A week ago I was still saying to myself that one: I will not be going to caves in the winter (although this winter I already have been on two trips, but the deep snow and changing into caving gear...), and two: I'm not going to Mietusia a second time (that Tube)... But, this was the first time we could go into a cave without an instructor - and some much for promises!

Right, except for Adam, we all just passed our exams for Karta Taternika Jaskiniowego (Tatra Caving License - a paper that allows you to visit Tatra caves; Adam passed the exams several months earlier) and we had to test our knowledge. We select the Great Chimneys parts in Mietusia Cave. So we took some ropes from the club and a textual description of the cave (without a survey). After a good night's sleep, at 10 a.m. we started our trip. On the way to the cave we tried out a sledge that we had, to see how it could be used for transporting caving gear - mixed opinions: on the one hand, it's easy to pull and you don't feel the weight, but on the other hand, it turns over quite easily... Anyway, just before 1 p.m. we went into the Tube, quickly got to the Roofless Chamber, descended the Cascades and started rigging the Great Chimneys near Mud Castles (short discussion about preparing lunch: should we have it before the Chimneys, or after)...

Here we made a mistake - probably not enough experience and a soft heart. Namely, when going down to Mud Castles we were rigging our own ropes besides ones already rigged - another party went to the Marwoj Sump. But a team behind us (three people), in good humors, decided to not rig their ropes at all (seeing two already rigged). At the top of the Great Chimneys they caught up with us and asked whether they can go down on our ropes; in return, they will collect our ropes on the way back (during our lunch). And we agreed...

So, everything was looking nice, but: we had to wait for them in wet suits at the bottom (congrats to the person who thought of the foil shielding from the waterfall), we had to wait for them at the top, while are ropes were being de-rigged. But that's not all: since they didn't have their ropes, they had to use ours to get out (the other ropes were already taken down), so we had to wait some more... Because of that, our quick and efficient operation turned into something extremely slow; we were really cold and we lost all our strength... Next time in a similar situation, the first thing to do is to beat such people up and maybe leave them at the bottom to climb out what they didn't feel like rigging! The only benefit that we got out of this trip is the survey of the cave (that was given to us by that team). We got out of the cave around 1 a.m., which meant that we wouldn't be going anywhere the next day (and we had another hole in our plans)...