Yorkshire, 27th Dec-1st Jan - Alex Crow

27th December - Lancaster Hole, Ease Gill - Skittle Alley

Jess Stirrups, Alex Crow, Toby Speight and Anthony Day

Jess and I arrived at Bullpot Farm at around 11:00 only to find that everyone had already gone caving. Given that it was still relatively early in the day we thought we had a good chance of catching Toby and Anthony and set off for Lancaster Hole at a serious pace. We arrived at Lancaster Hole to find Toby just below the shaft top with Anthony rigging below (success!).

Following some surprisingly competent navigation we managed to find Skittle Ally via the Graveyard and admired assorted formations and the long sump pool. Various ropes and traverse lines lead off above the pool and Toby used these to aid some sketchy climbing around in the ceiling.

28th December - Christmas Pot and Grange Rig exchange

Alex Crow, Jess Stirrups, Anthony Day and Paul.

Someone booked a Christmas Pot and Grange Rig permit and none of us had ever been to either cave so, after a quick glance at the rigging guide we set out on an exchange trip.

The caves are located on the side of Ingleborough near Gaping Gill in shallow depressions and the walk up was rather pleasant for the time of year. Further navigational competence ensued and we found both caves fairly quickly with minimal faff.

Jess and Anthony set off down Grange Rig and Paul and I went down Christmas Pot. Paul rigged the first pitch which comprises a series of corkscrewing ledges with many rebelays and this went fairly smoothly apart from having to thread a load of rope through on the last hang.

I took over for the second pitch which is primarily rigged on naturals all of which are rubbish. Some re-rigging was required when it became apparent that I really was going to have to rebalay off a bit of shagged green tat. I ended up with 4 slings hopefully deployed in the top 2m of the pitch. Once again we almost ran out of rope. Whoever wrote the rigging guide for Christmas Pot was very economical! If anyone fancies a trip take some long slings as well.

Having got to the bottom of this pitch series we were surprised to find that Jess and Anthony had not appeared. Given how trival the rigging for Grange Rig had appeared in the guide we wondered if they might have already set out. We spent some time admiring some rather splendid formations and climbing around.

It eventually reached 17:00, our agreed turnaround time and there was no sign of Anthony and Jess. Paul started off up the pitch and I went for a quick look upstream to see if there was any sign of team Grange Rigg. About 5 minutes later I started getting replies to my shouts and, as Jess got closer I was told in no uncertain terms to wait right where I was. Eventually Jess and Anthony joined us. It turns out that Grange Rigg was rather strenuous and one of us should have bothered to read a proper description!

It was agreed by all that Paul wouldn't fit out of Grange Rigg (lucky man) and that as I hadn't yet had the pleasure I would be derigging it. Jess and Anthony then spent a considerable period of time trying to persuade the other that they should be the one to accompany me on the derigging trip. Eventually Jess agreed to come back out through Grange Rigg. We left Christmas Pot rigged in case one or both of us didn't fit out of grange rig.

I can confirm that Grange Rig was a massive arse on the way out and was definitely not the leisurely trip we had expected!

Special credit to Anthony for going back a few days later on a solo trip to derig Christmas Pot.

29th December - Notts Pot, Left and Route and Adamsons Route

Alex Crow, Jess Stirrups, Dave Leuffleur and Sarah Zerbes

Someone decided we should do a massive and overly complicated Notts Pot exchange trip. We set off down Left Hand Route. This got off to a splendid start when Sarah posted herself and (more importantly) a tackle sack into an improbably small canyon passage in the entrance crawl just as David was busy dropping his light down the 2nd pitch. I finished rigging the second pitch while Dave went to retrieve Sarah and the bag. We were eventually all reunited at the bottom of the second pitch.

Dave continued rigging as he had actually been here before but managed to drop his light down the 3rd? pitch. Apparently the light was later dropped a 3rd time :roll: . I took over rigging again and did a lot of muttering about traverses, implausibly high Y hangs and big drops.

Despite all the mishaps we did make it to the bottom and left via Adamsons route. Jess and I went out ahead as Jess had to drive back to Sheffield that evening.

Once back on the fell Serena (who had gone up or down left hand route with another group and is exceptionally short and Italian) expressed her displeasure at the rigging of tight traverse lines and high Y hangs. Apparently rigged by a 6 foot 4 giant with the wingspan of a pterodactyl. Naturally we blamed Dave for this particular section of rigging as he wasn't there to defend himself.

30th December - Lost Johns - Centipede route

Alex Crow, Grace Chu, Alastair Gott and Lizzie Kinge (and Louise who did Dome -> Monastery)

I spent most of the morning wearing myself out organising a massive Lost Johns exchange/crossover whilst Alastair rang up at regular intervals to find out if we have left yet. It might have just about been the morning when we eventually got underground.

The descent was pleasant and straightforward as the CUCC vanguard had rigged in via Centipede to get Valhalla rigged ASAP. Other groups were busy rigging the Dome and Monastery routes. One CUCC member managed to turn up in a half sized undersuit but our trip was unaffected. If anyone ever wants to rig the traverse over Dome in the future, I spotted a drilled thread on the far side I hadn't noticed before which is quite useful.

Sadly this trip was marked by an unfortunate outbreak of competence. Nothing stupid happened underground as far as I can tell. We went down as far as the Battleaxe traverse, said hi to the rigging team and team Dome (including Louise) and then set off out. Team Dome headed off out of Monastery and we went back up Centipede, derigging as we went.

Some hours later everyone else emerged having completely failed to leave any rope or cavers behind. If we had been a little slower we would have had every pitch in Lost Johns rigged at once. Sadly I'm pretty sure we derigged centipede before the bottom pitch was rigged.

31st December - Lancaster Hole, Ease Gill to Cape Kennedy Chamber

Alex Crow, Matt Watson, Grace Chu, Mark McAuley, Toby Speight, Monika, David Walker

Matt and I decided we fancied a slack trip to Cape Kennedy as it was New Years Eve and we wanted to be out at a reasonable hour. By the time we set out we had managed to accumulate quite the collection of waifs and strays :)

David and I set off to rig Lancaster Hole ahead of the rest of the group. Once at the bottom various subgroups visited Slug World and the Colonnades whilst we waited for everyone to tackle Lancaster Hole.

Once we were all reunited at the entrance to Kath's Way we set off for Cape Kennedy. This involves more awkward climbing than I remembered but everyone got up and down everything.

Half the team made it to Cape Kennedy but we were a bit pressed for time and some of us had got distracted looking at the 88 foot pitch so didn't quite make it.

On the way out we split into 2 groups at Stake Pot with most people heading out via the Main Drain while Matt and I legged it back to Lancaster Hole via the high level route to extend the callout (and start drinking).