Month: February 2025

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Oxlow Caverns

Ray and his non-KCC friend John Bown

Will had planned this as a day trip to the Peak, but no-one apart from me signed up. Not to worry – Will and I would still have a great trip. Until Will pulled out, that is. Now, I’m not so easily put off, especially since I was due to be down that way anyway. So I set about finding some other friends to go with. Only John answered the call. Still, that would be enough.

I packed all the tackle and set off south, via Vikki’s parents in Chinley, meeting John in the 5-Ways launderette cafe in Buxton (one of his favourites) bright and early on Saturday morning. What the cafe lacks in quality it makes up for in cheapness.

Suitably satisfied (in quantity at least), we moved on to the parking spot, where we both had issues trying to park on the same side of the road as the cave. The drop off from the tarmac is getting more extreme every time I go there. It’s now much better to park on the other side of the road, unless you have substantial clearance.

When we eventually got parked, I emptied all the tackle we would need out the back of the car… as did John. Hmmm, perhaps our communication could have been better. Interestingly, although we had packed ropes for the same trip, John somehow had a LOT less rope than me. Ah yes, he said, both the CCPC and the DCA rigging guides are overly generous. So we essentially took John’s tackle as he goes there more often than I do and presumably knows the rigging better. We didn’t take any rope for the West Swirl Ramp as it’s always rigged. We had a half-plan to look up into Pilgrims Way, which needs a bit more rope than the 5th pitch, so we swapped out John’s 15m for my 19m, which would do both pitches (not at the same time obviously). All ropes managed to fit easily into 2 bags. In fact, one of the bags was even quite empty! I liked this approach.

On arrival at the entrance, John informed me that, while he knew his rope lengths were sufficient, they would be a bit tight. Ahh. I started to like his approach a bit less… especially when I realised that he had brought 30m for the entrance pitch, whereas I had packed 45m. John set off rigging. On my way down the entrance shaft, I noted that I passed 2 anchors, presumably for deviations or rebelays to avoid rope rub. John had also passed these anchors. The rope did rub a bit, but to be fair it’s only really glancing off relatively flat rock. Certainly nothing worth worrying too much about. At the bottom of the entrance shaft is another y-hang for a short 4m drop. No need for the y-hang John informed me, rigging off a single anchor. I could soon see why when his rope literally just reached the bottom. A y-hang would have left us dangling. So, it turns out the entrance pitch can indeed be done with a 30m rope – whether it’s wise or not is another matter.

As we were going to make use of the fixed rope on West Swirl, we weren’t sure exactly how long a rope was need to get us there. In the end, we conservatively estimated that 60m should be enough for the 2nd, 3rd and the swing onto the ramp. John set off rigging the 2nd and I took over for the 3rd. The deviation on the 3rd was pre-equipped with tat and even a krab. The swing onto the ramp was easy enough and then a very short bit of descent down the ramp to reach the start of the fixed rope. As it turns out, 50m would have been enough. At this rate, John will be down to a single bag for his next trip!

I shot off down the ramp to get the pitch at the bottom rigged, only to find that it too was pre-rigged. The rigging wasn’t great, but it was preferable to rigging our own rope. The trip was going very well, and very quick so far.

We regrouped at the bottom of the pitch up into Pilgrims Way. Having made such good time to this point, there really weren’t any excuses for not popping up. So we tied our rope onto the polyprop cord and hauled it up through the ring at the top. There are 2 anchors for an inverted y-hang at the bottom. I was first up and was glad to see that there is a fixed traverse line at the top.

Neither John nor I had been up here before, so we were quite excited to get going. It starts as a low crawl, but soon enlarges to easy hands and knees crawling, a bit like the crawls from Bar Pot to GG main chamber. It does go on a bit though, passing many side crawls along the way. We didn’t poke up any of these.

Eventually, the going gets a bit more flat out for a very short distance, complete with puddle for maximum unpleasantness, before we entered the bottom of an aven (Mecca Aven?). The connection to Giants Hole, via the Chamber of Horrors, goes off to the left here. Fortunately John didn’t fancy looking up here on this occasion. I certainly didn’t! Thankfully, this marks the end of the crawling. From here it’s mostly walking in a passage that gets progressively bigger.

In North Chamber there was a rope heading up. We pondered on what may be up there, but left it at that. It turns out that this rope leads up to the Crusader Series, which seems well worth a visit at some point. We knew that just around the corner was North Pitch. We had decided not to bring a rope for this pitch, largely because we couldn’t be bothered carrying it through the Pilgrims Way crawl, but also because I suspected it would be pre-rigged. Rounding the corner, we were pleased to see that our gamble had paid off. It was rigged. As with most fixed ropes, however, it wasn’t easy to get on to.

