Category: Day Trips

By Jason Clements In Day Trips

Wretched Rabbit

It was too wet for the Barbondale trip, so an Easegill visit was proposed, and I suggested exploring the upper reaches of Wretched Rabbit – it would be dry, and new for us all.  I liked the sound of “Dreamweaver” and “Mystery and Imagination” – surely these would be worth a visit? Sophie, Ray, Scott, Tom, James and Maz agreed, or at least couldn’t come up with a better idea.

In the event, the description on the Red Rose site doesn’t do justice to the complexity of the area.  We split up and spent some fun time wriggling around various crawls, traverses and chambers, probably encountering Marble Chamber and Ulreka Chamber.  But anything justify the exotic names I was looking for eluded us.

Still, it was a good work-out and it’s always nice to leave something to do next time water levels are high…

By Jason Clements In Day Trips

Mongo Gill

Scott and I celebrated St Patrick’s Day with a trip down Mongo Gill, just nearby the Stump Cross show caves.  The trip had been planned for the Saturday, but Scott was busy leading a hen party gill-scrambling.  He earns his money!

Calling at the café to collect the keys, we were given a talking-to about safety and conservation from the owner.  However it was a little difficult to give these topics serious consideration, as she was wearing a helmet with cow-horns atop a black wig (that’s what cave-women wear, apparently).

Anyway, having been assured that the North Shaft entrance was easy to find, we set off across the field, and after half an hour so of quartering it, failed to do so.  I returned to the car to get my GPS, and we walked straight to it.  The entrance pitch is easy, and we were soon able to discard the SRT kit, as there were a lot of snug crawls in prospect.

The route to begin with is a little complex, but the Braemoor guide is excellent and we were soon past the difficulties.  After a passage with a small shaft to the side, there is 250 metres of interesting passage.  Not always easy going, mind, a lot of it is crawling.  Then after an unpleasant, but brief wallow in a puddle, there’s what is described as 100 metres of straightforward and pleasant caving.  We launched into this confidently, but I was finding it less than pleasant, and surely more than 100m – I wasn’t looking forward to repeating all this on the return!

Emerging from another low crawl, I thought the chamber had a strangely familiar small shaft to the side, and Scott confirmed my impression – somehow we had retraced our steps without noticing that we’d reversed direction!  It was a very WTAF moment … but once we’d recovered from the bewilderment, it was a relief not to have to repeat all the crawls – we already had!

Soon back at the entrance, we thought we might as well find Shockle Shaft and have a look from that end.  Thank goodness for the GPS again – we found it quickly enough, and had a good look round most of the bits that we’d expected to see.  Overall, we agreed it was a good trip, if not quite as expected.  Mongo Gill is an interesting place – a mixture of natural cave and lead-mine workings, with parts of it being well-decorated.  The formations must have been spectacular centuries ago, and although the passage of time, and miners, have taken their toll, they are still worth seeing.

