Month: August 2025

By Ami S In Day Trips

Dog Hole – Crystal Cave

Team: Jasmine, James, Jason and (report by) Ami

This report features two trips for the price of one! These trips don’t have descriptions on the CNCC website, making them even more appealing to explore.

Many months ago Jason led us on a splendid trip to Barbondale’s little visited Crystal Cave, where James decided to take us ‘off survey’ and attempt a through trip. Despite having made the crawl through a passage that can sump in the wet to Monsoon Chamber, we ultimately couldn’t find our way through the notorious ‘Jungle’ and had to turn back.

This week we attempted to begin from the other side and make the link. We met at the layby, merrily pointed out the gully where Crystal was found, and confidently headed into the next gully south for Dog Hole. It was a fun climb – with evidence it is used for ghyll scrambling. After some considerable searching though, not much had appeared. There should be at least two marked caves here – had we missed them?

We were nearly out the other end when we found a man-made wall covering a hole. Surely this is it! Jason bravely dove in head first, while James continued further, thinking this may be Barkin rather than Dog Hole. Alas, James quickly returned with the news that we were, in fact, in the wrong gully completely, meaning a very awkward uphill reverse out of a hole-to-nowhere for Jason.

Over we went, tackling some clambering down into (we hoped) the correct ghyll. Here, a more promising hole, though following an explore we established THIS was Barkin. We can’t be too far now! Just two hours after we set off, the wall bricking in Dog Hole was located.

Finally confident, in we went. A low ceiling-ed, muddy slide opens out to Bridge Hall. Down we went, following our instructions to go over a rock shelf and ‘keep right’. We obeyed, and soon found James squeezing himself through a rather tiny space directly over a large drop. Much cursing later he was down, swiftly followed by myself and Jasmine. Jason, wisely, called it a day here.

I say wisely, as after some more crawling, and then some more wet crawling, we found… a sump. It seems we had missed the right hand turn and ended up in Hey’s passage – a dead end. Given the time, I had assumed by this point we weren’t going to find the way, so might as well just enjoy the explore on the way out. So back we went, looking for our missed turn.

With an upward direction, a previously unseen tiny crack showed itself just before we were back at the rock shelf. I posted myself through it – more out of curiosity than because I thought it could possibly be an option – and found a cairn! Suddenly, the trip was back on!

We were indeed in a confusing mess of cave that could be The Jungle. All very low, crawling and wriggling, but a way became clear and I popped out…. right where we had turned around last time. The exact spot! Turns out we were standing right over it, but had missed it as it was a low crawl with a rock hanging over the entrance. We had linked to Monsoon chamber – what a rush!

Annoyingly, it was gone 10pm at this point, so a through trip might have meant missing our call out.

So, just two days later, James, Jasmine and I met again to nail the trip once and for all. No troubles now – straight to Monsoon in 15 minutes, and head first into the dreaded ‘off survey’ crawl. This is long and very low (no head turning possible) but didn’t seem half so bad this time we knew where we were going. Jasmine bravely took on the horrid duck (think half your face in the water) first, sparing James and I the prolonged trauma of route-finding when you can’t see where you’re going – well done Jasmine!

After this it was smooth sailing – climbing the waterfalls and viewing the gorgeous formations that make Crystal Cave worth the three ducks involved after this one. An awesome through trip and the most fun I’ve had trying to route-find in a while – who’s ready to find the link to Bucket on the Head?!

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Meregill Hole… or Whose Rope is it Anyway?

Darren, Original Sophie, Jasmine, Connor, Ray

The official club trip was supposed to be Vesper, but I decided to move it to Meregill for 2 reasons: (i) I’d done Vesper a few weeks ago, and (ii) it was dry enough for Meregill to be pleasant. Both caves were already rigged (by CPC) for a 3 Peaks, 3 Pots challenge – seems they managed it in 13 hours, the 3 pots being Vesper, Meregill and Little Hull. Very impressive. The deal was that we could use the CPC ropes in whichever cave we chose as long as we derigged. Sounded like too good a deal to miss.

The walk-in was unusually pleasant, in the sunshine and with no tackle to carry. Both the mere and Aven Entrance were rigged, so we all entered via the mere. I set off first, followed by Connor, Jasmine, Darren, then Sophie. The descent went pretty smoothly on reasonable rigging, the biggest issue being that there was more than 1 set of rigging on various sections. How were we supposed to know which gear to derig?

