Thursday 13 May 2010

Getting stuck in Yorkshire Caves

Yorkshire is so full of caves it seems a pity not to take in as many as possible, so after doing Calf Holes and depositing Donna back at the bunkhouse, we went out to find Roger Kirk Cave, which although not very long, sounds very interesting according to the description. Finding it, though, was a bit of a mission. We found a cave entrance that fitted the description but was a very narrow slot down, and I managed to get totally wedged! After 2 attempts we gave that one up and later worked out I was trying to get into Yoga Cave (no explanation needed). There was an obvious cave entrance further down the hill, and although it didn't fit the description of Roger Kirk Cave, at least we could get into it! So we explored this cave along some lovely meandering pasages, under and over boulders and along a flat-out crawl, to a point where a small chamber seemed to signal the end of the cave...unless the way on was a slot between two rocks...after poking a head through it did look like the cave went on, so I wriggled through the slot, contorted myself back upright and tried to squeeze over a sharp rock - where I stuck fast! I was not a happy bunny at this point and was much happier once I'd relaxed and managed to wriggle back off the rock and through the slot. We found out later that we'd actually been exploring Runscar Caves and that actually is the way on, but I'll leave it to Mel or Keith to go first next time!
Not to be deterred, Mark was still looking for Roger Kirk Cave once we were back above ground, and this time he found it! Like a ferret down a drainpipe he was down into it but I had to drag him back because we were near the call-out time (and I'd had enough caving for one day!), so Roger Kirk will have to wait for another day.
Present: Jess and Mark

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