Dream Team: Joe Buck, Rob Eavis
After being snowed off last week, me n Joe were keen for a proper sesh down LWS tonight. At the shakehole it was evident that A LOT of water had flowed down the entrance during the recent floods and all the way along the crawls to the pitch head there was flood debris. I went into 1st Reich passage first and had to practically swim through bubbles to get to the low squeeze, which as we now expected was indeed half full of water. Boooo.
I went through and to the very end, trying out my new camera on a stick, feeling like a proper influencer, mainly to see if we could ascertain anything about the way on. There has been quite a lot of discussion about whether we stay high or drop down; well, others discussed whilst I was sure we’d stay. The way on does look good. It’s a tall rift but it’s tight so it is going to need a lot of capping. Me n Joe guess that based on the progress rate down here so far, it’ll be a month of work. Joe comes through the wet squeeze and we manage an intimate passing to allow him to go start capping. I go back to get the second set of gear and start widening some of the passage back from the front.
Rob n Joe intimating each other
Having two of us each with drills was mega, such an efficient bit of digging. And incredible success too! After not much more than an hour I see Joe’s feet disappear ahead. He’d managed to remove loads off of about a whole metre of the lefthand wall and managed to squeeze through into the rift ahead. As this is taller it’s possible to actually stand up and shuffle/squeeze along for a good 6m! Joe the GOAT just achieved a month’s worth of digging in an hour!!!
Ahead a sediment wall stops progress but a draughty hole at floor level can be looked through to see the rift continuing ahead. Joe starts capping the wall low down whilst I work on widening the squeeze to get my ageing body through to him. In the process I seemingly manage to remove a very important handhold, such that when I actually push ahead I find it almost impossible not to slide down the rift into the blind hole below! It takes a lot of effort and swearing but I eventually make it one I find that I can brace my right arm above me (hand on one wall, elbow on the other) and kind of hang from this as I inch my torso forwards over the gap.
Joe is pretty knackered by now so he comes back to me and we have our second intimate passing (twice in one night, impressive right!) by him laying on the floor in the rift and me squeezing over the top of him. Indeed the rift near the end it surprising tall and there may be a way on by climbing up, but certainly ahead at floor level looks really good.
Now really excited for next week we head back, each finding the squeeze really hard especially in this direction. We agree a stemple or two here would really help you to not fall down the gap and give you something to work with in this otherwise greasy, slidy, shitty little squeeze. We head straight to the Mechanics where we share our enthusiasm with Luke over some well earned pints.