Dudley Caving Club: Wretched Rabbit, A Monster Trip

For Sundays outing it was back to Bull Pot Farm. Our objective for the day was to begin to get the basics of navigating the Ease Gill system under our belts by going in Wretched Rabbit to Stop Pot.

Changing we again met up with a number of other groups who asked what were up to, none of whom could understand why we would want to cave without an SRT kit….Wretched Rabbit is an exit not an entrance!

We consulted our newly acquired surveys and descriptions trying to make head nor tail of them. Brendan had been in this part of the cave before, but that had been 25yrs ago….yep he really is that old!

On our way to the entrance we met up with one of Red Rose’s member who was going in to County Pot to do a through trip and out Wretched Rabbit. He gave us a brief description of the route and it sounded nothing like the guide, but we’d soon find that his was by far more accurate and easier to follow.

Upon finding the unassuming entrance we headed in and soon found ourselves at the head of a number of vertical climbs with in situ hand line. We made our way down these and in to a crab walk rift passage, which changed level a number of times, but generally kept to the stream. On our way we again bumped in to Alf from Red Rose who again gave us further navigational instruction.

Before we knew it we emerged at Eureka Junction and made our way up the 7m fixed ladder in Stop Pot and continued on through to Monster Cavern. Here we took a couple of photographs before beginning to head out. As we exited we crossed paths with several Crewe members who were doing a top sink through trip.

The exit itself went smoothly, although was uphill all the way so a little tiring. Again we stopped a couple of times for photo’s to break up the slog. At the rope climbs we again paused to get a publicity shot for UKcaving and Spanset who provided our recent prize.

Again a great trip and I look forward to going back to begin to put together the navigation of the massive Ease Gill System.