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by Chris Davies

 Saturday 29^th April 2006

Drove up to meet up with Lee just after 11am at Hitch and Hike, Bamford, we brought some rope bags, waterproof containers, couple of steel maillons for my ascending gear and gloves, mine were both left handed which were changed later! I located Odin Mine, that Jasonbirder and I had visited on my last trip, as I had marked it on my tomtom GPS.

From the information posted, via the Internet, we located the Giants Hole parking area easily and I stuffed a load of change in the good-will box, we kitted up carrying our new shiny rope bags almost looking like proper cavers. Down into Giants and finally to Garlands Pot which I rigged with a fairly dubious yet safe rope down into the pot.

As I had rigged this pot it was up to me to descend first, I guess, so gingerly with cowstails and descender swung round I was in position for the descent. Check the descender, ok, cowstails off and down I went nice and controlled, easy. Next Lee admiring my rigging dropped down pleased with himself. Harness off we headed into the Crabwalk, on and on and

on it goes, a few slight climbs, a few were you have to get down in the water to fit through. ON and ON this Crabwalk goes, we passed the steeper section which drops down quicker with some pots, we went though the bit that levels out, the Crabwalk went ever on.... Until... the furthest I have been we got to a point too tight for us, we could not climb up as the sides were too flat, could not get low as the entry is round a corner and still tighter lower down. We were stuffed, we tried, thought, pushed, relaxed, tried everything short of hanging upside down head in water to pass this restriction. So back out we headed, to Garlands Pot were Lee and I ascended, I was rather pleased with myself. De-rigged and headed out. On the surface getting changed into dry gear, I have messages. It appears Jagman and the SimplyCrew (excluding simplecrawling) have popped up/down to meet us in Castleton. Later after a meal with the gang, and an entertaining giggle at past 'activities' we all parted and myself and Lee booked into Pindale, we had a room, with bunks for 8 people, and a kitchen. The owner is in the cave rescue so was happy to have a couple of cavers in.

Sunday 30th April 2006

Our Plan, to poke around in some dry caves and locate places to visit maybe next time. We drove about the area. We looked at two caves on Winnats Pass just up from Speedwell Cavern, one of which later I find out is Suicide Cave (Horseshoe Cave) we went in with just torches (just checking locations for now) and found eco-hangers and a drop and discussed about returning with kit to descend later on. We exited meeting a mum and her two kids and ambled off.  Just then there was a horrid thump and the mum ran towards the entrance, we thought the kid had fallen in and smacked himself, but no, the child had climbed a ledge some 15-20ft up over the entrance and fell off landing on his brother, the mum picked the child up, and someone with a phone called an ambulance. Lee and I made sure the ambulance knew were the accident was. We left after, the kid apparently waiting to get a helicopter ride to the hospital for scans etc.

After lunch and time for P8. This cave is just down the road from the Giants turning. We parked in the usual place and popped the farmer some money, got changed and marched off in the right general direction, several fields later we found the entrance. The water level was very low, just a slight trickle of water down the hole. SRT gear on, and with a large sling round a rock as a hand line we diving in getting drenched, and crawled off downstream dragging out new but not so shiny caving bags. A rope was rigged for the first 'slide' just to make it easy for the two tired cavers exiting (us) later. The first very short drop was just round the corner so we used the same rope hung from the eco hangers and descended down in the waterfall. A few twisty turns and finally at the 25ft pitch I didn't descend last time. With our last rope I rigged the pitch, dropped down to the re-belay and made a re-belay out of the flow of the waterfall. What a pain; but I finally made it past and down to the bottom, same for Lee, but we had spent a long time on this and knew we would take a while to get back up again so we only went a little further down before returning. Lee was up first; there was swearing going on at the re-belay, more practice is needed, later it was learned that we should have used the loop formed for the rebelay and stood in that. Finally Lee made it up with more swearing. My turn, I was well pumped up and zoomed up the rope, dangled about and used a combination of the ascender and pulled myself up with one arm managed the transfer, forgot that you transfer the chest croll first, I think, its all in the new book I bought so I'll be an expert next week. Anyway, back up the last bit de-rigging as I went and we headed out. The little pitch is easy but still wet. For the slide I just used my hand ascender to grip on. At the entrance I popped out like a cork into the cold damp air, would have been nice if it was warm and sunny as we were both soaked and headed back along the 93 fields to the cars, changed and headed onwards for food.

Pindale is an excellent place to stay when caving, with a bunk being just £8 a night + £1 for each electric token used (we only used 2) why camp!