SIMPSON?S POT?SWINSTO HOLE EXCHANGE
Sunday, 13?07?2008
Miranda, John, Nichola & Bill down Swinsto and Barney, Rose, Paul & Tim down Simpson?s
Miranda decided that she wanted to bring forward her Simpson?s?Swinsto exchange ? scheduled for two weeks later ? to today, so we put out some feelers and found a degree of interest, thus we figured we?d go ahead.
Planning started with getting all the gear together (see tables) ? a daunting task given that it seemed to be scattered far and wide, and no one seemed to know where, so the first of a flurry of e mails and text messages was sent out to track down 18 ropes and lots of MRs. The second consideration was people ? we figured that we?d need a bare minimum of three each way, but that they?d struggle on the way out, so four each way was a reasonable minimum. The third consideration was, of course, the weather, which had been miserable and wet for some time. Eventually the gear started to trickle in and the team to grow, but we still needed extra short ropes and we decided to use club rope augmented by ours and Barney?s. Eventually the team got to 7 people ? Rose, Paul, Barney, Tim, Nichola, Miranda and me, so on Saturday Miranda texted Bill and invited him along, rather more in hope than expectation at such short notice; as luck would have it, he was free and looking for a trip, so we had our complement of eight.
Saturday was bright and sunny, though rather cloudy, with a good forecast for Sunday, and since there had been no rain on Friday, we decided to go ahead with the trip. As Rose and Paul wanted to go down Simpson?s, Miranda, Nichola and I wanted to go down Swinsto, and the others didn?t seem to mind which way they went, the split was made:
? Miranda, John, Nichola & Bill in Swinsto/out Simpson?s
? Rose, Paul, Tim and Barney in Simpson?s/out Swinsto
One thing that rather puzzled us was the discrepancy between the pitch depths given in Northern Caves and the rope lengths given in the rigging guide for Swinsto Hole, where the rope lengths seemed totally inappropriate to the pitch lengths. I?d never checked this before, because I?d always done the cave as a pull-through trip (except on a ladder trip ages ago), but we were intrigued to see that pitches of 8, 9 (15 + 14), 8 and 6 m ?needed? ropes of length 25, 25, 60, 35 and 15 m, respectively; given these data and our knowledge of the cave we thought ?no way can that be correct?, but did not have the courage to risk jeopardizing the trip by taking what we considered to be appropriate amounts of gear and finding ourselves short. In the case of Simpson?s Pot there is no SRT rigging guide so we deduced the rope lengths from the pitch lengths in Northern Caves; again, I?d only done it as an ?in-and-out-trip? on ladders years ago, before Valley Entrance had been opened up. I determined to measure the excess rope in each case using ?arms? lengths?! (See appendix.)
Sunday dawned bright and fair, though rather cloudy, and we assembled at Braida Garth at 10 a.m. At about 10?45 we set off down Swinsto Hole, and I was a bit dismayed to see the amount of water in the crawl ? not that it was a problem there, but I wondered whether it boded ill for the ?Split Pitch?, and if we would have to abort (on the grounds that zipping down would be fine, climbing back up for the others not such fun). Descending the pitches and following the stream along provided excellent sport, and using the bolts for SRT (as opposed to a pull-down) enabled us to get down the first four pitches without getting too wet. Then it was the ?big one?, which looked ferociously wet from the top (indeed, Tim remarked later that he was surprised that we didn?t abort at this point). In the event, you could miss the full force of the water at the top of the first ?half?, and then ? owing to the fact that the water spurted out ? you could abseil behind the water, as it were (though I gather it wasn?t quite so easy to avoid the water on the way back up!). A dash through the full force of the water (care not to fall down the bottom half) led to the second half of the pitch where, thankfully, new bolts had been placed round the corner on the right hand side, and with a deviation about two-thirds the way down, that wasn?t so bad, either. After that it was plain sailing, and we reached the foot of Slit Pot at about 12?30, with no sign of the others.
So we had our sandwiches (Marmite) and waited; after a time we figured we?d descend the final short pitch and go for a bimble round the Master Cave when somebody looked up and said they could see a light, so we abandoned that idea and waited for the others to come down.
We set off out at about just before 2 p.m. and made good progress until Shuffle Pot (the second one after the Blasted Hole [or Duck] on the way down), which proved a bit of a trial. Bill and I elected to climb up above the top of the belay, unroped, to reach a widening of the passage at the top (why there are no bolts up there I don?t know), and I really struggled with the rope bag I was carrying . . . eventually I ditched it and got Bill to pass it up. Miranda had to hang around for ages at the pitch-head while we faffed around and Nichola essayed the passage lower down where ? from above ? it looked ridiculously narrow. However, she got through and was followed by Miranda.
