Sell gill – Goblin route
Tall/short/long David, Billy and Sophie
A beautiful calm, blue sky day was the scene for an extracurricular Saturday trip to Sell Gill and the Goblin route. Upon arriving in the valley we were greeted with a sea of cars in the surrounding fields and some very amateur attempts at traffic management, unfortunately we had chosen the same day as a 3 peaks running race (why anyone would choose to voluntarily run around the hills, especially in this weather is beyond me) which meant a delayed arrival at the layby at New Houses after fighting though the traffic.
Once there, suites were donned, snacks were packed, ropes were distributed, teeth were brushed!? and bags were shouldered and we set off up the hill in the glorious sunshine. The choice of trip was down to a fortuitous spell of dry weather which goblin route requires for a pleasant experience and on approaching the stream, with the flow of a Gnat’s widdle, we knew it was going to be a good day.
Down the first short handline into the lethally slippy streambed and down some lovely interesting winding stream way, very quickly coming to the first pitch. Due to the usually aqueous nature of the cave the traverse follows a funny route around a mini dry oxbow bend above the waterfall and then drops straight down, today into zero spray. Some fun rigging, swinging off the pitch and stuffing myself through the letterbox crawl (slither) and getting myself wedged with my rig stuck where you don’t want a rig to be stuck, you are then in a parallel dry shaft.
Billy and Sophie made a much more stylish effort of the letterbox and we were ready for the last few bigger drops to the bottom. Those descended, whilst enjoying the view, and a few pictures snapped, we were in the main chamber wandering down to the streamway again. Sophie and Billy headed through the crawl along the stream for a while and reported some nice formations. We had seen the tail end of a uni group heading back up the dry route and assumed they must have just had an early start but it turns out they had camped in the chamber overnight! Good on them.
Back up we went, Billy taking on the derigging very efficiently and Sophie flying off ahead. Just as we were starting to climb out the stream another group of 3 were just starting, good timing! After a while bathing in the sun, we followed after a CNCC course down the first pitch of the dry route for Sophie to get some practice in perfecting her rigging.
A really nice day out on a brilliant little route, will definitely be returning, hopefully for an exchange!
Happy cavers – 3
Goblins spotted – 0 Maybe next time