By Scott In Day Trips

The Magic Roundabout, Lancaster Hole

On a chilly but dry Saturday morning, Yolanda and I set out to tackle the Magic Roundabout series. Despite passing this bit of Lancaster Hole plenty of times, I had never investigated further. To be honest, I had never liked the idea of committing my life to the unknown qualities of the in-situ Arson Shaft rope, but as it turned out my fears were unfounded.  The rope and anchors are excellent!
From the bottom of the Lancaster pitch, we took the direct route through Montague East to Stake Pot. On the other side, I started to ferret around for the window into Arson Shaft, finding the other route towards Link and Cape Kennedy in the process. The initial step above the drop into Arson Shaft actually wasn’t too bad, and the rope hangs against the wall all the way to the top, where there’s a step into a shallow parallel shaft. Two more short pitches upwards brings you into the well-decorated Old Kent Road. At this point we had a break while Yolanda dispensed with some of her Arctic Layering System (well, it was cold outside!)
Old Kent Road is a bit of a crawl, whilst trying your best not to break the floor-level straws. I forgot to find the turn off to The Chocolate Box (one for next time), and we soon ended up at a short rigged pitch down. Across the pit is apparently the route to The Pristine Way, but it looked like a serious undertaking (anyone done it? Are there some spit threads hidden in the wall somewhere perhaps?). Down the pitch, and we joined a stream which led us to the 23m Aquarius Pot. This is easily rigged for pull through with a 50m rope, and has a bit of tat at the bottom ledge to get down the next short drop.
The next section follows a washed out shale bed at floor level, then stay high to access a pre-rigged 9m pitch. A few Swinsto-esque cascades brings you to a chamber at head height. This is apparently the way up to rejoin the base of the Arson Shaft, or alternatively squeeze out next to Bob’s Boss. We opted to stay in the stream, and a couple of minutes later were debouched into the Main Drain just upstream of Stake Pot.
We felt like we’d prusiked enough for one day, so opted to upgrade the trip to Mega status by exiting from Wretched Rabbit. The upstream section from Stake Pot passed too quickly, and soon we were at Oxbow Corner. In the past, I’ve always followed the water at stream level through the boulder choke, but today we spotted a handline on the left, which led us easily up through the boulders. Top shortcut!
A series of large muddy caverns followed. I ruefully spotted the place where Sophie had plied Tom and myself with mulled wine and mince pies last time. But alas, it was Christmas no longer, and the eternal night of the cave cared nothing for my tears. Onwards to Stop Pot, then Four Ways Chamber.
The usual struggle up Wretched Rabbit brought us to daylight. At some point, it had occurred to me with dismay that Lancaster Hole, which still needed derigging, isn’t really on the way back from Wretched Rabbit. Yolanda had left her keys in my van, and my keys were hidden somewhere near the farm, so she bravely kept me company on the beeline slog across the open moor to Lancaster Hole. The day’s struggles were not over as I unknitted our rope from two student club ropes (with the aid of lots of swearing) in the Lancaster shaft.
All in all a very good trip to a different bit of cave. Thanks again to Yolanda!
Scott

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Boxhead – It’s A Cracker Exchange

James, Dave, Helen, Ray

After a few dropouts and a late entry by Helen, a bold team of 4 set off on this classic Leck Fell exchange. It seemed the perfect opportunity for Dave & James to venture forth on their own, so they entered via Boxhead, while Helen & Ray went in via Cracker. As good as they are, it would be a bit much to expect D&J to rig the Kendal Flyover route in Boxhead at this stage of their careers, so the enterpise was facilitated by Ray pre-rigging earlier in the day.

Both entrances were located relatively easily, relative to previous evening attempts that is. Helen and Ray braved the spiders in the Cracker entrance climb and were soon at the 1st pitch, which Helen rigged. The 2nd deviation is an absolute pig to reach. It’s not that it is a long way off, but there’s nothing to push against to swing over to it. Much hilarity ensued. Helen may see it differently. Ray took over rigging on the 2nd pitch. Luckily there are no deviations, so it went relatively smoothly. The awkward climb on the way to the 3rd pitch seemed more awkward than usual for some reason.

Meanwhile, James & Dave had made short work of descending Boxhead. Knowing this would be the case, they had been armed with a survey of the Tate Galleries and told to go exploring. They would have great fun finding Cresta Run, Crowbar Pitch, Epiglottis Grotto etc… All they had to do was go through the short crawl from the Kendal Flyover ledge and turn right. But what did they do? You’ve guessed it – they turned left, into Venus Dig.

The exchange timing couldn’t have been better. D&J emerged (rather dirtier than before) from their explorations back onto the Flyover ledge just as Ray was rigging the 3rd Cracker pitch. So we all descended our respective final drops at the same time.

After a quick poke around at the bottom everyone exchanged. The old fogies limped out of Boxhead. James & Dave did an excellent job of derigging Cracker, which should have taken considerably longer. On exiting Boxhead, Ray popped into Cracker to see if they needed any help, only to find James already at the top of the 1st pitch! Well done guys.

