Trip Reports

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Meregill Hole… or Whose Rope is it Anyway?

Darren, Original Sophie, Jasmine, Connor, Ray

The official club trip was supposed to be Vesper, but I decided to move it to Meregill for 2 reasons: (i) I’d done Vesper a few weeks ago, and (ii) it was dry enough for Meregill to be pleasant. Both caves were already rigged (by CPC) for a 3 Peaks, 3 Pots challenge – seems they managed it in 13 hours, the 3 pots being Vesper, Meregill and Little Hull. Very impressive. The deal was that we could use the CPC ropes in whichever cave we chose as long as we derigged. Sounded like too good a deal to miss.

The walk-in was unusually pleasant, in the sunshine and with no tackle to carry. Both the mere and Aven Entrance were rigged, so we all entered via the mere. I set off first, followed by Connor, Jasmine, Darren, then Sophie. The descent went pretty smoothly on reasonable rigging, the biggest issue being that there was more than 1 set of rigging on various sections. How were we supposed to know which gear to derig?

CPC had taken the highest level option for all traverses, which added to the fun a bit. I don’t think I’d reached the 3rd pitch at such a high level before. The only other thing of note on the descent was an orange tackle bag and some krabs at the bottom of the pool on the halfway ledge on the final pitch. Connor decided he could reach it, but the pool was deceptively deep. We decided to leave it for the way out.

Having reached the bottom in good time, we set off to explore the extensive passage. The biggest hurdle here is crossing the very deep pool directly at the bottom of the last pitch. Various traversing techniques were employed. I decided on the low route, which essentially meant I was chest deep in the pool. Even then, I was teetering on a submerged ledge. God only knows how deep the pool actually is.

The young tigers, Connor and Jasmine, led the way along the streamway. The going was mostly easy walking or stooping with the occasional crawling section or cascade. Connor found cave fish at 2 locations and also pointed out a few interesting fossils along the way. He was clearly in his element. Before we knew it, we were at the terminal static sump, which seemed like a good point to turn around. Darren found a worm here, which he seemed determined to rescue, presumably not wanting to be outdone by the team involved in the rescue of Beryl the sheep a few weeks ago. I’m not sure he’ll get the same publicity – if only he’d given the worm a name!

A quick group selfie and we were on our way out. Surprisingly, the more “experienced” members of the group left the young tigers behind, despite having struggled to keep up on the way in. I can only put this down to us being more desperate to get out. Unfortunately, this meant that I for one was absolutely knackered before even starting to prussic.

I derigged the bottom 2 pitches. By the time I got to the halfway ledge on the bottom pitch, Connor had indeed retrieved the sunken sack and krabs. His suit even got a good cleaning in the process. Thankfully there was only 1 set of rigging on the bottom 2 pitches, so no dilemmas about what to derig and what to leave. Connor derigged the big 3rd pitch, where there was a dilemma. I don’t know if he simply derigged everything or decided to leave one set of ropes.

At the top of the 3rd pitch, I met Jasmine and Sophie. Sophie decided to wait for the others, while Jasmine and I set off out. At the bottom of the 2nd pitch, we could see lights from another party at the top. Jasmine went up first and caught the other group, who informed her that it wasn’t just CPC who had the cave rigged. Todd from Inglesport also had an ongoing project, so left various bits rigged… or so he thought!

There were 2 ropes hanging down from Aven Entrance, so we at least now knew which was the CPC one. Jasmine waited for the others to tell them which one to derig, while I set off out via the mere with my full tackle bag.

Sophie emerged next and we waited for the others… and waited. When nobody appeared, I took the decision to derig the (hopefully) CPC rope from the entrance shaft, assuming the others would all come out Aven Entrance. Sophie wasn’t convinced. Thankfully they did indeed all appear from AE. Phew!  Let’s be honest, though – they had no other choice. Apparently it was “a bit wriggly”.

We seemed to have rather a lot of kit to carry back down the hill – most of us had 2 bags. Given that there were 5 of us, this seems like a lot of rope, even for Meregill, so I can only suppose that we did indeed derig some of Todd’s ropes. Sorry! We’ll let CPC take what’s theirs and get the rest back to Todd. I’m sure he’ll relish the opportunity to rig it all again.

Photos by Darren and Connor.