Although we don?t normally use a rope over the Pit on a through trip, we figured that carrying tackle bags out, probably a bit tired, we would want (or need!) one, and I was very glad we had included one. The only other problem was posed by the rigging of the Five Steps Pots (funny, I?ve only ever counted four steps there). The bolts seem to have been put in in rather random locations, so if you tried to prusik up you got into a mess; it would probably have been far easier to have simply chucked a piece of old rope down the whole lot and used it as a handline.
We emerged just after 4 o?clock after ~5? hours underground to a beautiful sunny day, with blue sky and puffy white clouds. An excellent sporting trip!
John
Best trip this year (even better than Penygent)! ? Miranda
Oh dear, I couldn't format the tables . . . which, to certain extent, rather negates the point of it! Ah well.
APPENDIX
SIMPSON?S?SWINSTO TACKLE LIST
The tackle we took is summarized in the following tables:
Swinsto Hole
Pitch Pitch length
(N. Caves) (m) Rope length
(CNCC guide) (m) MRs Extra stuff Rope allocated
P-1 6 12 2 K & S Club 15 m
P-2 4 10 2 J & M 13 m
P-3 (Curtain) 8 25 5 Club 30 m
P-4 (Pool) 9 25 2 K & S Club 25 m
P-5 (?Big? pitch) 15 & 14 60 6 J & M 52 m
P-6 (Spout) 8 35 4 Club 35 m
P-7 6 15 2 Club 15 m
Total 182 23
K & S = krab & sling
Simpson?s Pot
Pitch Pitch length
(N. Caves) (m) Rope length (?guesstimated? from N. Caves) (m) MRs Rope allocated
?Prelims?
5 Steps Pots ? 20 (?) 4 Club 20 m
The Pit (traverse over) ? 12 (?) 4 Club 15 m
Chandelier ? 6 (?) 2 J & M 10 m
Camel ? 6 (?) 2 J & M 9 m
Main pitches
P-1 (Stake Pot) 6 & 3 20 4 (?) Club 25 m
P-2 (Storm) 9 15 4 (?) Club 15 m
P-3 (Carol) 11 18 4 (?) Barney 18 m
P-4 (Shuffle) 4.5 12 4 (?) Club 12 m
P-5 (Lake) 4.5 12 4 (?) Club 12 m
P-6 (Aven) 8 18 4 (?) Barney 18 m
P-7 (Slit Pot alternative) 30-ish 40 4 (?) J & M 40 m
Total 179 36 (?)
Probably won?t actually need 4 MRs for each of the Simpson?s Pot pitches ? but say
40 altogether ?to be on the safe side? (?).
As regards the tackle needed, from memory & notes made in cave:
Swinsto Hole
Excess rope left in bag
Pitch Rope length
(CNCC guide) (m) Rope allocated (m) ?Arms? lengths?* Approx equivalent (m) So, actual rope needed (approx.) (m) Saving had we used my estimate (m) MRs needed according to guide MRs actually used
P-1 12 15 ? ? 15 ?3 2 3 (?)
P-2 10 13 3 5 8 2 2 2
P-3 25 30 8 13 17 8 5 5 (?)
P-4 25 25 4.5 7 18 7 2 5 (?)
P-5 60 52 6 10 42 18 6 4 + 3
P-6 35 35 4 6.5 28.5 6.5 4 4
P-7 15 15 Not done ? ? 2 N/A
Total 38.5
NB We used a deviation on the first pitch but not the fourth, and we also used one on the bottom half of the Split Pitch. * 1 ?arms? length = ca. 1.7 m.
Simpson?s Pot
Pitch Rope length (?guesstimated? from N. Caves) (m) Rope allocated (m) Comments MRs allocated MRs used
?Prelims?
5 Steps Pots 20 (?) 20 About right 4 4 (?)
The Pit traverse 12 (?) 15 Far too long 4 3, but 4 better
Chandelier 6 (?) 10 Too long 4 1 (?)
Camel 6 (?) 9 About right 4 2 (?)
Main pitches
P-1 20 25 About right 4 Probably 4
P-2 15 15 A bit too long (?) 4 Probably 3
P-3 18 18 ? 4 3 or 4
P-4 12 12 ? 4 2
P-5 12 12 ? 4 3 or 4
P-6 18 18 ? 4 3 or 4
P-7 40 40 A bit too long, but OK 4 2 (?)
Most of the rope lengths were about right, apart from the traverse line for the Pit, which was far too long ? 10 m would have been adequate ? and one other, probably Shuffle Pot (P-4). There was a bit left over at the bottom of the Slit Pot alternative, but not excessive.