This was the perfect evening SRT trip and marked a big step up for 2 of our newer members. With a bit more rigging practice they will be able to lead us all on some great trips. But they do need some tuition in how to read surveys…

Photos by Dave.

 

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Yordas

Dave, James, Ray

We had such great plans. Dave and/or James could put their recent rigging training (courtesy of Scott) into practice on the first 2 pitches. I would rig the Chapter House traverse/pitch. Then James and/or Dave could derig the whole thing. What fun we would have. Sure, it would be a bit on the wet side, but isn’t Yordas best in such conditions? There’s nothing better than traversing and performing various aerial acrobatics out over the raging torrent then finally sliding down alongside, but safely out of, the deluge.

The first sign that things may not go to plan was the thunderous sound of the waterfall before we even got to the bottom entrance. Inside, the main chamber was a vast swimming pool. I say swimming pool, but no-one could actually be tempted to swim.

Hmmm. Never mind. We didn’t intend to come out the bottom entrance anyway. Our way in (the middle entrance) would be nice and dry. We would meet the water coming in from the top entrance and get a bit wet in the crawl to Chapter House, but then we would be safely clear of the water.

It became clear that plans may have to change long before we got to the middle entrance. Again, the sound and then the sight of a raging torrent suggested we may have to rethink. We had intended to go in via the more upstream of the 2 slots constituting the middle entrance. This was taking a massive stream, much more than I’ve ever seen before.

Not being a team to be put off by such trivial matters, we entered via the more downstream middle entrance slot. Even this was taking some water, but it was at least passable. Dave took the lead and did an excellent job of rigging the first short drop. He carried on rigging the 2nd pitch, but looked a bit concerned about actually going down it in view of the thundering waterfall that may not be avoidable for the last few metres. I wouldn’t have blamed him for deciding against it. In fact, I was hoping common sense would prevail and we could have an early pint in the Marton Arms, rather than an early shower.

In the end, Dave made it look easy to stay relatively dry by bridging out away from the water. I followed and did a passable job of staying relatively dry. James, on the other hand, took the option of an early shower.

If I’m being honest, I kind of knew where the trip would end. Just around a left hand bend is a short climb down with a pool at the bottom. This is usually just a bit of fun in normal water conditions. Tonight it was a positive death trap. It would certainly have been possible to get down (not necessarily under control), but may have been impossible to get back up against the force of water.

So that was, indeed, as far as we got. James valiantly offered to derig. I think his logic went essentially along the lines of “I can’t get any wetter”. Dave and I weren’t about to argue. At least we would both have someone to hold us out of the water for the first bit. James took his inevitable drenching with a stiff, if slightly moist, upper lip. He did an excellent job of derigging.

After a particularly slippy-slidey walk back down to the cars, we retired to the Marton for a bit of “rehydration”. Although we didn’t get very far, this was actually a most enjoyable evening. It’s great to see such caves in full flow and gain a bit more respect for the sheer power of the water that forms them.

We will all be back very soon to finish what we started.

Photos by Dave & Ray.

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.

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By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

County Pot

Scott, James, Dave + (almost, but not quite) Ray

Report from Dave:

Link Pot Another “Not What We Aimed For” Trip Report – County Pot

James, Ray, Scott & Dave headed off for Link Pot, to be thwarted by a rather swiftly flowing, Dave-waist-deep Leck Beck.

We headed on up the valley towards the higher up parts of the system, again thwarted by the beck which was higher than the footpath and up to the wall, in favour of caving another day rather than chancing his knee Ray headed on back to the warmth of BPF. This left the three of us heading to the entrance to County Pot without using the submerged path, with Scott finding it as though he had a built in nav.

Warmed up from the hike and ready to be underground, we made swift work of the entrance series and its squeezes, with Scott quickly rigging the pitch for an abseil. Slithering gracefully down onto Broadway in no time.