By Ami S In Day Trips

Cherry Tree Hole

Yolanda, Ray, Vicky and (report by) Ami

I had had Cherry Tree recommended to me by a random stranger, and with that as all the info I had, off we went.

Obviously KCC legend Ray had been before, though admitted to a rusty memory of the actual cave. The CNCC description has some slightly contradictory advice about parking and the friendliness of the landowner, but despite an initial, sceptical-seeming pause, permission was granted.

Cherry Tree is ‘notoriously difficult to find’, and includes a fairly lengthy uphill walk across the fields to the entrance. But armed with a map and a clear, sunny day, we spotted the tell-tale tree without difficulty. The problem started once we were actually there.

CNCC recommends a 10m rope as a handline to get down the shakehole to the entrance, but goodness knows what they’re measuring that off as it was no where near long enough to reach the ledge. We therefore rigged the 15m rope intended for the first pitch, hoping to make savings on the length later.

As the bolts are high above the entrance, I opted to rig off the scaffolding to save myself the lost 5m. No such luck. I descended to a shelf and promptly hit the knot. I decided I was happy to free climb the last few metres, but it wasn’t an easy task, so Yolanda heroically went back to the top to retrieve our 15m and bring it for Ray to re-rig in its intended spot. During the swap, I did wonder briefly if they had simply hauled up the unsuccessful 10m and wandered off in to the sun without me, but of course such an awesome team were soon down the newly rigged rope. (Anyone going another day, I suggest you want a 15m and a 20m.)

I had done a brief recce while the rope swap took place, so we ditched our SRT kits here and set off through an interestingly tight little traverse over the stream. This involved posting ourselves through a key shaped hole and trying not to let your feet slip low enough to get stuck beneath you.

From here on the description was clear and involved some good old fashioned caving – scrambling, wriggling and even walking – through to the main stream way. We had decided on the ‘tourist trip’ today, meaning we could explore both up and down stream until some impressive chambers.

Downstream was especially interesting, as the route choice beyond Boulder Chamber is either a very tight, wet squeeze, or an extremely hairy, overhung climb. After a little experimenting we found that I fit quite well through the bottom route, and could look back to the top of the climb. This means for future trips, a willing Small caver could take a 5m rope/ladder through and rig the climb from the top, allowing others to get beyond Boulder chamber safely.

They may not wish to do this of course, as double ducks and wallowing in mud seem to be part of the package. Sounds downright awful and right up my street – logged in my head to come back to another day!

After a good explore we headed out. We even had time to detour to North Stream passage on the way, though the route is cut short due to some precarious looking boulders. We were back into the sun in great time. Thanks so much to all for indulging my curiosity on that one.

 

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!

 

By Will Burnett In Day Trips

New Rift Pot (Beryl’s rescue!)

New Rift Pot

Team: Will, Chris Arthur, Ami

Before I begin, go and grab yourself your favourite beverage and get ready for a good one!

Our intentions were to head down New Rift Pot to Coates Cavern via Route 66 for a good old explore and poke about, potentially head through to Necropolis and scout out for a future mission to the Eastern Front. None of us were really excited to walk in with the current conditions being pretty wet, but soon enough we were hopping the wall and heading across the fell path looking for our shake hole. I’d done this trip once before with Scott at the start of the year so fairly confident I knew the way, neither Ami or Chris had been before but both were raring to go after my promises of a grands days caving with plenty to look at.

