Month: April 2025

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

Pool Sink

Team: Will, Chris A

Last minute plans saw us heading back up to Bull Pot Farm just over 12 hours after leaving from yesterday’s trip. This time, we were headed to do Pool Sink as neither of us had done it before. No pull through trip for us, we thought it wise to check the route out first, but in hindsight we probably could have gone for it.

After a sweaty romp across the fell we scrambled up a dry Ease Gill until we came to the entrance. Chris lead the way through the snug entrance and into the first crawls. Here we were questioning if we’d perhaps under estimated this trip, expecting a nice easy day out and here we are navigating hairpin bends in tight passageways some 10-15m from the entrance! Lucky for us it wasn’t too long until we were through this and things started to look a lot more vertical. I started the days rigging on the first pitch before handing over to Chris to rig the second and third pitches, then back to me to end the rope-work for now. We took a few minutes to catch our breath and strip SRT kits whilst deciding what to do next, by the time we made it to Holbeck Junction we had a plan. Chris was keen to see Easter Grotto, having seen pictures and read about it, so we decided to work our way through the higher level passages (Gypsum Cavern and The Palace) before attempting the flat out crawl connecting to Easter Grotto. We certainly didn’t expect it to be as tight as it was, but luckily it was over before too long and we welcomed the relieving presence of mud coated boulders where we could sit up and process what just happened! Immediately, we decided not to return this way and instead drop down into the main stream way and return via White Way and Thackray’s Passage. We took a slow crawl through Easter Grotto, admiring and photographing as we went. We scrambled down the in situ ropes to through the Assembly Hall to reach the main stream way and enjoyed the somewhat leisurely stroll back downstream in comparison to our journey up!

Back at Holbeck Junction in no time, we quickly had a recce about before heading back through the connecting passages to the 4th pitch of Pool Sink. We agreed our de-rigging order and quickly got to work. After a sweaty half hour or so we were making our way back through the entrance crawls with an encouraging breeze to comfort us somewhat, and finally daylight breaking through the entrance. Glorious conditions on the surface saw us halt for a few at the entrance and soak up a few rays before hiking back across the fell to the farm. A fantastic days caving, I’m sure Chris and I will be back soon to attempt a pull through trip.

Write up by Will, photos by Will and Chris

By Tom C In Day Trips

Boundary Pot

Jason, Tom, Will

Bright and early I was up at the farm and marching across the moor to Lancaster, pre-rigging it for our through-trip, planned to be an unusual route of Boundary to Lancaster.

Back at the cars and with Jason and Will kitted up, we stomped over the fell to upper Easegill and the second-highest entrance of the system. Jason led the way into the entrance squirm, clearing out the spiders for a clean run through. The promised ’10 minutes of rough caving at the start’ inevitably took about 25 minutes, and Will’s trust in Tom’s time estimates was broken. The route’s largely flat-out, with a bunch of awkward free-climbs and puddles along the way, and we were all hauling bags of SRT gear etc which snagged on everything. 

But before long we’d broken out into the bigger stuff, and made the sketchy traverse round and free-climb down, then Crossover passage into Fusion Cavern. Shortly after this we bumped into a couple of folk on their way out of a Wretched-Boundary trip – those entrance climbs would be a bit interesting to squeeze up. On to one of my favourite bits of Boundary, a crystal false floor at chest height across the passage, which looks just like a miniature map of the Grand Canyon. 

Not long after, we were into Hiroshima Chamber, and tiptoed round the bouldery chaos and up onto the ledge, before popping down the wonderful Manhattan Connection, which spits you out high up on a wedgie traverse high above Far East passage. Getting up into Nagasaki, we were all pretty sweaty and took a R&R break. 

Now it was just a few minutes’ caving to reach the Assembly Hall and we were dangling precariously on the handlines to shuffle round to one of the jewels of the system, the lovely Easter Grotto. The perfect spot for a sit down and enjoying the beauty of this passage for a few minutes.

Back to the Assembly Hall and we headed down the two off-balance handlines and hopped down White Way into the stream. Thackrays Passage is always a nice stomp after everything you’ve been through, and with water levels super low we were almost tempted to try straight through with the stream where the stal grill bypass branches off, but it still wasn’t an appealing-looking place.

