Disappointment? – yep 07/03/2015

[Xandar]

Me and Don were the only takers for this one, I don’t know why, that would be.

Water levels on the way up were higher then expected, likely due to the snow melt and when we got into the cave, water was flowing strongly. Don had watched a video and said there should be no water in the passage, looks like it could be in for an interesting trip.

The passage to the duck was a relatively easy meander, all up right but a little strenuous with bags, but nothing on the scale of By George. We reached the first “duck” and at first glance one could be forgiven for thinking it was sumped, but on closer inspection we could see that there was about 4 inches of air space. Careful shuffling keeps your mouth just out of the water, until a duck under a lower part of the ceiling for a couple of inches forces you to hold your breath for a moment before coming through.

A short bit of crawling leads to the portcullis. 2 inch of airspace had me giggling at the ridiculous-nous of it, but non the-less even if Don was not following me (I had gone ahead to see if was sumped) I was going to give it a try, solo.

I still had my helmet off from the last duck and backed in head first into the very small air space. Doing it this way was difficult because, my helmet was by my legs at this point meaning I could not see a thing. It was scarier then necessary but this method worked okay going in. Trying to use the airspace going back out, I ended up drinking and aspirating water when my head sank and the water backed up around me. In retrospect, being only short I should have just dived through as at least then I would have been holding my breath and not breathing water and I would have been able to at least partially see where I was going. Still, strangely after returning to Don, I had enjoyed the experience, I guess near drowning gets the adrenalin going!

As Don was not even going to do the first duck, though he gave it a shot with my neo hood (highly recommended kit for this trip). We ditched our original idea and headed up stream. A small interesting climb up a cascade led to quite ardours rift passage, with both floor and ceiling routes possible. Eventually a short section of easier passage leads to crawl past lots of small inlets and sharp rocks until finally a flat out junction is reached. Right leads to a boulder choke that cannot be far from the surface and left lead through a tight squeeze over a shelf into a very small crawling passage. I have a feeling that not many have been up here. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it after about 50 feet it crapped out as it got too low for even me to fit.

So then we headed out and decided to see if our rope would do OBJ hole. The first pitch we rigged was from a natural, but on the second we could not find a thing, there was only a spit. Weird I though all of Gaping Gill was on “P” anchors, I guess they forgot this one. Don was starting to shiver as I was faffing about trying to find a natural or something to use. Finding nothing I wanted to rig off, I free climbed back up the first pitch and we headed out, at least we attempted to. I had a fun time of free-climbing back down the pitch and back up again, thinking I had not tied the bag to the end of the rope, though I had! Don was not impressed with that.

Our third trip was Wades/flood, just for something to do. I tried to rig the first pitch with a 20m but got to about 5m off the floor (had no topo as this place was not our original intention). I came back up to the re-belay. Don rigged another 10m rope before de-rigging the top of the 20 and threw it down to me. I then tied that into 10m and the P bolt re-belay enabling us to get to floor. We then had a straightforward trip to the top of the big pitch, obviously none of the ropes we took for Dis would do that, so our trip ended there. We had a quick glance at the crawl linking Bar we had come through on the last winch meet, Don did not quite believe he had come through it does look a lot harder on this side.

Trip times:
Dis: 2hrs
Obj hole: 45mins
Wades/flood: 1hr 45.

[skyrmy]

Only ever been out of Diss but found the portcullis easy, going through on my back. Remember getting a bit of a nasal rinse at the other duck though lol

[Xandar]

Water levels were particularly high.

[Don]

The water level of the duck was definitely higher than I expected. You could tell from the still visible foam that the ‘duck’ must have been sumped a couple of days beforehand. It would have been very difficult to do on one’s back unless you’re nose was literally touching the ceiling and someone guided you through.

Definitely a trip for a day when it hasn’t rained for at least a week beforehand.

[Xandar]

Definitely a trip for a day when it hasn’t rained for at least a week beforehand.

Or when you are a little braver ;) (and own a neo hood)

[Don]

AND OWN A NEO HOOD. Yes, my thoughts exactly!

[rob]

You’re right, water levels were high on Saturday. I went in Yordas Cave with my 2 kids and the waterfall was in a rage. Some bloke (BPC I think) was descending the middle entrance trying to find his kroll! (??)

Regarding the sump/Portcullis in Dis, there is a small cut out in the roof that you can’t immediately see when you first look in. Also, the Portcullis requires a full submergence even in lower water (or it has on the 4 occasions I’ve done it) so a neoprene hood is useful.

[skyrmy]

[Xandar]

That’s just a blank post Mike? Moved your reply into club matters.

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