Boxhead > Notts II
Ray, Sophie, Darren, Chris D, Tim D, Bob, Jason
[Written up 26/10/25 from some brief notes made at the time]
This was the Christmas meet, and I hadn’t done Boxhead before, so what could be better than a 3-counties through-trip to work up an appetite for pudding?
Ray rigged, down to near (but not at) the bottom of the shaft to the Kendall flyover. It’s a big pitch, but the rigging isn’t too complex. Tim and Bob turned back to de-rig, bless them! There was a longish crawl, followed by the Cresta run, a slightly awkward slippery crawl/traverse over a rift. Then some more mixed going – fortunately Ray knew the way as there were many side-routes. At one point, as I was trailing behind somewhat, I failed to notice the way on was a climb up over boulders, and got stuck trying to get underneath, in thick mud [2025 update – I only did the same f***ing thing again!]. Darren had to come back to set me right. Further on, there’s a handline-assisted chimney climb which is quite strenuous. [2025 update – 3 years later I couldn’t manage this at all and resorted to prussiking up the old hawser-laid tat]. Soon after that we came to the junction with the Lyall cavern route (Helictite rift is straight on) and up to the link with Notts II. You have to go up as far as possible before dropping down into it. I managed to get stuck again by not ensuring my SRT bag went down before me [2025 update – one lesson learnt!] It was a fast trip as everyone else was fitter than me. About 3½ hours underground for me, probably less for the others!