From here we explored various areas, Battle of Britain chamber, Spout hall to name a couple (forgive my naivety I was aMAZEd by the complexity of the passages and options), linked with lovely boulder crawls and nicely polished squeezes. The water fall was in full flow and the noise was tremendous as was the airflow as a result. Scott slid though to recce the a potential route but there was too much water so we opted to slide blindly backward onto the scaffold and explore the maze of passages and see some of the formations, sadly my camera was tucked safely and dryly in the boot of Ray’s car! A fixed rope descent took us to the bottom of White Line chamber for a view up the waterfall.

Deprived of a round trip by the removal of another fixed rope, we turned tail and began the return leg and the interesting climbs up the scaffold bar and the dangling sling out of Broadway, working our way up the tight squeezes that didn’t seem that small on the way down, with our SRT kit giving us some nice sounds effects. Before long we were back in the clear night air and heading back towards BPF across the fell, nothing to report here other than the disturbance of numerous Grouse.

A short but sweet back-up trip, underground at 8 and back at the farm by 10, with kudos to Scott for his navigation and a big thanks to Ray for waiting to take James and Dave home. We were certainly in a better state than the 3 Red Rose members who passed us returning from a dig in “not a nice place”. Hopefully we manage to achieve a planned Wednesday trip soon!

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Tatham Wife Hole

Jason, Sophie, Pete, Yolanda, Ray

I hadn’t been down Tatty Wife for 30 years or more, so was really looking forward to this one. Would it be as good as I remembered? Jason had been there more recently, but still many years ago. No-one else had been before. Would we find our way down the cave? Would we even find the cave? Had Jason and I over-stressed how good it is?

In anticipation of a potentially long day, Sophie, Pete, Yolanda & Ray stocked up on slow-release energy (i.e. a fry-up) in Inglesport and met Jason at the parking spot. There is ample parking a few hundred metres past White Scar Cave, just before the quarry. The rather large elephant in this particular room is the enormous escarpment that must be climbed just to get up to the plateau where the entrance is.

The walk-in is at least as bad as I remembered. It takes quite a while just to get to the foot of the escarpment, then it’s a right pain to climb. There is, at least a vague path to follow up through a gully. The stile that used to enable crossing the wall at the top of the escarpment seems to have disappeared, necessitating climbing the most broken down section. Even then, there are quite a few false summits before the upper slopes of Ingleborough come into view. Then it’s a simple matter of trying to locate the entrance somewhere in the distance across the moor. Visibility was good on this occasion, so we could actually see the shakehole from a long way off. Jason’s GPS confirmed that we were indeed heading in the right direction. Overall, I would estimate that the walk-in took around 45 minutes. We set off underground on the stroke of 11am.

The entrance climb looked rather uninviting, particularly with the water flowing down it. This clearly wasn’t going to be a dry trip. Once down the initial climb, the passage descends quite sharply and becomes really quite impressively proportioned. Before too long we reached a short climb down… at least we used to climb it. It’s now anchored as a pitch, complete with drilled thread (which we couldn’t find), fixed anchor and deviation. Jason showed his contempt for such dumbing down by free climbing it on the way out – not sure what he did on the way in. The rest of us were happy to use any assistance available.

Some really fun passage eventually leads to the next couple of pitches, close enough to be rigged with a single 45m rope. I really enjoyed these pitches, although they were a bit on the damp side. There is an optional deviation on the top pitch, which we decided not to use. This was probably a mistake as it was definitely a bit moist. A rebelay around a jammed boulder then facilitates a descent towards the lower pitch. We definitely used a deviation on this pitch… and probably could have done with another one. It was decidedly damp for the last section.

At the bottom, Sophie and Ray sped off to rig the next pitch. The passage eventually diminishes in size to become a slightly awkward crawl, filled with projections that could have been specifically designed to grab tackle sacks. All very frustrating, but it doesn’t last too long. The next pitch is rigged as a Y-hang, without any traverse line or backup. It’s safe enough, but I wonder why the usual convention of an anchor well back from the pitch head has been neglected in this case. Again, a deviation was required to pull the rope away from the water. The pitch lands on a ledge. A short side-step then leads to the top of The Ramp, a hading rift down which the water pours. The rope from the previous pitch is tied off around a very convenient chockstone and continued down The Ramp. While the cave is not generally tight, I struggled to reverse the side-step off the Ramp on the way back out. In the end I had to unclip my chest jammer. No-one else seemed to struggle at all, so let’s blame bad technique.

