The Five Stages of Caving 

Last two weeks of caving

Denial – Washfold Pot

  • Group of 7
  • Wandered around a field for a while
  • Very early call out
  • Great entrance
  • Took 1hr to do the first 10-15 mins of caving (urgh)
  • Quite cold
  • Forgot kneepads
  • Headache
  • Squeezey bit
  • Fell 4m and bounced off a rock near pitch head
  • Cool traverse
  • Cool 40m pitch
  • Sketchy climbs
  • Wished I was taller
  • Descending in rifts
  • Crawling in water
  • Polyprop handlines
  • Standing on Pete’s head to get out
  • Pete and I out at 4.10pm
  • Getting changed while Jack and Benji sat and watched from the van
  • Changed call out for the rest of the BPC group
  • Rest of group out at 8.00pm
  • Bruised
  • Ate a lot of biscuits!
  • Excellent trip

VERDICT: 10/10 (Brilliant)

Anger/Frustration – Swildon’s Hole

  • Very cross at going caving
  • Ladder broke
  • No water in many of the ducks
  • Blisters and bruised feet
  • Fell down the climb, managed it on the second attempt
  • Fell down Blue Pencil Passage
  • Didn’t manage to hit Rob’s 2hr target time around

VERDICT: 4/10  (-2 for no water)

Bargaining – Lost John’s, Craftsman’s, Voldemort, Notts 2, Swinsto

Faff-tastic to the extreme – see Jethro’s report on the day. Swinsto was the nearest we could manage to getting underground that day.

VERDICT: 7/10 (- 3 for the faff)

Depression – Eastwater

  • Drove down to do Charterhouse
  • Guide cancelled on the morning due to sickness
  • Rob strangely happy about this
  • Decided to do Eastwater
  • Rob scared of cows
  • 45° slopes
  • Couldn’t find concrete platform
  • Went wrong way
  • Found the crawl
  • Strange bedding plane near entrance to reach the lower level
  • Great fun sliding down the slopes
  • Funny watching Rachael and Rob try to go down a shitty hole with handline
  • Rachael and Rob returned from handline
  • Back up the slope
  • Less fun on way up as gravity wasn’t helping
  • Got lost a little
  • Interesting route finding
  • Fantastic little cave for the different levels
  • Very different to anything that I have done before
  • Found concrete platform on way out
  • Found out the shitty hole emerged at the top of a pitch (when read book at BEC)
  • Wells is very lovely

VERDICT: 9/10  (-1 for feeling like I was going to fall off the edge of the world)

Acceptance – Nettle –> Derbyshire Hall

  • Managed to arrange a trip to DB (took 4 years!)
  • No idea where we were going
  • Light died on the second rebelay so changed light
  • Fresher Max had done it DB the last two weeks
  • Max ‘They didn’t make me remember the route last time’
  • Jacob and I accidentally rigged Elizabeth
  • Pouring water on Leo’s head
  • Had two functional krabs
  • Jacob and I – hysterical laughter every time Max replied ‘dunno’ when Leo asked ‘Does this look familiar?’
  • Increasingly irate Leo
  • Slid 4m down the rope due to mud
  • Jacob couldn’t undo his harness for the squeeze
  • Very good trip

VERDICT: 6/10  (+4 for the company – the trip was nothing special)


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