Scott, Jasmine, Maz & Ray
A chilly evening saw 4 of us gather at the layby just up from the Hill Inn, unsure if Hardrawkin would be possible given recent rainfall. Although it had been dry all day, there had been significant rainfall over previous days and river levels were still very high. So we walked up the hill with a half-plan to divert to High Douk, Great Douk etc. if nececessary.
Arriving at the entrance, the water level entering the cave seemed surprisingly low… and cold, so in we went. Also surprisingly, no-one but me had ever been to Hardrawkin before. This didn’t deter Scott, who bravely led us into the unknown.
The few little climbs down at the entrance were as slippy as ever, requiring a bit of care to avoid an embarrassing tumble before even leaving the surface. The entrance passage, as far as the 1st pitch, was a good workout, forcing constant changing from walking to crawling or stooping at regular intervals. This was my 1st caving trip for around 5 months due to various joint-related issues, so I found progress along this passage to be particularly hard work.
Eventually we made it to the pitch and Scott set to rigging. Maz found a great natural backup, but it was quite a way back from the pitch head. I found myself wondering if Scott had brought a sufficient excess of rope. Time would tell.
The pitch head rigging was dispensed in quick time and Scott set off down. Despite the apparently low water levels entering the cave, the pitch did seem quite wet, so I hoped Scott would engage at least 2 deviations… which he did. There seemed to be quite a delay before the eventual “rope free” call from the bottom. At least Scott had made it down, but why the delay?
Jasmine was next to descend. The head of this 1st pitch is always a bit awkward as the y-hang is quite a way out over the pitch, making it difficult to pull enough slack through your descender to avoid hanging in your cowstail as you swing out. But Jasmine made it look easy, bridging up the walls for a bit of extra height. Nice one. Down she went, passing the deviations easily enough. Again, there was quite a delay before the rope was declared to be free. Hmmm.
Maz was up next. Not being a natural SRTer by his own admission, he appeared to be somewhat unconvinced about the sense of this particular endeavour. How would he get onto the rope? It’s not as bad as it looks, I encouraged. How would he get back off it on the way up? It’s much easier on ascent, I lied. He didn’t look entirely convinced, but carried on anyway. Sure enough, he did manage to get onto the rope and set off down. The deviations didn’t seem to pose too much of a problem. Once again, though, there was something of a delay before I heard “rope free”.
Setting off down myself, I could hear Scott shouting something as I neared the bottom. Eventually it became clear that he hadn’t, after all, brought a sufficient excess of rope! The workaround was to disengage from the rope while clinging to the wall a few metres up the pitch. As I was last down, we had to be careful that the rope didn’t ping back up the pitch as soon as my weight came off it. So Scott was on hand to tie a bit of tat to it to ensure that we at least had a fighting chance of being able to exit the cave.
We were all thoroughly soaked after descending this pitch, and the various shenanigans securing our exit strategy, so were glad to get moving down the cascades leading to the 2nd pitch. I always enjoy these cascades and the water levels made them particularly “enjoyable” on this occasion.
Somehow, Scott had previously found time to part-rig the 2nd pitch, so completing the job didn’t take long. Again, the take-off is a bit awkward, requiring quite a swing out from a ledge down to which you have to first climb. Again, Jasmine made this look easy. Maz made a pretty good job of it too and we were all soon at the bottom looking at the sump and contemplating our ascent.
Scott announced that he didn’t mind derigging. Ordinarily, I would have insisted that it was only fair that I derig. On this occasion, however, I sheepishly agreed and set off up the 2nd pitch in case either Jasmine or Maz needed some encouragement at the top.
The key at the top of both pitches is to not prussick too high. Doing so means that you don’t have enough slack to swing off the pitch, without your chest jammer pulling you back out. It was rather entertaining to watch Jasmine learning this lesson in real time. She prussicked slightly too high and attached cowstails. Then, swinging onto the ledge, found herself teetering on the edge, chest jammer pulling her back out and desperately gripping the upper rope to stop it. To be fair, she came up with the perfectly good solution of swinging back out onto the pitch and down prussicking a bit. This would have been ok. However, in the end, she simply moved her upper jammer over onto the upper rope, which she could then hang on to remove her chest jammer from the lower rope, while still stood on the ledge.
Maz made very short work of the 2nd pitch head, stopping prussicking with enough slack that he could swing onto the ledge and stand there easily to transfer onto the upper rope. Nice one!
Climbing back up the cascades provided just the right amount of fun. I then set off up the 1st pitch and was very happy to reach the top, for 2 reasons: (i) I was absolutely soaked, and (ii) I was absolutely knackered, not having done much exercise at all for 5 months (unless eating biscuits and cake counts).
Jasmine had clearly learned her lesson from the previous pitch and stopped prussicking a bit earlier this time. She took some time to think through her strategy for getting off the rope and then executed it very well. Maz’s exit from the pitch was perhaps a little less graceful, but some combined tactics did the trick.
Scott was soon up and had the pitch derigged in no time. We all remarked that the entrance passage seemed much longer on the way out and seemed to have a lot more crawling. Maz, in particular, had good reason to think this as he was dragging all the tackle – good effort. It was a very chilly walk back down to the road and cars covered in a nice layer of ice.
I like to think we all learned something from this trip: Scott learned that 40<45, Jasmine learned not to prussick too high, Maz learned not to trust me and I learned that eating biscuits and cakes doesn’t count as exercise. Thanks all for another great evening, even if it was a bit more moist than we would have liked.
