Snakes and Ladders
Hugh St.Lawrence
and Keith Pacey
We had a
new weapon at the farm. Unbeknown to Mr and Mrs Pacey of
potholers, not simply the one as they had originally
imagined. The second speleological outcome of their fruitful union was actually
the firstborn, sending his kid brother out to prepare the universe for the
arrival of the true supernova.
So there
we were in Pippikin, me, Neil, Ange
- and Keith, for that is his name, stuck in a squeeze. In fact he was stuck in
all of them and I was beginning to feel a bit shaky on the Nostrodamus
vibes. Was the new star waning before he’d shone - or even glimmered? I need
not have feared, it was just a matter of acquiring a little technique, some
finesse. Now the thing was to groom this new talent, to channel its prodigious
flair into some useful application. Not for him the easy cop out of Saturday
SRT jaunts. No, what this lad needed was some solid digging experience. I had
just the place’
Bullpot of
the Witches, I said and told Keith to put his gear on. After all there was
little else to do now Hawkeye had turned the sounds off and there was a dead
sheep in the tea line. Soon the star was changed, looking in his tatty green
overalls like a cross between Kermit the Frog and an accident at Sellafield. Meanwhile I had been going through the passage
in my mind - reckoned that I could just get a rigid ladder down there.
We waited
until Hawkeye was safely stuck halfway into his oversuit
in the changing room - then we made our move. Nabbing a 15ft wooden ladder from
the farm passage we beat it down the track and lowered the ladder into the open
pot. This also meant we enjoyed the luxury of a fixed ladder down the easy
pitches and in no time we were manoeuvring our fixed
aid into Burnetts Passage. At this point Keith asked
me what windows we were going to clean
The window
we were going to “clean” was in the junction chamber shortly before Burnetts Great Chamber. Up in the roof, and strangely missed
by Bullpot addicts of old like Duncan Baldwin, was an aven
with a passage appearing to lead off the top. We leant the ladder up against
the wall and I went up and put a bolt in, perched precariously on the top rung,
while Keith kept me tensioned with a line. Another bolt would now be needed but
would be difficult to place, so I hung an electron and descended to think it
out (le. have a fag).
It didn’t
look too good until I had the bright idea of pulling the wooden ladder up and
laying it off the ledge above the bolt into the aven.
No sooner said than the pocket rocket was up at the bolt hoisting the wooden
ladder into the heights. There now ensued the type of
circus act that keeps pulling them in at Billy Smarts. I hid behind a rock as I
wasn’t sure if my nerves would stand it, but I could tell what was going on
from the noise, a cacophony of grunts, oohs and aahs, sharp cries of pain and anguish, gasps for breath,
unprintable four letter words, the knock and scrape of wood on stone, sounds
not unlike someone nearing climax, the groan of. Watching this I knew my
predictions had been right, “Whatever you do, don’t
drop it!” I was not surprised to learn that this voice was mine.
With the
pocket rocket contorted at full stretch and tip toe on a nubbin, the ladder
balanced on his index finger like pile of spinning plates, it was the moment of
truth. “Clank!”, the ladder fell into the passage and
held.
“Right,
I’ll go up and have a look now”, I said, nonchalantly coming out from behind my
boulder. But the pocket rocket was not to be parted from his lifeline and after
a quick breather and resorting of runners, he set off
fearlessly across the bridge. This was no mean feat as it involved an overhang
move with a heelhook onto the ladder. Watching this I
knew my predictions had been right, a star had been born!
The aven sloped up to a small “lobby” but there wasn’t room for
two. “Is there a passage going off?” I asked anxiously. “Yes, I’ll go and have
a look at it”, came the reply. Keith came back and I
had a shot at the heelhook (entertaining!) and a
squint at the crawl.
Off the
“lobby” a short crawl under a mud bridge enlarged to a small trench turning
right (north) and then rising as a left hand bend levelled
the crawl out to a gravel choke. The interesting thing was that this was a phreatic passage and the roof had started to dip downhill.
No surface vadose inlet this one. Where was it going?
I scrabbled a bit at the choke but I realised I
needed tools. It was time for tea.
On the way
out the PR confided that if he was going to take up caving seriously then this
was the sort of thing he wanted to do - exploration at the sharp end! Pete,
help is now on hand
Hugh St.Lawrence
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