Southerscales Pot

Ami, James, Dave and Steve (Report by Steve)

Dave from Red Rose was the only one who’d done it before but some years ago.
So armed with a copy of the CNCC guide and a selection of slings we found the entrance as described but perhaps helped more by OS Maps and the grid reference.
At the time we’d not seen rain for weeks so there was hardly any water in the entrance crawl and we soon found the first pitch. The rigging wasn’t too bad. We tied in to a large stal away from the pitch and then used 2 slings up on some natural threads high up on the right hand side for a nice free hang into a large chamber.

So began the 300m or 10 minutes worth of wet millipede crawl.
I think we all lost track of time and distance but can confirm it’s a long, wet crawl probably best measured by at least 150 adjustments made to knee pads in an attempt to minimise the bruises.

Ami reckoned it was just over an hour when we reached the second pitch which was to prove interesting to rig.

Fortunately a piece of old rope had been left so that was used to back up a butterfly loop over a nobbly bit closer to the pitch head.
With James weighing down on the loop I was confident enough to get out above the pitch to look for something else.
This turned out to be our long sling over a large protruding lump of rock on the right about 2 – 3m out past the pitch head. I couldnt find anything else to back it up, but it was a nice straight drop down to the chamber floor.

We All suspected getting off the rope on way out would be interesting so
I returned to the top of the pitch to rig a loop to aid getting off.
The others set off on the short trip to the Sump. The few reports on the internet suggest it’s not free diveable and even after no rain they still found it full.
The single sling proved OK on way out and was easily flicked off the lump to de rig so there is some advantage to natural rigging after all!
The return crawl seemed longer and wetter and none of us found the president passage crawl, so there is cause to do it again but I for one would be waiting for a another good dry spell.

We soon emerged wet and muddy to a lovely sunset over the fell.