Long Churn and Dolly Tubs
After a bit of SRT practice in the morning we had a potter round Long Churn and dropped down dolly tubs to give Tony his first go at SRT, Claire rigged and derigged and all went well.
Hay Time – 25th January 2017
Dave G, Jason
Before we went, I couldn’t find much information about Haytime online, and Northern Caves doesn’t give a lot away about where to find it. It turned out not to be too hard, even in the dark, but for future reference, you walk up the Pennine Way from the Crown in Horton for about 1km, where you come to a gate. Carry on for another 100m, then go up an obvious dried-up streambed on your right. After maybe 150m, there’s a big shakehole with the entrance to the left.
The entrance crawl is very short, so short in fact that I ignored the unpromising hole in the floor of the first little chamber and continued crawling through an uncomfortable squeeze on the left. This progresses to a squalid low passage before getting ridiculously tight. Dave sensibly suggested seeing if the hole was the way on – it was, and I spent the next ten minutes inching out of the squeeze backwards, by now well covered in crap.
The hole on the right turned out to be generously P-hangered (a bit of a clue) but you really don’t need any aids, it’s a simple free climb. Honestly – it’s a snug rift with plenty of holds, though warm work on the return. This pitch and the following climbs do have some loose rocks, but we took it carefully and didn’t have any problems. The last climb is probably the hardest, but there is a decent resident handline, so there’s no real need to take any tackle.
From the survey, it appears that there’s a direct, wet route, and a longer drier route, both meeting shortly before Helm’s Deep, the final chamber. The plan was to go down dry and come back up wet. The actual layout is more complex than the survey suggests, but anyway we went on a long meandering rift – well decorated in parts – to reach a T-junction that was apparently not on the survey. We turned left, expecting it to quickly choke, but it went on and on, feeling as though we were heading back to where we’d already been. But abruptly, we found ourselves in the impressive chamber that was undoubtedly Helm’s Deep, whence a short crawl leads to the attractive sump.
Returning, we started up what ought to have been the short, wet route but seemed to be a different dry meandering rift leading to where the other had started. Whatever. It was a good fun romp (apart from the unnecessary squalid interlude at the start) in under two hours, and I’d happily return to try and figure out how the passage related to the survey and explore various side passages we left for another time. My thanks to Dave for turning out and not moaning at my slow pace, I hope we’ll be seeing more of him!
On a less happy note, we were dismayed to find the Crown shut – I hope this isn’t permanent!
Dowbergill
Gareth and Darren, knowing that we had undertaken the traverse from Providence Pot to Dow Cave on 2 previous occasions, had asked if they could be included on a further trip. What further trip?!! Was my response. The first time had taken us 6 and a half hours and was replete with arguments caused by neither of us knowing at what point it was safe to descend, several wrong descent decisions, a very scarey traverse and feeling bloody cold. The second time had been faster (just over 4 hours) but this was more by luck than judgement. We didn’t find the scarey traverse and instead found a rigged line down to the streamway. We had ventured along to the swim under the boulder but, without having read up on how long a complete submersion was needed, we retreated and climbed up onto the Gypsum Traverse in a near hypothermic state. On the positive side, it was a sunny day and we warmed up considerably with the long walk back to Kettlewell.
This time, the date chosen followed the snowfall and coincided with the snowmelt. Andy and I checked out the possibility of leaving a car at the end, feeling sure Gareth had a 4 by 4. He doesn’t—so even the drive to Dow was quite eventful! We almost got the correct gear in correct cars. Gareth was left at the end without shoes (& I’d left home in wellies, so had none either) and the flask of hot drink was left in the car at Kettlewell. But beer and tea bread were ready for us on exit.
A beautiful walk through the snow was followed by a swift passage through the entrance series. I could remember it all—except the Blasted Crawl through muddy water—how could I forget that! About 1.5h into the trip saw us enjoying hot chocolate in the 800yd Chamber—the half way point in distance terms. I had managed to get very wet and so was beginning to feel cold but everyone else had successfully navigated the climbs, traverses and squeezes staying relatively dry.
‘Is this Brew Chamber?’ was the much asked question over the next 2.5hrs. We did several boulder choke climbs and several squeezes at stream level, but still nothing fell into place. And it was only a short distance on the survey. We knew when we had reached the choke though. A dodgy handline stretched 12m up the vertical rift and was navigated without (major) incident by Darren and Andy. Gareth and myself had considerably more difficulty. By the time Gareth had reached the top I had tried on 3 occasions to squeeze myself through the very awkward short cut (an upwards and leftwards squeeze that wouldn’t let me through) and I had lost functional use of all points of contact before it was my turn to climb. Needless to say, Andy and Darren did a fantastic job of hauling me up the difficult bits and soon (ish) we were all in Brew Chamber.
