Mistral
Damian, Ami, Tom, Dougle Dave… ?
Photos by Dave
AGM – Diccan Route
Connor, Dave L, Jason, Sophie, Gareth, Scott
Once again the weather gods blessed us with settled weather for the AGM. After a fine Inglesport breakfast (and some lift-share reshuffling) the Kendal were assembled for action in Long Churns Lane. After the walk-in we formed three tight squads – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Earth, Wind and Fire?… No, the Long Churners, The Dolly Tubbers and The Diccaneers were we to be.
Team Diccan consisted of Connor, Tall Dave, Jason, Gareth, Sophie and myself. As the tackle stooge for this trip, I had lovingly crafted three perfectly balanced bags of gear for this trip (except the one carried by Connor, which was initially full of steel maillons, and the one carried by Tall Dave, which wasn’t quite big enough for all the rope within). My bag coincidentally was the first to be used, so I set off in front. On the way the bag sank into one of the pools, but I was wise to its ways and avoided a wetting with a violent yank and a swift kick. The bag behaved perfectly for the rest of the pitch.
The first shaft has a couple of rebelays, a handy guide line and two deviations. All of this took me far enough away from the waterfall that my suit didn’t quite get the thorough washing that I was hoping for. I touched down, shouted ‘rope free’ and got on with rigging the next little drop.
Connor took over for the next pitch, and had the traverse rigged in no time. A couple of drops later, Tall Dave took over for the final extended pitch. This involves a few rebelays and deviations as the rope follows a suspended route over the final gully and waterfall. We all gradually descended this in stages, getting in plenty of hang time on Dave’s excellent rigging. Jason even managed to try a little experimental SRT near the bottom, but the classic system was not to be dethroned just yet.
Meanwhile, Gareth had been doing lots of filming, and Sophie lots of shivering. We were glad to meet the first of the Dolly Tubbers, and a swift exchange was made. Connor, James and Paddy raced back up Diccan to derig, while everyone else headed back up the Dolly Tubs. I loitered at the back, chatting to Charlie (Tom’s mate from UCET) and did a bit of derigging on the Dolly Tubs route.
The Dolly Tubbers had rigged the larger hang to the North of the Bridge, and it was a spectacular ascent in the sunshine, although rumour has it that Pete had enjoyed the most dramatic view of Alum Pot that day 🙂
Back on the surface, sunbathing and tea drinking had commenced. Tom, Charlie and I emerged to cake and a hot brew (thanks Sophie!) with the promise of even greater things to come at the Helwith Bridge Inn later on.
Another fantastic AGM with new friends and old! Thanks all for a great day out.
Pictures courtesy of David Lund
AGM – Dolly Tubs
Charlie (UCET guest), Chris H, James, Paddy, Pete, Tom, Yolanda
What a fine day for 16 KCC to swarm Alum Pot. Standard Inglesport breakfast then up to a sunny Selside, where we slogged up to the pot and split into our teams school-style. 3 trips were on offer – the President’s Team were heading into Long Churn, the acrobatically-inclined were doing Diccan, and the rest were heading down the Dolly Tubs/Bridge route to the bottom.
The window at the bottom of the Dolly Tubs was looking exceptional this morning, with a fine rising mist and the sunlight slicing the gloom in half. A moment to take in the view, and we were onwards and downwards, with the Greasy Slab and ledge roped up as a YUCPC dangler appeared from the Northwest and pendulumed over to join the route.
As we reached the far side of the bridge and began rigging the underside hang, we heard a commotion behind us and spotted Pete dangling above the 40+m drop on his cowstails, swinging and cursing. He was quickly plucked off and we vowed to get the new Bridge Alternative route sent over to CNCC for addition to the topo. Pete decided at this point to turn back so he could have a proper inspection of his undies and we ploughed on.
Our guest Charlie hadn’t really done many pitches as big as the hang under the Bridge before, but faced his fears and tackled it like a pro. Down the bottom, we had a general mingle with the student team and our own Diccan adventurers, before James, Paddy and Connor started their journey up to de-rig Diccan, and everyone else began snaking their way up the main shaft. At the surface it was delightful to pop out to a stove and a cuppa, with cake and biscuits – how could we have expected any less with our lovely Chair running the day.
Jingling Pot
Dave, Dave, Ami, Paddy, Damian, Scott, Sophie & Billy
On a very pleasant, warm, clear, calm evening, the crew headed up the steep slog to Jingling with a mish mash of ropes based on the limited availability in the store (where are all the 60s?!). Dave cracked on with rigging the initial traverse with Ami in a close 2nd. With the two short folk thoroughly enjoying the rigging.. being too vertically challenged to reach the handy foot ledge, the ungracious back lying shuffling along the top ledge was called for. luckily Ami didn’t have a camera to catch this.
