Top Sink -
Cavers – Sooty, Tony, George, Paul.
Due to limpalong Hallam’s abscence Sooty drove at a rather less leisurely than usual pace to the dales shaving over 20 mins off Tim’s usual time (transit, icy roads).
We met up in Inglesport for the obligatory breakfast with a rather lazy second cup of coffee.
At bull pot farm everyone got changed in the back of Sooty’s mobile changing room with the icicles on the roof melting and dripping on us due to George puffing like a steam train .
Once changed we set off on the long walk across the moor armed with GPS to aid locating the entrance. On arrival at the cave George decided that to a pre existing injury (groin strain (no giggling at the back)) he would have to go back and find a nice warm pub in which to watch the footy. Armed with Sooty’s keys and a confusing set of instructions on how to get into the back of the van, George set off back across the moor as the three remaining cavers climbed down the entrance shaft.
Slow progress was made through the tortuous entrance series which was mostly crawling on your side through the windy passage. Just before the pitch it was discovered that no one had the rope bag. Tony and Sooty thought that Paul had it whereas Paul thought Tony had it. Tony gallantly went back for it. Finally arriving at the pitch we discovered that it was already rigged.
Having descended the pitch there was more tortuous crawling through πr2 passage before descending the second pitch and finally popping out into a chamber where we stopped to eat Cathy’s butties (tandoori chicken & roasted pepper, sooty’s favourite.)
After lunch we had a quick explore of the next section of passage before turning around and exiting through all that bloody crawling.
Prussiking up the pitches the general verdict was that we all need to do some SRT training.
Just time for a quick pint and some fierce chilli pickled onions in the Marton Arms then everyone went their seperate ways.
Sooty