Chris was up first to rig and quickly got to work scrambling down the entrance climb to the pitch head, closely followed by me and Ami bringing up the rear. It wasn’t long at all before Chris stopped dead in his tracks and was staring down at something below. Low and behold the rough shape of a sheep’s back could be spotted at the bottom of the pitch, it must have taken a tumble from above the entrance into the rift and then at least one other to get to where it was. Clearly Chris and I both quickly concluded we were going to do something, although at this stage we weren’t too sure what! We observed a little more and then noticed that it was still moving around, alive! That changed everything as previously I’ve only dealt with deceased extractions, and immediately all three of our minds started running wild with what if’s, and it was evident we felt this was going to be a rather difficult task. Ami made for the surface to get some phone signal with the instructions to try and gather more club members for some extra hands and see if anyone knows which farmer it’ll belong to so we can notify them. Whilst she was on with that, Chris and I pondered some more from the pitch head trying to come up with a plan of action. The worry was that the more we moved towards the sheep, it would get more scared and potentially hop down the last 2-3m drop to the flat out bedding crawl beneath the pitch. Whilst the 2-3m drop certainly wasn’t serious, especially in comparison to the roughly 30m already descended, it would have been further to extract from and with a lot less room than we currently had if we could make it work. We were envisioning some sort of grab, lash, and haul but knew we’d have to be slick with it. For every move and noise we made it looked almost certain we were going to loose the sheep further into the system as she was teetering on the edge of the drop. Chris was left on suicide watch (although I’m not sure there’s much he could have done had she jumped!) whilst I quickly set about rigging a tensioned line we could use to haul all the way up and out over the fence, trying to make our lives as easy as possible. By the time I was done, Ami had put a shout out to other club members for assistance, informed North Yorks Police agricultural department to try and locate farmer, and got CRO on standby should we have struggled or failed with extraction.

One by one, we slowly and carefully abseiled down to join the sheep, trying our hardest not to spook or scare her at all. Once on a level, there was quite a bit of eye balling between the 4 of us, and I think it was here where Ami had decided she was called Beryl. Margaret and Barbara were also contenders I believe, but Beryl certainly felt more fitting! I slid myself over the drop beneath Beryl to stop her fall, while Chris and Ami coaxed her back away from the edge, and over into the other side of the chamber where we were able to pick her with a human barrier. I say that, there wasn’t much force required as she was ear deep in a pool of water, clearly dehydrated. Whilst having her fill, we took the opportunity to fashion up a harness for her out of a couple of slings crossed with an ‘X’ underneath. With a somewhat equalised central attachment point, we were pretty set to whip her out of there. Ami and I climbed back up to the pitch head and began prepping for the arrival of Beryl, with a view to smoothly transition her up the pitch and up out of the entrance rift. Haul system all set, Chris hopped on the in situ rope to ascend alongside Beryl, just in case she need any in flight attendance. Beryl just sat in her ‘harness’ completely un phased with the most chilled out expression on her face. Perhaps it was the 4 litres of water she’d just downed after 2 weeks of dehydration! I’m glad Chris was below and not me! Everything felt like it went smoothly and to plan whilst between the 3 of us we negotiated the package that was Beryl back to daylight. On the surface, Beryl had a new lease of life and kicked up a fight whilst Chris was taking off her harness, perhaps she wasn’t done with New Rift Pot just yet! Ami to the rescue with some extra hands to hold her down and she was soon skipping up the side of the shake hole on her merry little way, with nothing more than a mere limp for her troubles! She gave us all a look back, as if to acknowledge what had just happened, and then proceeded to head exactly in the direction of where she must have fell down in the first place. We all ran at her to chase her up and out of the shake hole, and just as we did, our back up arrived in the form of a solo CRO volunteer to check what all the fuss was about. I bet he was having a hard time to believe that this little lamb that was skipping across the fell with a grin on her face had just caused so much hassle!

We’d intended to continue with our trip, but after a very hasty 10 minutes of de-rigging and stuffing everything back into tackle sacks, some of which being left behind now so we could move faster The , it just seemed the right shout to call it a day and quit while we were ahead.

In an additional attempt to locate the farmer, I put a couple of social media posts out into local Ingleton groups, which then got spread wider afield and now Beryl is becoming a superstar, with various local news platforms reaching out to cover the story.

Whilst there is absolutely an element of comical value to this situation, I would absolutely like to highlight the teamwork and communication enabling us to achieve this, and a big thank you to CRO and everyone else who were ready if we needed them.

