Trip to Death Race

Alex again, feeling good if tired.

After going across the lake on the leaky boat again, we picked up the bags from where we stopped the day before, and headed on into the cave, psyched up for the biggest caving trip I’ve attempted.

The trip in was hard but good fun, with some really varied caving. Going up the ramps was hard work, especially carrying a bag of kit. The hole in the wall was impressive, and the duck was a bit grim, but on the whole a really good trip.

Finally I spotted camp, and dropped down the final climb. I was definitely ready for a rest and some hot food. However it became clear that neither of us knew how to operate the petrol stove, and after an hour of trial and error, we gave up and used the lunch stove to make some cous cous. I then attempted some bolting down Joe’s Crack, turns out it is harder than I expected. Then Chris and Hannah turned up, Chris fixed the stove and we had some food. The  it was time for my first night camping underground, and it was much nicer than I expected.

The next day we headed on, up some pitches; I quickly got stuck in a hole. Then I came across a down pitch where the rope was caught, so time for some down prussicking on to the traverses. Which are scary (for more detail on this point, ask Dave). After much terror we reached the other side, and we were away. After a few hours of good sporting caving, we reached a very slippery, muddy pitch, which was a sod. At the top of this was some of the most amazing passage I have seen. The difficulty here was not damaging any fomations when passing through. We then started scouting for interesting leads, and stopped very near the end of the cave. We used the stove to make some lukewarm tea and noodles, before we got ready to go. Dave then started his aid climb, whilst I sat on a ledge belaying for a good few hours, which was fairly cold, made much better by the down jacket and warm tea. After several hours it appeared that Dave had made good progress, and that the climb was still going.

The climb was named Terror-firma by Dave, the climb went up around 25m to a narrower bit; it is a promising lead, and Dave intends to return to push it further.

We made our way back to camp, over the traverses (still scary), for some sleep before heading out.

We were relived to find a new boat at the lake, and I overjoyed to find some beer stashed by the entrance. Best tasting beer I’ve had in a while.

Thanks to everyone for a good trip.