Trip Reports

Old Ing > Dismal Hill  Rose, Ken.

Rose agreed that this is a really interesting and fun trip, apart from being accompanied by a complete idiot who dropped her camera-case into the canal, got mud on the lens and took ages to take photos whilst she was hanging off a tyrolean.  The fact that he was also hanging off a tyrolean with nowhere to put anything, trying not to drop the camera into the canal as well, using an unfamiliar device without his specs and wearing wet gloves, did not count as extenuating circumstances.  Rose’s opinion was confirmed on discovering that instead of photos, he’d taken a video featuring disembodied headlight, no people, and a voice-over with exasperated voices:  “Turn the right-hand dial to the second notch.”   “I’ve done that, but it won’t fire”.  “Put it on the SECOND notch”. “It IS on the SECOND BLOODY NOTCH, and it WON’T FIRE…”

Old Ing > Dismal Hill            Ken & Jimmy.

 A brilliant and entertaining through trip!  Follow Old Ing to the downstream sumps.  These can be free-dived into an out of depth canal – if you’re hard enough!  We weren’t, and used a dry bypass instead (Mick’s End) found in the roof about 70m back near a sharp bend.  The low crawl is a bit snug for 5m then gets easier, and emerges beyond the sumps above a large stream in Baker Series. Upstream soon requires swimming.  Downstream leads to a cascade with hand line in place for the climb down into a large chamber.  Beyond is a deep canal but the misery is avoided by crawling to the right until a rope appears, followed as a tyrolean along the canal wall with some metal brackets as footholds.  At the end is a sump, but the rift has been blasted and provides an easy dry by-pass to emerge in Dismal Hill Cave. Once again a tyrolean saves a swim until dry land can be reached (bouncy ropes in place).

Dismal Hill can be followed for quite a way to somewhere near the sump that goes through into Birkwith.  This one hasn’t yet got a dry by-pass.  Returning back up the streamway the way out of Dismal Hill is where a wide bedding goes off.  This is about 30m long, gets progressively lower, and then suddenly pops out into a large rift.  After a bit of rummaging around a climb up a flake, then another climb are found that lead to the surface. Then went back down Old Ing and explored all of Rough Hill Inlet, scene of an infamous KCC epic!!