Taking advantage of a mid week day off, Jess and I decided we’d have a jaunt in the peaks. We’d done P8 a couple of times, but had never rigged the high level bits and thought we’d go have a play in anticipation of a possible novice SRT trip in the future.
Rolling out of bed in to a -3 start to the day I have to admit the thought of staying in a nice warm house with an endless supply of tea & coffee did seem rather appealing to us…….then the children got up and we couldn’t wait to get out!
After paying our trespass fee and changing, Jess and I romped over the snow covered fields toward P8. Arriving there we found the entrance completely frozen. Water was still pouring in but under the flowing water was a thick sheet of ice, so we decided to rig a hand line in to the entrance. After a swift ice cold dunking we set off down the passage toward Idiots Leap. Jess spotted a couple of potential climbs up and upon exploring, we found Flats and Boney pitch heads. Rigging Flats we quickly made our way down and carried on toward the first pitch. Here I climbed up to take a look at the high level pitches before sliding back down to carry on with our objective, the traverse around the first pitch. With this done we went across the high level route to Mud hall and down for a quick look at the sump before coming back via Gour passage and reversing the route to exited in to a very chilly -6 night sky. Great fun, an entirely different cave when SRT’d.
Pressent: Mark Burkey & Jessica Harding
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