Tag: Kingsdale

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Yordas

Scott, Tom, Klaudia, Sophie H, Billy, Paddy, Long Dave, John Martin (1st KCC trip), Ray

Conditions seemed perfect after a number of dry days and with glorious evening sunshine, so we set off in high spirits to pretty much rig every route possible. I rigged Middle Entrance and the full Chapter House traverse/pitch. Scott rigged the Top Entrance and Paddy set up a Tyrolean-style guide line for anyone wanting to take the direct route down Chapter House. As far as I know, only Tom (and Paddy himself) were crazy enough to use Paddy’s setup. Although there had been no rain for a few days, there was still a reasonable quantity of water in the cave.

After everyone’s first descent, all but me went back up for another go – I was going back with Vikki the day after anyway, so didn’t want too much of a good thing. One good thing about me returning was that Chapter House and Middle Entrance didn’t have to be derigged. By the time everyone had had their fill and were back at the cars, it was still before 9pm, so the Marton Arms beckoned for a debrief. Top evening.

Now… back to Yordas for me…

Photos by Long Dave, Sophie H and Billy

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Heron Pot

Billy, Sophie H, Klaudia (2nd KCC trip), Tom, Steve, Pete, Ray

A first lead for Billy. Quick progress to the pitches. Billy rigged the lower pitches, while Steve rigged the higher level. Most people explored below the pitches. Billy climbed up into the Old Phreatic Inlet and threw a rope down for lesser mortals Steve, Klaudia and Ray. After this excitement, Sophie & Ray carried on to exit via the very wet bottom entrance. Everyone else retraced their steps back up the pitches and out via the top entrance.

By Ami S In Day Trips

King Pot

Team: Scott & Ami

We’d been rained off previously so we ignored the sunshine and agreed to get King ticked off this time! Ready for a big one, we agreed to meet nice and early, but were immediately scuppered by the a65 being shut. Running late, we got permission from the (absolutely lovely) farmer at Braida Garth and schlepped up the hill. Scott pointed up from our location: ‘That hole looks promising.’ But no, I had diligently downloaded the what3words from the website, and insisted the entrance must be the other way. You can guess who was correct. (I have sent a report to CNCC, but for future, think the correct what3words is term.attic.zapped.)

After all that it was gone 11am when we entered. With only 2 of us, I had opted for the heavier bag, but first to rig. I was able to offload my first two ropes very quickly, with a handline and then Perfect Pitch. This beautifully round pitch set the tone for all the day’s pitches, namely, no back up, just an anchor immediately above the precarious drop.

So began the start of the crawling. A lot of crawling. King is famous for having a bit of everything to please (or horrify) every caver, from scrambles to boulder chokes to squeezes; pretties, mud, water and great chambers; but the crawling is definitely the dominant feature.

The navigation wasn’t too tricky and I began to feel pleased we were making good time. I was soon humbled by the ‘strenuous traverse crawl’. I am sure anyone reading this who has done the thing before will have smiled when I said that. Strenuous indeed. It’s a t-shaped passage, with the vertical section being too small for more than a thigh, but able to grab and hold a welly or bag like a set of jaws. The top bar of the ‘T’ isn’t really human sized. You can turn your head occasionally, and in spots there’s even enough lip on both sides to have two elbows on the rock, but otherwise, is belly crawling over a crack you really don’t want to fall down, with nothing to stop you doing so.

This culminates in an ‘awkward climb down’. I arrived at a tiny junction. To the ledt, the crack continued, but suddenly dropped off like a cliff edge. To the right, an extremely small looking squeeze out on to a tiny slither of ledge that sloped slightly down to a large fall. Not liking heights, I must confess I lost my bottle here for a sec, mostly because I couldn’t see what was out the other side of this titchy squeeze, other than a potential plummet to the ground. I tried to let Scott past, but not a hope in that space! So, without much choice, I forced myself – croll screeching along the rock – through the space and on to the ledge. I still couldn’t see how to proceed. My back was against the ceiling with a massive drop to the left. I manoeuvred to turn my head towards the drop to try to see a way down and Behold! a Handline!!!!!! Suspended from the rock between the two routes. Phew. There was no way to have seen this from the other side, but knowing it was there made far more sense – a largish caver certainly wouldn’t fit the way I came – but with the landline, Scott could continue the rift towards the drop, knowing there was a way down from there.

This had all taken an age, but we could go on from there with some fun boulder scrambling to arrive in Queensway, and be treated to some walking. My fifth pitch rigged, I was even Bag Free! Scott took over rigging and navigation, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We enjoyed some real treats of features and the echoes of King Henry’s Hall, and Scott rigged expertly some great pitches (an almighty suspended boulder at BloodAxe, and a real airy take off at Elizabeth pitch) to get us down the verrrrrry long crawl to the main drain without incident. We checked out the upstream sump (the sumpiest sump we’ve ever seen) and middle sump too, before heading for the bypass. We found the muddy crawl and stunning flow stone, and then the ‘low airspace duck’. Scott donned his neoprene hood and went through, and I was just thinking it didn’t look too bad, when I heard an ‘Oh No’. It turns out the levels weren’t what we hoped, and ‘low air space’ in fact meant ‘no air space’. This was a real shame, as we had both really had our hearts set on getting to the end. I have however decided after looking at the survey, as there isn’t that much left to go after the sump bypass, and I’m counting it.

