Tag: West Kingsdale

A fantastic turnout of members new and old, to honour one of the club founders, David ‘Tom’ Holden. Great to see the Old Guard, and a lovely time was had by all.

The morning kicked off with tents and tables set up outside the entrance to Yordas, before active members headed up the hill for two trips – Darren leading from the Top Entrance, and John leading from the Middle Entrance. As trips finished and people congregated at the bottom entrance, food was conveniently ready, with fantastic home-made soup and cakes aplenty. 

President Fred and Vice Pres Andy both said a few words about Tom’s life and efforts at maintaining KCC; we looked through some folders of old photographs that Fred had brought along, and the KCC cake was cut jointly by the oldest and youngest cavers present. 

We then headed into Yordas together with sparklers for some photos and light writing. By this point we were well fed and entertained and ready to start making our ways to places warmer than Yordas, with some having been there about 5 hours.

Big thanks to all who attended, organised and made the day special. Here’s to Tom Holden!

Maz, Scott, Tom

What a damp evening. The initial plans for Aquamole were scrapped and we’d planned to visit Heron instead. However, on the walk up the rain set in really heavy and didn’t look like it was stopping so we decided to turn back and head to Yordas for a play instead. We headed in the middle entrance, Maz had a try of his new foot ascender on the short pitches then we headed to the traverse to rig and have a general SRT practise

Darren, Chris D, John, Miranda, James, Maz, Tom

Multi-route rigging, with the big hang, the pretty big hang and the Lateral Cleft all being rigged. The teams went their separate ways, and while Darren yo-yo’d up and down the big hang to practise for expedition, people made their way down and back up.

A bag was sent for a flying lesson down the hole in the floor of Lateral Cleft which may or may not still be down there… 

Scott, Tim D, Tom

An unsettled morning saw us parking up at Braida Garth with a minibus full of scouts kitting up for Valley Entrance. With Scott and Tom in wetsuits, the march up the fell was a sweaty lark, with Tim enjoying a pleasant stroll in normal kit on the promise of sacrifices later in the trip. As we neared the entrance, another group of cavers was on our tail and followed us into the cave – oh no, were we going to be double rigging and leapfrogging the whole trip? Were we ‘eck – by the time we’d quickly freeclimbed the 5 Steps we heard them calling Rope Free on the first step.

Scott’s cunning plan for this trip was to take 2x 40m ropes in 2 bags, tying them together for Slit Pot at the bottom when we needed it. As we rigged the first pitch, the plan came crashing down as Tom discovered that not only had he forgotten his Stop, but that the bag he’d picked up was a duff one whose bottom fell out, spilling its ropey contents everywhere. After a couple of pitches carrying 80m of rope in one bag, Tim had an ingenious idea to nip together the break in the bag with a maillon. This worked an absolute treat and we were back on course, with Scott kindly sharing his Stop with Tom or sometimes just Hitching down. 

We made good progress and reached everyone’s favourite bit, the Duck. No problems here, particularly for the wetsuit contingent. Onwards and downwards, until we reached Shuffle Pot. Initially we traversed far too high, and although we reached a set of bolts, Tim had a rayt struggle squeezing down the pitch from here. However he soon spotted another set of bolts from a lower ledge, and we realised we could traverse back and then forward at a lower level to reach a much more comfortable hang. 

Onwards down to Slit Pot without any drama, and Scott hooked up his double 40m pullthrough rope and headed up to the overhead bypass to Slit Pot. Flawless descent apart from rigging from some maillons on a bit of tat. The descent was pretty damp, and the stream pouring in from Swinsto at the bottom was much more ‘sporting’ than it had been a month ago when we did Swinsto in drought. The final pitch into Great Aven was really hammering, and we crossed our fingers that there hadn’t been a cloudburst outside that had swollen the master cave.

Thankfully the Master Cave was fine, although it had risen enough for a few toboggan slides down in the water for the wetsuit folk who were still nice and toasty at this point. At the roof tunnel pitch, the scouts’ ladder hung as we made an efficient ascent and the usual back-breaking exit from Valley Entrance. 

Darren, Sophie, Sedgy, Tim K