By the time we were at Holbeck Junction and making our way towards Stop Pot, we were all feeling well exercised and having recently done the through-trip a few times now, we decided to cut the trip short and just take a different route out of County so Will could see the Eureka and Whiteline route out. All went slickly until we got to the County Pitch, where we were greeted by a ladder and at least 4 ropes down the pitch! The sound of shuffling up above and we realised it was the aftermath of Red Rose’s try caving event. We knitted our way through the chaos to make our way up the in-situ and soon caught the back of the party up, had a good chat with them all at the entrance, and saw plenty of smiling faces of new folk bitten by the bug.

We marched back via Lancaster to de-rig the sadly unused rope, before getting back to the cars and helping one of the novices find his car keys, which he’d descriptively hidden behind ‘some moss’. 

Shame we dragged our SRT kits the whole way through for mostly no reason, but still a good day, I love this end of the system and the endless combination of different routes you can take between any 2 entrances!

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

Notts Pot

Team Twilight Zone: Will, Jim, Jess, Jasmine, Paddy

Team Centre Route: Steve, Tom, Dave, James, Pete M

Yet again another top turnout for a Wednesday night! Certainly too many bodies to be chugging up and down the same route so we opted for an exchange of the upper series. It’s been a while since I’ve made it out on a Wednesday night, however Tom specifically requested a bald rigger and so I had to oblige. I messaged him to see what madness he had lined up for me and his exact words were

”don’t think any of us have done Twilight Zone before, possibly a KCC first or at least the first time the clubs done it for decades.”

That was me sold, sounded right up my street! But it just didn’t add up, the topo didn’t look like anything too crazy, so I decided to google it and see if anything came back. Imagine how gutted I was when the two top results were Ray’s trip reports from 2023 and 2024! After reading through them, nothing sounded awfully difficult, in fact if anything it sounded like one of the many fun days out Ray and I have shared on a rope. The only bit of trickery I could pick out was that he seemed to struggle with finding the deviation on the first pitch. I’m not sure if Ray’s since found this, or if it is still a mystery for him, but I was intrigued to say least to see what it was all about!

Our initial plan was to just do the entrance pitches and Twilight Zone on a quick bounce, but with a few last minute additions to the numbers, we altered the plan to go for an exchange. Steve quickly packed to rig the Centre Route, and Tom had already preached for me to do Twilight Zone. A few forgotten essentials, (oversuits, wellies, helmets) saw a couple of the team having to dash to the tackle store and back, while the rest of began the hike in across the fell. Before long we were at that shake hole and Tom quickly set about rigging the entrance pitches whilst everyone else was kitting up. Tom took us as far as Three Ways Chamber, with me closely in tow, and Dave not too far behind. We waited here for everyone to regather, minus James and Pete that had dashed to the tackle store, then a quick team meet to decide who would go which way before we departed and set about route finding. Following the rift towards Left Hand Route, it wasn’t long before the hard work started as we scrambled up the slick rift. Without too much effort I had the first pitch rigged and a quick check of the topo before setting off down the first ab. Instantly I spotted an old bolt to my right roughly 2-3m down from the Y hang, this had to be the deviation! Relaying the information to Jim behind me t the pitch head, he looked at what was looking at and certainly didn’t seem keen to use it. I gave it a little wiggle and check, the hanger was freely spinning but it seemed solid enough, it wasn’t a huge deviation either so if it had popped it wouldn’t be super consequential. Not wanting to upset those following me, I opted not to use it, and we didn’t experience any rope run or anything anyway, but as I neared the ledge at the bottom of the pitch I noticed I was awkwardly on the edge of it and having to swing back in to get a solid footing. Once on the ledge, I looked back up to where the suspected deviation was and followed in a straight line down and had I used it, it would have landed me comfortably on the ledge not the edge and also literally on top of the bolts starting the next traverse. Possibly the more awkward one to rig, once through the traverse, the Y hang was quite committing with not many foot or hand holds to go at and an obvious void below. It didn’t take too long to get it knocked together with use from my short link I know carry everywhere after using it in rope access a lot and wondering if it would be any good in a cave and now it’s a main part of my SRT kit. Part way down the pitch I spotted the next bolt on the opposite wall and took the swing out to it, although it is possible to continue straight down here also – another of many options of variation to a trip in this vertical playground! Here we could start to hear the other team working their way down through the pitch also, and occasionally saw their lights also flashing through the many openings. Straight onto the next pitch with an interesting window deviation into another chamber that you touch down in, again nothing too taxing. Soon we were working our way through the last pitch, with an awkward pitch head and below me I could see Steve just touching down at the bottom of his pitch, perfect! Exchange is on! The others perched on the ledge while k had a quick drop down to the passage leading to the lower stream way bit instantly everything became very wet and nobody else fancied a look either, not that we could get far as we didn’t bring anymore rigging. One by one everyone touched down, and by now James and Pete had caught back up, so a quick picture of everyone at the bottom before we picked our exits. Tom and I went first, Tom up Twilight Zone and I went for Centre Route, with Jess hot on my heels. Top job from Jim and Paddy de-rigging Centre Route and negotiating kit bags, and likewise in Twilight Zone with Dave and Steve. Again in a similar order we exited, with (I think!) Jim de-rigging the entrance pitches. It was certainly noticeably colder now on the surface, but once all regrouped we all head back across the fell, warming ourselves up as we went.

