Lost John's Cave

The first Orpheus CC trip to Yorkshire Karen and I went on for ages started with a quick trip to the Orpheus cottage to pick up the ropes then a quick 2 hour trip to the Northern Pennine Club's hut Greenclose near Clapham last night.
Boyd had made the booking at Greenclose and told us (he was planning to travel up this morning) that there was a group from SUSS (Sheffield University Speleological Society) also staying. As it was Fresher season, there were 30 of them! Of course we knew several of them from DCRO and they were a nice bunch and always apologising in case they were too noisy or anything.
After dropping our gear off at Greenclose, we drove to Clapham to visit the New Inn for a while then returned to find the group from SUSS finishing off their evening meal and preparing for some games. The first involved picking up a small cardboard box using only their teeth while only touching the ground with their feet and nothing else.
Once all had successfully picked the cardboard box up, by various postures and movement, a strip was torn off around the top making it lower and therefore more difficult to pick up. Again, once all had succeeded, another strip was torn off. Eventually there was just a small piece of flat cardboard left. And, surprisingly, some even managed to pick this up!
Pete Wagstaff arrived during this contest and stood amusedly watching. The next game was one I had taken part in the past which involves holding a broom stick in both hands in front of you with your palms upwards while you step both legs over the stick so that it is now behind you. Now you have to swing a leg around one end of the stick, outside of your arm then back over the stick in between both arms.
All that remains is to, while not letting go of the stick, to raise on end and somehow get the stick back over your head so your are holding it in front again.
In the morning, we had a bowl of cereal then drove to Ingleton for breakfast at Bernies and also to meet the others who were travelling up this morning. Keith arrived followed by Boyd and also Phil Wall, who had been in Wensleydale for the past few days. Then, unexpectedly, Simon Wynne and Jason Blackwell also turned up not having mentioned they were planning on coming.
Once breakfasts were finished, Boyd headed off to do his own thing as he had a back injury, while the rest of us drove to the car park behind the shop at the crossroads at Cowan Bridge further along the A65 main road towards Kendal.
Having organised the ropes into tackle bags, we drove in three cars (mine, Waggy's and Simon/Jason's) up to the car park on Leck Fell. Arriving at the car park we found some scrotes had been letting off fireworks and left their rubbish everywhere, so we spent a few minutes picking it up so that we could dispose of it later in the day.
We got changed and walked down the road the short distance to the cave. Karen, Keith and myself followed the Centipede route with myself doing the rigging while Waggy, Simon, Jason and Phil followed the Cathedral route.
The plan was for Karen and I to have a short trip as we wanted to visit the Fireplace shop in Ingleton to look at buying a wood-burning stove so we were only planning to go as far as Battleaxe Traverse then head outwards. So we only brought the ropes for the pitches before this while the other lot had the rest. It turned out that the Centipede Route was already rigged, although it appeared to have been left in-situ as there was evidence of rust on maillons and carabiners.
Anyway, we got to the top of Candle/Shistol pitch and as we hadn't the rope for this short pitch (Keith had brought the tackle bag with the rope for Valhalla pitch further down) we dropped down using the in-situ rope.
We waited in the small chamber below for the Cathedral Route party to arrive but we got bored after 45 minutes or so and decided to re-ascend the short pitch and retrace our route back to where the Cathedral Route joined our route.
As luck would have it, just as I got to the foot of the Dome Junction pitch, where the Cathedral Route came in, I saw someone arriving a short distance above: it was Phil, who was doing the rigging. It turned out that they had been delayed because they didn't swing across into the hole part way down Dome Pitch, but had continued to the bottom and then dropped down the two short pitches of Shale Cavern and Sink Chamber. Realising their mistake, they had to re-ascend and then swing across Dome Pitch.
The two of us said “see you later” and returned the way we had come while Keith joined the others to head for the bottom of the cave. As some wanted to return via Centipede Route, we left it rigged and had an easy trip back to the surface not having to carry and tackle bags with ropes.
We were back on the surface at about 14:30 having headed into the cave at 11:40.
After a trip to the Fireplace shop and a snack in Bernies we returned to Greenclose to read for a while before driving to the New Inn at Clapham for an evening meal at 18:30.
The others arrived having some straight to Clapham after surfacing and getting changed.
Afterwards, Phil headed back to Wensleydale while Simon and Jason went home.
Back at Greenclose the SUSS Squeeze Machine Competition was just starting. This was made from what looked like an old drawer with no base which was placed on the floor with the back on the floor and the front at the top. The top was held on by two bolts and there were several thin bits of wood serving as spacers.
Once all competitors (including Karen, Keith and Waggy who all had a go) had tried to pass through the Squeeze Machine, the bolts were loosened and a spacer was removed from each side resulting in a smaller space to squeeze through.
Luckily the top was bolted on because at the later stages of the competition, several competitors were stuck part way through and needed to be released!
Eventually we headed for bed just as the SUSS lot were beginning a sing-song session using some song sheets.