Shuttleworth Pot: Trip Report by George Tolley
I met Dave and Anne in Ingleton and we had a quick bite to eat in Inglesport cafe. We then made our way to leck fell. Where we parked in a lay by.
We made our way across the fell in lovely weather, following a stone wall on our left, over a little mound, then you start descending the hill and the cave is across to your right.
The trip started with a short descent down the manhole into a very wet puddle. Then out into the cave where we carried on down to the bottom of pitch 1.
Then a short hands and knees crawl over loose rocks to the top of pitch 2. This pitch consisted of a few small drops then a nice final descent to the cave floor, a fixed hand line helps to pull yourself up a loose rock bank.
We de-kitted from our srt gear and followed the passage leading to another crawl, along a mud floor passing some beautiful formations, of straws and helictites. Popping out in a large chamber, winding our way through with high mud banks either side of us. We come to a fork with the left path leading up for a short way until stopping. The right path takes you past some straws and then into a very muddy passage which comes to the end of the passage.
We then turned for home and made our way back to the surface, to find the weather was still lovely so a nice stroll back to the cars.
A very good trip, thanks Dave and Anne.
Our second trip in Yorkshire was to be a major step up in terms of difficulty. Roo had suggested Mayday Hole as a way to test ourselves, and particularly my rigging skills. So after the obligatory breakfast at Inglesport, we started the trudge up to the entrance, carrying some planks for a dig a little further on that Roo is involved in.
The entrance into Mayday was blummin awkward: a tight squeeze down to the first pitch head, with very little room for a tackle sack. After getting in a twist, I eventually managed it and dropped down to the start of a tightish rift (Razor Traverse). Thrutching along the rift whilst rigging was interesting but short lived, and finished with a nice y-hang that allowed quick progress down the second pitch. This was swiftly followed by the third pitch (called The Nipper) which was the tightest of the whole lot. Gravity obviously helped on the way down, but George nonetheless made the comment that perhaps Roo’s recommendation of cave reflected a certain dislike of us!
A short crawl later saw us to the top of Doughnut Pitch. Coming down this, George had an interesting fight with a tackle sack. The tether snapped, and - fortunately for my head - the bag got wedged. After retrieving it, we all grouped together at the bottom, and here Anne decided that she was too tired to go any further.
Leaving Anne to have a rest, George and I cracked on with Frank's Pitch, and then Baby and Boom pitches. These last two in particular were very fine pitches. The cave changed character and became much more spacious, and easy rigging and abseiling quickly led to the boulder choke right at the bottom of the cave. All that remained now was prussiking back up 120 metres, and the first 70 odd meters (back up Boom and Baby) were very pleasant indeed.
In fact the whole outward journey wasn’t too bad, although managing the rope to avoid it snagging took some thought. At least the outward journey wasn't too bad until we got to the Nipper. After hearing Anne grunting and struggling with this, it was my turn to face it. It was pretty hard work, with one large bulge (ahem, I'm referring to the shape of the cave, not my physique) causing particular difficulty. At this point, I decided that George was wrong: Roo didn't dislike us, he hated us! To make things even worse, the tackle bag weighed a tonne, and decided to snag and catch on everything. Nonetheless, a good struggle later, and there was only the second and first pitches to go.
These passed without too much difficulty, and the nice dribble of water down the first pitch was very refreshing. Finally, all that remained was getting out of the cave. This proved as difficult as getting in, but fortunately George helped by taking the tackle sack off me.
To sum up, Roo’s recommendation was very good and Mayday Hole definitely didn't disappoint. It was testing but great fun. Had I realised how testing, I would have chosen another cave as it was only George's second SRT trip. Nonetheless, he did a great job, meeting every obstacle head on and making them look a lot easier than me!
