Gavel

Sophie H, Billy, Jason, Klaudia
The plan for the weekend was Fossil Pot, but with a fair bit of rain forecast we decided to be sensible and go for somewhere less flood-prone. Gavel seemed like a good suggestion, and meant we could check the KCC cleaning station installed by Jason a month earlier. We arrived at Leck Fell on a drizzly Saturday morning, shortly followed by a group from another club heading the same way. I rigged the first pitch, and with several more cavers arriving, Billy headed off to quickly rig the next pitch. After a short down-climb and a bit of crawling, soon enough we were at Glasfurds. Its a great chamber, with curtain-like formations, straws, crawls and squeezes. After a good look around we headed to the newly discovered Echo chamber. I’d been here a couple of months earlier, and it was still equally as impressive and definitely has some of the longest straws i’ve ever seen. It is particularly muddy on the entrance though, so Jason re-stocked the cleaning station and we cleaned a few of the formations nearest to the path. Next, the two big pitches. I’d been to the top of these once a couple of months before with Billy and Scott, had looked down, got nervous, and waited at the top whilst they explored. Having since gained considerably more confidence with my caving, I was keen to give it another go, and it did not disappoint. Billy was very smooth on the rigging, and after a re-belay, exposed traverses, a precariously positioned pipe and a big deviation, we were at the sump. Klaudia and I shared de-rigging duties and we both complained about the weight of the bags. Klaudia did a particularly great job de-rigging the exposed traverse. The weather was even more miserable on the walk back to the cars, but we had a great day. Thanks all. Photo 1- Klaudia in Glasfurds chamber, photo 2- looking down from the top of pitch three, photo 4 – straws in Echo chamber, photo 5- the sump.