#Berylthecaver

Write up by Will, pics by Will & Ami

By Scott In Day Trips, Uncategorised

Dowbergill Passage

James, Tom, Scott (narrator)

I’d heard lots about Dowbergill Passage: a long, straight through trip between two caves, with deceptively tricky navigation. Deep water, high traverses. Mind games, physical attrition, tricky rescues.
Actually, I quite enjoyed it. In dry conditions, with good companions, a detailed description and the right gear, it just felt like a fantastic trip.
James and I met Tom at Park Rash, and he kindly left his car there to shorten the walk back from Dow, when or if we exited.
I’d had some good input from John and Jason during the planning of this trip, and had opted to carry a short rope for any scary downclimbs, although the planned route would stick to the lower, more watery sections. I was wearing a full wetsuit under my caving gear, while James was confidently sporting a furry onesie. Tom was somewhere in the middle with 1mm of neoprene.
The walk up to Providence Pot wasn’t too bad, and we entered the scaffolded tube with an audience, who seemed privately sure that we would never emerge again. James navigated using the excellent description from NFTFH, and guided us through various wet crawls, blasted crawls, muddy crawls and occasionally some big muddy chambers that we could walk in.
Eventually we met the actual streamway at Stalagmite Corner, and so began the fabled Dowbergill Passage. All went well until Bridge Cavern, which is a breakdown chamber with extensive sections of false floor. We went past one possible climb to the stream below and investigated further on, but the next climb looked worse, so Tom and I retreated to the last climb, not quite followed by James. At this point several things happened in close succession.
Tom climbed down through some precarious boulders towards the stream, dislodging a small rock as he went. He warned me that things were on the move, and after having a look, I carefully followed him. I’d gone a few meters downstream when –
BANG!
A big block fell down behind me somewhere. I paused, bridging a rift, and shouted to see where James was. No reply.
We hurried a bit further downstream, hoping to see him still on top of the sketchy climb that we had retreated from. So he was! It turned out that both of his lights had failed, and he’d been forced to wait until we reappeared.
We lit up his surroundings and spotted him down the climb, until he’d restored life to one of his torches. The other remained stubbornly dead.
I went at the front for a bit as we entered a ‘fun’ bit of streamway, which had various chockstone obstacles to overcome until we got to 800 Yards Chamber, where we had a short rest. Then onto a wet section with narrow squeezing just above the water. After a while we came to the Brew Chamber Boulder Choke, which required a bit of vertical squeezing. On the other side was a handline climb into ‘The Narrows’.
I went down this, and found it doable but awkward, even for my scrawny build. Sensing that James and Tom might make heavy weather of it, I shouted back to traverse over the top. I turned back, and very nearly got stuck myself. I had to back up and take off some kit, then nearly lost a welly as I struggled back to the handline.
At the top, James led a section of traversing, then downclimbing. This bit was quite reminiscent of the Crabwalk in Giant’s Hole. We eventually ended up on the downstream side of The Narrows. From here, the route was wet fun (if you’re wearing a 5mm wetsuit anyway), with wading, a few low airspace ducks, and even a tiny ‘free dive’ under a boulder. We stayed low, ignoring the climb up into the Gypsum Traverse, and were eventually rewarded with the sight of the giant flowstone formation near the Buddhist’s Temple in Dow. We had made it!
The exit from Dow was easy stomping, and we emerged to bright sunshine and Tom’s chariot awaiting us at Park Rash. Later, we went to the pub, which even served coffee (thanks James).
Dowbergill was a really interesting journey, and now that a week has passed I’m quite keen to get back in sometime for a look at some of the other options. Going in from the Dow Side and just doing some wet canal bits, then back over the top via Gypsum Traverse would also be a fun trip.
Many thanks to Tom and James for their usual good company, and an excellent way of avoiding the football!

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Vesper Pot

Will, Ami, Ray

Not fancying the official KCC trip of Dowbergill Passage, I had resigned myself to doing something else for the day… until Ami mentioned that Vesper was rigged and that she and Will were thinking of going there. I didn’t need any more encouragement than that!

Arriving at the usual parking spot by Braida Garth, Ami and I were surprised not to see Will already there. He’s never late. Still, it gave us an opportunity to catch up with Dalek, who was about to do a Swinsto pull-through with a couple of Southern cavers.

Will still hadn’t arrived by the time Dalek and party set off. However, there did appear to be someone (possibly) dressed like a caver waving at us from quite some distance further up the road. Could that be him? He was walking toward us, so we set off walking toward him. Eventually it was clear that it was indeed Will, so we indicated that we would drive up to meet him at his completely random parking spot.

All reunited and changed, we (plus Will’s dog Lenny) set off on a route I’d never taken to Vesper before. While I don’t think it was any shorter than the usual route, it did seem a bit less steep, which suits me just fine these days. On arrival at the entrance, I was fascinated to see what Lenny was going to do. Would he turn out to be an expert in SRT? Would Will tie him to a stake? No, he would just sit and wait patiently by the entrance for us to return. What a well-trained dog.

