Out Sleets Beck Pot.
Party:- H. St.Lawrence, P.Llewellyn, G. Leach, A.Hall, C.
Wilcox, F. Hardy, M. Woodhouse & . . K. Lewis.
(Some of the way, too big.)
Lessons learnt on camping weekend - Never rely on Andy to provide you with a tent. Good job it didn’t rain otherwise we would have got very wet in Andy’s “tent’ & attempts to sabotage it by Victoria & Mark didn’t he1p its structural properties.
And now
for the hole. A short climb down & we were in a “walking size”
passage, which rather depends whether you are 3 foot or 6 root tall. The easy
climb down was laddered by Andy after spending I5 minutes looking for a belay
point. Keith & I climbed down & removed the ladder as we were sure this
couldn’t be the pitch. “If I can bloody well climb down, I’m sure I can bloody well
climb back up again,” guess who? By this time, Andy had negotiated the grotty
crawl & had free climbed the 1st. pitch. Keith & I were much more sensible, we had a ladder for the pitch. Easy going to the
top of the second pitch, where the increasingly popular Andy tangles up one
rope, then hands it back to be untangled while he undoes another. Easy going at the bottom until the canal. Messrs Wilcox
& Woodhouse have gone through. Andy kindly points me in the right
direction. “Aren’t you coming Andy ?”, “Can’t swim”, “It’s easy, all you have to do is traver—gargle—gargle on the ledges—gargle—gargle”.
Eventually Andy was coaxed through, not so Keith who tried but failed. Easy
going on clean washed, rock to Bridge Chamber, where
we met Chris & Mark on the way out. “Did you get to the bottom?”, “Yes, it’s just at the end of the
passage with breakdown in.” (Shatter Passage.)
6
At the end of Shatter passage, Hugh & I came upon a flat out crawl in
water. “Why don’t you go & have a look, Grahame”.
See-Saw Passage was negotiated by alternate walks & crawls to an unimpressive
sump.
On the way out I found the squeeze in the canal much more difficult going in
the other direction. Hugh got a vicious soaking by a contrived flood pulse. The
low crawl near the entrance was worse than when we went in, not the place to
hang around.
G.
Leach