Titan to Peak Cavern - Louise McMahon

Present: Luke Brock, Connor O'Neill, Ben Tout, Jacob Puhalo-Smith, Phil Wolstenholme, Dominika Wróblewska, Louise McMahon

After much indecision about if we were going to do the through-trip or in and out Titan, we settled on the through trip and to de-rig the next day. No one mentioned to me until 10:30 we had to be out by 5, so we were on the clock. We found the lid after a little searching, and then I proceeded to fight with the padlock - someone needs to cut a 3rd hole to look through. After a quick check that the right people had the right rope bag and were coming down in the right order, the first pitch was rigged. I got to the bottom and was a little surprised to find two ways on - after some shouting back up the pitch I was told it was 'right'. When you spent the last 50 meters spinning, 'right' is as useful as a **** *** in a ********; someone shouted "through the puddle" and by this time Connor had made it down, so we headed through the puddle.

I don't remember the exact string of expletives we both used after coming round that corner, but is that a sight. Everyone always says its big, the surveys say its big, the fact you carried in 200+m of rope tells you its big, but big doesn't do it justice - it is the definition of awesome. After what seemed like quite a while, I made it down to the traverse above the event horizon and waited for the next bag. My stop was quite hot by this point, so I needed to wait for a little while. Connor came along with the next bag a few mins later, so we rigged a Y hang from the traverse and then dropped to the hanging bolts.

The last pitch on its own would be impressive but by this point its run-of-the-mill. I had wanted to put the Club group shelter in the bottom bag knowing we would have to wait a little while, but it has not yet returned from exped. In total it took us 2 hours to rig and get all 7 of us down, so we knew time was against us and we would need to move. Jacob and Ben lead the way through the boulder choke and on towards Leviathan - neither of them had made the connection before, but Al had given Ben a description.

It was around this time Cow Arse Worms kept being mentioned and a chorus of "Is this it?", "No", erupted every time we came to a puddle. I think people were hoping it would be dry. After some time and a few wet crawls we did come to it, and it didn't smell as much as people make out. After a crawl through the fetted pool we popped out into Leviathan. Leviathan is yet another very impressive chamber with a lot of engineering. Phil commented that some serious work went into getting those pipes up there as they are not light. Next was the "Economic ladders" I have no idea why they are like that; I assume several Yorkshire men were involved in that project, I guess it makes it sporting.

We now knew we weren't going to make the 5 pm time, so we sent Jacob off ahead to make sure no one would call DCRO or lock us in, and into Speedwell we went. The water was quite low, and we were soon at Pit Props then into the streamway. A few of us were starting to flag a bit, but we tried to keep going to get out of the water. Once at Egnaro Aven we had a quick break then started to climb to Colostomy crawl. There was more water in Colostomy than when Ann and I did it in summer, but it wasn't too bad, plus we managed to scratch Luke's new SRT kit up - who wants shiny kit anyway? Next was The Trenches, to which much discussion ensued about what was worse: Colostomy or The Trenches? I claim The Trenches are. We were all glad to see the ladder after a long trip, and after a quick wash in Buxton Water and a bimble up the steps Jolene met us. She had come in with hot drink chocolate and a bothy just-in-case we were later than 6 pm, and had to wait for the ghost tour to finish. The thought was much appreciated, but as we made had made it out by 5:20 pm we ran off the chapel and the thought of a brew. All the SUSS freshers had gone home by now, but the garage looked like a bomb had gone off in a Wellington and Cordura factory.

It was a brilliant but tiring trip. I think only Phil had done it all before. It was Luke's first trip into the Peak Speedwell System, so he got to see a lot. Luke, Connor and I hadn't seen Titan before and, Connor, Dominika and Luke hadn't done Colostomy.

07/10/18

Present: Ben Tout, Louise McMahon

Ben and I headed back up Cave Dale felling rather knackered but determined to get the ropes out. We made it to the lid at around 11 and headed down. This time I put a krab into my stop, so I didn't have to squeeze the handle the whole way which made the whole thing much more comfortable and less bouncy. Ben caught up with me as I was de-rigging the event horizon Y-hang. We had remembered to bring in a Ropeman 3 but did forget the spanner, so there are still 2 TSG mallions on the event horizon re-belay and 2 on the lid. I have no idea who put them there? I assume they are TSG because they have yellow tape. The Ropeman made hauling the rope up much easier but the bag did get caught on the lip, though it was 1/3 full of water, which explains why it was so heavy. We don't have many big bags, so had to used one of the Mark Wright drybags which are fine but in future I'll have to remember to close them up if they are being left.

Once the first rope was up and bagged, Ben did a bit of gardening, as there was loads of loose rock that would be very easy to knock down. They make one hell of a noise when they hit the bottom. After that fun was over Ben headed up, and once he was up, I dragged the bags up to the landing area, rigged them for hauling and headed up myself. Once I was up we set about bringing up the bags; after some faff we settled with the Ropeman on the high bolts, cows tails on the traverse line, hand ascender at the top of the traverse line to give you something to help stand up and your Croll on the haul line. You stand on the calcite with your bum hanging over the lip, and someone holds the rope to make sure it goes through the Croll then sit down using your weight to lift the bags stand up repeat 100+ times and the bags are up, easy.

Once we had 2 bags on the lip packed, Ben headed up the last pitch, and I rigged the bags again now having 3 in the chain. I'm sure this pitch is longer than the second because it took me ages - my calves and quads were aching, and it was a great feeling to reach the ladder. I'm very glad we hauled the bags and didn't prussik with them. For the last time, we clipped the Ropeman onto the big ring bolt, clipped our ascensions onto the rope and started walking up the field. With all the drag in the system plus the weight of the bags, it took both of us to haul them. After a few trips back and forth the rope went tight, and lo and behold, the bags were there. It was quite windy on the top, so once everything was out, the ropes all packed and the lid locked we made a speedy descent back to the Chapel, to a well-earned brew and bowl of soup courtesy of Alastair.