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?!