Bull Pot of the Witches

Scott, Ami, Sophie H, Billy, Paddy

As the weather wasn’t suitable for the planned trip down Scanty Lardos I put a shout out to the club that I needed to do a bit of rigging practice for an assessment and would be good to have a few folk along. As such a find group of cavers assembled at Bull Pot Farm and off we headed down Bull Pot of the Witches. One of my favourite caves this one, something for everyone pitches, squeezes pretties, wet, dry; and it was the first cave I ever went in!

I quickly rigged the traverse line to the entrance chimney, something I’d used several times with other people but never rigged myself. It’s been rebolted recently and although they’re quite far apart it’s an easy rig. Then on to the chimney itself, a wide Y hang but a good clean drop. Quickly followed by Scott I ran off to rig the second pitch while he pointed out the way to cavern 32 for the others to explore. As it was Ami and Billys first time in BPoTW they were keen to have a good poke about, Sophie had been in with me a few months ago for SRT practice but was definitely keen to learn the system a bit better. They quickly caught me up as I was finishing rigging, Scott let me lower him down the pitch and then the others followed down on descenders and then shimmied down the in situ handline below. Sending the next bag down with Billy I messed about with hanging a ladder while he made a start on rigging the next pitch.

Considering it was only his second time rigging, and with some great advice from Scott Billy made a great job of rigging the bottom pitches and before long we were all exploring in the Long Gallery. Right takes you to the upstream sump and down through the mud you find a drop down to the streamway and then it gets too small and chokes. A good place it turns out to discuss various vehicle breakdown stories (It appears that AA are better than RAC).

On ascent Billy derigged the bottom pitches again and the rest of us set about finding Burnetts passage, Scott says “its through there and down” not how I remembered it. Turns out it was through there and up, but not the way I’d been before. Billy nipped back and tied the bag to the bottom of the top pitch and then followed on. Heading down Burnetts I noticed the way I’d used before and made a detour to explore, I quickly found myself at the bottom of the in situ handline, with my bag clipped to it! That wasn’t going to be easy to haul up Billy! Having moved the bag to the correct rope it was quicker for me to jug up the rope and drop back down to join the others at the gour chambers.

Last time I went in to the gour pools we went from the other side and I had gravity on my side to help with the tight bit, it certainly wasn’t helping me this night! After a small struggle I decided to go back and de rig the pitch and the traverse and let the others enjoy the pools, apparently Ami made it into the upper pools, I didn’t even know that was a place!

Having de rigged and made it back to my van, changed and tidied ropes I was getting a bit concerned about the others, 10 mins to call out and they still hadn’t emerged! I decided to walk back to see if I could see them coming, and lights were heading towards me. Apparently one of my biners had got jammed shut at the top of the chimney and they had spent 15 mins trying to free it! As it was Billy that de rigged I think that’s a cock up Ken nomination coming his way! Also if anyone finds a carabiner at the top of the chimney with an orange tough tag on it, I’d be grateful for its return!