Yordas side entrance, High level Chapter House Sunday 27th Oct 2013
Team Pete J and Gordona
Trip time: 5 hours? A Lot longer than we anticipated!! (Due to very slow rigging).
Weather: Very wet week before . Quite threatening on the day. Storm warning for evening to South of Country. Turned out to be little/no showers on the day!
Met Ian on lay by ’Are you doing Vespers Ian?’
‘No Ales is not coming’ (despite Kingsdale trips being run at his request!????)
Invited Ian to join us but he explained he ‘has done Yordas a thousand times’.
I said ‘we were on a short trip so we expected to be gone by the time he got back from High level Heron’.
We walked into Yordas old show cave entrance -to make sure that the water levels were not too high & have a look up Chapter house.
I explained to Pete that Paul G has photos of the water flowing out of this entrance!
We walked up to side entrance. Water was streaming down the usually dry stream way from above. Pete rigged the side entrance - for practise and safety in case the water somehow made our exit route too difficult for free climbing.
I had fun watching Pete try to work out why there are so many bolts on the second pitch and how to set up a Y hang from them .Eventually choosing a fig 8 from the ceiling (very long loop) knot to equally long alpine loop to traverse line off RHS. We still are not convinced this is the best way!?
Descended into knee height pool of water.
Down the step into up to waist height water.
Joined the main pot stream way – I think we could still see daylight to the right?
I set off rigging, got to above the waterfall, before I stopped and hesitated. I could see next bolt 12” lower and 3’away but could not get my head round how to rig to it or get back safely if I could not make it.
Pete seemed to be able to work it out - so we swapped over, for one bolt and he rigged it easily!
Great teamwork.
We swapped back and I rigged around swung across the shaft and then 5 bolts along. First time I’ve done an exposed traverse. Managed all but the last bolt I ran out of ledge to stand on. Again I could not work out how to reach it being 2’ below it.? Perhaps my last Alpine (No 11!) Was too long at 8”?
Anyway there was only the deviation to catch hold of now.
I lowered myself to the same level and swung out making Pete think ‘where’s he going?’ before I changed the direction of the swing towards the deviation.
Missed it twice. Got hold of it third time but not enough to pull myself in = slipped through my grasp twice/ three times!
Finally managed to grab it and put sling onto it. [Note deviation cord enough without a sling].
I love that waterfall! Really noisy and in full flow!
I ab’d down- right in the middle of Chapterhouse pool. Just clear of the waterfall.
I waited for Pete to descend, as he had decided to complete the traverse rigging to the last bolt and also took out the sling on the deviation.
Once down we checked the show cave entrance again, which seemed to be at the same water level.
We Prussicked back up.
I thought for a minute Pete had gone back down…..But it was Ian who had came in the bottom entrance to take photos
By the time we got to side entrance second pitch we met Ian. Who asked if ‘we wanted to do Jingling?’ - Unfortunately due to other commitments and call out times we had to decline.
A good day /weekend out despite the forecasted weather!
