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Trip to Jingling Pot -- 2rd Sep 2007

Group: Paul, Mary, Dave

The weather was pretty poor, with rain and mist as we parked up near Yordas Cave. There was quite a big party heading off for Yordas and a smaller party off to do Heron Pot. We changed into caving gear and headed off up the hill and then southwards towards Jingling Pot. Dave realised at this point the GPS was not lying and we really should have parked further up the road as the rigging guide suggests. After a 1/2 kilometer trek the trees guarding the pot came into view and a couple of people could be seen - they turned out to be doing Aquamole pot whose entrance shaft is very close by. After we donned SRT gear Dave rigged the first pitch using the P anchor and a Y hang from the two trees using a couple of slings.
[Jingling Pot] Paul sorting out SRT gear [Jingling Pot] Paul & Mary ready to go [Jingling Pot] Looking down towards the lateral cleft
A tentative abseil down followed by a pendulum showed a opening which looked like the lateral cleft, but no P anchor. A little more rope was let out and a rather more energetic pendulum showed a P anchor hidden around the corner which was grabbed and cowtails hooked up. With a awkward bit over it was just a matter of rigging a traverse line to the Y hang and calling the others down.
[Jingling Pot] At the bottom of the first pitch in the cleft [Jingling Pot] Looking back up the cleft towards daylight
An easy abseil down the narrow cleft led to ledge and after a further traverse, another narrow Y hang. At the bottom of the pitch Dave realised that he had missed rigging the deviation and so a bit of rope shuffling was necessary to pass a sling back up to Mary so she could fix the deviation.
[Jingling Pot] Mary on the second pitch in the cleft
A little further on after another traverse was the final Y hang of the main pitch. This is quite exposed, but gives a good hang to the floor of the pot.
[Jingling Pot] Looking up from the bottom of main pitch [Jingling Pot] The fluted walls of the pothole main chamber [Jingling Pot] Mary on the way down the main pitch [Jingling Pot] Paul near the bottom of the main pitch
At the bottom we looked around and then rigged a simple traverse line and Y hang to drop us at the bottom of the final pitch.
[Jingling Pot] Mary on the final pitch [Jingling Pot] Paul & Mary at bottom of pot [Jingling Pot] Dave & Mary at bottom of pot
We looked at the 10m vertical shaft leading to some digs, but decided against trying to get down as we didn't have any spare rope or hangers and it was far to vertical to free climb.
After a quick look around we headed back up the ropes, Paul de-rigging as we went.
[Jingling Pot] Paul de-rigging main pitch [Jingling Pot] Desperate maneuveres at the Y hang
Paul had the dubious honour of penduluming out of the cleft into the shaft, which he managed with reasonable dignity.
[Jingling Pot] Mary ready to launch into free space [Jingling Pot] Mary prussiking back up to the trees [Jingling Pot] Paul hanging free after the pendulum out [Jingling Pot] Paul looking apprehensively at the trees
After packing up the gear we headed back toward Yordas and had a quick look inside. The previous party had left a few burning candles, which looked quite pretty in the dark. There was a awful lot of water running into the cave from the waterfall and we were glad we decided against doing Yordas pot...

Overall trip time about 3 hours