Titan To Peak: Rob’s Birthday trip
Saturday, 3 February 2007
An early morning rendezvous in Castleton on a clear day with a very hard frost led to breakfast at the TSG hut before setting off up the hill to the Titan entrance shaft which is easily identified by the enormous pile of spoil and is an impressive feat of engineering.
The entrance showed signs of a lot of material having slumped back into the dig as a result of the previous few weeks heavy rain but the shaft itself was clear so off we went.
Titan was expertly rigged by Rob and our ropes were long enough so that the rope change came at the Event Horizon ledge. Titan shaft is truly awe inspiring being shaped somewhat like an hour glass and belling out above and below the Event Horizon. One by one everyone was swallowed by the vastness but it’s not until you are approaching the Event Horizon that the true scale of the place hits you when you realize that you are only half way down and can finally see the minute figures of people at the bottom.
Communication is difficult because the huge space seems to absorb sound and has a low frequency reverberation as a result of the waterfall. Carrying a whistle would have been useful.
The base of the shaft shows lots of signs of high speed rock impacts so we moved away from the centre whilst everyone descended before singing Happy Birthday to Rob and then heading off through the boulder choke, passing Clive Westlake and the derigging team on the way.
The route through to Peak is a true mix of everything from bouldery passageways with long climbs up seemingly ancient iron ladders; through nice sporting stream passages and deep freezing water in the Speedwell canal: an exciting descent of the Bung and the seemingly endless muddy grovel through Colostomy crawl before finally reaching Peak Cavern where we washed off before exiting and heading to the pub for well earned beers and grub.
An excellent trip.