Paul Pot Memorial Trip 2015: Bravo assault team
Saturday, 7 February 2015
Despite it being Ribiccas last few days in Leeds, this was a cracking weekend and one to remember. It began on Friday evening after training in Old Bar, when Sarah Parker got horrendously pissed early on and inspired us all to pull the form out of the bag. Sarah came up with a full armoury of outstanding quotes, of which only a few are here listed:
“I love digimaps, I go on it when Im bored.
“Look how long my legs are!
*doing ridiculous walk*: “I walk like this all the time!
*to homeless man*: “wrap up warm, have a good night!
We arrived in Fab Caf and the silliness became overwhelming. Ribicca, Rowan, Caroline and I were dancing maybe too aggressively, Mike Butcher was smashing glasses all over the place, and Sarah Parker was threatening to be sick. We left at about 4am. Mike Butcher got his bike from near strawbs and offered me a croggy home. The bike was in poor condition, had no brakes, dovetailed supremely and we were very pissed. We fell off quite a few times. However, we got down the big hill with the speed bumps on Royal Park Road without falling off, which was quite an achievement.
I awoke to find Rebecca, Rowan and Caroline in bed in my room. I made myself some pasta. Rebecca looked very unwell and Caroline was still boozed. I held everyone up and was generally a hungover nuisance. We headed off for the dales at around 10am, with Brendan at the wheel. Brendans driving was, as always, entertaining: he managed to narrowly avoid the ditch when trying to look at his phone by swerving into a fortuitously located layby. We made good time to the thief, where he had a quick breakfast and I had a good shit. We set off again, with Nathanael as tunemaster. His first pick was Dr Jones by Aqua, and with the windows down, the choice gained us some very appalled looks from the teens of Ingleton. Soon we were up on Leck Fell, where I realised that I had a problem with my bowels and had to go for an emergency shit with moss as my arse wiping material on the fell. After necessary faff, we were off underground for about half 12/1pm.
The descent was extremely efficient and faff-free: Brendan was rigging and displayed good competence and efficiency. It was nice to be able to do fuck all but act as rigging consultant, along with Nathanael. It was also a refreshing feeling to be able to be really slick with SRT despite being very hungover. Soon we were at Dome pitch, where Brendan, despite having the rigging guide with him, failed to swing through the window towards Dome Junction as he should have. He then prussiked back up the rope to the window, clipped into the P bolt, and dropped the rope back through the window. I had to rig the rebelay. Soon we were down Dome Junction and at Battleaxe Traverse, where we met Mike, Rachel, Jess and Ribicca. The possibility of having queue jumping at pitches as a committee perk was discussed jokingly, but then we remembered we arent arseholes and just got on with it. The final pitch was rigged with massive loops and was overall a bit dangerous (not ULSAs doing). The master cave was amazingly dry and we wandered up and then downstream. Upstream was a lot more interesting than downstream, with cool mud formations and lots of side passages and rope climbs which could be fun. We turned round at the Lake downstream and headed out from there, cunningly avoiding derigging. We were out from the bottom in around 45 minutes, and got out of the cave just in time to see the most amazing sunset Ive seen in ages. The Dragons Back over in Borrowdale, Ingleborough and The Lakes all looked extremely stunning, and the sky was the most intense shade of crimson Ive seen. Absolutely marvellous.
After being towed out of the boggy parking space by Rowan, we headed to the Wheatsheaf for burgers. After hearing that the others were out of the cave, we were back in Leeds before 9pm. The term caving nazi was coined unwittingly by Brendan, causing him some extreme embarrassment:
Brendan: “I dont think Dan should be LUUCaS president because hes a caving nazi.
Nathanael: “Brendan, Dan is in the car with us.
Brendan: “yeah but I think hes asleep.
Dan: “no Im not Brendan.
Brendan: “oh, right. Hi Dan.
An excellent trip and a great weekend. The most fun Ive had for some time. Thanks to Holly, Noel, Dan et al for being up early to rig, to Brendan for driving and to the deriggers. Hoping to act as rigging consultant man.
Comments
What club do you reckon did rig the final pitch? I rather suspect that it was ULSA, but would agree that a tauter traverse would have been slightly less exciting 😉
Dinny Davies
Monday, 16 February 2015