We found the line down to the stream again and so, 20 minutes later we were standing in water, in an impressive rift passage varying between sideways walking and thrutchy traversing just above the water level. The levels had risen in the time we’d spent in the cave and the final portion of the passage to the sumped boulder necessitated a helmets off, chin (just about) above water level approach. On arrival at the boulder, there was no going back—we were far too cold by this point. So, aided by Andy’s leg as a dive line, one by one we submerged and re-emerged, ecstatic at having survived the ordeal!
Dow Cave is an amazing passage and we did stop twice for Gareth’s photo shoots but, teeth chattering uncontrollably, we probably didn’t appreciate it’s full geological worth….well there was a beer and tea bread waiting!
Lancaster Hole
We all got to the bottom safely and off we went through into Fall pot, we went at a steady pace so Ali could take it all in, we eventually ended up taking some great photos at Bob’s Boss and the Painters Pallet then with a bit of memory searching for the way on we eventually made it to the Minarets without finding Diamond hall first, I took some backlit photos to try and do my best to copy the Northern Caves photo it wasn’t perfect but I thought it would do, we then stuck ourselves through the link into the way on to Retched rabbit etc.
Christmas Meet 2016
A great Christmas “Do”, a trip to Wet Grooves mine followed by great company and food. Thanks to Helen and Andy for leading the mine trip and for the use of Hardraw Old School Bunk House
Wet Grooves mine is not as unpleasant as the name might imply and when we visited it was dry as a bone until the lowest level. There is an interesting climb down a cork-screw shaft but care is needed as it is loose in places. There are a few side passages and short loops to explore and there is plenty of geological interest.
Roger Kirk Cave
A Ribblehead classic, but neither James nor I had done it before.
Found the East Sink entrance ok (thanks, Garmin), and as the water levels were fairly low, we made it through the Tube without flipping onto our backs, thereby keeping a small area round our shoulders dry.
Kudos to James as he hasn’t got a proper undersuit!
Found our way to Middle Entrance, popped out, admired the view, back down again to the lower entrances – both of them although the last one did seem like wallowing for the sake of it.
Back to the cars as light was fading, and we had our photos taken with the viaduct in the background by a nice lady who said we looked incredible. But we knew that!
Voldemort – 6th July 2016
Darren M, Jason
I was surprised that no-one else had signed up for this cave, whose location was a closely-guarded secret until fairly recently, and it was a pull-through, so ‘all downhill’ (almost). Perhaps it was the “very snug” billing in the meets list?
Meeting Darren in the car park, we quickly set off up the fell – and quickly stopped when Darren suddenly remembered his SRT kit was still hanging up in the garage. Doh! Fortunately, Emma was in, and agreed to bring it over in her car, which she did, still smiling! What a star!
Now fully equipped, we parked, changed and went straight to the obscure trapdoor that marks the entrance. We left the kit off for the entrance crawl, but it’s really not that tight, and you soon reach a perch before the short first pitch where you can kit up comfortably. Having got to the bottom, we pulled the rope through but neither of us noticed the small overhand knot in the end of the rope. Small – but not small enough to go through the hangar! Double doh!
What to do? Strangely, the option of leaving the rope there and using the longer rope (intended for pitch 4) for pitches 2 and 3 never occurred to us. Instead, Darren very gently prussicks up – remember, the rope is held in place only by an overhand knot jammed in an anchor – while I stand at the bottom, arms outstretched to act as a crash mat. Fortunately, I was not needed! And we were soon on our way again.
The Hay Wagon is off to one side at this point. We had intended to have a good look at it, but as it’s necessary to de-kit to avoid damaging the formations we decided to give it a miss to save time. I just had a quick peek from the start, and the straws did indeed look spectacular.
A bit of rifty passage leads before long to pitches 2 and 3. The second needs a particularly bold step to get onto, but a modicum of safety is provided by an in-situ traverse line – it must have been hairy indeed before it was installed. After pitch 3, there’s a long, winding hands-and-knees crawl in water. Today it was quite low, so not a problem, but you wouldn’t want to discover the airspace was restricted because of high water after having pulled-through 3 previous pitches; hence it’s not a wet-weather cave.
The relief at being able to stand up again is short-lived, as the next section is an awkward rift passage – this is the “very snug” bit. It’s actually not that tight, but here’s a tip: don’t try and drag your tackle bag behind you – it gets stuck in the narrow section at the bottom, then you can’t turn round and free it… well, you can picture the scene. Eventually, by dint of thrutching and strong language, I managed to get through to join Darren, who had been patiently waiting, unable to assist.
