After the introduction to SRT last year, Mark, Jane and Charlotte made plans with me and Judith a few weeks later to get underground and consolidate those skills in a real cave.
Firstly, we headed a popular training cave in Winnats Pass where we jogged our memories about it all and practised going down and going up (and did a litter pick).
One of my favourite moments was when Judith was struggling to get off the pitch head, and someone pointed out she could use the traverse line and she promptly rapidly completed it.
After lunch, we headed to Bagshawe Cavern to explore the Lower Series and descend the Dungeon Pitch.
When we arrived at the Dungeon, there was a puddle at the bottom and the way on was sumped due to recent weather.
We made the decision to practice our SRT here and leave the lower series trip for a drier day. The group all abseiled into the Dungeon with various entertainment near the bottom and retrieved themselves back out.
Afterwards we went for a super enjoyable time in the Agony Crawl, where I found and made the lower series non-srt connection, and realised why the SRT route is usually preferred. Long, committing flat out crawling that’s almost squeezing. An acquired taste for sure, and one I don’t have.
Thankfully, the group didn’t follow me into that, so we just had the final challenge left: the stairs, but we made good time and exited the cave in time for dinner.
Great to see three people get some real cave SRT experience and take some of their first steps exploring the underground spaces around us!
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