I went down first and waited for John, excited to see what lay beyond. Sadly, my excitement wasn’t warranted. What lay a very short distance beyond was a miserable low, wet crawl. Neither of us could quite remember the description, but thought that this was a sign that the sump was close, with only a short wet crawl and some ducks between us and it. This didn’t seem appealing, so we decided to call it a day. In fact, this was the start of The Sewer, a 46m miserable wet crawl leading to some more big stuff, before 3 dams and then the sump. May be worth pushing on next time.

As we turned around, we felt quite a long way from home, especially with the prospect of the long Pilgrims Way crawl ahead of us. Dismounting North Pitch was as entertaining as we expected. Shortly after, there is a rather annoying little climb up, complete with stacked rocks to make it slightly easier… but not easy enough. We both struggled on this. Apart from that, the journey back to the top of our rope back down into West Chamber went surprisingly well. We were both surprised by how quickly we got back through Pilgrims Way, so much so that John crawled straight past the side passage leading to our rope.

The journey out from here went quickly, with me derigging and it was good to pop out into pleasant sunshine. The throngs of people on top of, and on their way up, Mam Tor across the valley were something to behold. A quick stop off at the Hanging Gate pub for a debrief completed the day nicely.

I would recommend this trip to anyone. There’s so much more to Oxlow if you go up the pitch into Pilgrims Way. I hope to go back at some point for a look into Crusader Series. Who’s up for it?

By Dave In Day Trips

Rumbling Hole – Where was the Rumble?

Dave, Ami, Ray, Scott, Jasmine, James, Jim, Jess

After missing out on this trip on the previous meets list, an intrepid team met at the layby on Leck Fell, then the farm, then the layby again, for as a quick a change as possible due to the Leck Fell being true to it’s reputation. 

Dave, Jim, Jess & Ami headed off the find the cave and make a start on the rigging as surface conditions weren’t ideal for loitering, not sure where the photogenic views from the top were. Dave quickly got tied off to one of the remaining fence posts, and the tree hadn’t succumbed to die back, so off he went. Until the second rebelay where there was some confusion and head scratching. Finally getting untangled and dropping down into the shaft, this was also the last time the whole team was together until we got back to the cars! The deviation was troublesome for anyone not doing the rigging so Jess kindly re-rigged it to the rebelay under the rock ledge and that seemed to make the procession of descending cavers move a bit quicker. 

Conditions down here were much more hospitable, not much water down there at all, Dave quickly got the traverse and end of the first pitch rigged, then followed by Ami headed off down the rift for the 2nd pitch, as we’d been assured we couldn’t get lost. So we went down the cascades, which were very dry, and got to the sporting crawl over the drop to the 2nd pitch, with some fun rigging Dave got down to the bottom of the 2nd pitch. A phrase that fittingly covers this whole trip is, “THAT F’ING BAG”, as anyone carrying one seemed to find the same bag shaped capture devices that nature had woven into as many places as possible. 

The 3rd pitch was an interested drop down a narrow slot, the team made light work of this and made light work of the next drop, only to find the last anchor for the 3m drop to the flow stone was wobbly, so Dave made the call to turn back here. Only he’d somehow managed to drop the bag and Ray’s rope down the 3m pitch! The team quickly devised a cunning plan to rig off naturals and get Dave down to retrieve the rigging, which was great, but climbing back out was not so graceful and a good breather was had whilst the rest of the team headed off back up the pitches. 

Jim made light work of de-rigging and we got back to the surface to find a howling gale driving rain that felt like buckshot, pointing in your face all the way back, luckily the walk in/out isn’t too far, and Ami marched on like a trooper, with absolutely no rumblings about two bags. 

All in all, Rumbling is a fantastic cave, although oddly dry based off the route description, with testing rigging and some lovely formations and fossils, and i can only assume Scott, Ray and Jasmine has as much fun as the front half of the squad. 

 

 

By Ami S In Day Trips

Aquamole

Scott, Ray, James, Will and (Report by) Ami

Ray, true to form, decided I needed some rigging practice (he’s not wrong) so listed me leading Aquamole, where I had never been. We had all seen the excellent film about ex-KCCer Geoff Yeadon though, so I was excited.

Keen to get out the chilly wind we set off, with a warning that the pitches were permanently rigged. While helpful for navigating, this other rope meant I managed to tangle myself in almost all of the 384 re-belays on the first pitch.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed myself rigging such a varied 80m, with lots of slots and squeezes and surprises along the way. We were soon all down and commencing a 5 minute wet crawl, before finding the short second pitch. At the start of the third we split, as Ray had also bought gear for the One-Armed Bandit route.