And just like that, all that was left was the journey back up. Scott offered to derig, which I thought was fair as it meant I had a bag for the longer stint this time. I regretted this chivalry for the next four hours. While my nemesis squeeze was easier in this direction as there was something for my feet to push off, I did manage to drop the bag down the terrible crack and discover just how difficult it is to lift 60m of wet rope with absolutely no space to bend your arms.

A fantastic trip and well worth doing, even if my muscles were absolutely spent the next day. Which Black Book trip are we doing next?

By Paddy O In Day Trips

Toyland

Sophie H, Billy, Chris G, Jason, James, Paddy

From what was at one point 11 interested cavers only 6 turned up on a rather damp evening in Kingsdale. I had been into Toyland before but turned back because of increasing water levels, tonight looked more promising that rain was going to stop and we would be able to explore the Victoria extensions and Good Friday passages.

So, onwards we went diving into the pipe of valley entrance, quickly setting off through the cave and locating the often overlooked Milky Way passage. There is some fantastic moonmilk formations on either side as you crawl along, but I didn’t remember it being that low, or that cold last time! It didn’t take long to find the inlet to Toyland with its scramble up the flowstone cascade and the in situ rope. A rather awkward rebelay and then up to the ante chamber leads to a side on fairly tight squeeze and then a traverse over a pit, another rather welcome in situ rope is most welcome!

We then emerged into Toyland chamber, well decorated with straws and a flowstone cascade. The team all followed me through, at this point starting to wonder what they had signed up to, it’s a bit different to the normal valley entrance trip!

 

Onwards we pushed, up the flowstone cascade and into a lovely low crawl with the water, this led to another slightly awkward low squeeze and then a head hight considerably awkward squeeze. This stumped Jason at first but once me and James had climbed over him and got through I think he decided he didn’t fancy the others climbing over him as well, and so got stuck in and got through it. All through we carried on, climbed over some boulders and ascended the next rope, attempting to stay out of the water. At the top of this rope we had a choice, remove SRT kit and explore the Good Friday passages or to ascend the next rope and look at the Victoria Extensions. We opted for the Good Friday passages and set off expecting some pretties, after all, why else would it be worth visiting? We found dead ends, loose rocks, undulating passage and a watery squeeze that would be a face in the water situation. That was the point to turn around!

(The watery face in the water squeeze)

Once back at the pitch head James, Jason and Sophie decided enough was enough and opted to turn around, Whereas I fancied seeing what the Victoria extensions were about too. I set off up the rope along with Billy and Chris as the others started down. The top of the rope is a small muddy chamber with an onward squeeze. I attempted this but quickly found it was only going to be passable by removing SRT kit again. Billy being a little smaller than me managed to wriggle through and described the onward passage as “cavey and muddy”. The description wasn’t inspiring, and neither was his tone, so the decision was made to head back ourselves.

(Billy “Just leave me here”)

When dropping back towards Toyland there was definitely more water than on our way up, but it certainly gave our suits a good washing off that they needed! The Milky Way passage was flowing with water on the way out too, this wasn’t expected, it was supposed to have stopped raining outside. Upon surfacing it was raining harder than when we went underground, so much for a weather forecast!

By Scott In Day Trips

Valley Entrance to Rowten Passage

Tom, Maz, Jason, Connor, Damian, Scott

I’d been looking forward to donning the neoprene and exploring the wet stuff in the Kingsdale Master Cave for a while.  Going upstream at the Master Junction never seems to appeal much on the way out of Swinsto or Simpsons, and this bit of passage had always looked a bit unenticing, so I suggested it for the summer meets list, thinking that at least the water wouldn’t be too chilly.

As it happened, a massive traffic jam delayed me on the nominated evening (and robbed us of Dave’s company), so I was about an hour late to the cave. I kitted up in a hurry and completed a real speed run through Valley Entrance – this was surprisingly thrilling, and should be repeated sometime – just in time to catch the others up at the Rowten Sumps.

There was a bit of back-and-forthing going on at the prospect of committing to the first sump, but neoprene hoods were being brandished, which seemed like a promising sign, so I had a feel around with my feet.  Sure enough, there was space and air on the other side, so I slid through into a spacious airbell.  Soon I was joined by Connor and Tom.  The next diveline went off to the left, and seemed a bit more committing. Legend has it that this sump is 4m long, which doesn’t sound too bad; but there was zero visibility, and Connor’s exploratory dive didn’t reveal much, so we reluctantly(?) left this one for another day when we were feeling a bit braver.

On the way out Damian crawled off for a look at the start of the Mud River series, and we found the other sump on the right which eventually links into the end of Philosopher’s Crawl.

Before too long we were back at the pitch, and then out into the warm night air with the tantalising possibility of the Marton Arms still being open…

Nice little trip, thanks to everyone who came along.  Can recommend this route for anyone who has dirty gear and needs a rinse off!