Rift Pot - A Close
Call
Rift Pot revisited after a lapse of 18 years reinforced memories of a previous
trip that will never fade completely. The recent trip with the club was a
cheerful affair, with shouts from Johnny Wilkinson of...”Beam me up Jim”....,
very different from the previous trip with the Bradford where “Beaming Up”
would have been the answer, where touch of the Captain Kirks was definitely
called for.
Our only luck that day was to have the right man at the center of events and very few men could have done, then or now, what Derek Jowett did. Still, that's the end of the tale, not the start. Usual start, Coach trip from Bradford on a Sunday morning, and humping ourselves and tackle up to Rift Pot and down the entrance pitch. Then the gradual process of finding our way down the pot with only ‘Pennine Underground' to guide or confuse us, and confuse it was. So that by the time we started down the last pitch which is 180’, we had rigged our last 150’ of ladder on it convinced that we had enough tackle down the pitch to easily bottom it.
A party of four assembled on a ledge about 40' down the pitch and belayed back the ladder to the ledge with a sling and karabiner. First man down the pitch was John Thompson who, after descending about 40', signaled he was coming back up the pitch, which he did, and announced that it was too wet for him “Did anyone else fancy a try?” Derek Jowett then set off down the pitch and very quickly reached the bottom, whistled for the line up, and then we realised that he hadn't untied and in fact was climbing back up. After 10 or l5ft. of climbing the line suddenly went slack, there was the noise of a rock falling , then silence. After some shouting from us we were relieved to hear his shouts. It was difficult to hear his words due to the sound of falling water, but what had happened was that the line had snapped and the falling end had dislodged a rock or two which had missed him and that he was O.K., but the ladder was short.
After more shouting it was decided by Derek that he wanted another life line down rather than climb back up the pitch without a line, and unfortunately he had used his sling and karabiner on belaying back the ladder to the ledge. More shouts, this time to the rest of the party 40’ above... ‘Would they drop down a life line’.... This they did and it was quickly lowered down to Derek who managed somehow to tie on, and it was relieved men who felt him start to climb up the pitch; another couple of minutes and all would be well.
And then almost the unbelievable. We felt the second life line snap after only a few more feet had been climbed. I know that I, for one, realised that if things had been tricky before, now we really had problems. How Derek felt I don't know, he had been at least 5 minutes hanging onto the ladder after the first line had snapped under a fall of water that one man had already tried and found to be too wet for him, and this was pre --- wet suit or goon suit days.
What had caused the lines to snap? On looking at the frayed ends of the full weight hemp ropes, although they looked almost new they were quite rotten inside and it was only the outside strands of the rope that topped the lines from almost falling in pieces. Two or three of us had done some caving before joining the Bradford and had brought and used the ropes, and on joining the Bradford had been pleased to give the club the ropes. Some present! It was now obvious that Derek would be unable to climb without a line and the only long line left was on the entrance pitch. We were unable to make the party on the ledge above understand what we wanted, due to the noise of falling water. It was decided by the two heaviest men that the lightest man should climb up to the ledge. I don't think he agreed with us but could think of no good reason why we should climb instead. So it was left to Geoff Thorndike to climb up the 40’ pitch unlined with 140’ below him, and to make matters worse the ladder was hung at an angle under tension, with the weight of Derek still on it. It was with relief that we saw him reach the ledge with no problems. Our faith in tackle by then was at a low ebb!!
Now for the
wait whilst the line came down from the entrance pitch. During the wait we
started to sing and then from below we heard Derek join and this cheered us up.
After what seemed en age but would have been no more than 20 mins the last line was lowered to us.
Keith Asquith had got to the bottom of the entrance pitch found the line tied
at the top and the life-liner missing. He had gone for a walk. So he had to
climb the 130’ entrance pitch both ways without a line, and this had caused the
delay. Still, we now had our third line and that was now lowered down the pitch to Derek, who managed to tie
on again, and with very little pull from us, (we didn't want this line to
part), he climbed up 110’ with the added weight of two wet lines still tied to
him, after being under falling water for at least 30 minutes.
He told us that the ladder was about 30’ short and that he had climbed down to
the bottom of the ladder to see if he could drop to the bottom of the pitch,
but it was too far, He had managed to tie himself onto the ladder with one of
the lines but when the last line came down he had had a real job to untie,
having lost all feeling in his fingers. Still, he had managed it and his own
modest words on a previous occasion had best summed up the position..... “I’m a
man for the Shafts.”
Frank Croll.