Team: Ray, Tom, Will
With various trips happening at various times over the weekend, but none I could make, I found myself meeting up with Tom and Ray at Masongill nice and early on Saturday morning. Although the weather was a huge improvement on recent weeks, there was a bitter chill in the air.
Ray had previously completed North by North End Pot, although some time ago, and Tom and myself were on our first time. Once we’d completed the rather short hike in, we had a quick chat whilst kitting up, and Ray set off down the well-shored entrance shaft to rig. As he’d previously visited, and we were keen to respect the loose rock warnings that come with this cave, it made sense to follow Ray’s lead. This warning was very quickly reinforced as on our way to the big pitch we experienced the first boulder fall of many. Without too much hassle, we all carefully and slowly worked our way through the traverse and down the main pitch. Considering this is supposed to be the ‘danger area’, it turned out to be the least eventful section of either our descent or ascent of NbyNE!
Once down the final pitch, we breathed a sigh of relief and began stripping our SRT kits ready for the next part of our journey. Ray and I were super keen for a venture to the Eastern Front, and Tom had been super keen to make it back to his sofa after about 10 metres of descent down the entrance shaft. I’m not sure if it was the rock fall we’d already encountered, or the impending ‘muddy trough’ but his enthusiasm was quickly dwindling and in hindsight I can’t say I blame him! We pressed on regardless, and after a few short crawls which resulted in us saying “oh this isn’t that bad” and Ray responding with “just you wait”, we watched Ray slip into the first of many unpleasant and considerably wetter mud pools. The kind that would steal your welly if you hung around in the same spot too long, providing it was big enough to stand up in that is, the majority of the mud encountered was in the form of a flat out crawl/swim. After the first serious mud section, we quickly realised we were off course and that could well have been the end of our voyage there, before Tom pointed out another way on that looked well travelled. I wasn’t too keen, but Ray slipped on in after a moments hesitation, and we heard him gargle through mud that this was in fact the way on. I reluctantly followed, on the promise from Ray that it wasn’t very long, and worked my way to a brief area of respite where I could stand. I noticed that I wasn’t being followed anymore and Tom had obviously thought he was going to point the way on and bail, not on my watch! After a brief spell of peer pressure, he sure enough followed me through. Although still muddy, conditions had improved somewhat and so the three of us again pressed on, now admiring plenty of formations around us. One of which being the incredible crystal pool, which Ray had installed the conservation signage for, and what beautiful signs they are! After some quite physical sections of crawling, where you need to stay high in a sloped muddy crawl when your caked in mud, we came to the next flat out section. Tom had had enough and called it there, and so Ray and I continued on with half an hour to play with. Rays earlier enthusiasm had clearly been infectious, and I pressed on determined to make it to the boulder choke at the end of the Eastern Front before the turn around time. Ray was hot on my heels the whole way through and it was long before we were being rewarded with a final stroll through some beautifully decorated passageway. We reached the end, and before I had a quick climb up the boulder choke, we both had a ‘wash’ in the dribble of a waterfall at the end. Looking back it’s quite funny really, as we had to drag ourselves through all of that mud again, but still we revelled in the opportunity to have clean ish hands even if only for a few minutes. Ray and I were time checking with military precision, and took no time at all to turn around and head back into the muddy slogs to work our way back to Tom. Once reunited, it was evident we were all ready for home and so got right to it. Although it undoubtedly was a tough trip, I was still feeling pretty fresh at this point and so volunteered for de-rigging duties. Tom set off up the last pitch first whilst Ray and I were again searching for any drop of water to clean in and get our SRT kits back on. Ray began to ascend, and that was when the hardest hour I’ve had underground began! Whilst working his way over the huge boulder at the bottom of Julian’s leg up, a football sized boulder peeled off the wall. It skimmed by me by millimetres, and I quickly remembered how serious this cave was and how alert I needed to be. I quickly took up a position I felt most safe in, which to be fair wasn’t anywhere at the bottom of this pitch! Ray was now through the rebelay above the boulder, and precariously working his way up the boulder slope above. With no prompt at all, another two larger flakes each roughly the size of your typical pillow, peeled off the wall below the boulder. After watching them crash down exactly where I was previously stood and watched other come out, I began inspecting the wall and now noticed that these 3 boulders looked as though they’d been serving as chock stones for the main big boulder. After realising that there was nothing now holding this boulder in place apart from hope and prayers, my attention was then drawn to the boulder slope behind that said boulder is propping up. Luckily for me, Ray called rope free right as this realisation was dawning on me, and so I began working my way up and de-rigging as fast as I could whilst also making sure not to so much as breath in the direction of any of the slope. As I was attaching my ascenders, the big boulder shifted and few inches twice, causing a small rumble in the boulders behind, which only added to my current paranoia and I really felt I was sat at the bottom of something that was set to go any second. Normally, I wouldn’t feel happy leaving something so sketchy as that without attempting to make it safe for future visitors, but I felt there was absolutely no way I could try to move anything without there being uncontrollable domino movements, and I was certainly not in any safe place to be initiating such things! At this stage, getting out as soon and as safe as possible was the only thing on my mind. The biggest worry is that any future descending team unaware would step on the huge boulder which I don’t doubt would cause a substantial collapse. Thankfully the CNCC quickly responded to our report and published a warning writhing 24 hours. Rock fall was the theme of the ascent for me, and I can’t knock my team mates at all as I watched them ascend as carefully as they could ahead of me, giving each other the full range of the pitches before calling rope free. 3 or 4 times I was hit indirectly by tennis ball sized or smaller rocks and each time I was just thankful that it wasn’t any of the larger ones that had come my way during the trip! As I made the final climb up the entrance shaft I felt mentally drained from the ascent and constantly being on edge for rock fall, something I’d never properly experienced before. Luckily, we all made it out without any injuries, and we all vowed to never visit North by North End Pot again! There are other ways into the Eastern Front and that will be our route of choice in future, if we can ever convince ourselves to face that mud again!
