Maskhill
- Oxlow Exchange -
29/01/2009
Report by Jon Pemberton
Team Maskhill - Mark
Harrison (EPC), Jon Pemberton (EPC), Tam and Leann Rennie (EPC).
Team 'Ox-slow' - Bernie Maddison (EPC), Sam
Pemberton
(EPC), James Wood (EPC).
Team 'Pissed at the TSG' - Jim Alder (OCC).
We all
met at 7:00pm in the lay-by
beyond Oxlow House farm. Jams must have got kitted up within two
minutes while I hectically froze! Ten minutes later kneeling near
Mark's car, still complaining, still freezing, my hands nearly falling
off! I was ready! So Mark and I were the last to make our way up to
Maskhill (officially.) The entrance pitch got rigged and and we
abseiled down the rope with all of us dreaming to make it out
in time for the pub! Bernie and Jim Thompson had managed to
mistake Mark and myself for Jams and Dervish thus making the
unnecessary hike up to Maskhill. Tam was next while Leann kindly
offered her position to me noticing me stumble around with my hands
in my mouth (the best and only way to keep warm at the entrance to
Maskhill.) Within five minutes Mark was last to enter with some nice
closing of the lid.
We had
already done the Oxlow - Maskhill
exchange a few weeks prior to this trip (01/01/2009) with a lot more
people, so after descending murmuring churn and short
‘free-climbable?!’ pitch we came to the decision that rather than
drop down into Pearl Chamber (6th pitch of Maskhill) as we
did on the previous exchange we would traverse across to the rock
bridge and abseil straight into the far west of the West Chamber.
From
the rock bridge we could see team
Ox-slow sitting in the bottom of the west chamber having bagz of fun!
We abseiled from the rock bridge into the impressive West Chamber
taking
in the view. ‘Tagged’ each other and declared a ‘de-rigging’
race to the pub. (copyright Jams.) On reaching the West Antechamber I
decided to head up the inlet on the left knowing that our party (the
bigger one of the two) would take longer to ascend the last couple of
pitches in Oxlow. A very clean
scalloped crawl for 35m to a sump (dived for 43m, not today.) The
stream emitted from the passage has been dye-tested from Black’s
folly, the rocky tube before Castle aven in the New Oxlow series.
When I
eventually got back to the West Antechamber everyone had almost
ascended the 5th pitch
leaving only Tam at the bottom and Leann halfway up the rope. I was
last to ascend/de-rig unsure of what Dervish had intended us to do
with the pitch/traverse (too busy thinking about pitches and Pantin’s.)
Oxlow got de-rigged and on the surface I met Tam who hastily
departed once he had received the mammoth tackle bag I had dragged
out from the bottom of Oxlow. I decided to do the noble thing and
wait on the surface. We hauled the 50m
entrance rope out tackle bag attached. After
getting changed back at the car I noted it was 10.45pm! With no sign
of team Ox-slow. (Pubs out ‘a window then.) 11.25pm saw Jams back
at the car, not bad for an evening trip!
We
even got to see Big Jim slurring his
words back at TSG absolutely blotto arguing he couldn’t make the
trip due to flu, a right treat!
-“Whera
azh Devishb then…?!” Big Jim 2009
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