The entrance is a rather committing head-first dive down a slot, leading to a short very narrow sideways crawl. This was one of only 2 bits of the cave I could remember from the last time I did it, many years ago. For some reason there was an old pair of underpants in this section. Was it so tight that someone had to strip down to that level to get through??

Soon enough you break out into a low streamway where more conventional flat out crawling is possible. Luxury. The passage slowly enlarges so that walking/stooping is possible. At a step down on a LH bend, Ami chose to go low, ending up grovelling and squeezing at stream level. Not being Mendip cavers, Will and I stayed high for a bit of easy traversing. There were even some reasonably nice formations at roof level. Eventually we had to drop down too, shortly before the 1st pitch.

Having done the cave so far carrying our SRT kits, we each found a not-quite-big-enough spot to kit up. The first pitch is a bit awkward at the top and could really do with an extra anchor a bit further back to protect a bottomless traverse to the actual pitch head. At the bottom, the awkward passage continues to the 2nd pitch, again with a slightly awkward head. Once on the 2nd pitch, we remained on rope to the bottom.

The character of the cave changes completely from this point. No more constrictions and the pitches just get better and longer. That’s not to say that the challenge decreases at all – it just changes to a different challenge. For us, the challenge on the 3rd pitch was entirely man-made. None of us could quite fathom the rigging. It wasn’t exactly difficult to pass the pitch head, and we all managed in our own way, but I really couldn’t understand the thinking of the rigger.

The 4th pitch has an interesting traverse. The other bit of the cave I remember from years ago is the lean out to the anchors at the head of the 5th pitch. It used to be real fun to rig back in the old days of spits – hanging over the rather large drop for too long with spanner in hand. These days it’s just fun, especially when pre-rigged. The 5th pitch lands on the Great Rubble Heap, where Spectacle also drops in. There is another short pitch, but like everyone else, we decided to forego the pleasure. It wouldn’t take much movement of the rubble heap at all to make it your last ever pitch.

After a brief chat at the bottom, we made our way out without any real drama. It was absolute luxury to not have to derig and drag tackle back through the awkward entrance series. Definitely the way to go! Will and Ami totally breezed out. I thought even I was doing well, right up until daylight was in view. I approached the last section facing the wrong way and couldn’t quite get my leg up a very small step. I had to reverse slightly to a point where I could rotate the other way. No big problem, except that the act of rotating put my face rather closer to the discarded pants than I would have liked. Back on the surface, Lenny was still waiting… and very excited to see us back.

Vesper is definitely a trip of 2 distinct halves. I did kind of miss the rigging on this trip, but that’s a very small price to pay for not having to carry tackle. My hope is that this will kickstart of few more KCC trips on East Kingsdale. King Pot anyone??

Photos by Will

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Heron Pot

Helen, Paddy, Pete, James, Maz, Short Dave, Dougal Dave, Ami, Sophie P, Ray

Report by Helen

A huge KCC turnout for Heron Pot. I’d packed all necessary ropes etc but realised I’d left my mobile (an integral part of my new diabetes monitoring system) on my desk at work. Should I cave?? Decision made I loaded with carbs and led one group to the cave. The other group (taking a different route), got there quicker—but I suspect that was fitness…sorry, my bad knee!
 
Only issue I had with blood sugar was on trying to drag the tackle sack through the beginning of the cave—thankfully help was on hand—and I passed the bag to Dave. My knee meant I had insufficient confidence in spreadeagling across the traverse, so Paddy rigged the High Level route while I rigged the trad route followed by new Sophie who had only just learned to SRT the day before (at a wall). She did amazingly well, and we all congregated in the main chamber in a timely manner.
 
Concerned that new Sophie may have a few issues on ascent (her first in a cave, & with a couple of awkward pitch heads), we had a quick wander downstream as far as the very wet section and returned to start our ascent.
 
Several members exited via the bottom wet entrance, leaving just enough cavers to de-rig both routes.
 
