This is the report of the other party involved on the day.
The team consisted of Andy, Ian, Kate, Alasdair & myself (Robin).
We started the day at Yordas with Andy & Ian rigging the Yordas Pot entrance followed by the wet crawl down to the main stream-way. They would then exit via the Middle entrance de-rigging.
Kate and Alasdair had not done any SRT in a cave, so I rigged the Upper Middle Entrance while the other team entered via the Lower Middle Entrance without SRT. Both Kate and Alasdair had no difficulty with the short pitch into Yordas and we then arrived at the second short pitch to find the other team using the easier route for laddering. At this point Alasdair remembered he’d left his kit bag on the surface so went back to retrieve it.
I rigged the alternative second pitch and that was descended easily by all.
We then met the other team in the main stream-way and also Andy & Ian who had commented that the wet crawl was quite high (downstream).
Kate & Alasdair were keen to do the wet crawl and exit via Yordas Pot, so we set off upstream after trying to point out the end of the crawl to Kate. They both followed upstream without much fuss, I did ask if they were okay and Kate was just keen to know where it ended which was only a few feet further on. At the lowest point you ended up with your ear in the water!
We emerged into Yordas Pot with Kate & Alasdair saying they enjoyed the crawl despite being ‘damp’.
As we needed to de-rig Alasdair offered to ascend last and remove the krab from the deviation. That all went without incident. Although I was sat at the top of the pitch listening to Kate’s running commentary on what she needed to do at the deviation, which was very useful as it made my job of
watching them easier as it was their first decent SRT ascent.
Once we were all out we walked back down to the main entrance and I asked if they wanted to look at the bottom exit and see if we could get out there. We headed back into Yordas and down through the water at the bottom and squirmed out of the loose slope into daylight.
After Yordas he headed across the valley to Heron Pot.
Andy and Ian went straight into Heron to rig the high route to avoid the water, while Kate, Alasdair and I went to the exit to check the water level to make sure we could exit that way.
When we got there, Kate wasn’t too sure about the exit so I offered to go in and back out so she could see what it was like. After that still not convinced, Alasdair said he would go in and out, once in he convinced Kate to follow. They both went in and back out so we now knew we could exit that way after descending the high route.
Once in Heron we descended through the long canyon passage to eventually reach the rope up to the high route. We ascended that to meet Andy who was waiting for Ian to rig. Once Ian had rigged and Andy descended I followed with Kate close behind. Once at the main pitch I confirmed they were both okay with the descent and set off for the bottom. Kate and Alasdair followed shortly into the spray lashed chamber.
We left Andy and Ian to ascend and de-rig while we headed downstream for the exit.
Once we reached the wet crawl, I mentioned once we started we didn’t stop as it’s easy to cool down quickly. As usual the crawl is always longer than you remember but we eventually reached the exit. Alasdair was out first followed by Kate and myself. Alasdair commented that the water was higher than earlier, I agreed but didn’t want to say anything till we were all out !
We headed back to the cars and Andy & Ian emerged a little while later after we had reached the cars.
Kate & Alistair had to head off due to work commitments but Kate did thoughtfully provide tasty cake for all which has now started a tradition which Kate will need to maintain !
