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- | ====== Log Book 2021 ====== | ||
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- | ==== Thrupe Lane Swallet to Hobnail Hole. 29th Aug 2021 ==== | ||
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- | Cookie, Jude & Adrian Van de Plank, Alex & Marcos (The young whippets) Nick, Michael, Sarah Payne, Bill Nix & me Judi. 1 1/2 - 2 hours | ||
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- | The first thing I found out about Thrupe Lane is that Thrupe Lane does not start as Thrupe Lane in Croscombe but Thrupe Lane starts as Rock Street and morphs into Thrupe Lane. The landlord of The George Inn((The George landlord is Peter.)) is a very nice man who has been in Thrupe Lane Swallet and knows Thrupe starts at Rock, thank goodness, so I found it. | ||
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- | When I arrived at the beautiful traditional Cotswold Thrupe Farm house there were several cars parked to tell me I was in the right place. | ||
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- | When we were released off the chain gang, dig, dig, dig, wheel the barrow, move the rock, stand and look at it, ponder, change the plan & dig some more, we were presented with full mugs of tea, homemade pasties((Richard Witcombe brought along the pasties, home baked by his wife Geraldine.)), | ||
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- | Ten of us lined up in the new trench and following photos we shuffled after the young whippet, Alex, towards the first pitch. There are plenty of space to stand to get on the rope which can’t be said for the gap that you have to go down. The bottom is a little more roomy, thankfully, I could keep out of the way of the next one dropping as the message had to be passed back … ‘the hole on the right is the wrong way to go’. | ||
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- | Bill took the opportunity to take a few photos while we made sure everyone had followed through the right bits. Cookie, Adrian & Jude at this point climbed into Upper Butts’ above us and carried on out while Alex lead the rest of us towards Marble Streamway. There was the inevitable crawl in the stream that became a beautiful cream & pink meandering passage dropping down at every bend with the stream splashing in the bottom. Alex then paused, “beware it becomes steep & slippy, don’t go over the edge”, What!!, I proceeded with trepidation and then realised I was on The Balcony((The Balcony is 25 meters up.)) overlooking Atlas pot. The atmosphere & noise changed, I slipped to the side onto a muddy platform giving space for the others to come down while Alex happily moved round the edge of the pot. I was NOT going that close. The others came to look, Nick was still impressed after last being there in 1978((Nick had actually done TLS first on 8th December 1975 whilst still at school. Ladders on that occasion.)). Way above us, the top of Atlas is where we would have ended up if we had turned right at the bottom of the first pitch. | ||
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- | From Upper Butts’, it seemed to alternate between climbing and squeezing through small holes. Although there was lots of jaggy rock to hold & pull on, some didn’t want to let you through. At some point we lay in a stream, ‘I thought we had diverted that & it was supposed to be dry’, came across a small ladder which helped you across a hole to the next level, more climbing before daylight filtered down the last climb out through Hobnail. | ||
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- | Look out for an article & photos in the next Descent. | ||