Sophie (with her new-found SRT skills & general climbing/ropework experience), made quick work of both pitches. Whereas Maz had set up his SRT kit incorrectly and had a mare with the lower pitch – a mistake I’m sure won’t be repeated! Ami de-rigged for us and carried the kit out as well. So I got off lightly all round. The only downside to the trip being the hungry swarms of midges while changing. Thanks everyone.
By Scott In Day Trips

Titan (Team Sunday, Derigging)

Connor, Jasmine, Scott (narrator)

Sunday saw the weekend’s second excursion into Titan for KCC, with the aim of having a bit of a look around at the bottom before derigging all of those nasty heavy ropes.
Jasmine, Connor and I met in Castleton at 11 before liftsharing up to Rowter Farm. The impressively engineered entrance tube was located and descended quickly. A careful walk through a big puddle – don’t get your feet wet at this early stage – led to a window with a familiar looking rope rigged to the left. I clipped on and climbed up onto a flowstone ledge, then squinted down into the darkness. I could just about make out the Event Horizon, about 70m below me.
Horizontally, the chamber extends maybe 40m into the distance before narrowing down a little. An atmospheric place indeed! While I can appreciate the grandeur of such pitches, I find them difficult to process in some way. Jasmine caught me up, and it dawned on me that I was actually going to have to abseil out into that void. Hmm.
I got on the rope and descended about a foot, but thought better of it and came back up. I actually felt fairly happy with that decision as I watched Jasmine and Connor spiral away from me into the gloom. It’s not so much the abseiling that gets me, more the sense of growing exposure during a slow ascent in free space… so I wasn’t particularly scared standing on the edge, but the expectation of fear later was giving me a mental block. Should have organised a through trip, and exited through Peak Cavern!
No matter. I have quite a good record of turning away from scary pitches and then going back and knocking them off at a later date. No doubt I’ll be back one day before too long… so ran my thoughts as I waited on the ledge, listening to Jasmine and Connor’s voices as they receded into eventual silence.
After a while I moved to a drier bit of passage and turned off my torch.
Drip… drip… An hour went by.
The sound of water from the Event Horizon seemed to be growing in prominence, and I wondered if it had rained heavily on the surface? The others had obviously gone for a bit of an explore at the bottom.
My Mars Bar long since dispatched, I decided to nip back up the first pitch to warm up. This did the trick nicely. I went back down, and before too long I could see Jasmine’s torch as she made her way up the bottom pitch.
It took a while for the pair of them to ascend – it being a really long way, and Connor was derigging as he went. Eventually we were all reunited at the window. The others had been for a romp along a roped traverse deeper in the system; apparently the water level had remained low throughout their ascent, so nothing to worry about there, just some trick of cave acoustics.
Getting the bags up and out of the two remaining pitches was good, warming work, even with a 3:1 haul going on. It might be worth improvising some kind of tripod for the surface pitch next time, or at least clearing away some of the copious sheep poo from around the entrance.
Back to Rowter Farm for a change of clothes, and then we jumped in Connor’s luxury work van for a lift back down to Castleton before going our separate ways. In a final comic twist, I forgot that I had to return the key to the TSG, and didn’t remember until I was about seven miles away. Much swearing ensued.
On reflection, I’m quite happy to have at least had a good look at Titan. Jasmine really knocked the ball out of the park with this one – not bad for someone still in their first year of SRT. And always good to cave with Connor, even if he accidentally sent four krabs to their forever home whilst derigging 🙂 Hope I’ll see you both underground again sometime soon!

By Ray McGarry In Day Trips

Titan (Team Saturday – Rigging)

Will, Chris A, Ray

I’d wanted to do Titan ever since hearing about it on my return to caving a few years ago – it wasn’t a thing back in my first caving career. Thanks to Will’s determination and organisational skills (ok, he’d actually forgotten to book it until shortly before the trip, but let’s gloss over that), I was finally going to get my chance. As there was so much interest within the club, the plan was ideal – a Saturday team would do all the rigging, while a Sunday team would derig. We only had a permit for Titan itself, so no through trips this time.