Thank you all for a great evening!

Write up by Will, pics by Will

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

BPK – rigging masterclass

Team: Will, Chris A

After achieving full member status with the club, Chris quickly set his sights on his next underground goals and asked me if I could introduce him to the world of rigging/de-rigging. Chris is clearly naturally talented on a rope, as he is also a competent rope access tech, so I knew we wouldn’t have to start totally from scratch and would get a lot covered in a single trip. To start with, Chris drove us to Gareth’s house to collect the tackle store key, before heading there to pack for BPK and show Chris the process of a) packing for a trip, and b) signing kit in and out of the store correctly – it seems he may not be the only person in need of this refresher after recent events!

Once loaded up we head over to Kingsdale and began our romp up the hill to the entrance. Chris was quickly put to work, rigging the entrance pitch and the second pitch using the slot and wide ‘Y’ hang variation. The third pitch has a couple of deviations that require a decent swing to grab, so as Chris hadn’t attempted anything like this yet I head on down first to give him a quick demo, before removing the stopper knot at the bottom of the pitch and getting Chris to pull the top back up through the deviations before his descent meaning he then had to swing for the deviations again. He clearly listened to what he was being told and like a pro he breezed down the pitch to join me. The baton back over to Chris, off he went to rig the final pitch, perhaps his biggest test of the trip given that he was now pretty tired, and faced a couple of tight traverses before the final ab. Without too much effort, we were soon at the sump trying to fathom the point of the final pitch given that it’s a lot of effort for nothing at all really!

After putting in a shift on Chris’s part, we decided to de-rig in turns on the way out to give him a little rest, and I took the last pitch and the bigger second pitch so he could work through de-rigging the deviations and not just tire himself out on tight traverses. It wasn’t long at all before we could see daylight once again and with all the kit hauled back up and out, we were on our way back to the car before heading back to the tackle store to carry out some post trip checks on equipment and sign it all back in. Today we looked at:

– Packing kit for trips, organising bags, understanding topo’s, emergency preparations.

– Personal kit related to rigging. What makes life easier, what doesn’t.

– Knot options and selection. When and when not to use particular knots. Equalised and offset ‘Y’ hangs, small and large. Traverse lines. Deviations. Traverse lines that work up or down and protecting a slide/fall.

– Personal placement, good ‘housekeeping’ skills (not creating a spaghetti junction, being aware of cowstails and rigging lines and not getting twists and overlaps)

– Mechanical advantage, being able to use the tools at your disposal to better your position or help you achieve the objective quicker, safer or more efficiently.

– Group focus, rigging for personal/mates and rigging for group trips with all abilities. Being aware of trouble areas where people might need more from the rigging to help overcome obstacles, and being able to identify ways to do so. Also having awareness of surroundings and passing on information, can others follow or do you need room to rig? Does the passageway require one caver passing at a time, etc.

– Swinging on a rope, the principles behind swinging SAFELY on a rope. What to check before swinging, how to swing, and what to do if things don’t go to plan.

– De-rigging principles, bag management, personal protection when de-rigging and making sure that you don’t de-rig yourself out of the system totally.

