Ireby 2 – Jupiter Cavern
Friday, 22 December 2017
The plan was to try and do a round trip through Ireby 2 via skylight passage and cripple creek. morning delays meant that we didn’t arrive at the cave entrance until about 1pm. An encounter with Shezi and two YSS friends at the first pitch of Ding Dong Bell meant that we were waiting for around 40 minutes to rig. they kindly allowed us to pass on the ledge below and we were soon in the streamway below. there was a healthy amount of water which really added to the enjoyment of the trip, much better than the
only other time I have been in Ireby nearly 3 years ago. Must come more often when its wet.
Despite moaning that she had only been here 2 weeks ago (‘keen to go further’), Rachel neglected to mention that Pussy, Well and Rope are all hard-rigged. Nice one Rachel. Soon we were navigating Skylight Passage, and then into the canal at the bottom where I headed off towards Ireby 3 for a bit while the others went to Duke St 2. The canal is balls deep. Duke St 2 is suitably impressive and worth the trip.
After a quick look at the sump, we headed off upstream to Escalator Rift, where we went up the wrong set of ropes at first and wasted another half-hour poking around in a shit muddy choke. The correct ropes are blue and require a brief foray upstream along the inlet to be reached. At the top of these, a brief crawl to the left leads to Jupiter Cavern, which is pretty big, and has a rope coming down from the ceiling going to who knows where. I needed a poo and was getting cold, Luke was pranging about being fat, Brendan was pranging about his car and Rachel wanted to go so we decided to turn round here and go home the way we came, leaving Cripple Creek for another day.
The trip out was reasonably swift despite me not having a pantin and we were back at the car for 8pm after around a 5-6 hour trip. Then back to Bramley for a stew kindly cooked by Nadia. Must return for Cripple Creek, good trip all round, thanks to Brendan for driving and Rachel for packing the ropes (in the correct order, I might add).