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Stuck between a rock and a glass place

Babyhagrid

Well-known member
A trip down Simpsons through to Valley entrance
Cavers,
James waite
Brendan hall
Charlotte Payne
Thomas Jackson
Thomas Phillips

The trip started in the usual way, waking up hungover and staring down a plate of hashbrowns and sausages. A brief detour to talk to mr Tony Seddon cheered the mood and we soon were preparing the ropes for the pull throughs. After a long time of choosing tacklesacks we left for kingsdale

We arrived and kitted up. And then walked down to see Brendon at his car. Which is when the first of many incidents happened . It turned out that his car was now locked with the keys in the boot. We decided that as all the caving kit was out. That it was an issue for after the trip.

We set off up the hill and soon arrived at the not very appealing entrance. Tom then decided that his bowels were unhappy and disappeared over the fell . And came back 10 minutes later without success . So we pushed on into the cave.

I had one of the ropes and crawled in front . Under the instruction that, if you see a fixed traverse line. Don't drop that pitch. So we freeclimbed past a few Phangers and arrived at a pitch head with no traverse line . I rigged a pull through and went down , and then at the bottom kept going down the rift until I arrived at the next pitch. This didn't look inviting so we waited for the person who actually knew the route(Brendon) to come and advise. It turned out he was busy getting lost with Tom, in-between the entrance and the first pitch. They somehow were crawling upstream in an inlet. This culminated in a stuck tackle sack and a brief altercation between a hand and a face. Soon they appeared above us and said that we were off down the pit and not in fact on route. A swift and very wet prussic later I was pulling through the traverse line and stomping down the right way.

The next few pitches went smoothly and we had a good system of rigging and derigging with two ropes on the go. And then we arrived at the duck. Brendon informed us that it looked very wet and that we should have a look for a small airspace. And pointed at the end with no air and lots of foam. A short swim and foamy thrash about later , he revealed that the duck was at the other end.
:(

On one of these pitches I heard a shout and turned around and saw a tacklesack flying down the pitch behind me. It had apparently got stuck and then was kicked off the ledge, which tore the donkey dick off the bag.

The next pitches went without hitch until we reached the squeeze above slit pot. I got stuck in this and had to remove my SRT kit. And in the process of taking it off whilst lying in the rift. My descender became lost. I realised after the squeeze and shouted back . And fortunately was soon reunited with Mr Stop. Then the saga of trying to get down slit pot started.

I rigged the pull through rope, rigged, tested, and locked my stop and went to jump through the slot. And found that I was much too large. I beat a hasty retreat and then tried legs first with someone pushing me. This ended painfully. Then I tried putting my stop on the end of my cowstails and stripping everything unnecessary off my harness. This combined with being higher up the rope and two people pushing me in got me through and onto the pitch proper. I then descended hoping to find the end of rope reached the floor. It did luckily.

I then rigged the next pitch . Which was very aqueous , and felt like being a captive of the CIA. We then sat waiting for Instruction on the way on. Unfortunately we got the shout of. "tangled rope, Brendon is going back up try and fix it" . Amazingly he returned 5mins later with a whole uncut rope . The boulder choke and stream went fairly quickly and then we shortly ended up in the master cave. The big streamway was lovely and we shortly ended up at the valley entrance pitch and found harry kettle waiting for us .

It turned out he had been tipped off by Brendon about his car and had been trying with tent poles and wedges to flick it open. Unsuccessfully however. A very long crawl and stoop later we left out of the tube and back onto the fell.

By this point Brendon has decided to smash his window to get his keys back so he could go home. Harry took great joy at being able to swing the rock to open it up. The keys were swiftly got with a tent pole and we all could get changed and disappear off home.

A good trip well done.
 

Babyhagrid

Well-known member
received_222084537167126.jpeg
some evidence of my struggles
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AlanClark

New member
The squeeze before Slit Pot is fun isn't it, I tried it and shuffled back before going over the top. Slit Pot was head first being pushed from behind.
 

Fjell

Well-known member
The squeeze before Slit Pot is fun isn't it, I tried it and shuffled back before going over the top. Slit Pot was head first being pushed from behind.
For clarity you can climb over both squeezes. The one before Slit into the chamber is just a simple climb up and down. The climb to the crows nest above Slit is a prussik up the hopefully in-situ rope. The top of the Slit is exposed and you should be attached to something. The pull though bolts I use are both on the right hand wall out over the drop at the far end. This is a free hang. You should rig a short traverse from the top of the up rope along the ledge to reach the pull through bolts which the last person can remove. Unless I am solo I rig one 35m to reach the bolts from the floor of the chamber, then derig it to use as a pull down rope. There is usually a profusion of useless tat attached to other bolts which is just a hindrance. You def need 2x35m, whereas you can get away with 2x30m from Slit. The route over Slit makes Simpsons a dramatically better prospect as a normal in an and out caving trip or exchange with something. I have never thought trying to prussik through Slit as being a fab idea to be honest, and it is very wet, we used to use Great Aven.
 
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