Porridge Unlimited
Team: Pete Hall, Steve Preece
(BUSS).
Introduction:
As some Red Rose members
will know, exploration of the upstream limit of the
Background:
To be honest, exploration
in this particular backwater of Pippikin had been
slow. With a mean time between trips of about six months, the
Story:
A couple of weeks later
the next settled day came round and I was champing at the bit to get back up
there, but the usual misery merchants weren’t present. Steve Preece said he would go but I wasn’t sure he would be up to
it as he is a second year student from Birmingham Uni. S. S. and had only done
about a dozen caving
trips in his life. However he seemed keen enough so we set off with lots of
tackle to Mistral Hole. When we got to the entrance, Steve had to rush back to
Lancaster Hole because (try not to laugh) he had dropped his helmet! By this
time I was sure he wouldn’t be up to it, but I thought we’d give it a try to
see how far we’d get. I thought we would probably get to the Bastard Crawl
before he lost his bottle. After the usual wrong turn at Red Wall Chamber, we
were soon slipping down the slime hole into Leck Fell Lane and after another
half hour of struggling we were at the start of the bastard crawl, a climb up
through a squeeze into a sharp, fiat-out crawl where the latest run of
exploration started back in 1989. The prognosis for a successful mission still
didn’t look good, but we decided to see how it went. I went first and Steve
followed on behind. My tackle bag was very heavy and soon ruptured spilling the
climbing gear all over the place but I managed to stuff it back in. Before too
long we were at the Birthday Avens, a 40ft pitch
followed by 1 Oft, 1 5ft and 15ft handline climbs. I
assured Steve that the rope was OK as it had only been there for five years.
At the top
of this is the highlight of the trip, the Big Mean Porridge Machine, a canal
full of peaty porridge where you have to crawl up to your neck in it. A squeeze
up a cascade half way along leads to more porridgey
crawling beneath a calcite aven before emerging at
the final chamber. It had already taken us about two hours to just get to the
end. Steve although a little more tattered in his ten-quid chinese
oversuit was cheerful and keen to continue. I climbed
first up the piece of tatty digging rope that was in place and Steve and the
tackle followed. He stayed at the top of the rope whilst I traversed out along
a good ledge to the far end of the chamber and clipped the bolt I had placed
last time. The way on was a climb up bridging between the walls of the chamber
onto some wedged of boulders. The right wall was solid but smooth and the left
wall had plenty of holds but they all broke off in yer
‘and. So I bridged out as best I could, hammering in a couple of dodgy pegs on
the way and in five minutes I was at the top. A brief recce
revealed that the way on was a narrow tortuous upstream passage but first
priority was to improve the line of retreat and get Steve up. So I spent a few
minutes digging away beyond the bridge of boulders, where a few slabs was all
that was capping the top of a rift climb back into the chamber below. I had
climbed up under these slabs on a previous trip and seen the way on through a
gap between the slabs but it had been too dangerous to remove them with me
underneath and this was why we had bolted up in the chamber. With this route
open we decided to derig the climb and Steve climbed
up removing the gear. After a bit more gardening it was time to romp into the
big stuff.
Steve was getting a bit knackered and cold, so we agreed that he would stay
behind, eat his chocolate and pack up the tackle; meanwhile I would romp
excitedly into the big stuff chuckling and whooping as I went but not taking
more than ten minutes over it. The first part of the deal was fulfilled but
after five minutes progress along a sideways walking passage I came to a fork
in the passage. The right-hand branch was choked with calcite after 15ft but
the left hand branch went to a squeeze up a 6ft cascade with the sound of a lot
of roaring water coming out of it. I decided Steve could wait a bit longer and
launched myself into the squeeze. It was a real struggle with sharp scalloping
tearing at my suit but in a few minutes I was lying in a flat-out cobble crawl
with the water roaring louder than ever. Another 50ft of low crawling and I
emerged on a ledge 15ft up the side of a large stream chamber with a waterfall
tumbling past me.
We had
previously suspected that we might emerge in Cigalere
Inlet in this manner and my first feeling was of immense satisfaction at having
achieved the goal. Then I started planning the exit via Cigalere
in order to complete the round trip and to avoid the more difficult exit via
the Porridge machine. I couldn’t go back and get Steve yet as he wouldn’t be
very pleased at going all the way through to Cigalere
with all the tackle and then having to drag it all the way out of Misty
Mountain Series if there was some obstacle in Cigalere
that we couldn’t pass so I decided to go to the top of the Grand Cascade and
check that I could get there and that it was rigged.
After passing several sporting cascades and some stooping and crawling streamway I came to the head of a 15ft pitch with an old
ladder on it.
When I
pulled it up I noticed it was already broken in three places and decided not to
climb down without a lifeline. So I made my way back to the scallopped
squeeze. Here I in advisedly entered head first and had to do a skydive down
the 6ft drop at the other end. However I was soon back with shivering and
rather worried Steve having left him for an hour instead of the planned ten
minutes.
When I explained the exit choices to him he was very eager to try out the Cigalere option so off we went. At the scallopped
squeeze we had a good deal of trouble getting the tackle through especially as
the hole in the bag was getting bigger and bigger and the rope kept coming out.
It took a good deal of our energy out of us and one of us was heard to utter
the “F” word repeatedly (unprintable in this edition of course). There was
still a considerable amount of distance between there and the next pitch
including a wet crawl in icy water. When we got to there it looked like a 30ft
pitch into a rift passage which surprised me as I was expecting the Grand Cascade,
a 60ft pitch into a big chamber. I assumed it was another pitch which I didn’t
know about. The bluewater rope was in good condition
and well rigged but unfortunately it was tied off at the bottom so we rigged
our climbing rope alongside it. I went down first checking the bluewater was rigged OK. At the ledge halfway down I realised, with some relief, that it was the Grand Cascade
and untied the rope at the bottom. All that was left was the deep canal, damp
uncomfortable crawl and several sporting cascades and we emerged in
This was
the culmination of several years of exploration by Red Rose members and a good
achievement. It could, if left rigged, turn into a classic misery and fun trip
but I suspect it may turn into another Sylvester Pot: Everybody has heard of it
but nobody apart from the Red Rose has ever been there. For many in the Red
Rose it will simply be a relief that its not on the Sunday morning agenda any
morel (apart from the survey trip. Any volunteers?)
Pete
Hall.
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