Gavel Pot clean-up

Ray, Maz, Jason

Having visited ‘Echo Chamber’, the new discovery off Glasfurd’s Passage in Gavel, I wanted to install a cleaning station (a bowl, spray bottles and sponges).  Why?  Well, to get to the new chamber, with its fabulous white stal, you have to crawl through a short section of gloopy mud, so that if you do accidently touch something and leave a muddy smear (as I had done!) it’s impossible to clean it off, as every part of your kit is just as dirty.  And Gavel is KCC’s adopted cave, so it seemed fitting for us to do it.

We arrived at lunchtime to an uncharacteristically sunny Leck Fell (but still windy), and soon set off.  Maz wanted some rigging practice, so we were treated to a rigging masterclass from Ray for the entrance eyehole pitch.  When we got to the second pitch, the diggers’ rope was still in place.  Should we ignore it and rig our own?  Nah, sod it… It was a slow descent – I guessed the original 10mm rope had increased to 12mm from the embedded mud.  Never mind, we were down soon enough, and on to Glasfurd’s.

We were soon through the gloop, and I arranged the cleaning material and removed the mud I’d left the previous visit – conscience satisfied.  Meanwhile, the others had been exploring to the end of the chamber, but not content with that, set to restoring some more stalagmites to a more pristine state.  The club can be proud of them!

We eventually dragged ourselves away from the virtuous work, had a wallow in the stream to get rid of some of the muck, went down to admire the exposed traverse to pitch 3, then returned the way we’d come.  A good trip, with a bit of a difference!