23rd of January 2016
Chris Scaife, Chris Sharman, Don Miller, Alex Ritchie, Dan Jackson and, I suppose, Daz of caving.
In a brief window of relative dry, sandwiched between diluvial trimesters, we opted for the Red Herring series in Large Pot. Assembling at Masongill after Don crashed his car into a bridge, we walked up the hill and dropped down. Below the entrance pitch there is a short crawl to the second pitch. Daz had enjoyed the entrance pitch so much he decided to head out here, and then there were five.
With our mascot safely on the surface, I was left with the enviable task of following Alex up the rear. As I approached the pitch head I realised he had switched on his brand new GoPro so that he could film himself giving me advice on how to descend. Very sage Xander, very sage. The pitch is a little narrow, but I don’t think any of us struggled. If you go down in the right place it’s not much more difficult than the first pitch in Bar Pot.
The third pitch is immediately below the second, with no time to unclip from the rope, and followed by a junction: one way leads to a Colossus and the Temple of Doom, the other is a red herring. Easily fooled and no hydrophobes, we went for the piscine option. While Don was having his rigging dream scuppered by Sharman, Xander and I explored an interesting aven.
The fourth pitch had a small waterfall to keep us refreshed and was followed, on the same rope, by the fifth. The sixth and seventh pitches, again rigged with one rope, start in a narrow rift and a rigger who cared if he and his companions lived or died would probably use a chockstone as a back-up. Below this we followed a stooping-height passage and free-climbed the eighth pitch.
After the short ninth pitch, we had a few minutes of crawling in a decorated streamway, with a brief wriggle under calcite to the head of the tenth pitch. The tenth and eleventh pitches were rigged with one rope and without rebelay, and just below is the twelfth pitch. We put a sling on this for assistance, but if you don’t mind getting wet this is free-climbable. A wet crawl then leads to an interesting sump.
Wacko Jacko and the Sharmanator had to shoot off, as it were, leaving me with the elite de-rigging team. The highlight of the return journey was when Xander was taking the red tackle sack out of the top of the second pitch. With his face pressed up against this bag, Xander saw red and shouted and screamed with a voice only a lucky few have ever experienced. Marvellous.
Almost certainly one of the easiest NFTFH trips, the only slight awkwardness being the second pitch, but a very enjoyable day of caving.
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