I was really impressed with the final 60m pitch. There were a few pesky deviations early on, but as the cave was so dry I opted to ignore the third and just enjoy the view – a splendid cavern with a huge bulge in the centre that made you feel very tiny.

We soon met at the bottom and checked out the sump, complete with several fish.  Since I forgot the snacks (I’m not sure Will has forgiven me) we began our mini exchange, but with only Ray being brave enough to opt for ascending the 60m. The rest of us took One-Armed Bandit, which involved two pitches (decent length for an exchange) with a slightly precarious climb over a rather deep fissure in between.

At the top there were two options to rejoin Ray, one of which was a very small, but very short, squeeze. I’m always tempted to see if I’ll fit, which I did. Scott was lured through after me, but poor James, after an admirable amount of pushing, found his shoulders were just a bit too wide and had to go round. This turned out to be rather convenient as he could finish de-rigging the 60m pitch.

Will and Scott went ahead as they were a bit tight on time, and Ray came last de-rigging. We seemed good for time until the final 80m rope. It turns out, having another rope rigged is a pain on the way up too, and poor Ray found himself repeatedly tangled, meaning James, Ray and I didn’t emerge until two hours after Will and Scott were driving off. I’ve learned some new four letter words today.

Absolutely splendid cave nonetheless. It’s gone in the book of favourites. Thank you all!

 

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Cracker – Boxhead Exchange

Scott, Ami, James, Dave & Ray

Luckily we had enough takers, so the exchange was on… otherwise we would have had to make do with an in and out of either entrance.

It had previously been decided that Scott would rig It’s A Cracker and I would rig Boxhead, so all that remained on getting to the rough area of the caves was to decide who was going in each entrance. Ami decided to join Scott, while Dave & James opted for joining me in Boxhead.

So off we set for our respective holes. Well, the Boxhead team did, but it turns out that neither Scott nor Ami had been to Cracker before, so had no idea in which direction to set. A quick detour to show them the way and we were all finally ready to get underground.

Rigging Boxhead went largely according to plan. The only issue was that I was unable to get a swing going to reach the 2nd deviation on the big pitch. I wasn’t within reach of any walls, so just hung there pathetically for far too long before I could manage to get enough movement to just about touch a wall with my feet. Mental note: next time get a swing going at the first deviation before descending to the 2nd.

We followed the Kendal Flyover route, largely because it’s much more fun than going straight down. Dave and James were hot on my heels the whole way, so obviously weren’t struggling in any way. At the ledge where the crawl goes off towards the Tate Galleries, I asked if D&J wanted to have a poke around Cresta Run, Epiglottis Grotto etc… but there didn’t seem to be any enthusiasm. I trace this to their last visit when they went through the initial crawl and then turned left into Venus dig, which must have been a bit of a disappointment. There is better stuff – honest!

So we just rigged the last drop and carried on down to the bottom to wait for team Cracker. We were just about to pop trough to the bottom of the main Boxhead shaft for a look around when we heard voices and then saw a light above. Scott and Ami obviously weren’t hanging around. Good effort, given that neither of them had been there before.

They soon joined us at the bottom and we finally had that poke around. No-one could be persuaded into having a look at The Tube. Maybe next time.

Dave volunteered to derig Boxhead – he must have really enjoyed it on the way down. Ami followed him. Scott opted for going out Cracker, followed by me, with James derigging. The plan was for James and I to share the derigging, but I was so knackered on reaching the top of the bottom pitch that Scott decided I was best just making my way out slowly. And, believe me, it was slow… and pathetic. I guess it may be a while before I’m back on top of my game.

James did a sterling job derigging. Dave must have done likewise in Boxhead as they were out in super quick time and had to wait quite a while for us – largely down to my lack of fitness/strength I suspect.

I think Boxhead – Cracker is the perfect evening SRT exchange and this particular trip didn’t disappoint. Thanks all!

Photos by Dave & Ray

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Hardrawkin Pot

Scott, Jasmine, Maz & Ray

A chilly evening saw 4 of us gather at the layby just up from the Hill Inn, unsure if Hardrawkin would be possible given recent rainfall. Although it had been dry all day, there had been significant rainfall over previous days and river levels were still very high. So we walked up the hill with a half-plan to divert to High Douk, Great Douk etc. if nececessary.

Arriving at the entrance, the water level entering the cave seemed surprisingly low… and cold, so in we went. Also surprisingly, no-one but me had ever been to Hardrawkin before. This didn’t deter Scott, who bravely led us into the unknown.

The few little climbs down at the entrance were as slippy as ever, requiring a bit of care to avoid an embarrassing tumble before even leaving the surface. The entrance passage, as far as the 1st pitch, was a good workout, forcing constant changing from walking to crawling or stooping at regular intervals. This was my 1st caving trip for around 5 months due to various joint-related issues, so I found progress along this passage to be particularly hard work.

