Penyghent Pot

Connor, Damian, Scott, Tom

This was the third summer I’d put PYG on the meets list, the previous 2 getting rained off at the last minute. Pretty chuffed that this time it fitted perfectly into a weather window, plans were drawn!

Given the number of pitches and the way the lengths fall, I decided to add mini ToughPrint topos to each bag as some therapeutic organisation.

We met at Brackenbottom at 9 for an early start, and it was warm enough that we sherpa’d everything up in big bags for a change at the pot. Connor had opted for an undersuit, the rest of us in neoprene. But which team was going to have the most clothing regrets?

We headed down the entrance boulder choke, some with less faff than others, and wormed along and down the climb into the long crawl. Tip: leave a little cairn of cobbles for yourself where you drop in, as you’ll read more about later!

This crawl is as shitty as it sounds, 300m or so of first hands and knees, before lowering to exhausting commando. Luckily with the drought there was very little water in it today, I dread to think what this would be like with a decent flow. As we took an exhausted break and Damian announced we were at knee shuffle number 493, we could hear the waterfall of pitch one somewhere ahead, which Connor was already rigging.

We plopped down this and along Easy Passage, which is better thought of as Slightly Easier Passage. Pitch 2 was another effortless little drop, and we were into the start of the meat of the trip. The spectacular 3rd and 4th pitches offered fantastic views, and I couldn’t help but dangle spinning around for a few moments, absorbing the view of the airy shaft. With the drought conditions, the bottom chamber was nowhere near as unpleasant as the descriptions make it out to be today.

Onwards into the chain of pitches down the big rift. At the 5th, an awkwardly fallen boulder created a squeeze which unfortunately excluded Damian. The drive was there but he reluctantly turned back.

The next few pitches all had in-situ, and while many of them were free-climbable, I at least was glad to have the rope, particularly on the way back up. The in situ of pitch 8 was a soggy affair for team neoprene, but team no-prene traversed out and rigged the dry alternative.

Myers Leap (No. 9) was quickly rigged, and we were down into a different character of cave – large stream passage, with ankle-spraining ribs of rock hidden underwater making progress awkward. The wetsuits made it no issue when I fell into the occasional deep pool, with Connor picking his way round more carefully. Pitch 10 was another shorty and then we bypassed Niagara pitch via the gully on the left.

Passing beneath an impressively tall aven we wound down the final stretch of streamway to the sump pool, for celebratory Rocky bars and Haribo Tropifrutti. These are hard Haribos to find in the UK so I thought it was a worthwhile occasion for the bag I’d sourced.

At this point I was beginning to realise the severity of my situation, being in poor caving fitness after 9 months of only weekly short trips due to baby life. I knew that my biggest battle would be to not whinge too much to Scott and Connor.

My unfit body creaked and cramped its way back up, but there’s not a whole lot you can do but press on. They kindly derigged us up, and a couple of welcome breaks replenished the energy.

We set up a hauling system to get the 4 bags up the big pitches, and the entrance felt slightly closer, although the long crawl still beckoned. I desperately drank a lot of streamwater in thirsty anticipation of the crawl, and am now writing this trip report while sat on the toilet, dealing with the fallout of this decision.

Speaking to Damian afterwards, it turned out that he missed the climb out of the long crawl, and accidentally explored the bitter upstream end, before realising his mistake. He then reversed and missed it once again, heading a fair way back down the long crawl before noticing familiar suffering. Upon finally finding the climb, he built us a small cairn, which prevented us doing the exact same thing.

We squirmed exhausted from the entrance and performed dramatic collapses onto the sun-drenched meadows of Penyghent, before peeling the nightmare off us and buckarooing ourselves up with tackle sacks for a lovely warm evening walk back down to Brackenbottom, and one of the most well-earned pints at the Helwith.

TPST: 6h45
Pics by Connor