UBSS Monthly Newsletter June 2020

La Salle Verna © J. Bon.

Over the next couple of days, teams of cavers took it in turns to take rope through the tunnel and up the climb to the Aranzadi Passage. This huge gallery leads deeper into the mountain and our way turned off it into the Meander Martine. In contrast to the Aranzadi, this is a long, energy-sapping and painful experience traversing a narrow, often bottomless rift which finally ends in a small chamber, the Montpelier. Here the nature of the cave changes yet again as a stream enters and then drops into the first of the pitches that lead down the Parment series to the lowest point.

Compared with today's equipment, ours was pretty rudimentary and the water in the Parment series was cold. about 3⁰ Celsius and, of course, a strong wind wich made it colder. My gear consisted of a thin, home-made wetsuit and hood over Damart Thermolactyl vest and long-johns. Over the top I had an orange Ladysmith Busywear boilersuit, waterproof, highly flexible, and one of the best bits of caving kit I have ever owned.

Unfortunately, the fabric outer coating was prone to chafe and you had to be careful not to damage it. This outfit was finished off with a pair of orange Marigold washing up gloves. For lighting we all had stinky carbides (I don’t remember anyone having an expedition model) a scattering of Oldhams and for back up, we each had a Pile Wonder, a 4.5v bike light that we hung round our necks on string.

Techniques had moved on from 1971 and ladders had given way to SRT although, if my memory serves me well (which is increasingly rare) we might still have been using yachting rope as specialist stuff for caving was only just coming on the market. For descending, I used a 7-bar titanium rack, which had been made by one of my colleagues on the New Guinea team, or a figure of 8, and a frog-rig for ascent with Jumars. In those days, battery powered electrical drills were science fiction and we placed bolts manually by fitting the sleeve to a metal bolting tool, holding the end against the rock and whacking it with a lump hammer whilst turning it back and forth. We generally carried a thin plastic tube to put in the hole from time to time in order to blow out dust. When it was deep enough, a spreader was inserted into a new sleeve which was pushed into the hole and smacked home; hopefully it would be sound…

Among the ULSA membership were a few engineers and one of them, knowing that parts of the Parment series were relatively narrow, had manufactured an extendible bar bolting tool. A bolt could be fitted onto one end and the device braced across the passage. By turning a ratchet handle the assembly could be used to drive the bolt hole much faster than the conventional percussive approach. It was great and worked a treat in appropriate settings, but it was spoilt slightly because the end hadn’t been machined perfectly with the result that the hole was always fractionally oversized… Over a period of a few days, teams of cavers took it in turns to rig the pitches. The cave was very wet, very, very cold and progress was slow. Placing a single bolt might require the efforts of a couple of people, taking it in turns.

On 6^th August, Andy Eavis, Paul Everett and I went down to take over. The cave had been rigged to the bottom of the 3^rd pitch in the series where there was a ledge and we reached that easily. Andy laid a rope down from the last bolt to an old 1971 peg and from there to a large boss at the start of the next 25m drop. Here he put on a tape belay and descended, shouting at me to replace the tape with a wire belay. I didn’t have any wires, so I put a rope protector under the tape. I remember the belay clearly because it was up out of the stream and dry.

At the bottom of this pitch was a dry spot and Andy placed another bolt so that we could abseil down the next obstacle, a steep set of cascades which ended at the head of the penultimate pitch (c30m). Here there is a connection to a ledge at the head of a blind pitch where an earlier Bulgarian team had left a large pile of rope. Andy placed a bolt for the next descent and I distinctly remember trying it and pointing out that it was loose. He countered by commenting that it was in at an angle and providing we kept it weighted, it wasn’t going to come out. I couldn’t fault the logic, but it did prompt him to drill another which was sound. Having done that, off he went, and we followed. At the head of the final pitch we repeated the process and then descended to the bottom, placing a lot of rope protectors on the way, as I recall - re-belays and diversions were almost unheard of in those days, especially if you were in a hurry!

The bottom of the PSM is not a place I would recommend; it was very cold and unpleasant with a strong wind and spray. A tight, dry rift led off into which Andy scrabbled before reappearing and confirming it wasn’t the way on. That left the only option as a narrow vertical slot under a large boulder, too small for any of us. So, while they continued to proddle about, I started back up the rope. Andy soon followed me up, confirmed that there was no passable way on and told me Paul was following. There was no point waiting for him, so I started up the penultimate pitch at the top of which Andy joined me again, confirmed that Paul was following OK and that I should get going.

The amount of water on the cascades seemed very high but I hadn’t really paid much attention to it on the way down and blundered on, focusing on what I was doing. I later found out that when I was halfway up the cascade, a wall of water came over me but I didn’t notice, I was already so wet and concentrating on my footing. I reached the bolt at the top of the cascades and moved onto the next rope. This was very, very wet, far more so than I remembered on the way down, and I had a lot of trouble with the rope not running through my jammers. The changeover at the top, which had been more or less dry while I had fixed the rope protector below the tape on the way down, was very hard. In effect I had to do the changeover with my hands and gear underwater the stream had risen so much. I finally managed it and moved up the traverse to the ledge from which I called down to the others to tell them that the rope was free. I heard no reply and moved on to make myself safe on the bolt at the bottom of the 3rd pitch and shouted again and again.

Dick Willis in the PSM.

