October 2009 - Caving - Nettle Pot

Steve descending The Narrows

We'd been down Nettle Pot and Beza Pot a couple of months ago and after getting over how it was so different to the impression we'd gained from the rigging guide, we fancied coming back for a trip to Derbyshire Hall.  In hindsight a midweek evening probably wasn't the time to do it, but what's the fun in making sensible decisions all the time?

Three of us met in the layby at 6:15pm and were heading down the first pitch about an hour later, I rigged it to practise rigging in a confined space that I at least knew I could get up and down. 

The Flats, avoiding blind pots

That part was quite straightfoward, easier than crawling past the pots in the floor and trying not to slide off the muddy ledge into them, which came next.

Steve rigged the next pitch, with a quick check of the rigging guide half way down to make sure we didn't descend too far and Catherine levetated at the bottom.

Rigging the Levitation pitch

Straight on along boulder passage and on to the pull throughs, Steve had cunningly pre-prepared the rope with some cord neatly attached to the end, which turned out to be pointless as the insitu line was all frayed at the knot, but we got it to thread in the end with a bit of brute force.

After a bit of route finding (all we had to do is carry on in the same direction, but we were never entirely certain which way that was after ascending or descending a rope) we headed on along the Far Flats and found the final drop down towards Freeze Squeeze, picking up rather a lot more mud on the way, not that we needed any. I led on here having rediscovered my adventurous side, and rigged the last pitch whilst cementing myself firmly into the mud opposite the oldish bolts, trying to ignore the rust seeping through the mud. 

We regrouped at the bottom of the rope then Steve led the way on into the tunnel and towards the squeeze, which went surprisingly easily, especially with helmets pushed on ahead.

Cath by the handline over Suicide Pot

We carefully scooted down gour passage, finally reaching Derbyshire Hall and sat for a moment or two to contemplate.  Then realised it was 10pm, and if we didn't get a move on we were going to overshoot our callout!

I retrieved the camera and captured a couple of photos of Steve and Catherine returning through the squeeze, which I found a little tricker on the way back, but fortunately never came to a complete standstill so didn't get a chance to worry too much.

I think the lens had muddied up by this point (hardly surprising, everything else had) as the disposable camera picture quality went downhill. Or it's possibly we were panting hard and filling the tunnel with condensation.

Steve in Freeze Squeeze

The way back was pretty uneventful with numerous time checks.  I flew up the final pitches (flew = slowly crawled up, being somewhat out of breathe, a necessarily tight croll aggravating a neck ache picked up in the flats, and hindered by neither jammer moving smoothly due to excesses of mud).  I got a final time check before popping out of the hatch of 22:30 and rushing back to the car to call off the call out with 15 minutes to spare (rushing = speed walking gingerly with my heart in my mouth, convinved that the fresh cow pats meant that a herd of demon cattle was about to stampede me, and skirting along the walls as a tangle with barbed wire seemed preferrable to curious cows - fortunately they never materialised).

Steve in Freeze Squeeze

Half an hour later, just as I was starting to think up ways to avoid trudging back up the hill to check on the others, a head torch came running down the road scaring me somewhat (turned out it belonged to a worried friend of Catherine's who'd enthusiastically sprinted up from Castleton) which distracted me until Steve and Catherine appeared shortly afterwards having had a reasonably epic mud rope hauling session.

Cath in Freeze Squeeze

So 5 1/2 hours underground, finishing with a pile of kit with one piece of gear indistinguishable from the other, and once again a total buzz that meant I got through the next work day on only 3 hours sleep without dozing off at my desk.

How many times did I mention mud?  Not enough probably!