Seán Tidey, Will Puddy, Yvette Mayo,

On a beautiful spring evening Will, Yvette and I met on Charterhouse rd north of Longwood. Before setting off we had the inevitable untangling and fitting of our SRT kits followed by the flaking of 150m of rope into two bags and the distribution of krabs and slings. By 7.30pm we set off with topo and key in hand and of course our helmets on our heads.

After a bit of searching we found the cave and Will and Yvette got to work on the padlock. There is about 5 minutes of crawling and sliding before you reach the top of the first pitch. From the top of the first pitch we could easily identify the direct and right hand-routes, as there was a CCC sign on the right-hand route confirming the bolts were CCC & CSCC placed and maintained. I set off rigging the RH route, starting with a short traverse to the first Y hang in a shallow rift. From here the first big pitch started, at first descending with feet on the wall but at the first deviation the wall went vertical and the decent became free hanging, something like 24m in total.

At the bottom, very far from any wall I spied a small, in-situ sling around a flake just above the entrance to a rift. At first I thought that's a very small sling for a deviation! Then it dawned on me, it was there to grab and allow the rigger to be able to get to the wall and therefore next bolts. With no wall in reach I started to swing and after a couple of mins of swinging and bouncing I managed to grab the sling, pull myself towards the wall and clip a very welcome bolt. I continued to rig, making a 5ish meter bridging, traverse through a rift to the top of the second pitch. Will and Yvette were now making their way down the first pitch.

Somewhere in this or on exiting this rift, and I have no idea how, I think I may have lost the RH route and ended up on the direct route as after another amazing free hanging pitch I arrived on the ledge at the top of pitch three (the sketchy boulder bit in the guide book) rather than hitting a rebelay at the top of three and getting all the way to the bottom of the cave without touching the ground. I had now used the two lengths of rope I had been carrying so set up camp on the ledge and waited for Will and Yvette who were now on the second pitch and waiting in the rift. We regrouped on the ledge and discussed the options, the amount and position of visible bolts making matters confusing. I eventually rigged a short traverse followed by a 23ish M non-freehanging abseil down to the floor.

After we all made it to the bottom of the cave, we had a couple of minutes of looking around but time was quickly marching on and we had an 11pm call out. Unable to put off ascending any longer I set off up the pitch, with Yvette behind and Will de-rigging. On the sketchy ledge Yvette swapped position with me and took point on the very bouncy pitch two. When Will arrived and de-rigged the bottom pitch I took the bag of rope and gave him the empty one and set off upwards!

All three of us I think it is fair to say found the free hanging ascents pretty hard work, mainly due to poor technique rather than fitness, defo the case for me. By the time I reached the rift Yvette was transitioning onto the first pitch, which was proving hard as I had not left anywhere near enough rope loop under the rebelay (thought I had loads when rigging but it all turned out to be rope stretch). Will caught me up in the rift as Yvette carried on up.

When I eventually slogged my way up to the top I took one bag with me and left Yvette to wait for Will while I dashed out of the cave to grab my phone and scramble into the field to get signal and cancel the call out, also to let people know we were not going to make last orders. When I got back to the top of the pitch Will had just finished de-rigging so, very hot, sweaty, and tired we made out way out of the cave, faffed again with the lock and ambled back to the cars for 11ish.

This was a fantastic and challenging trip, not to mention an excellent work out. Credit to Yvette for preforming like a seasoned SRT caver and Will for doing all the de-rigging and ascending with the extra weight of rope.

Although it would have been good to have more than three members of the club on the trip any more than three and we would have been very late. If we fancy going down again, perhaps after some training then either pre-rigging or rigging both routes could be an option.

Seán

— Seán Tidey 12/05/2024