Here began the usual verbal diarrhoea of the cavers war cry, as the bags were doing everything they could to be obstructive.
The remainder of the lateral cleft route was quickly rigged with a couple of unorthodox rope change overs, and Dave descending the direct route and landing just before Dave on the lateral cleft and the rest of the team quickly filing down.
Not many opted for the free climb down the final pitch, choosing to have a catch up before climbing out instead in the pleasant company of a rather large frog.
We beat the retreat and started the exit climbs to complete our exchange and Sophie was last out after some derigging practice by half 9, so a nice early finish but too late for a pint, maybe next time!
Rowten Pot
Long Dave & Ray
For a long time now, I’ve been trying to arrange an exchange trip in Rowten. I think it would be a very jolly experience, with people passing close to each other all over the place. But numbers or weather have always conspired to thwart my plans. This time it was both! In the end, only Dave and I signed up on a particularly bleak early spring morning with a forecast for rain all day.
Having just returned from Tasmania a couple of days before, I was feeling particularly jet-lagged and lethargic, so was very happy when Dave said he didn’t mind not getting to the bottom on this occasion. This meant that we only had 2 bags to carry up the hill, rather than 3. Phew.
It was a pretty quick and efficient trip to the bottom of the Main Chamber. I rigged the entrance pitch down the Eyehole and Dave took over to rig the big pitch, which he hadn’t rigged before. He made short work of it too.
This was only Dave’s 2nd trip to Rowten. On the 1st occasion, I had rigged the big pitch, using my trademark hybrid route of descending from the 1st y-hang in the bottomless rift and swinging over onto the far wall halfway down to join the Big Gully route at the descending line of rebelays. Dave must have enjoyed this on his previous visit as he chose to take the same route this time, despite my suggestion that he may want to take the more traditional route to the end of the bottomless rift.
In no time at all, we were both down in Main Chamber, looking down the Flyover, wishing we had brought the other bag of rope. However, this did give us a chance to explore as far as we could (tackle-free) on the Direct route. I hadn’t actually been down that way for many, many years, so was quite surprised by how far it’s possible to get. There are a few short climbs to get down, which looked like they may be interesting on the way back up, but we forged on. Eventually we ended up about level with and reasonably close to the 2nd rebelay of Flyover route, reinforcing my opinion that an exchange would be a very sociable affair indeed.
On the way back up to Main Chamber, Dave spotted Calcite Inlet. We didn’t attempt to squeeze into this, but it does look very nice. The 2 interesting climbs weren’t too bad to get back up. Combined tactics worked nicely on the lower one. For the upper one, Dave had left a convenient length of 6mm string attached to a handy anchor, which I was very pleased to see.
I set off up the big pitch first, with Dave derigging. One of the advantages of my hybrid route is that it breaks the big pitch up, so that 2 people can be ascending at the same time. Despite the extra rigging, I think this actually speeds things up. At the top of the big pitch, I offered to take over derigging, but Dave was in his element, so I took his bag off him and set off out. Dave appeared on the surface before I’d even had a chance to catch my breath.
This was a great, quick trip and Rowten delivered as it always does. Just to round things off, Dave produced a couple of slices of the cake he made himself for his recent wedding. Move over OG Sophie, there’s a new cake king in town!
No photos of the trip, but check the cake out…
Notts Pot – BUSS and Centre Route Exchange
Paddy, Ami, Damian, Tom, Jasmine, Steve, Scott
A top team of seven headed up to Notts Pot on Wednesday night, carting five unwieldy bags of gear. The weather had been dry all day, but a bit wet earlier in the week (note this detail, dear reader, for it is significant later in the narrative)!
We were soon down the first two pitches and assembled in the 3 Ways Chamber (with four ways on). I had been keen to investigate one of the lesser used routes in Notts, so had organised tackle for an exchange between BUSS and Centre routes. From the description it sounded like it should be possible for the BUSS Routers to land behind the final duck in the bottom passage of BT Route, then climb out onto the last ledge of Centre Route if the Centre Routers were kind enough to drop a rope.
Paddy, Steve, Tom and Damian set off down Centre Route, while Ami, Jasmine and I turned left for BUSS Route. I had often wondered where the red in situ guide rope led at the top of the Double Bucket shaft, and it didn’t disappoint. An airy diagonal abseil leads to a spacious ledge, and soon we were moving off down a narrow tube. A step over a hole in the floor leads to a small second pitch (Mud Pot). From here we climbed down into another chamber, then rigged an oxbow on the left which led to a sizeable shaft.
