Dave – Kendal Caving Club

18 March 2026

By Dave In Uncategorised

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!

21 February 2026

By Dave In Day Trips

Extended Coniston Through Trip

Dougle Dave, James, Jasmine, Chris G, OG Sophie, guests Sam & Nic

For a change of speleological scenery, this weekends trip was the Coniston through trip, taking in the extra pitches of the Levers Water Mine to Paddy End top level extension.

After some toe curling emails describing the joys and dangers, the hardy undeterred team met at Walna Scar car park, which was doing its best to emulate Leck Fell. The seven of us set off on the 1.5 mile trek to Levers Water, a good pre trip warm up, some folks choosing to throw snow balls.

Once rested and kitted up we slid down to the funnel to the lovely adit mouth built by CATMHS on the Levers Water level. Some gardening unleashed a fair amount of water into the adjacent stope. I had promised a dry trip… the team quickly but gingerly filed down the level, admiring the blue lagoon and wonderfully coloured pitches working our way to Brow Stope.

From here we explored the Top Level extension, taking in earthquake and cobalt passage, not lingering in earthquake given the recent movement, we went the 300m right to the dead end, because why not.

Heading back towards the standard through trip route over MAGS catwalk, we realised we were missing two, these determined mine explorers attempting to leave no working unseen were quickly rounded up and shuffled over the stemples of MAGS. We made quick progress down the large top-middle pitches, and here another side mission to view the wonderful wheelbarrow and candles was made while the trip leader had a pasty. A 30m pitch rigged down from open winze. It’s a great sight, but once is enough.

with time getting on the group made short work in getting down the final traverses and pitches to hospital level and so out back to a lovely rainy day. 5 hours underground and 8 pitches

https://www.flickr.com/gp/199763228@N07/37159g626S

4 June 2025

By Dave In Day Trips

Yordas

Dave, Ami, Paddy & Yolanda

On a bit of a windy, cold, almost raining evening, the four of us met up in the usual layby, and organised Paddy’s Krabs and Dave’s Rope for a firm Wednesday favourite, we had initially hoped to do the top entrance but recent rainfall put a damper on this, so we opted for the more traditional mid entrance. A wise choice as once we’d quickly made the streamway there was a fair bit of water coming down from the direction of the top entry.

Dave cracked on rigging the Chapter House traverse, with only a couple pauses for a head scratch and pensive “how did Ray do it last time” moment. Without much ado the bottom of the waterfall was reached by half 7, with the rest of the team duly filing down for a nice quick trip. We explored the show cave, with Paddy and Ami opting to follow the water out to the bottom exit before looping back to the cave.

With only minor discussion around who was de-rigging, and Ami coming out the winner, we started on our way back out with Ami doing a cracking job on the derig, swapping to Yolanda for some practice on the first pitch, and the squad all back in daylight by 9pm! The pub beckoned but everyone was keen to make tracks as this small cave sure packs an SRT punch.

Photos by Paddy

19 February 2025

By Dave In Day Trips

Rumbling Hole – Where was the Rumble?

Dave, Ami, Ray, Scott, Jasmine, James, Jim, Jess

After missing out on this trip on the previous meets list, an intrepid team met at the layby on Leck Fell, then the farm, then the layby again, for as a quick a change as possible due to the Leck Fell being true to it’s reputation.

Dave, Jim, Jess & Ami headed off the find the cave and make a start on the rigging as surface conditions weren’t ideal for loitering, not sure where the photogenic views from the top were. Dave quickly got tied off to one of the remaining fence posts, and the tree hadn’t succumbed to die back, so off he went. Until the second rebelay where there was some confusion and head scratching. Finally getting untangled and dropping down into the shaft, this was also the last time the whole team was together until we got back to the cars! The deviation was troublesome for anyone not doing the rigging so Jess kindly re-rigged it to the rebelay under the rock ledge and that seemed to make the procession of descending cavers move a bit quicker.

