Month: January 2024

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

County Pot

Scott, James, Dave + (almost, but not quite) Ray

Report from Dave:

Link Pot Another “Not What We Aimed For” Trip Report – County Pot

James, Ray, Scott & Dave headed off for Link Pot, to be thwarted by a rather swiftly flowing, Dave-waist-deep Leck Beck.

We headed on up the valley towards the higher up parts of the system, again thwarted by the beck which was higher than the footpath and up to the wall, in favour of caving another day rather than chancing his knee Ray headed on back to the warmth of BPF. This left the three of us heading to the entrance to County Pot without using the submerged path, with Scott finding it as though he had a built in nav.

Warmed up from the hike and ready to be underground, we made swift work of the entrance series and its squeezes, with Scott quickly rigging the pitch for an abseil. Slithering gracefully down onto Broadway in no time.

From here we explored various areas, Battle of Britain chamber, Spout hall to name a couple (forgive my naivety I was aMAZEd by the complexity of the passages and options), linked with lovely boulder crawls and nicely polished squeezes. The water fall was in full flow and the noise was tremendous as was the airflow as a result. Scott slid though to recce the a potential route but there was too much water so we opted to slide blindly backward onto the scaffold and explore the maze of passages and see some of the formations, sadly my camera was tucked safely and dryly in the boot of Ray’s car! A fixed rope descent took us to the bottom of White Line chamber for a view up the waterfall.

Deprived of a round trip by the removal of another fixed rope, we turned tail and began the return leg and the interesting climbs up the scaffold bar and the dangling sling out of Broadway, working our way up the tight squeezes that didn’t seem that small on the way down, with our SRT kit giving us some nice sounds effects. Before long we were back in the clear night air and heading back towards BPF across the fell, nothing to report here other than the disturbance of numerous Grouse.

A short but sweet back-up trip, underground at 8 and back at the farm by 10, with kudos to Scott for his navigation and a big thanks to Ray for waiting to take James and Dave home. We were certainly in a better state than the 3 Red Rose members who passed us returning from a dig in “not a nice place”. Hopefully we manage to achieve a planned Wednesday trip soon!

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Tatham Wife Hole

Jason, Sophie, Pete, Yolanda, Ray

I hadn’t been down Tatty Wife for 30 years or more, so was really looking forward to this one. Would it be as good as I remembered? Jason had been there more recently, but still many years ago. No-one else had been before. Would we find our way down the cave? Would we even find the cave? Had Jason and I over-stressed how good it is?

In anticipation of a potentially long day, Sophie, Pete, Yolanda & Ray stocked up on slow-release energy (i.e. a fry-up) in Inglesport and met Jason at the parking spot. There is ample parking a few hundred metres past White Scar Cave, just before the quarry. The rather large elephant in this particular room is the enormous escarpment that must be climbed just to get up to the plateau where the entrance is.

The walk-in is at least as bad as I remembered. It takes quite a while just to get to the foot of the escarpment, then it’s a right pain to climb. There is, at least a vague path to follow up through a gully. The stile that used to enable crossing the wall at the top of the escarpment seems to have disappeared, necessitating climbing the most broken down section. Even then, there are quite a few false summits before the upper slopes of Ingleborough come into view. Then it’s a simple matter of trying to locate the entrance somewhere in the distance across the moor. Visibility was good on this occasion, so we could actually see the shakehole from a long way off. Jason’s GPS confirmed that we were indeed heading in the right direction. Overall, I would estimate that the walk-in took around 45 minutes. We set off underground on the stroke of 11am.

The entrance climb looked rather uninviting, particularly with the water flowing down it. This clearly wasn’t going to be a dry trip. Once down the initial climb, the passage descends quite sharply and becomes really quite impressively proportioned. Before too long we reached a short climb down… at least we used to climb it. It’s now anchored as a pitch, complete with drilled thread (which we couldn’t find), fixed anchor and deviation. Jason showed his contempt for such dumbing down by free climbing it on the way out – not sure what he did on the way in. The rest of us were happy to use any assistance available.

Some really fun passage eventually leads to the next couple of pitches, close enough to be rigged with a single 45m rope. I really enjoyed these pitches, although they were a bit on the damp side. There is an optional deviation on the top pitch, which we decided not to use. This was probably a mistake as it was definitely a bit moist. A rebelay around a jammed boulder then facilitates a descent towards the lower pitch. We definitely used a deviation on this pitch… and probably could have done with another one. It was decidedly damp for the last section.

At the bottom, Sophie and Ray sped off to rig the next pitch. The passage eventually diminishes in size to become a slightly awkward crawl, filled with projections that could have been specifically designed to grab tackle sacks. All very frustrating, but it doesn’t last too long. The next pitch is rigged as a Y-hang, without any traverse line or backup. It’s safe enough, but I wonder why the usual convention of an anchor well back from the pitch head has been neglected in this case. Again, a deviation was required to pull the rope away from the water. The pitch lands on a ledge. A short side-step then leads to the top of The Ramp, a hading rift down which the water pours. The rope from the previous pitch is tied off around a very convenient chockstone and continued down The Ramp. While the cave is not generally tight, I struggled to reverse the side-step off the Ramp on the way back out. In the end I had to unclip my chest jammer. No-one else seemed to struggle at all, so let’s blame bad technique.

