Ami, Pete, Maz, Ray
I’d had my eye on Gour Inlet for a while. It looks substantial on the survey and includes all sorts of climbs, traverses, pitches and even a (hopefully) drained sump. What’s not to like? Having finally decided to put it on the meets list, I wasn’t sure if anyone else would share my enthusiasm. I needn’t have worried. At one point we had 9 people signed up for the trip, although some of those preferred the more traditional Notts II tourist trip. In the end, only 4 hardy souls turned up. This was particularly unfortunate for Maz as he was one of those who preferred the tourist trip, but found himself unexpectedly on the Gour Inlet team. To be fair, he didn’t take too much convincing.
As mentioned previously, the inlet includes various traverses and pitches, so we found ourselves unusually descending the entrance climb in SRT kit and carrying tackle sacks. I had a feeling that most, if not all, sections requiring tackle would be pre-rigged, but we couldn’t be sure.
Once down at the main drain, we set off downstream. The 1st hurdle to overcome was finding the right place to climb up into the inlet. We passed Inlet 14 (with it’s particularly ropey ladder hanging down). About the same distance further downstream, the passage is bridged by some clacited boulders. Gour Inlet is above these.
The next hurdle is the climb up to reach it. Looking at both the upstream and downstream approaches, it seemed that the best place to start climbing was a short way downstream of the boulder bridge. The climb looks intimidating, but turned out to be easy enough. It starts with some bridging between the walls, before transferring onto the true left hand wall and finishing up a flowstone cascade. I climbed up first, but stupidly forgot to bring the rope with me, so Ami then climbed up with the rope. While I was tying it around a convenient boulder, Pete had climbed up. Poor Maz was virtually forced to use the rope to at least get some use out of it, even though he was presumably quite capable of climbing without it.
We then set off into the unknown. According to the NC3 description, the inlet starts with 180m of stooping passage. This is a bit generous. I have no reason to doubt the 180m, but I found myself crawling a substantial amount of it.
Eventually we came to a climb down. A short distance further is the sump. Again according to NC3, there is engineering designed to keep this drained. Would the engineering still be working? None of us (with the possible exception of Ami) would have been going any further if there was less than a foot of airspace. Luckily(?), the engineering was still working, indicated by the occasional belching sound coming from the pipework.
While the “sump” had plenty of airspace, it wasn’t exactly pleasant – a sign of things to come. From this point it all becomes a bit of a mudfest. Before long, we reached the 1st traverse (over Pit Pot). As I had almost expected, this was equipped with a fixed rope. There was some debate about the state of the hangers, maillons and rope, but apart from that it all looked good enough to use. So we decided to leave our tackle there, deciding that the rest of the passage would also be rigged.
The traverse over Pit Pot would have been easy enough if we weren’t all so covered in mud. The 18m drop focused the mind somewhat, but we all made it over. The passage continued, never big, but always muddy. Eventually we came to a 2nd traverse, again pre-rigged. This one was even worse, largely because we were covered in even more mud by this point.
Not far beyond the 2nd traverse are some upward climbs. The longest of these (maybe 3m or so) was equipped with an electron ladder. I found this the most terrifying bit of the whole trip as I have seen enough of these break over the years. Thankfully this one managed to hold itself together long enough for us all to get up (and eventually back down) it.
At the top of the ladder is a small muddy alcove with another short climb up into a crawling passage. Maz decided he had had enough at this point and suggested I come past him. Past him?? I couldn’t even get to him. I don’t know if the soles of my wellies are particularly slick, but I couldn’t make any forward progress at all. In fact, I was in serious danger of falling back down the ladder. Eventually, I did manage to pass Maz, but really struggled to get up the next short climb.
Ami and Pete were still within earshot up ahead, but what they were going through didn’t sound pleasant, so I decided to stop with Maz. You can have too much of a good thing. The brave heroes at the front went on for a bit. The description is really confusing, but they think they reached Intimate Chamber. At this point, it was unclear whether they were supposed to climb up or down, so wisely did neither.
Maz and I set off out and were soon caught by the others. The traverses were even more “interesting” with our additional layers of mud. I was particularly keen to see if the “sump” was still drained, fearing that we may have knocked the pipework sufficiently on our way in to stop it working. Thankfully, reassuring belching could be heard as we approached. The “sump” at least washed us off a bit.
It was a relief to eventually hear the sound of the main drain as we approached the top of the climb back down. As we had a rope (well, quite a few actually), it seemed foolish not to use it. Fearing that an attempt at a pull through type arrangement would result in a stuck rope, the last person had to down climb unaided. This actually turned out to be even easier than climbing up. So I would suggest that a rope probably isn’t necessary at all, unless your party includes a particularly unconfident climber.
Ami chose to have a bath while the rest of us made our way out. The exit climb was made even more interesting than usual due to the pointless tackle getting stuck just about everywhere possible.
Would I recommend Gour Inlet to other parties? Absolutely. It was a fun trip. It may even get better further on. There are some reasonably-sized pitches. I would like to get to those at some point, maybe after a bit more research on the route. Would I go back anytime soon? Absolutely not. The memories of all that mud will fade, but it will take time.