This brings you to final pitch, for which we had a 70m rope, knotted in the middle for the pull-through. Darren said it should be long enough… hmmm. In fact, the unweighted rope dangled about 6” above the ground, so it was exactly the right length! A muddy walking passage soon leads to the familiar territory of the Notts II streamway. I normally enjoy the romp out, but was finding the unaccustomed tackle sack a bit of a hindrance, so when Darren offered to take both bags for the final climb, I gratefully accepted. Without it, I almost kept up… so that’s another pint I owe him!
Birks Fell
A good trip to a fine cave – we didn’t get as far as we hoped, as the navigation isn’t as straightforward as the survey suggests. I’d heard it was pretty (it is), so took my camera, but all the underground pictures were well down to my usual standard. So here is a picture of an exceptionally fine formation above ground..
Robinson’s Pot – 7th May 2016
Andy G, Tim K, Josh E, Jason
It was a beautiful day on Darnbrook Fell. Normal people were gawping at the view or on their bikes, but we kitted up and made ourselves known to the farmress (is this a word? ‘Farmer’s wife’ sounds a bit un-PC). “It’s down there”, she said pointing to a manhole (tsk, un-PC again) and shaking her head.
Andy and Tim rigged up a fancy life-lining system despite which we were soon down the short pitch. A short bit of crawling leads to 1862 chamber, named after a fine bit of graffiti carved into the wall with a name and that date. I’d printed out a nice sketch map of the cave (thanks to Cave Maps) which I was glad of, as none of us had visited the cave before. This showed the way on was a crawl low on the left, leading to a sequence of crawly passages. At one point, you have to ignore the obvious well-worn passage straight on in favour of another low crawl on the left. Apart from that, the way is fairly obvious, though there are a number of distracting inlets.
The sketch shows ‘Dry Mud Tube’ which is exactly what it is – muddy but comfortable enough. This ends with a little drop into the ‘Low Wet Crawl’ – again, exactly that. Less comfortable, but with today’s low water levels, easily navigated. This pops out into McColl’s Rift, a high gallery which was a welcome relief after the grovelling. Going left starts promisingly, then abruptly stops. The way on is to the right, with the high rift giving way to smaller but easy-going passage. Andy located the start of Crossover Passage (another low crawl on the left) while Tim explored the rest of the rift before joining us.
Crossover soon finishes at what Northern Caves describes as a 3m pitch into the main stream passage. It’s even less than that, but on Chris’s advice we rigged a whole ladder for the return – the stream undercuts the pitch, so the senior members of the party might have found the climb up a little too challenging!
Where should we go first? Downstream is a fine passage which lowers towards the water. This must be the sump – but no, I crawled along in gravel to the left to a low chamber, which was clearly the end. But no, Andy had other ideas and found another low crawl – and a dive line. Sump located! But wait, didn’t the map show another sump off to the left? Sure enough, yet more low wet crawling led to another sump pool. Lovely.
Fully sated with the downstream end, we returned to the main passage to go upstream. This was a very fine passage, high and fairly narrow with lots of flowstone, gour pools and mud formations. At the end the roof lowers, the water deepens and clearly the upstream sump is close. The only part of the cave we hadn’t visited was the Worm Series, reached from the sump chamber. Nobody fancied this – it wasn’t on the map but it was clearly not called after small, wriggly things for nothing.
Still, while we’re here, we might as well look at the start, so we waded through the duck and into the sump pool (bracing!), but no sign of a passage off. Good, we can be off then! Oh wait – there it is, an uninviting muddy tube with water lapping its entrance… Well, I’ll just have a quick look. After wallowing a few feet, I realised Josh was following me, so I carried on rather than look a complete wuss. Then – glory be – a chamber! Small, but at least we could all stand up. Ok, have we done it now? Tim looked down an even lower, muddier crawl going off. Did I think it went anywhere? To be honest, I didn’t much care, so suggested that Tim have a look if he was curious!
He did, and we soon got a call “there’s a chamber”. Really? Ok then, let us imitate the actions of a worm again…. In fact, it was not just a chamber but a substantial cross passage. Suddenly we were glad we’d made the effort. Tim went left, Josh and I went right, he took the main passage, I checked out yet another unpromising muddy tube which went, and went, eventually ending in a muddy, bouldery ramp.
Meeting up again, we concluded that we’d pretty much been everywhere (which was confirmed by consulting the full survey later), so headed uneventfully for the exit – and it was still a beautiful day on Darnbrook Fell.
We were underground only a little over 3 hours and Robinsons’ probably only rates about ‘Calcite’ on the caving Mohs scale, but there was plenty of variety and plenty of fun, and you can’t say fairer than that!
Kingsdale Master Cave
We had a new-comers trip to Kingsdale master cave via Valley entrance (Roof tunnel), it was a bit damper than expected but everyone seemed to enjoy it.
