Valley Entrance

A start was arranged at a later than usual time, with Paul, Andy, Sam, Ian and myself meeting in Richmond and driving over to meet Nick at Inglesport for 2pm (we were only 15mins late). A quick cuppa was planned, I decided, guiltily, to treat myself to a small slice of custard tart as well, I shouldn't have worried everyone else had huge slabs of chocolate cake. There was just enough time for me to spend some money on another new toy, a new led bulb system to upgrade my backup light. I'm now certain Paul is on a retainer from Inglesport.

Up in Kingsdale, we changed into our gear, unlike the group of cavers in the café, who had been dressed in full kit minus helmets. I draw the line at only being pre-packed in a furry suit on a cold day. Nick and me, is that good English, who cares, were the advance party down into the now very familiar Valley Entrance oil drum. Paul stayed topside to give some instruction into the art of SRT to Ian and Sam.

The reason for our head start, my first underground rigging. I'd learnt the knots on my piece of 'Christmas' rope, practised them on the climbing wall and here I was going underground to do it for real unsupervised - scary!!

We made our way to the head of the pitch, there was already a ladder and safety line rigged, complications - what now? Not a problem for the first bit, a figure of 8 in a bight, then onto an alpine butterfly. The next bit was the 'Y' hang, a bowline in a bight, but was I ok to use the same 'P' hanger? Yes I was - Paul had arrived and put my mind at ease. He also checked what I had done, it passed then after a bit of re-adjustment, and it was the moment of truth, time to test it. I rigged it - I would test it. So after willing my SRT kit to the club (Val wouldn't want it she doesn't like heights as I found out on the Hall's Fell Ridge of Blencathra the day before) I was off ...... and down safe, and soon joined by everyone else.

We headed off down the 'canyon' like passage of the master cave, with Paul pointing the height the water rises to in a flood, we continued along until it was time to start crawling at the Master Junction. We ditched our SRT kits to make the crawls easier and we were off through a series of wet crawls, in very very cold water, next was a couple of small climbs up into Swinsto Great Aven, wary not to dislodge any loose rocks. From here we had to squeeze down into Philosophers Crawl, but not before being joined by a group dropping in above us from Simpson's / Swinsto on a pullthrough.

This very slight squeeze was a personal test for me the first tight bit I'd done since frightening myself (unnecessarily) in August/Longwood down in Mendip last summer. I don't count getting stuck in the cheesepress that was just too many pies.

I managed it, not a problem, but what's this - more wet crawling. At least the extremely cold water was numbing the pain in the knees from all the crawling on the golf ball and marble sized pebbles. We took our mind off it by discussing 'Nicks Amazing Underpants' or how he actually manages to keep them dry. He says it makes getting changed on the roadside easier or not having to change them as it happens. Personally after having your nether regions submerged in ice cold water for a couple of hours I don't think there'll be much to see anyway. It was a round trip back to our SRT kits. We kitted up again, with further instruction for Sam and Ian. We were passed by the group doing the pull-through - twice, at first they went the wrong way down the many passages off the Master Junction and had to come trooping back past us, the darkness preventing us from seeing any red faces.

It was back to the pitch and the 'prussicking' back up with Nick bringing up the rear de-rigging. On the surface it was nearing 7pm and still daylight, isn't summer great. I'm looking forward to getting back underground again soon, work permitting, then its my trip down Ireby Fell at the end of May, see you all there.

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

Valley Entrance

Paul Grainge