From RRCPC 8
After the success of unearthing the Maracaibo inlet in Ease gill, the
hard core of the club felt justified in sitting back to gloat over
the survey that was published in Journal No.7. Having stoked up the
fire and found some comfortable chairs, the Red Rose stalwarts duly
settled down with a brew and festered, like embryonic cavers
suspended in winchesters full of Yates and Jackson's. Dust and
cobwebs gathered in the kitchen, and darkness fell over the farm as
the money ran out in the meters.
One day, some years later in 1980, a bearded philosopher with a glass
eye blundered into the kitchen, knocking the winchesters all over the
floor and reanimating the pickled likenesses of the Red Rose hard
core.
"Get off your arses, I've found a dig waxed the philosopher, storming
off to the changing room with a giant iron bar in one hand and a tube
of Spangles in the other. Lured by the possibility of some new
passage, and the more attractive probability of being fed, we dragged
our pale, limpid bodies into mouldy gear, and set off over the
fell.
Assembling beneath Fall Pot, we climbed into an inlet only a few
yards up the Main Drain. This passage was marked on the three
Counties survey and, we knew, headed south for a couple of hundred
feet. After some low crawling, progress was arrested by a calcite
darn from which trickled a small stream.
"There y'are," said Jim, "a cracker inít it!"
Not wishing to incur his wrath and lose our Spangle ration, we
reluctantly muttered agreement. The bar and chisels were aimed at the
offending calcite, and the hammers began to fall.
After several weeks of concerted effort, mainly by Grahame Leach and
Jim Newton, the water level behind the calcite was lowered an inch or
two and a faint draught began to clear the air and our heads. Old
hands were dusted down and brought out of retirement, and new faces
were press-ganged to the work face. Jim Davies arrived with a drill,
and a large length of 6" pipe appeared from somewhere and was poked
into the murky waters. Owing to various problems with these simple,
mechanical aids (i.e. having them operated by simple, mechanical
cavers!), things didn't really get going till a recce team of Alex
Fletcher and Paul Saville took a mini-bottle in and negotiated two
low sumps to a squeeze and some rift passage, ending shortly at
another low sump.
The following weekend a team of nine assembled at the dam, and the
ritual siphoning was recommenced. After an hour, the first two sumps
began to blow and we were just about to set off through when Jim
Newton, who was still hammering at the calcite slot, was shot in the
leg by a steel splinter. His leg rapidly began to go numb, so Mark
Woodhouse and Frank Hardy agreed to help Jim out as it was obvious he
would need assistance. The 'bullet' was later removed in hospital,
but meanwhile, Jim Davies, Paul, Al and Hugh had reached the previous
limit of exploration. While the diver kitted up and had a fag, Jim
and Hugh crawled up an inlet to the right and tried to climb a
vertical tube in a phreatic side passage. This fruitless attempt only
got them covered in obnoxious, slimey mud, so they retreated to the
sump. Al and Paul had disappeared, but the diving kit remained. Had
they 'lost their bottle, we joked.
A small pile of cobbles denoted just that, and we soon discovered
that, with a bit of gardening, they had managed to lower the sump,
creating another glug-glug-cough-whoosh-oh hell fire-glug of a duck,
this one somewhat longer than the previous two. After 1 5ft t the
roof fortunately rose to a more respectable 6" airspace, and then
suddenly popped up into a nice rift' giving sideways crawling. At
last it was possible to stand up, and we set off in pursuit of the
other two. The narrow rift forced us into a higher level traverse,
but after a few corners this dropped into a respectable walking-size
stream passage. We whooped away upstream, falling over everything and
each other in the excitement. Several hundred feet on we met Al and
Paul where several cross-rifts, both carrying streams, entered as
inlets. Up a l5ft climb in one, l00ft of passage entered a low, wide
bedding-plane with a large collapse of blocks on the left. Through
this could be seen enticing black space.
Enough was enough. With no one to keep the siphon open the ducks
would be almost full again. We retraced our steps to the first two
ducks which, sure enough, had filled (the siphoners had got bored
waiting and gone out). Some hairy free-diving through underwater
squeezes and we were soon back in the Main Drain, exiting after a
successful but knackering eight hours.
After this experience with the auto-fill ducks, it was decided that a
siphon team should be stationed at the calcite dam during
exploration. Al and Hugh volunteered to lie in the water bunging and
unbunging the pipe, thus getting to the front of the exploration
queue on the next trip. But up at the low bedding chamber, the
enticing black spaces in the blocks didn't seem so promising after
all, and half an hour's ferreting didn't get them anywhere.
Hugh decided to have a rest and crawled over to a shingle bank in the
middle of the 'chamber' for forty winks. Lying back on tile cobble
cone he was surprised to find himself looking up a small aven.
Curiosity led to investigation and he was suddenly shouting "Al, it's
huge! Passage six foot square, come on quick!" A squeeze off the top
of Hugh's Climb broke into a sizable shattered chamber. In the
opposite wall a nice square passage beckoned.
We're away, we thought. The comfortable walking passage raced quickly
round a few joint-controlled legs, and then abruptly split up into
pokey little rifts which all choked. "hell fire, this is stupid" said
Al. We tried again, looking under every shelf that might contain the
way on. Nothing. We retreated with mixed feelings of pleasure and
disappointment. 'It don't come easy' in the Red Rose, it seemed. How
did the Pennine do it, we wondered? We recounted our finds to the
siphon team and it was agreed that a fresh pair of eyes should have a
last look round on the next weekend.
The fresh pair of eyes peered around above a bushy black beard.
"Wot's this?" said the mouth, following its breath round a little
rift that twisted up to the base of a climb. "Wot do you mean, it
doesn't go?" said the breath as its long legs projected it upwards.
Effing morons must be blind !" said a disappearing Jim Davies. At the
top of the 25ft climb a small window looked out into a huge passage.
"Come and look at this, you stupid sods," said Jim. A startled
following climbed through the window into a large passage, 15 - 20ft
in diameter. A bat flew past. Surely this one must go, we thought?
But it was quite quickly established that the only way on was up the
aven in the middle of the passage, both ends of the old trunk route
having solid chokes. The cavers withdrew, Al's thumb being crushed by
a falling rock on the climb - it made everyone realise that any
injury beyond a hangover made rescue from beyond the ducks extremely
problematical.
The scaling poles were brought in on the next weekend and the aven
climbed. This revealed a further short length of passage till a
boulder blocked progress, but the sound of falling water could be
heard beyond. A climb above the first scale led upto a second aven
which was eventually radio-located. The complex of Bat Chamber, the
present conclusion of the series, lies beneath the large shakeholes
that are skirted on the path to Link Pot. It looks a significant
spot, both above and below ground. Those who push the remaining leads
have an entertaining trip to contend with!
Thanks to Jim Newton for finding the lead, to Grahame Leach for
believing him!, to Andy for lending his nickname to the bedding
chamber, and to Frank Addis and team for the radio-location. And of
course, without the rest of us, none of it would have happened in the
traditional Red Rose way - slowly!
Hugh St Lawrence.