Sunday, 13?07?2008
Miranda, John, Nichola & Bill down Swinsto and Barney, Rose, Paul & Tim down Simpson?s
Miranda decided that she wanted to bring forward her Simpson?s?Swinsto exchange ? scheduled for two weeks later ? to today, so we put out some feelers and found a degree of interest, thus we figured we?d go ahead.
Planning started with getting all the gear together (see tables) ? a daunting task given that it seemed to be scattered far and wide, and no one seemed to know where, so the first of a flurry of e mails and text messages was sent out to track down 18 ropes and lots of MRs. The second consideration was people ? we figured that we?d need a bare minimum of three each way, but that they?d struggle on the way out, so four each way was a reasonable minimum. The third consideration was, of course, the weather, which had been miserable and wet for some time. Eventually the gear started to trickle in and the team to grow, but we still needed extra short ropes and we decided to use club rope augmented by ours and Barney?s. Eventually the team got to 7 people ? Rose, Paul, Barney, Tim, Nichola, Miranda and me, so on Saturday Miranda texted Bill and invited him along, rather more in hope than expectation at such short notice; as luck would have it, he was free and looking for a trip, so we had our complement of eight.
Saturday was bright and sunny, though rather cloudy, with a good forecast for Sunday, and since there had been no rain on Friday, we decided to go ahead with the trip. As Rose and Paul wanted to go down Simpson?s, Miranda, Nichola and I wanted to go down Swinsto, and the others didn?t seem to mind which way they went, the split was made:
? Miranda, John, Nichola & Bill in Swinsto/out Simpson?s
? Rose, Paul, Tim and Barney in Simpson?s/out Swinsto
One thing that rather puzzled us was the discrepancy between the pitch depths given in Northern Caves and the rope lengths given in the rigging guide for Swinsto Hole, where the rope lengths seemed totally inappropriate to the pitch lengths. I?d never checked this before, because I?d always done the cave as a pull-through trip (except on a ladder trip ages ago), but we were intrigued to see that pitches of 8, 9 (15 + 14), 8 and 6 m ?needed? ropes of length 25, 25, 60, 35 and 15 m, respectively; given these data and our knowledge of the cave we thought ?no way can that be correct?, but did not have the courage to risk jeopardizing the trip by taking what we considered to be appropriate amounts of gear and finding ourselves short. In the case of Simpson?s Pot there is no SRT rigging guide so we deduced the rope lengths from the pitch lengths in Northern Caves; again, I?d only done it as an ?in-and-out-trip? on ladders years ago, before Valley Entrance had been opened up. I determined to measure the excess rope in each case using ?arms? lengths?! (See appendix.)
Sunday dawned bright and fair, though rather cloudy, and we assembled at Braida Garth at 10 a.m. At about 10?45 we set off down Swinsto Hole, and I was a bit dismayed to see the amount of water in the crawl ? not that it was a problem there, but I wondered whether it boded ill for the ?Split Pitch?, and if we would have to abort (on the grounds that zipping down would be fine, climbing back up for the others not such fun). Descending the pitches and following the stream along provided excellent sport, and using the bolts for SRT (as opposed to a pull-down) enabled us to get down the first four pitches without getting too wet. Then it was the ?big one?, which looked ferociously wet from the top (indeed, Tim remarked later that he was surprised that we didn?t abort at this point). In the event, you could miss the full force of the water at the top of the first ?half?, and then ? owing to the fact that the water spurted out ? you could abseil behind the water, as it were (though I gather it wasn?t quite so easy to avoid the water on the way back up!). A dash through the full force of the water (care not to fall down the bottom half) led to the second half of the pitch where, thankfully, new bolts had been placed round the corner on the right hand side, and with a deviation about two-thirds the way down, that wasn?t so bad, either. After that it was plain sailing, and we reached the foot of Slit Pot at about 12?30, with no sign of the others.
So we had our sandwiches (Marmite) and waited; after a time we figured we?d descend the final short pitch and go for a bimble round the Master Cave when somebody looked up and said they could see a light, so we abandoned that idea and waited for the others to come down.
We set off out at about just before 2 p.m. and made good progress until Shuffle Pot (the second one after the Blasted Hole [or Duck] on the way down), which proved a bit of a trial. Bill and I elected to climb up above the top of the belay, unroped, to reach a widening of the passage at the top (why there are no bolts up there I don?t know), and I really struggled with the rope bag I was carrying . . . eventually I ditched it and got Bill to pass it up. Miranda had to hang around for ages at the pitch-head while we faffed around and Nichola essayed the passage lower down where ? from above ? it looked ridiculously narrow. However, she got through and was followed by Miranda.