Conditions down here were much more hospitable, not much water down there at all, Dave quickly got the traverse and end of the first pitch rigged, then followed by Ami headed off down the rift for the 2nd pitch, as we’d been assured we couldn’t get lost. So we went down the cascades, which were very dry, and got to the sporting crawl over the drop to the 2nd pitch, with some fun rigging Dave got down to the bottom of the 2nd pitch. A phrase that fittingly covers this whole trip is, “THAT F’ING BAG”, as anyone carrying one seemed to find the same bag shaped capture devices that nature had woven into as many places as possible.

The 3rd pitch was an interested drop down a narrow slot, the team made light work of this and made light work of the next drop, only to find the last anchor for the 3m drop to the flow stone was wobbly, so Dave made the call to turn back here. Only he’d somehow managed to drop the bag and Ray’s rope down the 3m pitch! The team quickly devised a cunning plan to rig off naturals and get Dave down to retrieve the rigging, which was great, but climbing back out was not so graceful and a good breather was had whilst the rest of the team headed off back up the pitches.

Jim made light work of de-rigging and we got back to the surface to find a howling gale driving rain that felt like buckshot, pointing in your face all the way back, luckily the walk in/out isn’t too far, and Ami marched on like a trooper, with absolutely no rumblings about two bags.

All in all, Rumbling is a fantastic cave, although oddly dry based off the route description, with testing rigging and some lovely formations and fossils, and i can only assume Scott, Ray and Jasmine has as much fun as the front half of the squad.

27 November 2024

By Dave In Day Trips

Henning Valley Cave + WHL

Dave, Tom, Scott, Pete, Nat, James, Steve and guest attendee Simon.

Gathered on a quiet street leading out of Lindal-in-Furness rather than the Yorkshire Dales, we waited for the last car full of people to arrive. Questioned by the farmer about our intentions, and reminding them of their permission being given previously, we started cooling down. The last 3 arrived and our happy troop of 8 headed off on the short walk in to one of the longest accessible caves in the Peninsula.

We quickly made the entrance and everyone watered the woods before walking into the entrance chamber, which smelled like a public badger toilet, lovely. We filed down the small hole in the floor into the bedding chamber and along the stream passage, which lead to a series of crawls interspersed with smaller chambers for a bit of respite.

We had a rest in heartbeat rift before going through the last really tight crawl to the mosaic floor and the sketchy pitch down to the Crimson Crawl, which seems to be unaffected by the general water table level in the area, James flew off in search of riches unknown, shortly followed by Dave and Steve. This crawl, winding its way along a low, waterlogged stream passage, dotted with polished hematite leads to a natural rift, and intersected by a shirt section of mine level above a tight climb, which naturally we explored and admired the victorian era handy work. Satisfied we filed out and made good time, catching up with the tail end of the rest of the group.

As the night was but young, and all the crawling so far hadn’t made us wet, muddy and tired enough, we nipped across the valley to Whitriggs Horse Level, to show off the museum of artefacts and the dig into the further workings. This was enough to finish us off and we emerged back into the frosty moonlit night at 9:30, a quick March back to the cars and a chilly change finishing off a good night of underground exploring new stuff for most of the party.

9 October 2024

By Dave In Day Trips

Bull Pot Kingsdale

Tom, Maz, Will, Pete & Dave

A true Wednesday evening classic, we met up in the usual place with dusk starting to settle in, counted heads and came up with one short, which after a wait we proceeded without up to the cave.

The trudge up to the entrance got everyone warmed up and Dave got it rigged up and we started filing down. We proceeded to the next traverse and pitch, the plan being that Dave rig the slot and Tom rig the alternative for a bit of exchange fun given the recent weather and the stream in the valley being in full flow. Dave seemed to get unnaturally wet setting up the rebelay in the slot, bloomin weather.

On everyone reaching the bottom of the third pitches, we decided this wasn’t enough. Especially as it wasn’t quite half 7. So Tom derigged his alternative route, finding Pete coming down the 2nd.

