Tag: Black Book

Team: Scott & Ami

We’d been rained off previously so we ignored the sunshine and agreed to get King ticked off this time! Ready for a big one, we agreed to meet nice and early, but were immediately scuppered by the a65 being shut. Running late, we got permission from the (absolutely lovely) farmer at Braida Garth and schlepped up the hill. Scott pointed up from our location: ‘That hole looks promising.’ But no, I had diligently downloaded the what3words from the website, and insisted the entrance must be the other way. You can guess who was correct. (I have sent a report to CNCC, but for future, think the correct what3words is term.attic.zapped.)

After all that it was gone 11am when we entered. With only 2 of us, I had opted for the heavier bag, but first to rig. I was able to offload my first two ropes very quickly, with a handline and then Perfect Pitch. This beautifully round pitch set the tone for all the day’s pitches, namely, no back up, just an anchor immediately above the precarious drop.

So began the start of the crawling. A lot of crawling. King is famous for having a bit of everything to please (or horrify) every caver, from scrambles to boulder chokes to squeezes; pretties, mud, water and great chambers; but the crawling is definitely the dominant feature.

The navigation wasn’t too tricky and I began to feel pleased we were making good time. I was soon humbled by the ‘strenuous traverse crawl’. I am sure anyone reading this who has done the thing before will have smiled when I said that. Strenuous indeed. It’s a t-shaped passage, with the vertical section being too small for more than a thigh, but able to grab and hold a welly or bag like a set of jaws. The top bar of the ‘T’ isn’t really human sized. You can turn your head occasionally, and in spots there’s even enough lip on both sides to have two elbows on the rock, but otherwise, is belly crawling over a crack you really don’t want to fall down, with nothing to stop you doing so.

This culminates in an ‘awkward climb down’. I arrived at a tiny junction. To the ledt, the crack continued, but suddenly dropped off like a cliff edge. To the right, an extremely small looking squeeze out on to a tiny slither of ledge that sloped slightly down to a large fall. Not liking heights, I must confess I lost my bottle here for a sec, mostly because I couldn’t see what was out the other side of this titchy squeeze, other than a potential plummet to the ground. I tried to let Scott past, but not a hope in that space! So, without much choice, I forced myself – croll screeching along the rock – through the space and on to the ledge. I still couldn’t see how to proceed. My back was against the ceiling with a massive drop to the left. I manoeuvred to turn my head towards the drop to try to see a way down and Behold! a Handline!!!!!! Suspended from the rock between the two routes. Phew. There was no way to have seen this from the other side, but knowing it was there made far more sense – a largish caver certainly wouldn’t fit the way I came – but with the landline, Scott could continue the rift towards the drop, knowing there was a way down from there.

This had all taken an age, but we could go on from there with some fun boulder scrambling to arrive in Queensway, and be treated to some walking. My fifth pitch rigged, I was even Bag Free! Scott took over rigging and navigation, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We enjoyed some real treats of features and the echoes of King Henry’s Hall, and Scott rigged expertly some great pitches (an almighty suspended boulder at BloodAxe, and a real airy take off at Elizabeth pitch) to get us down the verrrrrry long crawl to the main drain without incident. We checked out the upstream sump (the sumpiest sump we’ve ever seen) and middle sump too, before heading for the bypass. We found the muddy crawl and stunning flow stone, and then the ‘low airspace duck’. Scott donned his neoprene hood and went through, and I was just thinking it didn’t look too bad, when I heard an ‘Oh No’. It turns out the levels weren’t what we hoped, and ‘low air space’ in fact meant ‘no air space’. This was a real shame, as we had both really had our hearts set on getting to the end. I have however decided after looking at the survey, as there isn’t that much left to go after the sump bypass, and I’m counting it.

And just like that, all that was left was the journey back up. Scott offered to derig, which I thought was fair as it meant I had a bag for the longer stint this time. I regretted this chivalry for the next four hours. While my nemesis squeeze was easier in this direction as there was something for my feet to push off, I did manage to drop the bag down the terrible crack and discover just how difficult it is to lift 60m of wet rope with absolutely no space to bend your arms.

A fantastic trip and well worth doing, even if my muscles were absolutely spent the next day. Which Black Book trip are we doing next?