We decided to regroup at the bottom of The Ramp, before setting off along the rift towards the famous duck. The regrouping took slightly longer than expected due to a breakdown in communication, leaving Pete stranded at the top of the Ramp for longer than he would have liked.

There had been some apprehension about the duck. Jason & Ray had assured the Tatty Wife virgins that there was nothing to worry about – it really wasn’t that bad. They were wrong! It looked particularly uninviting on this occasion due to the high water levels. It would have been a real “lie on your back with your nose in the air” job. One or two people had a half-hearted look at it, but we agreed that returning on a drier day was the better option. Jason had a look at the bypass, but didn’t fancy it. Again. I don’t remember the bypass being that bad, but it looked horrific.

So, out we went, with Ray & Sophie derigging. Jason & Ray free climbed The Ramp, which was probably easier than trying to prussik it. As on the way in, the tackle sack jammed on just about every projection. The best way of progressing was for Sophie to drag it behind her, with Ray freeing it from snags. I always find it really hard work getting out of this cave as it’s quite a climb back up the sloping passage. If anything it’s now even harder! The last man emerged just over 3 hours after the first descended. Thankfully, the walk back to the cars didn’t seem anywhere near as bad as the walk-in.

A debriefing over tea & cake in Inglesport was called for. All agreed that Tatty Wife is a great trip. It deserves much more recognition than it gets. I imagine we’ll all be back before too long… but in drier conditions.

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Bull Pot of the Witches

Maz, Tom, Dave, James, Sophie, Ray

Report from Maz:

THIS AIN’T IBBETH PERIL

For my first lead, those wiser and more experienced than I, had decided a nice non SRT trip to Dentdale would be my baptism of fire.

Unfortunately, Storm Isha had other ideas and it was soon obvious that Ibbeth Peril would be under water or at the very least, put any caver in serious peril. A plan B or C would obviously be needed.

Having consulted the caving gods; namely Ray and Tom, and the bible that is Northern Caves volume 2, it was decided a nice jaunt down Bull Pot of the Witches would be just the job.

With no rain falling for a change, Ray, Dave, James, Tom and myself began the descent. After the first pitch, a puddle of light and voice from above marked the arrival of Sophie bringing the compliment of cavers to 6.

A largely dry series of thankfully short and easy pitches deposited us in a large cavern. There followed a nice section of passage before bypassing a small hole in the floor. This passage gradually become muddier and lower. Obviously, James decided to investigate and emerged brown coated and unimpressed.

Retracing our steps, we descended the hole in the floor via a muddy, sorry looking sling. This led us to the Long Gallery and onto some crawling and more sliding around in the mud and water. Although we just couldn’t get enough of this fun, we reluctantly decided it was time to return the way we had come. James ascended the sling hole first, giving myself below, a face full of welly water. I, in turn passed on the compliment to Ray who was below me, who subsequently passed the favour onto the next caver. Only James’ escaped this muddy shower, having led the climb.

On the way out, James and Dave went on another detour, meeting up near the bottom of the pothole, which looked amazing with moonlight glinting off the falling stream. We surfaced at about 10:15 having had a lovely trip. Thanks to the riggers and de-riggers and to ray for the photography

On a personal note, this trip marked a year to the day since my first foray underground with KCC. I am extremely grateful to all those members who, without exception, have made me feel welcome and part of the club. I am also very grateful to their patience and support while I’ve faffed and squawked. Mostly on pitches, traverses, crawls, scrambles, squeezes, ducks, chimneys, climbs, but also walking any uphill to the entrance!

Most importantly, thanks to everyone who has very kindly given their time and experience to help me develop my skills and confidence; a natural caver I am not, but I do love it.  Except Jingling Pot, which needs filling in with concrete.

 

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Notts Pot (Twilight Zone)

Claire, James, Dave, Ray

The best… and worst… of winter caving. To be honest, I didn’t give us much chance of getting up Leck Fell Lane, given the prevalent snow and ice. So much so that I’d packed the ropes in such a way that we could easily decamp to Jingling. So the real question in my mind was whether we would even be able to get up into Kingsdale. When we got to the bottom of LFL, there was no sign of James, who was travelling independently of the rest of us. This meant that either he hadn’t arrived yet, or he had come in is pickup and breezed up onto the fell, leaving us with a bit of a problem when we came to the inevitable impassable section. But, surprisingly, no such impasse occurred. The road was relatively clear with just a few icy sections to navigate. We decided not to think about coming back down.