We decided to regroup at the bottom of The Ramp, before setting off along the rift towards the famous duck. The regrouping took slightly longer than expected due to a breakdown in communication, leaving Pete stranded at the top of the Ramp for longer than he would have liked.

There had been some apprehension about the duck. Jason & Ray had assured the Tatty Wife virgins that there was nothing to worry about – it really wasn’t that bad. They were wrong! It looked particularly uninviting on this occasion due to the high water levels. It would have been a real “lie on your back with your nose in the air” job. One or two people had a half-hearted look at it, but we agreed that returning on a drier day was the better option. Jason had a look at the bypass, but didn’t fancy it. Again. I don’t remember the bypass being that bad, but it looked horrific.

So, out we went, with Ray & Sophie derigging. Jason & Ray free climbed The Ramp, which was probably easier than trying to prussik it. As on the way in, the tackle sack jammed on just about every projection. The best way of progressing was for Sophie to drag it behind her, with Ray freeing it from snags. I always find it really hard work getting out of this cave as it’s quite a climb back up the sloping passage. If anything it’s now even harder! The last man emerged just over 3 hours after the first descended. Thankfully, the walk back to the cars didn’t seem anywhere near as bad as the walk-in.

A debriefing over tea & cake in Inglesport was called for. All agreed that Tatty Wife is a great trip. It deserves much more recognition than it gets. I imagine we’ll all be back before too long… but in drier conditions.

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Bull Pot of the Witches

Maz, Tom, Dave, James, Sophie, Ray

Report from Maz:

THIS AIN’T IBBETH PERIL

For my first lead, those wiser and more experienced than I, had decided a nice non SRT trip to Dentdale would be my baptism of fire.

Unfortunately, Storm Isha had other ideas and it was soon obvious that Ibbeth Peril would be under water or at the very least, put any caver in serious peril. A plan B or C would obviously be needed.

Having consulted the caving gods; namely Ray and Tom, and the bible that is Northern Caves volume 2, it was decided a nice jaunt down Bull Pot of the Witches would be just the job.

With no rain falling for a change, Ray, Dave, James, Tom and myself began the descent. After the first pitch, a puddle of light and voice from above marked the arrival of Sophie bringing the compliment of cavers to 6.

A largely dry series of thankfully short and easy pitches deposited us in a large cavern. There followed a nice section of passage before bypassing a small hole in the floor. This passage gradually become muddier and lower. Obviously, James decided to investigate and emerged brown coated and unimpressed.

Retracing our steps, we descended the hole in the floor via a muddy, sorry looking sling. This led us to the Long Gallery and onto some crawling and more sliding around in the mud and water. Although we just couldn’t get enough of this fun, we reluctantly decided it was time to return the way we had come. James ascended the sling hole first, giving myself below, a face full of welly water. I, in turn passed on the compliment to Ray who was below me, who subsequently passed the favour onto the next caver. Only James’ escaped this muddy shower, having led the climb.

On the way out, James and Dave went on another detour, meeting up near the bottom of the pothole, which looked amazing with moonlight glinting off the falling stream. We surfaced at about 10:15 having had a lovely trip. Thanks to the riggers and de-riggers and to ray for the photography

On a personal note, this trip marked a year to the day since my first foray underground with KCC. I am extremely grateful to all those members who, without exception, have made me feel welcome and part of the club. I am also very grateful to their patience and support while I’ve faffed and squawked. Mostly on pitches, traverses, crawls, scrambles, squeezes, ducks, chimneys, climbs, but also walking any uphill to the entrance!

Most importantly, thanks to everyone who has very kindly given their time and experience to help me develop my skills and confidence; a natural caver I am not, but I do love it.  Except Jingling Pot, which needs filling in with concrete.

