Old Ing to Dismal Hill – 20th August 2005
Old Ing > Dismal Hill Ken & Jimmy.
A brilliant and entertaining through trip! Follow Old Ing to the downstream sumps. These can be free-dived into an out of depth canal – if you’re hard enough! We weren’t, and used a dry bypass instead (Mick’s End) found in the roof about 70m back near a sharp bend. The low crawl is a bit snug for 5m then gets easier, and emerges beyond the sumps above a large stream in Baker Series. Upstream soon requires swimming. Downstream leads to a cascade with hand line in place for the climb down into a large chamber. Beyond is a deep canal but the misery is avoided by crawling to the right until a rope appears, followed as a tyrolean along the canal wall with some metal brackets as footholds. At the end is a sump, but the rift has been blasted and provides an easy dry by-pass to emerge in Dismal Hill Cave. Once again a tyrolean saves a swim until dry land can be reached (bouncy ropes in place).
Dismal Hill can be followed for quite a way to somewhere near the sump that goes through into Birkwith. This one hasn’t yet got a dry by-pass. Returning back up the streamway the way out of Dismal Hill is where a wide bedding goes off. This is about 30m long, gets progressively lower, and then suddenly pops out into a large rift. After a bit of rummaging around a climb up a flake, then another climb are found that lead to the surface. Then went back down Old Ing and explored all of Rough Hill Inlet, scene of an infamous KCC epic!!