Notts Pot

Darren, Chris D, Tim K, Gareth, Sophie, Sedgey, Ray

It was AGM day and Sophie had tried to arrange a day of fun in Chapel le Dale, with trips to Sunset and Meregill. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas, so we settled on Leck instead, with parties going down Notts, Notts II and Shuttleworth. Aren’t we an active club!

The plan in Notts was to rig 2 different routes down to the Lower Streamway, then recombine for the lower pitches. I rigged down to Threeways Chamber, where we all reconvened for a discussion of who was going where. I ended up rigging down Twilight Zone, with Gareth, Sophie and Sedgey following. Chris rigged Adamson’s, followed by Darren and Tim.

It’s probably 30 years since I last did Twilight Zone, so my route finding wasn’t as slick as it could have been. A few metres down the 1^st big drop, I tried to swing over to where I thought the route went. A lot of effort and some very big swings indeed all ended in failure… which is just as well as I was apparently trying to swing over to Centre Route. You live and learn. Further down, I completely missed the passage I was supposed to swing into, instead following the water down. It got wet. It got very wet indeed. An improvised deviation off a natural helped a bit, but lower down it got very wet again. There was no alternative but to prussick back up and, strangely, the correct way on was obvious. All this pointless up & down and swinging to & fro took exactly the right amount of time as we got to the Lower Streamway at exactly the same time as the Adamson’s party. Almost like it had been planned!

Tim was having a bit of back trouble and decided to head out via Twilight Zone, so at least he managed the exchange. Gareth took over rigging for the lower pitches and all were soon at the bottom… apart from me. I decided to forego the pleasure of the last big pitch to speed things up a bit. There were already 5 people down there!

Everyone exchanged on the way out. Darren & Chris derigged Twilight, Sophie and I derigged Adamson’s. While derigging Birthday Pot, I managed to get the rope snagged, so had to down prussick to free it. Poor Sophie got the job of derigging the nasty little down climbs near the top… with virtually no whimpering at all. She carried on derigging the entrance pitches from Threeways. I think I may have detected some language when one of the ropes got snagged, but luckily I was mostly out of earshot.

On the surface, we were vary surprised to find everyone stood around waiting for us, including Tim. Personally, I would have buggered off to get changed. An almost perfect day was rounded off by too much beer and food at the Station Inn after the formalities of the AGM. I’m already looking forward to next year.