CPC had taken the highest level option for all traverses, which added to the fun a bit. I don’t think I’d reached the 3rd pitch at such a high level before. The only other thing of note on the descent was an orange tackle bag and some krabs at the bottom of the pool on the halfway ledge on the final pitch. Connor decided he could reach it, but the pool was deceptively deep. We decided to leave it for the way out.

Having reached the bottom in good time, we set off to explore the extensive passage. The biggest hurdle here is crossing the very deep pool directly at the bottom of the last pitch. Various traversing techniques were employed. I decided on the low route, which essentially meant I was chest deep in the pool. Even then, I was teetering on a submerged ledge. God only knows how deep the pool actually is.

The young tigers, Connor and Jasmine, led the way along the streamway. The going was mostly easy walking or stooping with the occasional crawling section or cascade. Connor found cave fish at 2 locations and also pointed out a few interesting fossils along the way. He was clearly in his element. Before we knew it, we were at the terminal static sump, which seemed like a good point to turn around. Darren found a worm here, which he seemed determined to rescue, presumably not wanting to be outdone by the team involved in the rescue of Beryl the sheep a few weeks ago. I’m not sure he’ll get the same publicity – if only he’d given the worm a name!

A quick group selfie and we were on our way out. Surprisingly, the more “experienced” members of the group left the young tigers behind, despite having struggled to keep up on the way in. I can only put this down to us being more desperate to get out. Unfortunately, this meant that I for one was absolutely knackered before even starting to prussic.

I derigged the bottom 2 pitches. By the time I got to the halfway ledge on the bottom pitch, Connor had indeed retrieved the sunken sack and krabs. His suit even got a good cleaning in the process. Thankfully there was only 1 set of rigging on the bottom 2 pitches, so no dilemmas about what to derig and what to leave. Connor derigged the big 3rd pitch, where there was a dilemma. I don’t know if he simply derigged everything or decided to leave one set of ropes.

At the top of the 3rd pitch, I met Jasmine and Sophie. Sophie decided to wait for the others, while Jasmine and I set off out. At the bottom of the 2nd pitch, we could see lights from another party at the top. Jasmine went up first and caught the other group, who informed her that it wasn’t just CPC who had the cave rigged. Todd from Inglesport also had an ongoing project, so left various bits rigged… or so he thought!

There were 2 ropes hanging down from Aven Entrance, so we at least now knew which was the CPC one. Jasmine waited for the others to tell them which one to derig, while I set off out via the mere with my full tackle bag.

Sophie emerged next and we waited for the others… and waited. When nobody appeared, I took the decision to derig the (hopefully) CPC rope from the entrance shaft, assuming the others would all come out Aven Entrance. Sophie wasn’t convinced. Thankfully they did indeed all appear from AE. Phew!  Let’s be honest, though – they had no other choice. Apparently it was “a bit wriggly”.

We seemed to have rather a lot of kit to carry back down the hill – most of us had 2 bags. Given that there were 5 of us, this seems like a lot of rope, even for Meregill, so I can only suppose that we did indeed derig some of Todd’s ropes. Sorry! We’ll let CPC take what’s theirs and get the rest back to Todd. I’m sure he’ll relish the opportunity to rig it all again.

Photos by Darren and Connor.

By Ami S In Day Trips

Cherry Tree Hole

Yolanda, Ray, Vicky and (report by) Ami

I had had Cherry Tree recommended to me by a random stranger, and with that as all the info I had, off we went.

Obviously KCC legend Ray had been before, though admitted to a rusty memory of the actual cave. The CNCC description has some slightly contradictory advice about parking and the friendliness of the landowner, but despite an initial, sceptical-seeming pause, permission was granted.

Cherry Tree is ‘notoriously difficult to find’, and includes a fairly lengthy uphill walk across the fields to the entrance. But armed with a map and a clear, sunny day, we spotted the tell-tale tree without difficulty. The problem started once we were actually there.

CNCC recommends a 10m rope as a handline to get down the shakehole to the entrance, but goodness knows what they’re measuring that off as it was no where near long enough to reach the ledge. We therefore rigged the 15m rope intended for the first pitch, hoping to make savings on the length later.

