Reading the papers or watching the news it can be hard to disagree with Jarvis Cocker's 2006 treatise on the nature of those running the World. A quality day's caving, or even a bad day's caving for that matter, is therefore a fine antidote to the general state of things.
Firstly you tend to be with fantastic friends but then there are the guides and topos. Equipped with either a Braemoor or Cooper description you feel navigationally invulnerable. Incredibly, for such quality work, the Braemoor routes are freely available online (here) and while NFTFH was purchased, profits from it went to cave conservation projects. The CNCC topos (here) and indeed the majority of the bolts we dangle from are also produced, installed and maintained by volunteers. Then you have days like today where your chosen trip is only possible due to the hard work of folk prerigging nearly all the entrances to the Gaping Ghyll system, cheers to the Bradford for this. Finally there are the diggers without who many, now classic, trips just wouldn't exist. Many of their stories can be found in the excellent Adventures Underground, the profits of which again have gone to good causes. I feel exceptionally priviledged to be able to escape to this bubble of magnanimous altruism, even for an evening.
Parking in Newby allowed a pleasant walk up, avoiding the half term crowds, to the tented shanty town surrounding Gaping Ghyll. The new online booking system was working a treat, a relaxed atmosphere pervading the shake hole and no queue snaking its way back down towards Bar pot. Perhaps the Bradford should offer consultancy services to the Nepali government, they'd soon sort the Everest queue. We checked in at the winch tent and set off to find Corky's. We found various other shake holes and Hensler's before finally locating our chosen entrance. Not so sure about the 250 m on a bearing of 110°, just behind the toilet block being possibly a better description.
We changed out of our sweat sodden clothes into even more inappropriate for the temperature neoprene, fuelled up on banana cake, quaffed some drink and descended the ladder into the coolness. The dug/blasted nature of the passage was immediately evident as we crawled, via a couple of short drops, towards the first pitch. It's recommended to approach this feet first along the preceeding crawl and this approach did make it easy to get onto the pitch.
Short pitches then come thick (thin?) and fast before the Nemesis crawl which isn't as bad as it sounds, though it is at a slightly funny angle for much of its length. Another short pitch intervenes before a shuffle under (through?) the Elephant's arse leads to Chemo Tim, the penultimate pitch.
Carefully descending the boulder slope below the echo from beyond became unmissable, something big lay beyond. If we weren't disappointed I can't imagine the emotion among the diggers as they reached the aptly named Vindication. It's an awe inspiring place that drops you into the vastness of Hall. At the foot of the pitch we had chance to do something we'd been unable to do since the start of the trip - walk.
It wasn't to be a huge leg stretch, just a wander up to the top of the col that leads into Boulder hall before retracing our steps for 30 m to find on the left, behind jammed blocks, the entrance to Mud Hensler's. A slippy slide down for a couple of metres before an unviting hole on the right led to an even less inviting muddy slip down to the crawl. "Are ducks a thing?" is an oft discussed question in our office and this became the subject of conversation, albeit about ducks of a different feather, as we passed an aqueous section before an almost pleasant crawl over smooth, low friction, bedrock - our small bags containing our SRT kit just seemed to keep sliding when pushed. Suddenly we popped out of the crawl into a towering aven with a rope hanging out of the darkness, Hensler's High aven.
I love the tales of how the ever resourceful Hensler tried to ascertain the height of this aven, from rockets to Helium balloons trailing tape measures. While shy of his initial estimates it's still an impressive pitch and I'm glad I wasn't rigging it - I'm not sure how I'd reach the deviation at the transition between open aven and the shapely runnel in its side.
While Hensler's aven lies directly beneath the entrance of Hensler's pot, inbetween the two the passage follows almost 200 m of dog leg. Velcro passage lived up to its name grabbing at my bag and SRT kit at every opportunity before we arrived at Burnley pitch. At the top of the pitch we removed our gear for the thrutch to follow. While never tight the connection and Birth canal were often snug, at least navigation was straight forward, just follow the shot holes.
Haigh's Bottom pitch (is there a Top pitch or is it purely anthropomorphic?) allowed us to stand once again and also to admire the pitch's rock architecture. Monica's, AC/DC and Buzzy pitches followed in short order (though I did almost miss Buzzy opting for a side trip to the ropes hanging from Big Benn aven). From the pitches it was once again back onto hands and knees with the occasional respite of flat out sections in which to rest in the cooling water.
A solitary frog signalled that the exit was close before a short piece of shoring, a wall of warm air and the foot of the exit ladder. We emerged back into the Dales in the middle of a heat wave and I staggered back to our clothes drying at Corky's, my legs unaccustomed to walking after nearly four hours of crawling. Thirst quenched washing down another piece of banana bread we made our way to sign out at the winch tent. Those about to descend and those who'd just returned determinable by their expression of either anticipation or quiet reflection.
For us too the return to Newby allowed us to begin to contemplate a truely cracking journey through two amazing pots. Even after a few drinks back in the Barn the experience still hadn't fully been absorbed. In NFTFH Cooper states that trips only made it into the book if they left them smiling for a few days after. While far from a Black book trip, where use of prerigging would definitely be eschewed, it's a trip that will definitely keep me grinning for a while.
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