Will, Chris and I met just before 9am at the Chapel (TSG hut) in Castleton. We then drove up the Pindale Road to park in a convenient layby, saving us a long climb up from Castleton, via Cave Dale. Now all we had to do was find the entrance to the biggest shaft in the country. Easy, right? Well, it probably would be if it was marked with some sort of appropriate monument, but it’s just a concrete cap completely flush with the ground… and there’s a lot of blank ground up there… and quite a few walls & fences. Luckily, in the distance we spotted TSG member Craig (who was planning to pop down our ropes to do a Lidar survey of the shaft). The idea was for him to give us a head start, then he would pop down, do his stuff and we would never even know he’d been there. So much for that plan. But at least we were able to follow him to the entrance.

Once at the entrance, Chris did his (apparently) customary stripping off, before setting to attempting to open the lid. This proved rather trickier than we were expecting. How many Dales cavers does it take to open a Derbyshire cave? Well, 3 apparently… watched in amusement by a single TSG member.

Then Chris (now fully clothed again… phew!) did an excellent job of rigging the entrance shaft. This is made slightly more awkward by the fact that rigging is from a pair of anchors below surface level. There are at least various metal rungs keyed into the concrete shaft lining to help. Rigging done, Chris set off down the completely man-made 50m shaft. Apparently it took 3 and a half years to excavate the shaft and the short passage below to connect with the main Titan shaft. It took Chris slightly less time to descend. Will took the opportunity to illuminate his descent using his new mega-torch. Luckily, Chris was so far below that we didn’t hear what he thought of that.

Will was next down, followed by yours truly. At the bottom is a short stooping passage, leading to a window out over the main shaft. Wow! What an impressive sight the shaft is. It was Will’s job to rig the main shaft down to the Event Horizon, where I would take over. Luckily there’s a convenient puddle just before the window for soaking the ropes, which is definitely a good idea.

Showing hardly any Elvis leg at all, Will was straight out over the shaft, all 3 cowstails attached, to rig the y-hang that would take us down the first half – about 70m. Everything double and triple checked, he set off, while Chris and I waited… and waited. Eventually, some rather worrying noises drifted up the shaft. Initially it sounded like a rockfall. Presumably it was simply Will and bag landing on the EH, the noise of which was reverberating around the shaft.

Eventually, “rope free” was called and it was my turn to move out of the safety of the window. It was exhilarating to look straight down the shaft at the pin prick of Will’s light below. Wow again! The scale of the place really has to be seen to be appreciated. Setting off down, I immediately regretted my decision to use a Stop. The problem was that I had to use 1 hand to hold the handle in, meaning that I only had 1 to lift and feed the rope. I would definitely use a Simple next time. That way I could use both hands on the rope, for a much smoother and faster descent. As it was, progress was painfully slow.

Eventually reaching Will, there was a bit of a comedy sketch while we tried to pass each other and the various ropes. Will had brought 100m for the top half of the shaft, thinking that it would also do down to the rebelay just below the EH. I didn’t like that idea as it would mean rather a lot of rope to tie up at the rebelay. So we decided to start the final rope directly from the EH. That did, of course, leave the question of whether it would reach the bottom. We reckoned it probably would. Meanwhile, Chris had dispatched the upper half of the shaft in quick time and was also down at the EH.

I rigged a y-hang from the EH and set off down, looking for the rebelay. Ah, there it is! There’s actually a choice of 2 pairs of anchors. The pair on the LHS looked slightly preferable from the perspective of krabs & knots potentially rubbing on the rock. It’s a pretty spectacular free-hanging rebelay. Being a bit out of practice, I managed to get my short cowstail stuck under the loaded rope. No real problem as I was able to use my foot jammer to unweight the lower rope and free the cowstail. Still, it was one more manoeuvre to perform in a rather exposed situation. Again, I took a long time to descend on my Stop. Thankfully the rope did indeed reach, although there wasn’t much spare.

While Will descended, I took the chance to scout for the way on down through the boulder choke, finding a likely looking candidate. Will was obviously in his element now and didn’t take long to reach me. Touching down, he readied himself and mega-torch to get some footage of Chris descending the final drop. He had to be quick, though, as Chris came down at a hell of a rate. The bounce in the rope as he came to a stop a suitable distance from the floor was spectacular. It seemed a bit more like bungee jumping than abseiling to me.

With everyone safely down, we took some time to regroup, have a drink and take SRT kits off for a bit of an explore. I very much wanted to treat this as a recce for a future through trip, so was keen to at least get to Stemple Highway.