As the bolts are high above the entrance, I opted to rig off the scaffolding to save myself the lost 5m. No such luck. I descended to a shelf and promptly hit the knot. I decided I was happy to free climb the last few metres, but it wasn’t an easy task, so Yolanda heroically went back to the top to retrieve our 15m and bring it for Ray to re-rig in its intended spot. During the swap, I did wonder briefly if they had simply hauled up the unsuccessful 10m and wandered off in to the sun without me, but of course such an awesome team were soon down the newly rigged rope. (Anyone going another day, I suggest you want a 15m and a 20m.)

I had done a brief recce while the rope swap took place, so we ditched our SRT kits here and set off through an interestingly tight little traverse over the stream. This involved posting ourselves through a key shaped hole and trying not to let your feet slip low enough to get stuck beneath you.

From here on the description was clear and involved some good old fashioned caving – scrambling, wriggling and even walking – through to the main stream way. We had decided on the ‘tourist trip’ today, meaning we could explore both up and down stream until some impressive chambers.

Downstream was especially interesting, as the route choice beyond Boulder Chamber is either a very tight, wet squeeze, or an extremely hairy, overhung climb. After a little experimenting we found that I fit quite well through the bottom route, and could look back to the top of the climb. This means for future trips, a willing Small caver could take a 5m rope/ladder through and rig the climb from the top, allowing others to get beyond Boulder chamber safely.

They may not wish to do this of course, as double ducks and wallowing in mud seem to be part of the package. Sounds downright awful and right up my street – logged in my head to come back to another day!

After a good explore we headed out. We even had time to detour to North Stream passage on the way, though the route is cut short due to some precarious looking boulders. We were back into the sun in great time. Thanks so much to all for indulging my curiosity on that one.

 

By Scott In Day Trips

Valley Entrance to Rowten Passage

Tom, Maz, Jason, Connor, Damian, Scott

I’d been looking forward to donning the neoprene and exploring the wet stuff in the Kingsdale Master Cave for a while.  Going upstream at the Master Junction never seems to appeal much on the way out of Swinsto or Simpsons, and this bit of passage had always looked a bit unenticing, so I suggested it for the summer meets list, thinking that at least the water wouldn’t be too chilly.

As it happened, a massive traffic jam delayed me on the nominated evening (and robbed us of Dave’s company), so I was about an hour late to the cave. I kitted up in a hurry and completed a real speed run through Valley Entrance – this was surprisingly thrilling, and should be repeated sometime – just in time to catch the others up at the Rowten Sumps.

There was a bit of back-and-forthing going on at the prospect of committing to the first sump, but neoprene hoods were being brandished, which seemed like a promising sign, so I had a feel around with my feet.  Sure enough, there was space and air on the other side, so I slid through into a spacious airbell.  Soon I was joined by Connor and Tom.  The next diveline went off to the left, and seemed a bit more committing. Legend has it that this sump is 4m long, which doesn’t sound too bad; but there was zero visibility, and Connor’s exploratory dive didn’t reveal much, so we reluctantly(?) left this one for another day when we were feeling a bit braver.

On the way out Damian crawled off for a look at the start of the Mud River series, and we found the other sump on the right which eventually links into the end of Philosopher’s Crawl.

Before too long we were back at the pitch, and then out into the warm night air with the tantalising possibility of the Marton Arms still being open…

Nice little trip, thanks to everyone who came along.  Can recommend this route for anyone who has dirty gear and needs a rinse off!

 

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

New Rift Pot (Beryl’s rescue!)

New Rift Pot

Team: Will, Chris Arthur, Ami

Before I begin, go and grab yourself your favourite beverage and get ready for a good one!

Our intentions were to head down New Rift Pot to Coates Cavern via Route 66 for a good old explore and poke about, potentially head through to Necropolis and scout out for a future mission to the Eastern Front. None of us were really excited to walk in with the current conditions being pretty wet, but soon enough we were hopping the wall and heading across the fell path looking for our shake hole. I’d done this trip once before with Scott at the start of the year so fairly confident I knew the way, neither Ami or Chris had been before but both were raring to go after my promises of a grands days caving with plenty to look at.

