Meregill Hole… or Whose Rope is it Anyway?

Darren, Original Sophie, Jasmine, Connor, Ray

The official club trip was supposed to be Vesper, but I decided to move it to Meregill for 2 reasons: (i) I’d done Vesper a few weeks ago, and (ii) it was dry enough for Meregill to be pleasant. Both caves were already rigged (by CPC) for a 3 Peaks, 3 Pots challenge – seems they managed it in 13 hours, the 3 pots being Vesper, Meregill and Little Hull. Very impressive. The deal was that we could use the CPC ropes in whichever cave we chose as long as we derigged. Sounded like too good a deal to miss.

The walk-in was unusually pleasant, in the sunshine and with no tackle to carry. Both the mere and Aven Entrance were rigged, so we all entered via the mere. I set off first, followed by Connor, Jasmine, Darren, then Sophie. The descent went pretty smoothly on reasonable rigging, the biggest issue being that there was more than 1 set of rigging on various sections. How were we supposed to know which gear to derig?

CPC had taken the highest level option for all traverses, which added to the fun a bit. I don’t think I’d reached the 3rd pitch at such a high level before. The only other thing of note on the descent was an orange tackle bag and some krabs at the bottom of the pool on the halfway ledge on the final pitch. Connor decided he could reach it, but the pool was deceptively deep. We decided to leave it for the way out.

Having reached the bottom in good time, we set off to explore the extensive passage. The biggest hurdle here is crossing the very deep pool directly at the bottom of the last pitch. Various traversing techniques were employed. I decided on the low route, which essentially meant I was chest deep in the pool. Even then, I was teetering on a submerged ledge. God only knows how deep the pool actually is.

The young tigers, Connor and Jasmine, led the way along the streamway. The going was mostly easy walking or stooping with the occasional crawling section or cascade. Connor found cave fish at 2 locations and also pointed out a few interesting fossils along the way. He was clearly in his element. Before we knew it, we were at the terminal static sump, which seemed like a good point to turn around. Darren found a worm here, which he seemed determined to rescue, presumably not wanting to be outdone by the team involved in the rescue of Beryl the sheep a few weeks ago. I’m not sure he’ll get the same publicity – if only he’d given the worm a name!

A quick group selfie and we were on our way out. Surprisingly, the more “experienced” members of the group left the young tigers behind, despite having struggled to keep up on the way in. I can only put this down to us being more desperate to get out. Unfortunately, this meant that I for one was absolutely knackered before even starting to prussic.

I derigged the bottom 2 pitches. By the time I got to the halfway ledge on the bottom pitch, Connor had indeed retrieved the sunken sack and krabs. His suit even got a good cleaning in the process. Thankfully there was only 1 set of rigging on the bottom 2 pitches, so no dilemmas about what to derig and what to leave. Connor derigged the big 3rd pitch, where there was a dilemma. I don’t know if he simply derigged everything or decided to leave one set of ropes.

At the top of the 3rd pitch, I met Jasmine and Sophie. Sophie decided to wait for the others, while Jasmine and I set off out. At the bottom of the 2nd pitch, we could see lights from another party at the top. Jasmine went up first and caught the other group, who informed her that it wasn’t just CPC who had the cave rigged. Todd from Inglesport also had an ongoing project, so left various bits rigged… or so he thought!

There were 2 ropes hanging down from Aven Entrance, so we at least now knew which was the CPC one. Jasmine waited for the others to tell them which one to derig, while I set off out via the mere with my full tackle bag.

Sophie emerged next and we waited for the others… and waited. When nobody appeared, I took the decision to derig the (hopefully) CPC rope from the entrance shaft, assuming the others would all come out Aven Entrance. Sophie wasn’t convinced. Thankfully they did indeed all appear from AE. Phew!  Let’s be honest, though – they had no other choice. Apparently it was “a bit wriggly”.

We seemed to have rather a lot of kit to carry back down the hill – most of us had 2 bags. Given that there were 5 of us, this seems like a lot of rope, even for Meregill, so I can only suppose that we did indeed derig some of Todd’s ropes. Sorry! We’ll let CPC take what’s theirs and get the rest back to Todd. I’m sure he’ll relish the opportunity to rig it all again.

Photos by Darren and Connor.