I had decided that this weekend would be the one - Crusader or bust! Andy and I shot down Oxlow in record time on Friday morning to Pre-rig the pitches down to the start of Pilgrims way whilst Will was at work. We were all set to give it a crack on Saturday, however a very merry Friday night caused us to re-schedule for Sunday instead - we wanted to be on top form to face the squeezes and crawls. After an evening of making sure my fellow cavers had drank plenty of water and were in bed at a sensible time. Sunday morning came around in a flash and I was soon coerced out of the bunkroom by a combination of my alarm and the heat. I roused my companions and we made a quick fry up before driving up to the Oxlow layby.
Thankfully it was a cooler day than Friday so we didn't get heatstroke on the walk up to the entrance lid. We had bought small bags for our SRT kits and plenty of Snickers bars and water, lessons we had learned from the last trip as being the poor sod who has to push a full sized tackle sack with 3 SRT kits in through the crawls is not an enviable position - even less so when you're dehydrated! We raced down the Oxlow pitches and only got the pull-up rope a bit tangled in the pull-up cord and soon we were in Pilgrims way - where we opted to keep our SRT kits on to save the faff and soon we were blazing a trail to North chamber. On the way Will decided that he didn't trust the last section of walking passage to the chamber and instead decided to inspect the gravel squeeze on the way to Giant's first - before realising his mistake and joining us above the up pitch. We had stripped our kit to the minimum to minimise drag and increase our Speleo-dynamics and packed them into our tackle bags for the flat out crawls.
Will and I reached the aven containing the first Crusader squeeze to find Andy had already employed his Mendip trickery to phase through both squeezes and was waiting at the top of the downclimb beyond. Some greasy thrutching up the aven and a bit of contortion and we popped through the eyehole and we were through the first squeeze and into the small chamber that lead straight into squeeze number two. After shoving the bags up to Andy on the other side - Will thrutched his way up the rift and then pivoted 90 degrees employing various profanities and primitive grunts along the way - soon joining Andy on the other side. Then it was my turn, the biggest and most wimpy person when it comes to tight stuff of the three, remembering the hard time I'd had with it last trip - but after some sustained complaining and statements that I was most definitely stuck - I dragged myself out the other side and followed Will and Andy down the climb.
The climb down had been our limit on the previous trip as we assumed it was blind as we couldn't see a way on at the bottom and it looked like a bugger to climb out of (Which was later proven to be true) so we'd turned around. This time however, after consulting the TSG sage for his wisdom , we'd been informed that the climb down was correct. Slithering down it into hands and knees muddy crawling we pressed on looking for a pitch up. Locating a chunky black rope hanging from above we raced to get our harnesses back on because we knew we were close to the prize. Once up we descended a slightly longer pitch on the other side and we landed in long, narrow but very tall chamber with a bolder slope on one end. Before the slope was a short pitch down into what we assumed was Poisoned Chalice (more like Poised-death Chalice) with a few microwave sized boulders perched above it who looked keen to make the acquaintance of anyone who tried to go down there - we opted to traverse over it and ascend the up pitches . These pitches weren't without risk either and you definitely want to tread with care, the ramifications of even a minor injury somewhere this remote won't be lost on anyone who visits. Thankfully it was certainly worth it to see the vast chasm at the top. A large void in it's own right - most likely more so to us after being confined to rather tight confines for the preceding couple of hours.
The journey out was uneventful, the squeezes are easier as you don't have to fight gravity and we made it back to the surface to watch the sun dip below the hills, feeling triumphant that we'd done it at last and that we could avoid going down Oxlow again for some time.