Chris was up first to rig and quickly got to work scrambling down the entrance climb to the pitch head, closely followed by me and Ami bringing up the rear. It wasn’t long at all before Chris stopped dead in his tracks and was staring down at something below. Low and behold the rough shape of a sheep’s back could be spotted at the bottom of the pitch, it must have taken a tumble from above the entrance into the rift and then at least one other to get to where it was. Clearly Chris and I both quickly concluded we were going to do something, although at this stage we weren’t too sure what! We observed a little more and then noticed that it was still moving around, alive! That changed everything as previously I’ve only dealt with deceased extractions, and immediately all three of our minds started running wild with what if’s, and it was evident we felt this was going to be a rather difficult task. Ami made for the surface to get some phone signal with the instructions to try and gather more club members for some extra hands and see if anyone knows which farmer it’ll belong to so we can notify them. Whilst she was on with that, Chris and I pondered some more from the pitch head trying to come up with a plan of action. The worry was that the more we moved towards the sheep, it would get more scared and potentially hop down the last 2-3m drop to the flat out bedding crawl beneath the pitch. Whilst the 2-3m drop certainly wasn’t serious, especially in comparison to the roughly 30m already descended, it would have been further to extract from and with a lot less room than we currently had if we could make it work. We were envisioning some sort of grab, lash, and haul but knew we’d have to be slick with it. For every move and noise we made it looked almost certain we were going to loose the sheep further into the system as she was teetering on the edge of the drop. Chris was left on suicide watch (although I’m not sure there’s much he could have done had she jumped!) whilst I quickly set about rigging a tensioned line we could use to haul all the way up and out over the fence, trying to make our lives as easy as possible. By the time I was done, Ami had put a shout out to other club members for assistance, informed North Yorks Police agricultural department to try and locate farmer, and got CRO on standby should we have struggled or failed with extraction.

One by one, we slowly and carefully abseiled down to join the sheep, trying our hardest not to spook or scare her at all. Once on a level, there was quite a bit of eye balling between the 4 of us, and I think it was here where Ami had decided she was called Beryl. Margaret and Barbara were also contenders I believe, but Beryl certainly felt more fitting! I slid myself over the drop beneath Beryl to stop her fall, while Chris and Ami coaxed her back away from the edge, and over into the other side of the chamber where we were able to pick her with a human barrier. I say that, there wasn’t much force required as she was ear deep in a pool of water, clearly dehydrated. Whilst having her fill, we took the opportunity to fashion up a harness for her out of a couple of slings crossed with an ‘X’ underneath. With a somewhat equalised central attachment point, we were pretty set to whip her out of there. Ami and I climbed back up to the pitch head and began prepping for the arrival of Beryl, with a view to smoothly transition her up the pitch and up out of the entrance rift. Haul system all set, Chris hopped on the in situ rope to ascend alongside Beryl, just in case she need any in flight attendance. Beryl just sat in her ‘harness’ completely un phased with the most chilled out expression on her face. Perhaps it was the 4 litres of water she’d just downed after 2 weeks of dehydration! I’m glad Chris was below and not me! Everything felt like it went smoothly and to plan whilst between the 3 of us we negotiated the package that was Beryl back to daylight. On the surface, Beryl had a new lease of life and kicked up a fight whilst Chris was taking off her harness, perhaps she wasn’t done with New Rift Pot just yet! Ami to the rescue with some extra hands to hold her down and she was soon skipping up the side of the shake hole on her merry little way, with nothing more than a mere limp for her troubles! She gave us all a look back, as if to acknowledge what had just happened, and then proceeded to head exactly in the direction of where she must have fell down in the first place. We all ran at her to chase her up and out of the shake hole, and just as we did, our back up arrived in the form of a solo CRO volunteer to check what all the fuss was about. I bet he was having a hard time to believe that this little lamb that was skipping across the fell with a grin on her face had just caused so much hassle!

We’d intended to continue with our trip, but after a very hasty 10 minutes of de-rigging and stuffing everything back into tackle sacks, some of which being left behind now so we could move faster The , it just seemed the right shout to call it a day and quit while we were ahead.

In an additional attempt to locate the farmer, I put a couple of social media posts out into local Ingleton groups, which then got spread wider afield and now Beryl is becoming a superstar, with various local news platforms reaching out to cover the story.

Whilst there is absolutely an element of comical value to this situation, I would absolutely like to highlight the teamwork and communication enabling us to achieve this, and a big thank you to CRO and everyone else who were ready if we needed them.

#Berylthecaver

Write up by Will, pics by Will & Ami