Sunset Hole

Ami, Jasmine, Scott, Steve, Tom – Report by Steve

With Rumbling Hole down on the meets list and pictures of the Bull Pot Farm road full of snow from the previous weekend, it was decided that the Leck Fell road was to be avoided and we changed to the main Ribblehead road and met at the Hill Inn. We opted for a longer walk to Sunset Hole rather than closer options to take full advantage of the snowy conditions on such a still, clear night. We were not disappointed as we were in the snow as soon as we left the road and the stars were certainly out.

We followed a surprisingly well trodden snowy path through Southerscales up to the final wall. Here the footprints split to go up Ingleborough or turn right and follow the wall towards the Black Shiver Moss area. With an unknown van arriving near the layby at a similar time to us we wondered if by chance we’d have to share the cave with another group. However, the footprints continued along the wall and we eventually had to start to make our own path across the snow field up towards Sunset. For some reason it seemed easier to find and after a bit of wading and sliding about we were soon at the entrance. At this point Tom was leaving us, he had only come out for the walk as his back was playing up. Its either full marks for his dedication to KCC or we’d just been used as an excuse to get out of some kind of new house type chores. Entering the cave was bliss, it seemed like a sauna in comparison to outside and we soon warmed up and progressed downstream.

Ami rigged the first two pitches with no issues, mainly because we could and it did help avoid what little water there was flowing in the streamway. The second two pitches were rigged with Steve’s shiny new rope on its first outing. These ropes proved to be very quick to descend and braking crabs were definatly needed. The magical combination of new rope and not new cams rendered Jasmines descender brake lever redundant and she had to revert back to two handed control of rope. I’ll take it on a muddy trip next time to wear it in properly and slow it down a bit.

A chat about the upper extensions and the bedding plane half way down the final pitch was as far as any extra exploration got. On reading the CNCC notes afterwards it seems they are looking for an update on a potential link to the upper series from a chamber before the 3rd pitch, so there’s more to be done on the next trip if we can remember.

The way out was OK, despite lugging 75 metres of wet rope in a single bag, a visit to Action Stash is required to add a couple of smaller rope bags to Steve’s new rope collection would help for next time they are deployed.

With the knowledge of what awaited us exiting the cave we’d all avoided as much water as possible and were probably dryer than a normal summer trip! We took full advantage of the shelter in the cave entrance to sort ourselves out with dry hats, gloves etc and emerged back into the winter wonderland for a very pleasant walk back to the vans. We were still quite warm enough after the walk despite my van suggesting the temperature was hovering around -8 / -9 degrees C all the way back to Ingleton. All in all a splendid way to spend a winters evening away from the fire side & TV.