 Me after a pint! Hi this is Ed's page. As you will see Ian pete and myself all started caving at the same time. If you read Ian's page you will see how we all got into it. It has taken me nearly over a year to finish my page off so finally and after some gentle hints from other members of the club, its finished, i will hopefully put some other reports up in the near future Since we started caving nearly a two years ago we have visiting most of the caves in the valley. One particular cave which sticks in my mind is Redhurst Swallet. This cave was first pointed out to us by pete. It a very obvious cave when the river is dry as it has a large metal grid covering the entrance and can be seen from the road. 
After we had been caving for a while and once we had some more detailed information from Martin all we had to do is try and tackle the cave. I remember we had a quick look in this cave late one Sunday afternoon, myself, Ian, Pete and Martin went to the first sump. As soon as we entered the cave i knew i had to reach the end sometime soon!!! The first sump was a crawl through some water, Martin and pete didn't fancy this so Ian and myself went as far as Sump 2. We only went as far as Sump 2 due to it still being full, slightly disapointed we exited the cave to be tackled on a drier day. Armed with an updated survey of the cave and some more info from Martin of what things looked like in the cave we returned a week or so later with the weather being so good and without a drop of rain we thought we might get a little further than our previous trip. This time we went equipped with a bucket just in case we were able to bail some water from one sump to another if the water was still a little too high. Due to underestimating just how much water this cave took we only managed to reach sump three but were still pleased to have got this far. We slowly lowered ourselves into Sump 3 just to find the depth it was only waist high but due to the roof being low it mean't we had to crouch in the water making it shoulder height! The water took our breath away until it had been warmed by our wetsuits. We soon got acclimatised to being in the breath takingly cold water, and we had soon turned our thoughts to getting through Sump 3 and on towards Hall's reward!! After some discussion and a mars bar break we knew we wouldn’t get through without a lot of bailing (great!) I think at one point we had counted over 40 buckets and we had only lowered what we considered to be a small sump by about 2cm. After much bailing I decided I'd bite the bullet and give it a go! We hadn’t had any rain for many weeks and knew that it would be unlikely that we would get many more chances. I wanted to get to the end of this cave today! Me and Ian had a few words and shortly after my helmet was off and it was being pushed ahead of me. With my head tilted to the side with cold dirty water covering half my face I pushed my way in. “I’m through” came the excited shout to Ian, “Awesome, I’m coming through too” Ian replied. With both of us through Sump 3 safely, we pushed on through Hall's reward. Surely we’d make it to Pink Chamber today. We were both looking forward to reporting on what Pink Chamber looked like and about our trip. We reached the top of a tight 60 degree climb and were unsure if this was the right way, what if we climbed down and couldn’t get back up? Ian put himself forward and found it to be easier than first thought due to the sharp rocks offering good foot and hand holds. We made it to Sump 4 (Bullyhead) and found it to be completely full, disappointed we had a good look around and made our way out again! After speaking with Martin he told us the way up to the Cheesegrater was to the right hand side of Sump 4. A couple of days later we tackled it again surely we’d make it this time? It took us no time to reach Sump 4 owing to the fact we had no water to bail. Armed with Martins info it took us no time to get up through Sump 4 and on to the Cheesegrater. It was nice to now be in some drier cleaner parts of the cave, as the lower sections had a lot of river debris and had now started to smell. Once we had made the climb up we knew that we were now in the Drought Series and would make it to Pink Chamber!! Our excitement and adrenaline began to show and we began to hurriedly make our way further towards our goal not stopping to look for any markers which might help us on our way out. We had one final climb and we knew we were nearly there, as we climbed into Pink Chamber we could see evidence of previous cavers, foot prints in the mud and a karabiner which had now become part of the flowstone wall. We’d done it! We’d made it to Pink Chamber and what a sight it was, the whole chamber covered in a very odd pinkish coloured flowstone. It was awesome to finally make it to this magical chamber. We shook hands and had a well earned break before making our hour long trip back. It soon became apparent after a few minutes walking that we couldn’t exactly remember which way we had to go back! We had a look around for a few minutes and ended up back where we were after taking what we thought was the right route!! Things started to become slightly worrying but before long we found the right way out. The rest of the exit from the cave went without a hitch and were finally greeted with a lovely sunset. This trip has always stuck in my mind as it was one of the first real trips I had done and had a whole host of obstacles to overcome during the trip. I have not managed to make a return trip to Redhurst yet with the rest of the gang as the weather has been so poor, I hope to make a return trip with Pete and Martin this year and hopefully get some pics of our adventure. ED IF YOU DON’T LIVE LIFE ON THE EDGE THEN YOU’RE TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE!
|