– General performance analysis, not gassing yourself out, passing the baton if/when tired, focus, delegation if required, caving targets and goals.

All in all a fantastic day out! Chris really impressed me with his ability to learn new skill sets and put them into practice. Not only this, but watching him rig  and de-rig it’s evident to see he’s already thinking about all the important things like placement, protection, movement, etc. Practice, practice, practice, that’s all Chris needs now and I really don’t think it’ll be long at all before we can add him to the list of club riggers. If you’re on a trip with Chris, make sure you put his new skills to the test and get him grafting!

Write up by Will, photos by Will and Chris

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

Ogof Gofan – trip 2

Team: Scott, Helen & Will

It may or may not surprise you that this trip went quite a bit like yesterdays! The weather was pretty similar, perhaps slightly dryer but gusting winds still. The three of us met early morning and kitted up before heading across the sea cliffs once more. I must admit, a wet day prior plus a late night at the pub with yesterdays team and a sleep in the van wasn’t leaving me feeling in the highest of spirits, but I was determined to show Scott and Helen just as good of a time as the others!

Pretty swiftly we were rigged and all inside the entrance stripping our SRT kits off, a pretty dialled and efficient process now after all the practice I must say. This time, I was focusing on trying to put myself in different places so that when I shared the photos and made some reels of our trip later on, they weren’t a complete de ja vu of the day before! Helen lead the way with Scott hot on her heels, through the first crawly sections and into the window chamber. It definitely felt a bit more slippy in here today so there wasn’t any edging out for a photo op from me today! Further on we went and soon we were in the main chamber, again admiring the incredible formations on offer which still made Scott and Helen wow in awe despite all of the photos and videos they’ve been flooded with of the place! I’ve now passed through this chamber 6 times and still have to stop and take a few minutes before pressing on. On through the next crawl and I decided today was the day to explore the little off shoots that Ogof Gofan has to offer, firstly with the down climb between boulders that sadly chokes up after a few metres. Once in the last chamber, Scott and Helen set off in different directions to again explore the off shoots, all again choking up after not much exploration but all worthy of a quick peek due to the pretties on offer.

Before long we were retracing our steps, Helen again exploring some more tight off shoots but shortly returning. Once back at the entrance, Scott offered to de-rig, giving me the opportunity to shoot up the rope first and just after the re-belay I found a suitably placed spike to toss a sling over and hang myself from to get some good shots of the others exiting.

This little beauty of a sea cliff cave has been an incredible trip to plan and arrange and I’m glad everyone in attendance had a fantastic time. I’m more than happy to return again with people if our reports have inspired you! Feel free to reach out to me (KCC or not) and I’ll happily share my knowledge and information on this trip.

Write up by Will, photos by Will and Helen

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

Ogof Gofan – trip 1

Team: Sophie, Darren, Gareth, Will

Some of you may remember back in January I did a solo recce trip to Ogof Gofan with a view to working it into the next meets list. I’m glad I did the recce trip, as beforehand I’d read through horror stories in other people’s trip reports saying how they’d scoured the cliffs for hours with no luck finding the entrance, or some had found the entrance and made it inside, but then could find the way in or were turned back by the squeezes on offer. On the recce, I took a selection of anchor supplies and rope protection, but none of which really sufficed and so I made a mental note of what I thought I needed to return with to make the pitch better suited. The cowboy in me wasn’t too bothered on the recce mission, I was more keen on getting in and seeing what was on offer! At times throughout both of our trip reports I’ll be pretty vague about locations and descriptions out of respect for the process of entry. Like many caves in Wales, you can’t just rock up whenever and enter Ogof Gofan, you must get in prior contact with the park ranger and conservation/access officer to arrange a permit. There’s pretty strict provisions in place to protect this little hidden beauty. Maximum of 4 cavers per trip, the highest standards of cave etiquette are expected, and lastly there’s a bit of an unwritten rule to not post or advertise the exact location of the entrance. Perhaps it’s to keep some air of mystery over the cave, more of an adventure come mini expedition style trip with some good old fashioned exploration. Or maybe it’s to again minimise the traffic this cave receives. There are some pretty good videos out there on YouTube and other places of Ogof Gofan, with researching these and looking on the Caves of South Wales website you can pretty quickly build a solid knowledge of the rough area to be in. I’m also more than happy for people to reach out to me for information, KCC members or not, and I’m happy to help you with planning your trip or joining you to show you the way!