There was no response of sign of lights coming up the cascade and I was soon very cold. My carbide had gone out long ago and I was worried about my Oldham going flat. The noise of the stream appeared overwhelming, but I still couldn’t make the rational decision that I was in the middle of a flood and should get out. Part of me said that I was just panicking, and everyone would take the piss out of me if I left ahead of the others. This internal debate may have taken minutes, but it felt like hours. Eventually good sense won and I clipped onto the next rope and started up.

The next few sections were desperately wet and I began to worry that I wouldn’t make it. The top pitch, which had been dry on our way in, was now carrying heavy water where it had previously been dry, and I noticed the noise of trundling boulders. I made it to the Montpelier, where we had a small supply dump and was able to have a snack. I kept listening for noise from below but could hear nothing other than the flood. By now I was firmly convinced that I was in the middle of a major flood so I fettled my stinky with fresh carbide and when I was confident it would stay alight, I dumped my Oldham, jumars, harness and oversuit in case they’d be useful in a rescue. I scribbled a note to say that I’d gone out and got going.

In complete contrast to the way in, the Meander Martine was very wet with streams pouring out of the roof and I kept having to stop to relight my lamp. At the top of the Aranzadi climb I found that it was carrying a stream which, worryingly, had loosened the boulders at the top. The noise in the Verna was overwhelming, it was filled with steam and when I reached the base of the climb I found that the chamber was now a lake, so much so that I had to boulder hop across to reach the other side. Although I found the path up to the tunnel, I got lost part way up the slope and had to hunt around to find its entrance. Having survived the flood, I nearly broke my neck on the way out by catching my carbide reflector on the roof as I was running. I exited at about 0845, after about 17 hours caving, having come out more or less non-stop from the bottom and I was so pumped that I was able to close both tunnel doors without assistance.

In the hut all was calm. I shouted people to wake up and told them what was going on below and a rescue was swiftly organised while I had a brew, some food and tried to sleep. It transpired that during the night there had been a huge electrical storm (everyone had been out photographing the lightning) and it had been raining in torrents onto an already sodden mountain. Some cavers were dispatched down the valley to get more ladders, rope, radios. They were also told to bring back our stock of dye so that a visual message could be put into the water to tell and Andy and Paul that colleagues were above them. Dave Brook and two others took brewing kit to the Montpelier, while others took in rigging gear to make safe some of the more difficult parts of the route. By 1800 that day, all the gear had been brought up to the hut, and a first group had come out with no news of Andy and Paul but confirming that that water levels in the cave were beginning to go down.

At 2030, Neil Dean, Martin Lafferty and Martin Hicks set off into the cave carrying sleeping bags with the intention that two of them would attempt to descend some of the pitches. At 04 45 Neil Dean reappeared with news that Andy was okay. They had met him below the Montpelier and he was following them out under his own steam. But the news of Paul was less good, he was on the ledge at the bottom of the 3^rd pitch, where I had had the debate with myself, his lights were out and they had found him attempting to change onto the next rope, in the dark and beginning to suffer from exposure. They had taken a sleeping bag down to him with hot drink and food. At the time, DB had been working in the textiles department at Leeds University and had been given a sample fibre pile pit to try out. The team put Paul in this, even though he was standing in water and fed him hot drinks, that bag probably saved his life. I learned later that Andy had prussiked out with a knife in his teeth, anticipating that he would find my body hanging on a rope. He expected me to have been killed by large stones carried down on flood waters and someone later told me that two French cavers had been killed in this way in a nearby system during the same storm.

Andy and Paul had been very lucky. Paul had reached the head of the pitch before the flood pulse hit and they were able to move out of the water where they were able to sit out the flood for 24 hours in a sort of next of rock and discarded Bulgarian rope. A second, larger flood pulse had followed the first, probably when I was attempting the submerged change-over at the head of the pitch. Later they saw the dye come through and knew that a rescue team was in the system but they didn’t know if the colour was just a simple message or had meaning ( red=stop, green=go!) When they decided to make a move, they agreed that they would be unable to help each other and had to go it alone. They each had a stinky although they were useless in the circumstances, and Andy had his Oldham. He left Paul with both their Pile Wonders and started up the cascade with Paul following. Having reached the Montpelier, Andy spent about three hours in a sleeping bag being fed and given brews before the others would let him start to go out.

Paul fought his way up to the ledge where I had stood and waited, trying to make up my mind whether to stay or go. His light had been flickering erratically, which made it very hard for him to assess what was going on. By the time the rescue team reached him his was already beginning to suffer from exposure. They attempted to haul him up the next pitch but were unable to do so. Instead, they lowered him back down, put him in a sleeping bag and fed him hot soup and drink brought down from the Montpelier. After a while, Paul recovered sufficiently to make it up the next pitches to the Montpelier under his own steam. He spent a few hours resting in sleeping bag and then came out with the others. The sleeping bag was one of the first fibre pile bags that had been made by Mountain Equipment. At the time, DB working in the textiles department at Leeds University and he’d been given a sample bag to take on the expedition. It proved its worth and almost certainly saved Paul’s life.

Out on the surface we had been joined by a group of French cavers who took over part of the hut. Watching them prepare to go caving was a revelation. Instead of the gear that we all had – tatty wetsuits, a mishmash of boiler suits, homemade harness etc the all had nice oversuits with matching Petzl harnesses and SRT rigs. No wonder we had a reputation for being scruffy bastards!

Actually, I think that I had looked vaguely respectable at the start of the trip in my clean, bright orange Ladysmith oversuit, although I’m sure that I would have looked like a rank amateur compared to them. Unfortunately, although the rest of my gear was recovered OK, the suit was trashed during the rescue. But that seemed a small price to pay for survival!

Dick Willis