Alum Pot, Yorkshire Dales

It was an Alt. Tuesday weekend arranged for a trip in White Scar Cave. Mat and Nikki had booked the Yorkshire Ramblers hut, "Lowstern" and we all arrived Friday night. Because White Scar is a show cave, an early start was required so they had also arranged for a breakfast to be cooked for everyone in the morning - an excellent idea.
As the forecast wasn't good I thought the trip would be called off, but when Mat phoned the show cave to arrange an alternative date, he was told it would be OK to go ahead as long as everyone was out by 2pm. As I had already decided on Alum Pot instead and would rather visit White Scar when there was less of a rush I decided to leave White Scar for the next time and Karen decided to join me for the same reason. We drove to Alum Lane and met Kev and Claire Chadwick getting ready to take a trip down Long Churns with a party of kids.
Below Dolly Tubs pitch the 30 metre rope was too short - which was unexpected as the rigging guide showed 32m and I had rigged the first Y-hang part way along the traverse! So I tied on the rope intended for the traverse after the Greasy Slab for the last 3 metres or so. In the mean time two more cavers arrived and started rigging the traverse above us to the end. I rigged the Greasy Slab and walked along the ledge to the top of the Bridge. As the rigging guide showed 45 metres of rope was needed for the next pitch from underneath The Bridge, and we had only the 45 metre rope left, I decided to let the other two cavers past so that if our rope was too short, then they wouldn't be delayed while I returned up the pitch.
The other two cavers arrived and one of them was Bean from the Wessex CC who I had met while caving in France a few years before! I explained our possible problem with not enough rope and he suggested we follow down on their ropes. Great! Especially as Karen and I didn't bring a rope for the final pitch as we would then have three tackle bags too carry instead of two.
Anyway, we followed Bean and his mate down to the bottom of Alum Pot where they waited for the others in their party to arrive via Deccan Pot and complete their Alum Pot/Diccan Pot exchange trip.