Race against Time

[Helen F H]

I have a copy of Race against Time - Jim Eyre and John Frankland. If anyone wishes to borrow it, please just ask. It tells the story of caving in Yorkshire right from the start.

I include the following from the book:

I recount here the story for your information.

Im memoriam.

On the evening of Saturday the 22nd of March 1986, the Cave Rescue Organisation was holding its Annual General Meeting at the Clapham Rescue Headquarters. Outside, the rain was lashing down. Just a few miles away in Kingsdale, a party of university students was in trouble. At half past ten, meeting over, the CRO drifted into the bar of the New Inn next door for a pint and a chat. A few minutes later CRO member Harvey Lomas came in. He had missed the meeting, but had just driven down through Kingsdale in what he described as a cloudburst, and had seen a cavers' minibus parked on the lonely road close to the entrance of the popular Kingsdale Master Cave.

The inevitable call came through to the police at Settle just before 11pm. A number of students had gone into the Kingsdale system at 2pm. Two of them were aiming to go upstream and dive through the short sumps which connect with the bottom of 400 foot deep Rowten Pot, one of the main feeders for the Master Cave. As water levels below ground responded to the heavy rain above, their companions were able to escape from the flooding cave, but the two divers did not return. In settled dry weather, their objective was not unreasonable, even for a first cave dive. To attempt it that day showed a certain lack of understanding of the effect of the rainfall on our Pennine Caves.

The weather through into the evening was appalling. The rescue team did not know where the missing cavers would be. They could have reached safe haven inside the cave in a side passage, trapped by flooding in the Master Cave, or just been swept to their death in the mile long sump at the downstream end of the cave. There was just a possibility that they had got through to Rowten Pot. To check that out meant descending its shafts from the top. In flood conditions this is a hazardous business. Rowten Pot takes a large stream, which when swollen by flood water, thunders down the shafts with a great roar, scouring everything in its path. When the water is only just above freezing, as on that night, the numbing cold adds yet another problem.

Down at valley level, the normally dry entrance to the Master Cave was chest deep in running water. Five Hundred yards into the cave the main drainage tunnel could not be reached in the normal way by climbing down for twenty feet as this would have led straight into eight feet of fast flowing water and instant death. Team prepared to tackle both entrances.

Phil Pappard, CRO chairman and an underground controller, set off up the hillside towards Rowten Pot, together with Dave Anderson, CRO equipment officer and also an underground controller, and three assistants. All five were laden with the roper and other gear necessary to rig and descend the pot using modern single rope techniques.

A larger party went to the valley entrance. It was passable and the weather forecast indicated that the rain would ease off for a few hours before another front with more rain and renewed flooding. There would be urgency to complete the search during this weather window. Reaching the junction of the entrance passage and master-cave stream way this party began the difficult but vital job of fixing a traverse line to safeguard the only way on, above the torrent just below.

Phil and Dave, half a mile away and 400 feet higher, began their descent. A route existed whereby the ropes could be tied from bolt to bolt, in a mixture of descents and traverses, to avoid the main force of the water. Two hundred feet below the surface, their route took them along a narrow ledge in a rift, past a huge weight of falling water which almost filled the gap. Phil went across and fixed the traverse line at the far end. There was no way to communicate with Dave because of the deafening roar of the waterfall, but he saw him start the traverse.

Down below the most rapid and dangerous part of the stream had been traversed. Cave rescuers had forced their way upstream towards the base of Rowten Pot, but the sumps, normally less than 50 feet long, now extended for more than 10 times as far, and could not even be approached. Side passages leading up to Swinsto and Simpson’s pots – other inlets to the Master Cave – were searched with difficulty through their flat out crawls against heavy water. Both were empty.

One second Phil saw Dave moving towards him, clipped to the traverse line by a short strop and karabiner for safety. Next time he looked Dave had gone. The traverse line was now taut, angled down into the full force of the water. Phil could see Dave’s light, struggling within the white spray. He tried everything possible to haul the rope up, but it was hopeless. The pressure of the great mass of falling water battered down with inexorable force, and it was impossible for Phil Pappard to do more. After thirty seconds it was all over. Some time later he retraced he path along the ropes, shattered. He was able to relay the news to the surface from the top of the bit 150 foot pitch before surfacing with his three helpers.

Communication on rescues are normally good humoured, but it was an abrupt and untypical message with reached Jane Guilbert, operating the molephone down in the Master Cave. She had contacted surface to say that nothing had been found, and in return was instructed to clear the hole at once. The disconsolate party, sensing something was wrong, crawled out of the cave entrance at 3am. Chief Controller Jack Pickup met them.

“We have had a fatality. Dave Anderson has been drowned down Rowten” Mixed anger, disbelief and total gloom contrasted with the usual rescue atmosphere of cheerful purpose. But there was still work to be done.
Two of the team’s hardest men, Ian Watson and Geoff Crossley, redescended Rowten Pot and organised the recovery of Dave’s body. This was only possible because the flood had decreased by this time, and even so they had to cut through the rope holding Dave as the knots securing it were almost fused solid by the force that had battered them. Geoff Crossley then continued to the bottom of the pot. He found the two lost students sitting it out above the sump, cold and wet but unharmed. They had managed to dive though the short sumps, but rising flood water had prevented their return. It was not until they had been brought to the surface that they were told of the death of Dave Anderson in the search for them.