Hanging around at the top, I could that the shaft was split by an arete after a few meters. The right hand shaft (Fossil Pot) looked wet, so I opted to descend the left shaft (Thread Pot). It took 4 deviations from small naturals to minimise the rub, but I reached the bottom. I could see through into the base of Fossil Pot, but would have to abseil blind through a heavy curtain of water to get there, and there was nowhere to rebelay the rope. I waited for a little while, having seen lights flashing somewhere above, but no one materialised. I realised that this might have been Jasmine and Ami’s torches, rather than the other team, so I reascended.
Back at the arete, I was ready to retreat, but Jasmine spotted lights at the base of Fossil Pot, so I headed down. I got to a point about twelve meters off the deck where the torrent of water entered the shaft. There seemed no way of deviating away from it without rubbing the rope on the overhanging roof higher up the shaft, so I reluctantly accepted that this exchange would have to wait for drier conditions.
‘ABORT, PADDY!’
‘COPY THAT!’
I jugged back up to rejoin the others, slightly guilty that I’d had all the dubious fun of exploring the big shafts. Jasmine was keen on derigging the rest of the route, so I gratefully overtook her and followed Ami back up to the top of the Double Bucket.
Back in 3 Ways Chamber I had a chat with Paddy and Steve, who had had to do a clever bit of rigging and knot-passing only to get soaked at the bottom of Fossil Pot (much appreciated guys!)
We all headed out to a clear evening.
BUSS Route is definitely worth a look if you want to see a different part of Notts Pot, and nothing on it is too difficult. But it’s probably a trip for low water conditions, unless you really, really like water.
Thanks all for another good evening out!
Fairy Holes
Present Damian, Tom, Scott, James, Jasmine
It’s a bit of a drive but this cave is really worth it. Cavers can only visit on one day a month and for much of its discovered history its been part of a working quarry. In fact despite losing 600m of passageway through being quarried away its still one of the longest stream passageways in the country.
So we parked in our allocated space and walked up to the quarry. First challenge was to find the cave. This place is huge! We wandered about eventually following a path up the side of the quarry to a stream flowing out of a grille. We had the key and unlocked this, followed by a mild wetting as we crawled through a big concrete and metal pipe. Then suddenly we were in a cave. Seemed surprising after the quarry environment.
The cave itself is a long stream passageway where occasional rockfall has made things harder so you have to climb or go underneath. The stream way involves wading through water of varying depth. Despite wearing a wetsuit and wetsuit socks being constantly in this water it gets cold. So gradually we got a bit chilly. But despite this we got quite a long way until a constriction stopped Damian. It was a good effort but he turned round. So there were four of us left and we sloshed on.
The walls of the cave are not so solid as there are amazing mud formations everywhere formed of thick layers of mud. This is a nice change from all that clean Yorkshire limestone. Eventually we got to a bit where Scott and Tom turned around. The cave seemed endless at this time, we all had cold feet apart from Jasmine who was pretty much 50% neoprene. BUT it was shortly after this point that the cave changed in character and me and Jasmine were in higher level passages following white dots. Crawling along sweating buckets. The warmth got my enthusiasm going again and we pushed on. Many interesting formations were encountered and Easegillish type Chambers were passed. At last we got in the streamway again and followed it to the end where it seemed impassible and awkward and our map went no further.
We turned round and made a retreat for the next 3 hours. Caution was thrown away and we dived through ducks and wet bits with enthusiasm because we knew the others would be waiting and we’d been ages. I saw a blind cave fish, which i subsequently found the cave is famous for. Then eventually we emerged from the pipe into the freezing air and darkness. Chilly times on the walk out. Mercifully Tom had heated seats for the way home. Luxury.
A great trip but we found out later that it wasn’t the real end to the cave. In recent years the removal of some mud has allowed explorers to get even further. So a reason to return.
Thanks Damian for sorting out the access and organizing the trip.
Black Reef Cave
Damian, Maz, Scott, Jason
We were welcomed to the cave by the sight of a sheep riggweltered in the entrance streamway. What to do? Was it dead? – yes, definitely a late sheep, but still reasonably fresh, so only lately late. Leave it where it was, and crawl in the stream under its body? Er, no… So we grabbed a leg each and hoisted it out of harms way. We felt sorry for it – it must have been a lingering departure, but, honestly, you’d think they’d know better…
Back to the cave, we went upstream first. I explored a little tube off to the left, thinking it was the main fork, but it was tight, muddy, and quickly closed down.
Moving on, Damian led and persevered to the end of the main passage (taking the right fork) – at least as far as he could reasonably get. So we turned round, and I explored the left fork. It went further than I expected, a crawl over a small stream in a slot in the floor. It eventually got too low for comfort, though didn’t close down altogether.
The others had patiently waited for me, thereby missing out on a delightful grovel, and we turned back downstream for a quick look at the sump. A short trip, but fun.