Bar Pot on Ladders and a Henslers round trip to Bar Pot Aven
Saturday, 24 September 2016
After the exploits of the day before, everyone was a bit tired and I awoke at 10. After ‘egginabap’ for breakfast we were confronted by an angry Staffroom who demanded we go to Claphamin spite of the pre-arranged meeting at the Dump. They soon gave up and arrived, informing us that Ash and Yukk O))) had been waiting at Clapham station for 2 hours, having been informed by Kristian that he was leaving at 8am. Unsure why such haste had been necessary, we duly set off for Clapham to change.
We were soon en route up to Bar Pot. The walk made some people quite sweaty and flustered. At the entrance, the group split, with George, Luke, Ash and Yukk O))) heading down Small Mammal leaving me to supervise Alice rigging the first pitch, which requires 2 20ft ladders but only about 6ft of the bottom one. She did this with no bother at all and after I had seen her belay Nadia and Anna down I set off down to help Luke rig the main pitch. He made a bit of a meal of this but it was still safe and tight. I set off down first as his test dummy as we were unsure whether the ladders had reached the bottom of the pitch. Soon after we ascertained that they had not reached the floor, and were short by about 8ft. I constructed a final handline from my footloop and chest tape and then made George descend on the ladder. Everyone else went down on SRT to save time.
Myself, George, Nadia, Ash and Yukk O))) then headed to the Main Chamber the normal way via South-East passage. Main Chamber was very warm and after the other five had arrived we had chocolate orange and fruit and brandy cakes kindly provided by Yukk O))). The caving whip then did the rounds, with Luke receiving the first part of his obligatory punishment. I then proposed that people who didn’t mind a bit of a detour and getting a bit wet came with me on a trip to Henslers Master Cave via South Passage, Mud Henslers and Henslers High Aven and then back to Bar Pot Aven via Short Henslers. Alice, Luke and George agreed, I think without fully nowing what they were getting themselves in for.
Luke didn’t seem to especially like the ‘goatpaths’ around the slippery sides of Mud Hall. Nobody seemed to like the slight duck in Mud Henslers. ‘Into the void, Rob is a cunt.’ Alice went for a piss in Henslers High Aven. Henslers Pot was rigged. After arriving in the Master Cave, I rather amazingly found my way to Bar Pot aven first try, with only a slight detour up Amphibian Passage. On emergence in the aven I realised that I had lost the caving whip: disaster! Luckily it was found in Amphibian Passage. We then set off out, with Luke receiving the remainder of his obligatory punishment by having to coil several ladders. Out by half 7. Then down the hill and getting changed. The loss of my wallet and food to the dump was compensated for by the divine providence of a large bag of bread in Settle Coop from a technicolour bin-burglar of unknown origin.
Excellent trip. Well done to all participants, I think freshers season is going to go excellently.