Although we don?t normally use a rope over the Pit on a through trip, we figured that carrying tackle bags out, probably a bit tired, we would want (or need!) one, and I was very glad we had included one. The only other problem was posed by the rigging of the Five Steps Pots (funny, I?ve only ever counted four steps there). The bolts seem to have been put in in rather random locations, so if you tried to prusik up you got into a mess; it would probably have been far easier to have simply chucked a piece of old rope down the whole lot and used it as a handline.
We emerged just after 4 o?clock after ~5? hours underground to a beautiful sunny day, with blue sky and puffy white clouds. An excellent sporting trip!
John
Best trip this year (even better than Penygent)! ? Miranda
Oh dear, I couldn't format the tables . . . which, to certain extent, rather negates the point of it! Ah well.
APPENDIX
SIMPSON?S?SWINSTO TACKLE LIST
The tackle we took is summarized in the following tables:
Swinsto Hole
Pitch Pitch length
(N. Caves) (m) Rope length
(CNCC guide) (m) MRs Extra stuff Rope allocated
P-1 6 12 2 K & S Club 15 m
P-2 4 10 2 J & M 13 m
P-3 (Curtain) 8 25 5 Club 30 m
P-4 (Pool) 9 25 2 K & S Club 25 m
P-5 (?Big? pitch) 15 & 14 60 6 J & M 52 m
P-6 (Spout) 8 35 4 Club 35 m
P-7 6 15 2 Club 15 m
Total 182 23
K & S = krab & sling
Simpson?s Pot
Pitch Pitch length
(N. Caves) (m) Rope length (?guesstimated? from N. Caves) (m) MRs Rope allocated
?Prelims?
5 Steps Pots ? 20 (?) 4 Club 20 m
The Pit (traverse over) ? 12 (?) 4 Club 15 m
Chandelier ? 6 (?) 2 J & M 10 m
Camel ? 6 (?) 2 J & M 9 m
Main pitches
P-1 (Stake Pot) 6 & 3 20 4 (?) Club 25 m
P-2 (Storm) 9 15 4 (?) Club 15 m
P-3 (Carol) 11 18 4 (?) Barney 18 m
P-4 (Shuffle) 4.5 12 4 (?) Club 12 m
P-5 (Lake) 4.5 12 4 (?) Club 12 m
P-6 (Aven) 8 18 4 (?) Barney 18 m
P-7 (Slit Pot alternative) 30-ish 40 4 (?) J & M 40 m
Total 179 36 (?)
Probably won?t actually need 4 MRs for each of the Simpson?s Pot pitches ? but say
40 altogether ?to be on the safe side? (?).
As regards the tackle needed, from memory & notes made in cave:
Swinsto Hole
Excess rope left in bag
Pitch Rope length
(CNCC guide) (m) Rope allocated (m) ?Arms? lengths?* Approx equivalent (m) So, actual rope needed (approx.) (m) Saving had we used my estimate (m) MRs needed according to guide MRs actually used
P-1 12 15 ? ? 15 ?3 2 3 (?)
P-2 10 13 3 5 8 2 2 2
P-3 25 30 8 13 17 8 5 5 (?)
P-4 25 25 4.5 7 18 7 2 5 (?)
P-5 60 52 6 10 42 18 6 4 + 3
P-6 35 35 4 6.5 28.5 6.5 4 4
P-7 15 15 Not done ? ? 2 N/A
Total 38.5
NB We used a deviation on the first pitch but not the fourth, and we also used one on the bottom half of the Split Pitch. * 1 ?arms? length = ca. 1.7 m.
Simpson?s Pot
Pitch Rope length (?guesstimated? from N. Caves) (m) Rope allocated (m) Comments MRs allocated MRs used
?Prelims?
5 Steps Pots 20 (?) 20 About right 4 4 (?)
The Pit traverse 12 (?) 15 Far too long 4 3, but 4 better
Chandelier 6 (?) 10 Too long 4 1 (?)
Camel 6 (?) 9 About right 4 2 (?)
Main pitches
P-1 20 25 About right 4 Probably 4
P-2 15 15 A bit too long (?) 4 Probably 3
P-3 18 18 ? 4 3 or 4
P-4 12 12 ? 4 2
P-5 12 12 ? 4 3 or 4
P-6 18 18 ? 4 3 or 4
P-7 40 40 A bit too long, but OK 4 2 (?)
Most of the rope lengths were about right, apart from the traverse line for the Pit, which was far too long ? 10 m would have been adequate ? and one other, probably Shuffle Pot (P-4). There was a bit left over at the bottom of the Slit Pot alternative, but not excessive.
