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Giant's Hole
30th November 2013 - Oliver King - SK 1162 8202
Let's try caving – Giants Hole
A trip intended to give potential new members a chance at caving with minimal fuss, but also to get current members out to Derbyshire too.
Gareth, Myself, John-Paul and Anton arrived at Castleton with enough time to get some breakfast at Pevril stores before heading straight up to Giant's Hole. Upon arrival John & Danny Capper, Helen and Owen were already waiting. Soon after Phil arrived along with Jordan, Richard, Darren, Sara and Gary, and finally a rather hung over Tom and Purdie!
As there were three potential new members with us, we decided that while Phil would still look after them, it would be a good idea for them to try the round trip instead of remaining in the upper series.
We all got ready and made our way into the cave. John went ahead and rigged the ladder.
After we made our way through the entrance series to Garlands, we slowly but surely belayed everyone down the 5 meter drop to the start of the crabwalk. I was surprised how quickly we made our way through, and for the first time I remained on my two feet throughout the entire length of the crabwalk! Jordan was unable to make the vice, and despite many attempts at getting him up through and under he decided to call it a day and so Phil very kindly offered to take him back.
We moved on and caught up with Tom and Purdie at the eating house, and so headed on up. Some how Tom persuaded us to take a little bypass which was rather tough on the knees and completely pointless, but I guess we can say we have done it now! Soon came across the Giants Wind pipe, today it was quite low which was probably not a bad thing, but still bloody cold! Lots of cursing and people saying “watch the bow wave it's coming!” which I found rather amusing!
We came to the Phreatic tube that is the top of the crabwalk and whilst some decided to move on through the eye hole, others preferred to be life-lined down from the top. This was a slight problem as Phil had left before he had the spare rope that would have come in handy at this point! I went back to collect the rope, luckily there was a second in situ and so we were able to lifeline the remaining people from the top of crabwalk. John Paul had started to feel the cold at this point so we sorted him out with some drink and Owen very kindly donated his oversuit to try and warm him up a little bit.
After about 4 hours we came back out to a rather pleasant day once again and I think the overall verdict was that we all enjoyed ourselves, even the ones that had the odd moment looked back with a smile on their faces!
Off to the Cheshire Cheese for a well earned pint and then straight home for some grub 