After the long road trip down it was fair to say we were all raring to go, despite the wind and rain that had been hounding us all morning. It was that bad that on our walk in we’d decided to have a look and see the conditions cliff side, potentially having to abort should it look like we were going to be on for some horizontal abseiling! Luckily, the direction was ideal that the entrance was sheltered and only the odd gust now and then came our way. Whilst the others harnessed up at the top, I made my way down the cliff, walking at first, and then a small scramble before reaching the ledge. I guess there’s loads of ways you could rig the entrance pitch really, but I went with my mental list following the recce trip and thankfully it worked a treat and it wasn’t long before I’d rigged and swung into the entrance – the first time on my own I didn’t have the balls to try the swing, this time I was a bit more confident! Or maybe I was trying to prove my worth to the calibre of cavers following me! Once in, I quickly located ‘the spot’ to get the famous entrance pitch photos and snapped away whilst I watched Gareth, Darren and Soph work their way to join me. The clouds opened with a hail storm during this process, Darren being the first to join a dry Gareth and I quickly by an even more soaked and hail battered Sophie. After stripping our SRT kits, I lead the way through the first squeeze immediately in front of you – not the worst squeeze of the trip but clearly had turned people away in the past! It wasn’t long before the four of us had made it to ‘the window’ which is another none accessible opening to system that can be spotted from the sea cliff if you walk further around the bay to the ledge. This is where a lot of people go wrong, they spot the window from the other side of the bay and think it’s the entrance, and then struggle to access it and give up. It’s not actually possible to sea the entrance to Ogof Gofan until your on rope above the rebelay, or if you have a drone and feel brave enough to fly it over the sea. The window chamber is notoriously greasy and care must be taken when traversing from the entrance crawl to the upper ledge. The further into the system you go the more you begin to see formations appearing, in larger quantities and quality as you go also. Another squeeze through the back of a pool means an unavoidable wellie fill next before a very short flat out crawl to the next decorated chamber. A few more smaller decorated chambers and crawling sections and you find yourself slotting into a tight upwards climb. When you step up, the refreshing breeze hits your head and you instantly get the feeling something good is coming up. A little scrambled is required to get out of the tighter top section of the many 2-3m climb, and you emerge in the top of mini crater shaped room with 3 incredible formation in the middle below you, surrounded by a stunning deep blue pool. Everywhere you look the formations just leave you in awe as they display such a variety of colours, shapes, variations not seen elsewhere where, and they’re everywhere! A traverse around the room and you pass through a couple of mites that reminds me of passing through a gateway. To left, the crawling continues down a rocky shaft, which emerges in another chamber with a download climb in the floor, the way on is to the right although I did explore the down climb that goes for maybe 4-5 metres before choking up. A little more crawling over some puddles and you reach the last chamber, which again is very nicely decorated, perhaps a little less wow factor than the previous but still stunning in its own right! Again, a few more little off passages to explore with more formations to admire, but ultimately they choke up and this is the end of the cave. It’s around 120m in length, but the combination of the entrance requirements to get inside, plus the squeezes/crawls, and then the formations and variety of formations, in my opinion makes this well worth the slog down the country to visit. I’ll definitely be back again and I’ll happily lead some future club trips here in coming years.

Once back on the surface, we were lucky to make it back to the vehicles avoiding the rain before heading off to fill the afternoon with wet weather activities and later gathered again at the St Govan’s Inn for a fantastic evening of food, drinks and socialising. An excellent day by all accounts!

(write up by Will, photos by everyone)

By Tom C In Day Trips

Lost Johns – Centipede

Dave T, Josh, Tom

On the meets list was an explore of the newly-opened AKA, but given that there’d been a fair bit of rain and with the description mentioning it filling to the roof, we erred on the side of caution with this new ‘un and rescheduled to a nice little Lost Johns trip. This was Josh’s third trip with the club, and new (but experienced) club recruit Dave’s first KCC trip. 

