Rumbling Hole
Saturday 23/3/19
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Chris Kelly, Chriss Shaman, Mike Skyrme, Neil
Seven people signed up for today’s trip, so Don and Dan decided to abandon the main team and go down Short Drop, leaving Five to get down Rumbling Hole. It’s been a while since we had a Black Rose trip with three Chrises, but it’s been worth the wait. I’ve done Dead Bobbin before, but this was my first trip down the normal route. It’s a clean and enjoyable SRT trip, with no real difficulties but some entertaining pitches.
Chris Kelly rigged the entrance pitch – only his third ever time rigging. If you think that’s impressive, his friend Neil was doing only his second ever caving trip today. Both performed like seasoned professionals. The first pitch has that very exposed Y-hang rebelay just over the edge, then drops down onto a big ledge before a short traverse and another drop down, via a deviation on the far wall. Once off the rope, we made a mad dash under the spectacular waterfall and into darkness.
The next horizontal bit was all easy enough, following the water, then a free climb through a window on the right led to the top of the second pitch. I was quite warm at this point. The second pitch is split into two, with a narrow section half way down to get through to the rebelay. The third pitch followed immediately, with a deviation sling that popped off when Shaman pulled on it. Hilarious.
There was another very short horizontal section to get to the final pitch, where a rebelay kept us mostly out of the water, but I was cold by the time we got to the bottom. We all flew out like wild stallions, then sat in Whoop Hall for about an hour waiting for Don. He still can’t actually go inside because of the dogging incident, so I had to meet him in the car park.
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