After the debacle of trip decisions, the "B-team" as we were now dubbed (Dylan, Jeff, Rob and I) eventually decided to partake a little pootle down Little Hull Pot. A slow start had by all, we packed bags whilst Jeff managed to squeeze in one more brew and began the march up towards the slopes of Penyghent. Lots of talk on the way up and then being overtook only to overtake again we eventually passed what appeared to be a jogging event which was our first obstacle for the day. Second obstacle was to not drop Jeff down Hull Pot as the view from atop was giving him a bad case of vertigo, not helped by Rob pretending to fall down.
Dylan successfully failed on getting us to the entrance via his nose (turns out a map does a much better job) and we sat at the entrance for a good while talking politics until we were greeted by an all female group about to embark on the same trip - Holey Moley! We decided now was a good time to get a move on! Dylan had expressed it was a pretty lengthy trip, one which he had recently done and assured us that it would take most of the day (although Rob and I had different intentions). Rob bombed it down the entrance which involves a bit of flat out crawling over cobbles until you reach the main stream passage and then the first pitch. This involves a short abseil through a window into a parallel rift which traverses out to the main shaft via a tiny ledges. This shaft was pretty awesome and once all down Dylan remarked on how quick that just happened and how it might be a much shorter trip than he thought. Now comes the second pitch, a short climb leads to a slot in the roof which gives you a great hang for this 40m+ shaft. The hang sits on the far wall which makes swinging out rather nerve racking due to the exposure, two deviations drops you straight down, we sat on a ledge with lamps switched off watching the others descend.
From here a little climb down cascades leads you to a smaller passage taking the water, this leads to a squeeze on the right wall which eradicates the need to get wet (negotiable with SRT kit on). Walk, walk and some traversing leads to a climb to a higher level traverse which eventually leads to the third and final pitch. We gave Dylan a bit of slack here and asked if he could rig for us. We all squirmed at his knots and wondered how he bottomed the cave on his last trip without dying, some stern words of encouragement got us down to the ground where we dumped kits and went for the sump. A short climb leads to a washed out bed which eventually leads to the large photogenic sump chamber. Discussions, photos and gummy bears were had and we started our retreat. All went rather smoothly only getting slightly halted by the all female team coming down the big pitch, we managed with only slight tangleations.
On surface we met Dave. I was parched and rather pissed finding someone had drank my carton of ribena (pretty sure it was the other group from what people are telling me.) The walk down was rather pleasant in the baking sun and Jeff, Rob and I capped off the day by our very own jogging race up Penyghent and back from the Bradford hut. Men of many talents us tha' knows!
FYI I won. Obvs.