Eventually we made it to the pitch and Scott set to rigging. Maz found a great natural backup, but it was quite a way back from the pitch head. I found myself wondering if Scott had brought a sufficient excess of rope. Time would tell.

The pitch head rigging was dispensed in quick time and Scott set off down. Despite the apparently low water levels entering the cave, the pitch did seem quite wet, so I hoped Scott would engage at least 2 deviations… which he did. There seemed to be quite a delay before the eventual “rope free” call from the bottom. At least Scott had made it down, but why the delay?

Jasmine was next to descend. The head of this 1st pitch is always a bit awkward as the y-hang is quite a way out over the pitch, making it difficult to pull enough slack through your descender to avoid hanging in your cowstail as you swing out. But Jasmine made it look easy, bridging up the walls for a bit of extra height. Nice one. Down she went, passing the deviations easily enough. Again, there was quite a delay before the rope was declared to be free. Hmmm.

Maz was up next. Not being a natural SRTer by his own admission, he appeared to be somewhat unconvinced about the sense of this particular endeavour. How would he get onto the rope? It’s not as bad as it looks, I encouraged. How would he get back off it on the way up? It’s much easier on ascent, I lied. He didn’t look entirely convinced, but carried on anyway. Sure enough, he did manage to get onto the rope and set off down. The deviations didn’t seem to pose too much of a problem. Once again, though, there was something of a delay before I heard “rope free”.

Setting off down myself, I could hear Scott shouting something as I neared the bottom. Eventually it became clear that he hadn’t, after all, brought a sufficient excess of rope! The workaround was to disengage from the rope while clinging to the wall a few metres up the pitch. As I was last down, we had to be careful that the rope didn’t ping back up the pitch as soon as my weight came off it. So Scott was on hand to tie a bit of tat to it to ensure that we at least had a fighting chance of being able to exit the cave.

We were all thoroughly soaked after descending this pitch, and the various shenanigans securing our exit strategy, so were glad to get moving down the cascades leading to the 2nd pitch. I always enjoy these cascades and the water levels made them particularly “enjoyable” on this occasion.

Somehow, Scott had previously found time to part-rig the 2nd pitch, so completing the job didn’t take long. Again, the take-off is a bit awkward, requiring quite a swing out from a ledge down to which you have to first climb. Again, Jasmine made this look easy. Maz made a pretty good job of it too and we were all soon at the bottom looking at the sump and contemplating our ascent.

Scott announced that he didn’t mind derigging. Ordinarily, I would have insisted that it was only fair that I derig. On this occasion, however, I sheepishly agreed and set off up the 2nd pitch in case either Jasmine or Maz needed some encouragement at the top.

The key at the top of both pitches is to not prussick too high. Doing so means that you don’t have enough slack to swing off the pitch, without your chest jammer pulling you back out. It was rather entertaining to watch Jasmine learning this lesson in real time. She prussicked slightly too high and attached cowstails. Then, swinging onto the ledge, found herself teetering on the edge, chest jammer pulling her back out and desperately gripping the upper rope to stop it. To be fair, she came up with the perfectly good solution of swinging back out onto the pitch and down prussicking a bit. This would have been ok. However, in the end, she simply moved her upper jammer over onto the upper rope, which she could then hang on to remove her chest jammer from the lower rope, while still stood on the ledge.

Maz made very short work of the 2nd pitch head, stopping prussicking with enough slack that he could swing onto the ledge and stand there easily to transfer onto the upper rope. Nice one!

Climbing back up the cascades provided just the right amount of fun. I then set off up the 1st pitch and was very happy to reach the top, for 2 reasons: (i) I was absolutely soaked, and (ii) I was absolutely knackered, not having done much exercise at all for 5 months (unless eating biscuits and cake counts).

Jasmine had clearly learned her lesson from the previous pitch and stopped prussicking a bit earlier this time. She took some time to think through her strategy for getting off the rope and then executed it very well. Maz’s exit from the pitch was perhaps a little less graceful, but some combined tactics did the trick.

Scott was soon up and had the pitch derigged in no time. We all remarked that the entrance passage seemed much longer on the way out and seemed to have a lot more crawling. Maz, in particular, had good reason to think this as he was dragging all the tackle – good effort. It was a very chilly walk back down to the road and cars covered in a nice layer of ice.

I like to think we all learned something from this trip: Scott learned that 40<45, Jasmine learned not to prussick too high, Maz learned not to trust me and I learned that eating biscuits and cakes doesn’t count as exercise. Thanks all for another great evening, even if it was a bit more moist than we would have liked.