Vesper Pot

Will, Ami, Ray

Not fancying the official KCC trip of Dowbergill Passage, I had resigned myself to doing something else for the day… until Ami mentioned that Vesper was rigged and that she and Will were thinking of going there. I didn’t need any more encouragement than that!

Arriving at the usual parking spot by Braida Garth, Ami and I were surprised not to see Will already there. He’s never late. Still, it gave us an opportunity to catch up with Dalek, who was about to do a Swinsto pull-through with a couple of Southern cavers.

Will still hadn’t arrived by the time Dalek and party set off. However, there did appear to be someone (possibly) dressed like a caver waving at us from quite some distance further up the road. Could that be him? He was walking toward us, so we set off walking toward him. Eventually it was clear that it was indeed Will, so we indicated that we would drive up to meet him at his completely random parking spot.

All reunited and changed, we (plus Will’s dog Lenny) set off on a route I’d never taken to Vesper before. While I don’t think it was any shorter than the usual route, it did seem a bit less steep, which suits me just fine these days. On arrival at the entrance, I was fascinated to see what Lenny was going to do. Would he turn out to be an expert in SRT? Would Will tie him to a stake? No, he would just sit and wait patiently by the entrance for us to return. What a well-trained dog.

The entrance is a rather committing head-first dive down a slot, leading to a short very narrow sideways crawl. This was one of only 2 bits of the cave I could remember from the last time I did it, many years ago. For some reason there was an old pair of underpants in this section. Was it so tight that someone had to strip down to that level to get through??

Soon enough you break out into a low streamway where more conventional flat out crawling is possible. Luxury. The passage slowly enlarges so that walking/stooping is possible. At a step down on a LH bend, Ami chose to go low, ending up grovelling and squeezing at stream level. Not being Mendip cavers, Will and I stayed high for a bit of easy traversing. There were even some reasonably nice formations at roof level. Eventually we had to drop down too, shortly before the 1st pitch.

Having done the cave so far carrying our SRT kits, we each found a not-quite-big-enough spot to kit up. The first pitch is a bit awkward at the top and could really do with an extra anchor a bit further back to protect a bottomless traverse to the actual pitch head. At the bottom, the awkward passage continues to the 2nd pitch, again with a slightly awkward head. Once on the 2nd pitch, we remained on rope to the bottom.

The character of the cave changes completely from this point. No more constrictions and the pitches just get better and longer. That’s not to say that the challenge decreases at all – it just changes to a different challenge. For us, the challenge on the 3rd pitch was entirely man-made. None of us could quite fathom the rigging. It wasn’t exactly difficult to pass the pitch head, and we all managed in our own way, but I really couldn’t understand the thinking of the rigger.

The 4th pitch has an interesting traverse. The other bit of the cave I remember from years ago is the lean out to the anchors at the head of the 5th pitch. It used to be real fun to rig back in the old days of spits – hanging over the rather large drop for too long with spanner in hand. These days it’s just fun, especially when pre-rigged. The 5th pitch lands on the Great Rubble Heap, where Spectacle also drops in. There is another short pitch, but like everyone else, we decided to forego the pleasure. It wouldn’t take much movement of the rubble heap at all to make it your last ever pitch.

After a brief chat at the bottom, we made our way out without any real drama. It was absolute luxury to not have to derig and drag tackle back through the awkward entrance series. Definitely the way to go! Will and Ami totally breezed out. I thought even I was doing well, right up until daylight was in view. I approached the last section facing the wrong way and couldn’t quite get my leg up a very small step. I had to reverse slightly to a point where I could rotate the other way. No big problem, except that the act of rotating put my face rather closer to the discarded pants than I would have liked. Back on the surface, Lenny was still waiting… and very excited to see us back.

Vesper is definitely a trip of 2 distinct halves. I did kind of miss the rigging on this trip, but that’s a very small price to pay for not having to carry tackle. My hope is that this will kickstart of few more KCC trips on East Kingsdale. King Pot anyone??

Photos by Will