 

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Notts Pot (Twilight Zone)

Claire, James, Dave, Ray

The best… and worst… of winter caving. To be honest, I didn’t give us much chance of getting up Leck Fell Lane, given the prevalent snow and ice. So much so that I’d packed the ropes in such a way that we could easily decamp to Jingling. So the real question in my mind was whether we would even be able to get up into Kingsdale. When we got to the bottom of LFL, there was no sign of James, who was travelling independently of the rest of us. This meant that either he hadn’t arrived yet, or he had come in is pickup and breezed up onto the fell, leaving us with a bit of a problem when we came to the inevitable impassable section. But, surprisingly, no such impasse occurred. The road was relatively clear with just a few icy sections to navigate. We decided not to think about coming back down.

So there we all were in -7 C, regretting the decision to cave at all, but reluctantly getting changed anyway. The walk up to Notts Pot started unpleasantly cold, but we largely warmed up on the stomp up the fell… apart from my hands, which didn’t thaw out until well underground. It would have taken quite a while to find the entrance, had it not been for the GPS we had brought along, GPS in hand, James thankfully led us straight there. A quick rigging of the entrance pitch soon saw us all underground and rapidly warming up. Ray forged on ahead to rig the short climb and then the pitch down into Three Ways Chamber, where we could all regroup. Well, Ray and Claire regrouped… and waited… and waited. No sign of the other 2, so Claire eventually reascended the pitch to search for the others, while Ray set off to start rigging Twilight Zone.

Claire and the others eventually arrived as Ray was close to finishing rigging the initial traverse over Left Hand Route. Apparently Dave & James had somehow managed to get lost in the entrance passage. I didn’t even know that was possible. But, given James’s affinity for pushing into scrotty holes, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.

The rest of the descent went reasonably smoothly. There was the usual time wasted trying to find the deviation on the first drop, marked on the CNCC topo. As the CNCC’s own description states, this is either non-existent or impossible to find. Certainly I’ve never found it. This leads to the 2nd bit of time wasted trying to swing directly over to the y-hang above the next drop, before the usual admitting defeat and instead using the traverse on LH Route to reach the same y-hang. This traverse is actually one of the highlights of the trip, so it would be a shame to miss it out. The 3rd obligatory bit of time wasting is in deciding which window to swing into on the next drop. I don’t do this trip often enough to remember, so invariably start swinging about much too high. On locating the correct window the rest of the route down to the Lower Streamway was plain sailing.

Claire, then Dave, then James were soon down in the Lower Streamway too. No-one seemed to have any issues with the descent, despite it being quite a technical route. Dave, in particular, did very well, having only been caving for a few months. Not bad, given that he largely taught himself SRT from YouTube videos!

Being an evening trip, we had no intention of going lower than the Lower Streamway, so there was nothing else for it but to set off out. Claire volunteered to do the derigging, so Ray set off first, planning to wait at the difficult traverse to watch Dave & James and offer helpful advice. In the event, the helpful advice went something along the lines of: ” Now, the thing to do here is… Oh, you’ve done it” or “You’ll need to face the other way here… Or you could just make it look really easy facing that way, as you’ve just done.” Ever felt redundant?

Surely I at least had something to offer in terms of helpful derigging advice for Claire? Absolutely not. It was a very slick operation indeed. Not even a hint of swearing at tackle sack or rope.

We all regrouped in Three Ways Chamber again, before the final push out into the arctic wasteland. The surface pitch was surprisingly hard to prussik, being absolutely encrusted in ice. But we all did manage to reach the surface. By the time we reached the cars we were all absolutely frozen stiff, requiring combined tactics to remove various items of kit/clothing. Dave & Ray decided to not even bother getting changed.

This was an absolutely outstanding trip with a great bunch of people. As James, Dave & Claire are all relatively new members of KCC, it seems clear that the future of the club looks very bright indeed.

Some photos courtesy of Dave & Ray:

And, finally, a caption competition: