Gingling Pot
Saturday, 27 February 2016
Having sounded depressed enough for Holly to offer me a fun and misery free trip, I got picked up by the VHE van at an early 8 am despite having stayed out the night before to celebrate Jonny’s Phd and meet his MChem dissertation supervisor; a fantastic man. We arrived at the cave before Sam Allshorn (!!!) and got kitted up. My enthusiasm got the better of me and I asked if anyone wanted to walk up
Penyghent, confusion arose over why I wanted to do this before going caving ; everyone assumed I wanted to go caving
Passing a ball touching wet bit after the entrance I turned and asked if this was the wet bit I had to bring extra thermals for, it was not and I began to wonder what I’d wombled into. Progress down and in between pitches was mostly good other than getting stuck in one of the larger squeezes in the cave with Noel and Sam Allshorn having to assist (my breaking crab was still on my D-ring and tried to enter me, an uncomfortable experience. On the way out I walked through the ‘squeeze’, as it was rather large. A pleasing distraction whilst decending was the fixed black 11 mm? rigged off stals; fortunately we were using nice shiny new bolts and also fixed, nice, new (by comparison) rope.
We left Holly and Sam Allshorn behind measuring some stuff, continuing to the thrutch. I was quite worried about this but it was ok; especially when compared to the ‘squeeze’ I had got stuck in head first. Some unpleasant crawling in, around and over (‘the key to this is not getting stuck with your head underwater’) water led us to our destination; the well, a climb down to a shitty pool and crawl.
Apparently someone had pooed down it 10 months ago and was reflected in the smell, an unusual combination of faeces and rotten eggs. In an effort to make it better we flushed a lot of water down it, this just seemed to agitate the water and if anything worsen the smell. Fun. Noel headed down for an initial look and came back with a description, akin to a pooey Petersons. My favourite part was listening to Noel getting pooey water on his face and making a lot of whale noises. My second favourite was; Tom must have eaten an orange before his poo, theres pips in the water. My least favourite was putting my foot at the bottom of the pooey pool. After initial hesitation (Noel: theres a difference between cant and wont isnt there Nathanael) I went a bit along the tube. It wasnt very nice and I didnt like the sound of the tight bends. I bailed not wanting to put my head in the disgusting water for nothing. Noel carried on surveying to a 9 m? climb (down).
Fortunately, after this, Noel had some other nice leads to look at (wellone nice lead) a climb up requiring a mounting block (me). I got to sit at the bottom and doze until de-mounting,which was nice. We had a sandwich and carried on out. We realised Holly might have wanted us to leave some sandwichs for them; not wanting an angry Holly, Noel threw the sandwiches down a pitch at me and I left them on a ledge (result = confused Holly).
We carried on out and got to the entrance, where Noel instructed me to get into the hole 2 m below the entrance. It wasnt very nice and was entirely uninspiring. Noel got his chest harness snagged whilst coming into the hole so I prodded at it with my hand which somehow worked, despite me not actually doing anything useful. Upstream just got peatey and even more uninspiring, we did a few legs downstream leading to yet more uninspiring passage. Getting out of the hole back onto the pitch was interesting; a sky dive onto a slightly rotting plank made more complex by my cowstails looping behind my bum. It was very cold so we headed back to the car to get warm, rewarming my fingers & toes was a particularly enjoyable experience whilst having the fountains fell drainage, joint sets & master cave explained to me. Holly & Noel were happy as Gingling was done, to celebrate they were going todraw up the survey. I got a lift back home with Sam Allshorn and he again commented that I lived in disgusting filth.
I felt like this quite a lot on this trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JubaAS1v-w
Comments
It’s called Gingling Hole not Pot. Holly may have been confused by the sandwiches, I quickly over came any confusion by eating them as I didn’t want to carry them out they’d have made a mess on the inside of my bag.
Sam Allshorn
Tuesday, 08 March 2016
According to some of the earliest articles I can find, by Yorkshire Ramblers, about the first two descents into Gingling they refer to it as Gingling Pot, so it could be correct.
Also, turns out that the water in there was always a bit smelly, the bit just beyond ‘ammered ‘ole in big rift route was described as having “evil smelling water” in the NPC journal, on the initial breakthrough trip. Unless maybe Tom’s poo can travel backwards through time…
Noel Snape
Wednesday, 09 March 2016