So there we all were in -7 C, regretting the decision to cave at all, but reluctantly getting changed anyway. The walk up to Notts Pot started unpleasantly cold, but we largely warmed up on the stomp up the fell… apart from my hands, which didn’t thaw out until well underground. It would have taken quite a while to find the entrance, had it not been for the GPS we had brought along, GPS in hand, James thankfully led us straight there. A quick rigging of the entrance pitch soon saw us all underground and rapidly warming up. Ray forged on ahead to rig the short climb and then the pitch down into Three Ways Chamber, where we could all regroup. Well, Ray and Claire regrouped… and waited… and waited. No sign of the other 2, so Claire eventually reascended the pitch to search for the others, while Ray set off to start rigging Twilight Zone.

Claire and the others eventually arrived as Ray was close to finishing rigging the initial traverse over Left Hand Route. Apparently Dave & James had somehow managed to get lost in the entrance passage. I didn’t even know that was possible. But, given James’s affinity for pushing into scrotty holes, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

The rest of the descent went reasonably smoothly. There was the usual time wasted trying to find the deviation on the first drop, marked on the CNCC topo. As the CNCC’s own description states, this is either non-existent or impossible to find. Certainly I’ve never found it. This leads to the 2nd bit of time wasted trying to swing directly over to the y-hang above the next drop, before the usual admitting defeat and instead using the traverse on LH Route to reach the same y-hang. This traverse is actually one of the highlights of the trip, so it would be a shame to miss it out. The 3rd obligatory bit of time wasting is in deciding which window to swing into on the next drop. I don’t do this trip often enough to remember, so invariably start swinging about much too high. On locating the correct window the rest of the route down to the Lower Streamway was plain sailing.

Claire, then Dave, then James were soon down in the Lower Streamway too. No-one seemed to have any issues with the descent, despite it being quite a technical route. Dave, in particular, did very well, having only been caving for a few months. Not bad, given that he largely taught himself SRT from YouTube videos!

Being an evening trip, we had no intention of going lower than the Lower Streamway, so there was nothing else for it but to set off out. Claire volunteered to do the derigging, so Ray set off first, planning to wait at the difficult traverse to watch Dave & James and offer helpful advice. In the event, the helpful advice went something along the lines of: ” Now, the thing to do here is… Oh, you’ve done it” or “You’ll need to face the other way here… Or you could just make it look really easy facing that way, as you’ve just done.” Ever felt redundant?

Surely I at least had something to offer in terms of helpful derigging advice for Claire? Absolutely not. It was a very slick operation indeed. Not even a hint of swearing at tackle sack or rope.

We all regrouped in Three Ways Chamber again, before the final push out into the arctic wasteland. The surface pitch was surprisingly hard to prussik, being absolutely encrusted in ice. But we all did manage to reach the surface. By the time we reached the cars we were all absolutely frozen stiff, requiring combined tactics to remove various items of kit/clothing. Dave & Ray decided to not even bother getting changed.

This was an absolutely outstanding trip with a great bunch of people. As James, Dave & Claire are all relatively new members of KCC, it seems clear that the future of the club looks very bright indeed.

Some photos courtesy of Dave & Ray:

And, finally, a caption competition:

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Bull Pot Kingsdale

Helen, Pete, Matt, Ray

Another case of a hastily rearranged trip in view of the weather. The original plan had been Red Moss, but that was certainly off the menu given that it hadn’t stopped raining for at least 40 days & 40 nights. Yordas had briefly been discussed as an alternative, but quickly dropped in favour of a look at the newly bolted Monolith Traverse & Pitch in Bull Pot.

We cut a sorry sight struggling up the hillside, with both Helen & Ray limping along on their respective walking sticks. No route straight up the fellside tonight, rather a long sweeping loop out to the right and back. That left us with only one problem on top of the fell – finding the cave. Luckily this didn’t take too long and we were soon swinging off the normal 1st pitch, around a rock buttress to find the 1st bolt of Monolith Traverse. The traverse is quite nice, generally with good ledges on either side of the shaft, leading into a tube with a nicely-placed y-hand at the end. A bit cramped for rigging/derigging, but nothing too bad.

Monolith Pitch lands nicely at the old high-level traverse to the 2nd pitch. 3 or 4 anchors then take you round a couple of bends to the top of the 2nd pitch. There was quite a lot of water flowing down this, so the deviation (thankfully already complete with tat) was very welcome. From there it’s just a couple of metres down to the ledge. The slot was really the only 3rd pitch option in the prevailing moistness. This was quickly descended by all, past the easiest rebelay in the Dales. At the bottom, Ray went on to have a look at the 4th pitch. His rather drenched appearance on returning seemed to be enough to put everyone else off even having a look. Needless to say, descending the pitch was not an option. We did all agree, however, that we should definitely return to bottom the cave in drier conditions. Matt even agreed to lead such a trip… perhaps after a bit of pressurising.

Pete offered to derig. No mean feat, given the water levels and the fact that the top pitch was brand spanking new to all of us. With Matt offering moral support, he did a great job. There’s no going back now for you Pete! It wasn’t too long before everyone was safely out and slip-sliding back down the hillside.

A great little wet weather trip. Congratulations to the team that set the new Monolith route… whoever they are.