Illusion Pot 26/08/2026 – ‘I love the smell of carbide in the evening’

A great turn out – Ami, Billy, Chris, Gareth, Maz, Sam (2nd ever trip), Scott, Sophie H and Tom joined me for this interesting trip. There was also some surface support from Steve P & son, who were both quite badly damaged following a failure to remain on ones mountain bike, good luck with the recovery.

Maz had recently been the recipient of an expedition carbide light and as he knew that was my form of light in the dim and distant he brought it along to have a go. So after getting changed at the end of the green lane on the Kingsdale road, the lower section of the generator was half filled with some old looking carbide provided by the surface support team. Maz and I stopped at the beck en-route and filled the upper water chamber having made sure the water regulator was screwed shut. However, that old familiar aroma of acetylene quickly filled the air and perhaps I shouldn’t have said “it shouldn’t be doing that” as I lit the flame with the usual little bang, as Maz became a little apprehensive. I did explain that it would just be a seal that had disintegrated and there was no imminent explosion about to take place. We pressed on to catch the others who were now at the stile beneath Twistleton Scar End. I’d forgotten how steep the first part of the path was and despite being in 1st gear, low box, nearly ground to a halt contemplating why I hadn’t delegated the carrying of the tackle sack to a younger being. Soon the next stile was met though signalling the ground levelling out as we traversed around the fell side. More talk of carbide at the entrance and a team photo taken by Steve, who kindly even gave advice on dress code.

I set off down the entrance shaft surprised to find pristine manhole rings with nicely aligned rungs, my memory was of blockwork with holes left out for ones feet, more like toe holds until you reached the recycled Fall Pot ladder. I was assured by Gareth that they had been there for years, perhaps I was thinking of somewhere else.

The entrance series leading to the duck seemed longer and more awkward than I recalled and again found myself contemplating, this time if I suffered from learning difficulties, as again failing to delegate transportation of the tackle sack. We reached the duck, thankfully particularly low and in fact not a duck at all, just a wet hands and knees crawl.

More talk of carbide ensued, mainly focused around the aroma as the generator was still producing but in an unstoppable manner. I hadn’t told Maz that dragging a carbide light through the muddy entrance series rather than wearing it was a bad idea because sadly the piezo lighting mechanism now failed to ignite the acetylene as it was thoroughly caked in mud. So the light was left by the duck and Maz continued with the relatively trusty Fenix. Quickly onto the Expressway with the usual ooh’s and arr’s and after a short spell of posing for photos, the group split, left for the pretties at the end of the rift and right for Rushton Chamber and Brunel Rift. As I still had the tackle sack I headed right with Tom, Billy, Sophie, Scott & Maz. Rushton Chamber never fails to delight, a wonderful spot. Tom headed off along Brunel Rift on the in-situ rope commenting that bolts didn’t look great and it was a knotted rope on the final drop so not able to descend or ascend on SRT gear. Billy was next and was rather appalled at the state of the bolts so the ropes I’d been dragging around proved useful. The left hand team caught up and Scott had to say farewell as an early start for work was required the following day. Billy finished rigging the CNCC route which really meant a short abseil to start with so as Sam was a bit knew for this, Gareth had no gear and I feared for my arthritic hip on such a wide start to the traverse so we went to find the pretties back at the end of the Expressway. Unfortunately we were thwarted by a triangular squeeze over an awkward climb and called it a day and headed out. The build up of acetylene by the duck was less than pleasant and was no advert for the reintroduction of carbide lighting. We thought we had got back to the car in time for a pint at the Marton Arms so rather selfishly left before the remainder of the group caught up (we did see their lights at the top of the green lane though before leaving). However, this must be a sign of the times, the Marton Arms was SHUT!

A thoroughly enjoyable evening though with good company