As I had (possibly) identified the way on, it was apparently up to me to lead the way, despite my protestations. It starts as a head-first horizontal crawl, leading to various slight enlargements, climbs, squeezes and thrutches. Eventually we popped out of the boulder choke into AI passage, just upstream of Far Sump. Turning left, we were soon at the short climb up into the way through to Stemple Highway on the right. A short bit of stooping and crawling eventually led to Stemple Highway.

A quick poke to the right in SH revealed the way to Salmon’s Cavern. I think Ride of the Valkyries pops down from the heavens here. Useful to know for a possible vertical round trip on a later date. Our way on was to the left in SH. Quickly we came across some fixed iron ladders leading up. Will was up them like a ferret up a trouser. At the top was a roped traverse over a deep drop. None of us fancied this without cowstails, so that was a far as we went.

On the way back I couldn’t keep up with the 2 racing snakes as off they sped, occasionally stopping to offer advice or assistance to their geriatric partner. Getting back up through the boulder choke was hard work. Then came the really hard work, i.e. climbing back up the shaft. Will went first and seemed to be setting a cracking pace. As soon as the bottom rope was free, Chris also disappeared at a rate of knots. And that’s the last I saw of either of them until the surface.

I took my time prussicking. At the slow pace I was doing, it actually didn’t seem too bad. I took plenty of time to look around the impressive shaft. I was even occasionally able to pick out the line of anchors by which the shaft was first climbed – what a feat that was. Not having to derig or carry any tackle almost made the main shaft fun. I found myself feeling slightly guilty that Team Sunday wouldn’t have such luxury.

I really didn’t enjoy prussicking up the entrance shaft. The dimensions mean that I was forever banging off the walls. Will and Chris were shouting encouragement (or maybe abuse?) from above. Eventually I reached the top, but somehow managed to get the rope clipped through a krab on my belt. It took a while to realise why I wasn’t able to dismount the pitch!

All safely back on the surface, we congratulated ourselves. Will & Chris skipped and I hobbled back to the car by a much more sensible route.

What a great day out. We will all definitely be back. I’d love to do through trips to both Peak Cavern and JH in time. Today’s trip was great research for such plans. I’d also like to do a vertical round trip via Calcite Aven and Ride of the Valkyries. To be honest, there’s so much to go back for. Let’s make it an (at least) annual trip please! Cheers Will and Chris for an amazing experience and taking an old man out for the day.

Photos by Will & Chris.

By Paddy O In Day Trips

Long Drop

Ami, Pete, James, Jasmine, (New) Dave, Paddy

A cave of multiple leaders! With Steve originally leading this trip but unable to make it, Dave agreed to take on the rigging but was then thwarted by a punctured tyre, myself and Ami agreed to co lead it, only because we were the ones with the kit! After meeting on Leck fell and having introduced ourselves to prospective new member Dave we set off in the direction of Rumbling, with the description telling us Long Drop was the next fenced enclosure.

“Long Drop Cave is one of the lesser popular trips on Leck Fell” According to the CNCC description, and that was evident as we picked a way through the trees to the entrance, after foraging bilberries, wild strawberries and sorrel Ami set off to rig the first pitch, with the 20m rope just making the bottom of what should be a 15m rig. After this it was a short squeeze through to the second, awkward pitch. A comment of “Ami, I don’t think I fit” from me and some muffled swearing from others we just about made it. The bottom of the second pitch is not somewhere to hang around, the mud has a definite unpleasant aroma to it, so me and Ami exchanged places and I set off on the 25m kinda side on crawl to pitch 3.

A reachy start to get to the Y hang might be an understatement, but we definitely chose the right way round to rig, Ami on the small stuff, me on the reachy stuff! Nice pitch with two rebelays and a deviation made for a good amount of vertical fun! Once we all congregated at the bottom James, Jasmine and Ami set off to explore the crawl to the sump, while the more sensible folk stayed behind.

Upon their return we started the ascent back to the surface, with James derigging pitch 3 and Jasmine taking on 1 and 2. All surfaced and present we made our way back in the direction of the vehicles, at least we thought so as the classic Leck fell fog had come in and hidden then from view!

 

A good nights caving, Ami is keen to do the exchange with Deaths Head on the next meets list, I think I might be busy that day…