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Disappointment Pot

28th May 2005 - Simon Dillon - SD75007260

What a Disappointment Trip Our plan this weekend was to do Disappointment Pot into Gaping Gill. Myself and Alan drove to Bernies to meet up with John and Neil to do the trip, and then camp over at Bull Pot farm, I bet Alan that Neil would not stay over. John arrived late at Bernies, the punishment was to get the first round in after the trip, which was looking more like being abandoned due to the big black clouds threatening to dump all it had down on our heads, and also the fact that if we did do the cave the likelihood of us making it back for last orders was slim, that made our minds up quick, lets pick another cave.We decided that as none of us had done Bull Pot of the Witches, that we should do that and also you could spit from the farm and hit it. I won the bet with Alan, Neil made some excuse that he would not be camping, we all put our fingers in our ears, but I am sure I read his lips and he said he was "having his bikini line waxed, so his Knickers don't chafe". At the farm as we were getting changed, a land rover full of 70s throwback hippies pull up and came over, "yo man what you going down?", "Bull Pot of the Witches" we reply, "you wont need SRT man there aren't any pitches dude just some short drops you can free climb, I've never found any".After last weeks you will never find the second pitch, we took our SRT gear and 4 short ropes. We were soon free climbing down the first pitch and interesting little climb down, a turn to the right at the bottom, a short crawl and guess what? The first pitch, you could have pushed us over with a feather, I suppose if your last name was Bonnington first name Chris you could have free climbed it. With no bolt to be found we did a natural rig, much more fun. We have also taken up a new way of caving don't read the guide book trip, just look at the bottom see how many ropes you need and explore where we will.We had soon found pitch 2 and then 3 and after a short while we found a slot in the floor a P bolt above it, a very strong draft was issuing from the hole, it was rigged and down I went. I found myself in a low stream way which soon opened up to walking height, I called the others to follow, a dammed good exploration took us down many passages however we ended up in one with a free climb up. Alan attempted to climb the rift, but decided he had far too many brain cells working to attempt it, what we needed was a bloody fool who was stupid enough to give it a go. After a bloody difficult climb up a very slippery vertical wall with a large over hang, I shouted to Alan to come up, the others hung back which was a wise move it lead to a dig, great!After a fun climb down (always harder than going up I find) we call it a day and head out, going up the pitches that we would not need our ropes or gear for!We soon bumped into a University caving club, Oh what fun, after half an hour of waiting for the first girl to get up a very little pitch, the lad on the team heads out, for reasons known only to himself he decided to hang around 15 foot of the floor, I think the game was lets see how long it takes for me legs top go dead. Neil by this time thought he would try and free climb past the young lad but was held back by an overhanging slab of rock, right near the young mans head, John looks up to give him guidance and shouts up, "you'll be able to do it if you can get past the knob!" (Meaning the rock). The student soon moved after that remark.A short while later we exited the cave got changed and made it to the Wheatsheaf pub, far too busy for food we went to the Italian restaurant near Bernies had a slap up meal and lots of beer. We can't wait to do our next trip, to be told as we do Blackshiver by some nutty Yorkshire caver, "EEEE Lad tha nose tha won't need t' take tackle thas never found t' pitch in t' cave yet".-Simon Dillon, Allan Berry, Neil Garrard, John BerryFreelance Underground Cave & Karst Endurance Race Specialists (work it out for yourself) 

Type of entry: Caving

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