Will lead the rigging of the 4th pitch, getting a nice pendulum going to make the deviation. Tom, Pete and Dave followed, with the pitch being much drier than expected. A short breather at the bottom before we all started filing out, only Tom managed our planned exchange with Dave derigging and everyone back on the surface in the pitch black nice and early.

Photos by Will.

24 July 2024

By Dave In Day Trips

Red Moss Pot

Dave & Maz

After some last minute change to meet locations and delays on arrivals we finally headed on up to hunt down the elusive New Entrance with W3W running in hand, turns out thanks to Damian’s tip-off we landed right on the entrance and quickly got in out of the drizzle onto some lovely beefy bones.

A short relatively tight section led to the “pitch” which was rigged with an 8 m rope off a handily placed natural and we free climbed down with some moral support from the rope getting onto it. Once down we had a quick head scratch whilst trying to interpret the survey and decided to head right an follow the stream way. The formations in the cave were fantastic and made up for the wading in deep water – making sure Maz was sent ahead to gauge the depth – we didn’t explore any of the avens or inlets being content with the stream way and called it quits when we got nipple deep. Beat a quick retreat and snapped some shots on the way out back into the wonderful summer weather.

1 May 2024

By Dave In Day Trips

Yordas

Dave, Ray, Tom, Maz, Yolanda

With Smelt Mill off the cards this week, the crew decided to have another (drier) go at Yordas, having been kept away from the traverse last time due to an awful lot of water. Things looked a lot more promising this time, with Long Gill not visible on the surface, and some sun in the sky.

Tom and Maz nipped into the bottom entrance to play with Tom’s new light bomb while Dave, Ray and Yolanda went straight to the middle entrance to get on with rigging the first pitch.

Having practised here in Feb, Dave quickly got the first and second pitches rigged, with Maz and Tom catching up at the bottom of the second. Was nice to not descend into a waterfall and pool this time.

Ray led on with the tackle for the Chapter House traverse and pitch and made short work of the surprisingly complex rigging. Tom rigged the waterfall pitch for those who didn’t fancy going the high road.

We followed Ray over the traverse and down into Yordas Cave, narrowly skirting the waterfall’s spray on the last couple of metres, with Maz abseiling the alternative route… straight into the fall… at least his oversuit and SRT kit got a good wash!

After a quick rest in Yordas Cave, Tom, Yolanda and Dave made a start on prussiking out with Dave de-rigging, Maz and Ray opting for the short way out. We all made it back out into daylight and back to the cars by 9:15, a short trip but plenty of SRT work and plenty to see.

3 February 2024

By Dave In Day Trips

Alum Pot

Claire, Dave, Ray, Scott, Vicky:

My first lead after a suggestion wanting to save myself paying for a day trip with work, first Saturday trip and also the first one setting off and coming out in sunshine, busy day!

With a plan of attack set, discussed over a breakfast and a brew at Inglesport cafe, we set off towards Selside in glorious sunshine. Scott and Ray collectively having enough rope to rig everything possible as least once.

We opted to go in via Long Churn bottom entrance and take the Dolly Tubs alternative descent. Apparently this was also the intention of the YSS members who turned up just as we were setting off, leading to a race to the entrance, quite how they caught us i’ll never know but we got in first! Scott lead the way and got the first pitches rigged up.

Here our riggers swapped with Claire taking the rope bag for the Greasy Slab (maybe, opinion was divided about which side was which) and across to the Bridge before dropping us down to the bottom ready for the last wet abseil into the sump. The waterfall from Diccan Pot was in full flow with the sump foaming with all the feed coming in.

Pretty safe to say this was a soaking wet trip, with water coming at us from all angles, so we made out way back out via Dolly Tubs with Dave giving the Cheese Press an obligatory visit with some words of encouragement from Ray. We detoured on the way out and emerged back into sunshine from Long Churn middle entrance, swiftly marching downhill with the taste of a well earned pint at the Station already in our minds.

Author: Dave

Dave & Maz