Out Sleets Beck Pot
The meet
that was: later
Team: Bob Bialek, Pete Hail, Neil Pacey, Ange
Hare, Charlie Frankland and Stan
It was
Charlie who wanted to go down this hole by talking about it in the Marton Arms the
other night. The weather though was not brilliant and we all steeled ourselves
after glancing at the report in lnglesport. Just to prove a point the heavens
opened as we made our way over from Bernies Cafe.
“It’ll be
reet!”, said Charlie.
“Well we
don’t want to caught out without a leg to stand on.”, I said, especially after
had seen Jack Pickup that morning too.
The cave
starts wet and low with one or two climbs thrown in and then it really takes
off when the traverse and pitch are met. We all free climbed this pitch, being
easier on the return. The clean washed rift of High Street leads to Cascade
Pot. It is a 45ft pitch which Charlie rigged with a 20m rope. From a ring
hanger on the right hand wall up to four fixed spits the traverse line went up
to two bolts stepping deftly across the void to reach the Y-hang. This gave us
a beautiful hang out of the water all of the way. Just enough rope. Crawling
through
Pete
rigged this one and a wide deviation took one out from the water for half of
the hang but you inevitably get wet through. From here a nice, easy passage,
Easy Street, took us to The Dreaded Duck. This was only a stand up job although
taken sideways with a bit of a squeeze in the middle and initiated by a plunge
or swim. Neil couldn’t bear the actual swim so he had to use a rope to get
across and through the duck.
Several
low and wet bedding crawls took us to a cross rift which bypassed a wet and
muddy wallow. At the end of this the bedding in very low water is close to the
resurgence. Charlie was the only one who bothered to push on this far.
After regrouping we dashed out as fast as we could. Ange had quite a bit of
trouble in overcoming the duck. Doing it sideways over the top of the squeeze
won the day. While Neil and I detackled the others shot off and were not seen
until we got out.
A good if not excellent trip of a sporting nature. The variety in a short space
makes this a trip worth doing!
Dalek.
Back to:
Contents