LJs was bone dry at the entrance so we needn’t have worried about water levels in AKA, but we were here now and the classic roadside trip beckoned. A few dribbles of water appeared on the way down the entrance series, but still by the time we reached the roof traverse, it was eerily quiet. We made our way over No.s 1, 2, and 3 holes and quickly got to Hammer pitch. We zipped down these first two pitches and onto the main Centipede pitch. While Josh had done pitches this size before, he seemed to enjoy this one. With the fog of burning rope smell hanging in the air from our descenders, we headed on for a quick scout down to Dome Junction, and onwards to the top of Candle and Shistol.

Sadly we hadn’t brought any more rope and it was time to head back up. Dave regaled us with tales of caving in Borneo and original exploration, and we made our way up Centipede, always a muscle-pumping flatterer. Dave de-rigged us handsomely out and we made it back to surface with light still in the sky, maybe the first daylight Wednesday trip of the year?

By Scott In Day Trips

Buckden Gavel Mine

 

I’d been curious about this mine for a few years, and didn’t know much about it apart from the story of Buckden Bill:

(https://vetch.co.uk/buckden_archive/ThemysteryofBuckdenBill.pdf)

I was met at the village car park by Damian (who was a true local, having grown up in the shadow of Buckden Pike), Jason and his daughter Rosa. Together we took on the steep path beside Buckden Gill, which had some polished scrambly bits, and finally reached the adit entrance after a good walk.
After some initial sticky mud – nearly, but not quite high enough to inundate the wellies – we were into the mine proper. There were still a few small bats hibernating, which were definitely a different species from the Lesser Horseshoes that I’d seen in South Wales. We carefully set about exploring the various offshoots of the main passage.
There’s a lot of mine to explore here. We didn’t see that much in the way of artefacts – a few tools, the remains of a clog, and plenty of iron rail. There are obviously levels above and below, which presumably must be accessed by sketchy mud climbs (up) and unbolted shafts (down). Our survey seemed to have been compiled in the 1970s to show a safe route for novice groups, but we sensed that there was plenty more passage off the printed page… This mine would be a good option for a wet day in the winter, maybe with a scaffold pole and ladder to get into some of the higher bits.
After a good stomp around, we headed back down the hill. Damian and I wandered around the flank of Buckden Pike to walk down the easy rake, while Jason and Rosa opted for the gillside path. This trek to and from the adit would have been yet another hardship for the original miners, but it was pleasant enough for us on a dry Spring day.
Thanks to Jason, Rosa and Damian for a great trip!

By James Benson In Day Trips

Hazel grove cave

Meeting in the woods in the relatively flat area of Hale Moss seemed an unlikely place for some caving. Picking an unknown cave seemed a risky proposition but the description seemed good and the length of the cave was promising for an evening’s adventure. The entrance had been found by numerous searches on the way back from work (just round the corner). 

So 6 of us (me, Tom, Josh, Pete, Maz and Nat) set off through the woods, across a little bridge and into a field. The ponies in this field seemed unusually frisky and galloped around. I wondered, are they trying to ward us off, but maybe it was the sight of these unusually dressed individuals in full ready for action caving. In the corner of the field, which borders an area of marshland there is a slight rise and very small rocky outcrop. A gryke in this is just big enough to slip down. I led the way, hoping that everyone else was going to fit after me! A few awkward movements took us into a 45 degree sloped passageway filled with massive spiders. Ii moved these carefully out the way as i didn’t want anyone freaking out! Part of the trepidation was a last minute warning email from Helen that they almost encountered a fox down a cave in the area. She couldn’t remember which cave but I certainly didn’t want to encounter one head first down a narrow passageway. Fortunately the passageway didn’t get any tighter and opened up into a head height chamber. Wow. I was amazed this was here. Things were looking up! 

To the left a passageway led to the sump. To the right the passageway led to another sump. Oh dear. According to the description this should be a crawl!! Oh but on the survey map there is a bypass. Acutely aware of having led all these enthusiastic cavers into this cave I decided in a moment of madness to throw myself into this obstacle with massive enthusiasm. So after much maneuvering I climbed up and then slid down this high level bypass which was very tight!! And downwards. And incredibly awkward. Is anyone else going to follow me? No way. 

