Smeltmill Beck Cave
Jasmine, Maz, Scott, Tom
This had been on the meets list but rained off so many times, but this time we weren’t going to let it go. After calling the farmer for permission, we met up at Light Trees below the A66 for a slippery scramble up the beck. Maz had been before and expertly found the entrance, a grim little arch with a chilly stream emerging.
Thankfully, we were all wetsuit/drysuited up and the entrance wallows, while not pleasant, didn’t particularly disturb us. The deep water and low roof soon ended, and lifted into a lovely mile-long walking-height streamway.
Even though we had a survey and the cave is essentially just one long passage, it was difficult to figure out where we were up to, with endless sharp switchbacks and grabby passage walls. We were all surprised by how decent the formations were throughout, especially the Hanging Gardens. Each new section of passage brought a different character – nothing particularly difficult but all quite interesting, and something different from the usual Dales caves.
A low wallow at stream level took us into Red Deer Rift, the narrowest and grabbiest bit of the trip. But all too soon this was behind us and the passages were wider but lower, with a more sinister nature. At Main Junction we headed left towards the Handwrecker Series, and after posting ourselves into a watery slot we started to feel rapidly ready for hometime and called it a day.
Most trip reports mentioned it feeling quicker on the way out, but we didn’t feel that way – a mile is a long way to go in these snarly little passages, but it’s a good feeling of progress passing through the different sections. All in all, 7.5/10, would revisit as far as Red Deer Rift 🙂
