Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Pete Pollard
(EPC), Dan Hibberts (EPC), Nige
Strong (EPC), Jules Barrett (EPC), Chris Schofield (EPC)
I'd been halfway down
Hungerhill Swallet's 40m
Deep Space pitch before and turned around when I couldn't find anything
to
rebelay the rope to. I'd heard that there was a Spit somewhere but
couldn't find
any evidence of it (or any decent rock in which it might be placed).
This was
frustrating but when Pete said Dan was keen to get back in there I
assumed that
Dan had some clever way of rigging the pitch that I'd missed. Anyway,
Dan, Pete
and Nige went in around 7:30 p.m. under the impression that me and
Chris were
going down Streaks Pot and would meet them in the Miner's afterwards.
In fact me
and Chris had a last-minute change of plan and followed them down
Hungerhill
Swallet (although they didn't know that). We didn't have a description
or any
information about the route from the bottom of Deep Space but we'd work
it out
as best we could. We did have to be careful that we didn't go one way
whilst
they came out of the other and pulled the rope up leaving us stranded
at the
bottom of Deep Space. Anyway, we climbed down the entrance shaft and
into the
muddy crawl at the bottom. Through the squeeze and into the short
section of
streamway that leads to the top of Deep Space. A big (11mm) rope was
tied to the
one big thread and hung over the lip of the shaft in a textbook example
of
Indestructible Rope Technique; absolutely no mincing around with
rebelays or
deviations. Chris abseiled down first and I followed him trying to
position the
rope on the smoothest bit of limestone as I went over the edge. Deep
Space is a
tremendous pitch and there are a number of ledges as you go down. The
walls are
a very black limestone and a thick layer of calcite covers them where
the water
runs down. There's a lot of black mud on the walls and a fair bit of
this heads
south every time someone abseils. Once at the bottom we had a look at
the small sump and then a climb
up into the rift that leads to Elbon's Kram. Didn't climb far enough to
see if
Elbon's Kram is still open. Then climbed up into the Bag of Worms and
had a poke
around in the nice chambers up there before returning back to the
bottom of the
rope. Once on the rope we both prussiked very carefully back up then
organised a
bit of rope protection with a tackle bag for the other three. Just as
we got
that sorted we heard Nige's voice at the bottom of Deep Space and
before long we
were all on our way out of the cave.
Hungerhill Swallet is
a memorable cave and
it's great to do a 40m pitch so near to Stoney Middleton Dale. There is
a big
problem with rigging it for SRT, namely, that you can't avoid the
massive rub
point as the rope goes over the lip and it also rubs at various places
down the shaft.
Some of the rock in there is as
poor as I've seen in a Derbyshire cave and that's almost certainly
why Deep Space hasn't been properly bolted for SRT.
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