I’d dropped into a pool of water almost waist deep. The tube I had come down had almost no footholds at the bottom of it. I could hear the others chatting on the other side of it but suddenly I felt like this was gonna be a problem. I could stand but the passageway ahead was flooded but passable with alot of wet ducks. I didn’t fancy it and would have to go on alone. There was apparently another entrance found in the 60’s when it was surveyed but subsequently there has been a whole caravan site built upon where this comes out. Who knows if this other entrance still exists! It could have been filled or come out under a caravan. Also there was a lot more cave to go and the water levels were a lot higher now than whenever the description was compiled. In my mind there were two possible ways to get out, back up the tube or to dive down through the stinking muddy waters through the sump. But that could be tight and very risky and maybe not even passable due to mud build up. I tried to see if it was passable by reaching down in desperation into the cold mucky stinking waters. This soaked me as I went head level deep feeling for the way back. I couldn’t find the way but found a bit of wood. This was a square cut plank of wood. Another mystery. I used this to probe the underwater passageway. I prodded the mud and found a way through. Josh and Tom could see the water moving on the other side of the sump. In fact the end of the wood could be felt but deep into the water. And the passageway was obviously tight and possibly even needing digging to pass. No chance as this would all have to happen whilst underwater!

So the only option was to pass up through the tube. I tried to squeeze up it. There was no room for leg movement apart from a slight desperate scrabble. Both arms had to be extended upwards in order to fit the shoulders through. Because they were held upwards this in itself was knackering. It was easy enough to start up the tube but any progress was next to impossible. It wasn’t possible to even see what the legs were doing as i could hardly move my head and the feet were still in the mirky depths of the pool. I had many tries but kept sliding back down. Finally I’ve gone too far!! I was meant to go on holiday early the next morning. Maybe i’d still be stuck down here then.

I reasoned with myself to stay calm. Logically I could fit through the hole as I had on the way down. If it had been horizontal, it would be awkward but doable but gravity was the main challenge here. If I had some way of pushing up it would help. I tried using the plank of wood which I now suspected was used by the last person who got trapped in here. Still no help. I briefly considered stripping off most of my clothes in order to fit easier but I was already soaked and didn’t think it would help with the trickiest problem which was upward force. Josh kindly offered to get a rope from the back of my pickup. Tom tried to help pull me up by the arms but the space above the tube was really awkward anyhow for serious pulling. After a few more tries Josh returned with the rope and a pulled system was devised. This allowed a foot loop to go down past me. Then by hauling on this and small leg movements everyone gradually hauled me up through the tube as I desperately tried to wriggle upwards. It was like removing a cork from inside a wine bottle. By a miracle this eventually succeeded and I was beyond relief in fact overjoyed by the apparently unlikely recovery. 

Surprisingly nobody else was up for this experience and we slithered out the cave. The trip was short but hopefully entertaining. Amazingly it was high water levels that really stopped us from getting further but we were in some of the driest levels for years outside. My theory is that when Hazel grove was originally explored the Hale mosses were a lot drier. They were much more intensively farmed back then. Now the value of wetlands is much more recognized and much of the drainage on the moss is intentionally left blocked in order to keep it marshy and flooded. Thus water levels are high. Or has the building of the caravan site on top has affected the drainage somehow? Anyhow i’d still really like to explore the cave and am currently considering ways to pump out the water. We’d barely started it so there is so much more to see down there! 

As a little aside we then went through neighboring Brackenthwaite Cave which is a short little through trip in a outcrop near Leighton beck. This was enjoyable and so at least a bit more caving was achieved! Many thanks to all that turned up.

By Scott In Day Trips

Alum Pot, President’s Meet and AGM

by Scott

Cracking conditions for our annual bash. Alum Pot was the place to be this year, with multiple routes being rigged in the sunshine, and lots of fun was had by all. Sophie, Matilda, Nic, Bumper, Fred and Andy G went for a romp around the Churns. Will, Chris A, Paddy and Jasmine descended via Dolly Tubs and the Bridge. Pete and myself took on NW route, and Ray rigged Diccan (soon to be joined by Darren, Andy B and myself after I’d nipped back up NW). Much exchanging took place at the sump. Special mention must go to Paddy and Jasmine -both new members this year – who valiantly derigged Diccan as a pair. That’s a lot of wet rope for two people on a technical route!
The caving fun was followed by a good feed and natter at the Helwith Bridge Inn, with more members joining for the AGM. It’s been a very good year for the Kendal, with new faces, trips abroad and lots of caving-related hi jinks. Long may it continue!