Bar Pot To Gaping Gill Main Chamber

For our last day's play in the Dales we headed up from Clapham village car park in sunshine for the walk up to Bar Pot. Jess had elected to do the rigging for this one and was soon at the head of the pitch trying to figure out the best/easiest way to rig an assist at the head of the awkward pitch head.

I was aware that it wouldn't be as tight as nettle pots entrance series, but as Jess's Stop made a screeching noise as she navigated through the tighter part of the rift I did pause to wonder just how difficult it was going to be to get back out...assuming I managed to get in!

As it turned out getting in wasn't a problem, there were even small ledges to assist. As Jess rigged her way in to GG she found there was certainly no lack of bolts to choose from, it was almost a hinderance trying to work out which were in play for the rope lengths.

Flood was quite impressive as we made our way across the traverse and in to the passageway. Jess had a description but it wasn't needed as we just followed the obvious draft until we heard the roar of the main chamber.

Here we took the obligatory main chamber shot before making our way back out. The entrance pitch was made easy with the use of my new shiny Pantin purchased the day before and I even got time to snap a couple of shots of Jess as she struggled back up cursing me as she went ;)

Our walk back down was still in sunshine and the pretty walk provided a great finish to the weekend.

Gaping Gill Main Chamber

Jess at the awkward head of Bar Pot 1st pitch

Loz Ascends Bar Pot Main Pitch

Present: Mark, Jess & Loz

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas......Pot

Having led an SWCC trip in to Daren Cilau last month, a few of us were invited to Yorkshire for the weekend for a little SRT adventure.

Waking to find a good deal of snowfall Saturday morning we headed off toward Clapham full of Christmas Cheer. Derek led us straight to the entrance where Duncan elected to practice his rigging. As Duncan hasn’t had a lot of experience with rigging this took a little time. Jess, then Brendan, then myself sat waiting patiently as Derek oversaw Duncan’s rigging, but progress was slow. To take our minds off the icy dripping water Jess and I sang Christmas Carols,…..though not the same ones and not at the same time…much to Brendan’s chagrin (he said it was like being stuck in a horrific shopping centre at Christmas with no way out)

 After a while we heard Duncan on the bottom of the pitch shout up to say he had reached the end of the rope. We then heard Derek shout back ‘that was great.’ To which Duncan replied,” No, I’ve reached the knot in the end of the rope but I’m still 2 meters from the floor!” After prussiking back up and re-arranging the rigging we were finally able to join the other two at the bottom of the pitch.

We then reached an interesting array of obstacles, crawling over, under, and through boulders with SRT kit snagging everywhere to the head of the 2nd pitch which proved to be a snug and awkward take off.

After going to take a look at the 3rd pitch down to meet the stream from Grange Rigg we decided that water levels weren’t looking good and so retreated to take a couple of photos of the formations before heading back out.

We had only been photographing about half an hour, but the water cascading in had changed dramatically, and what had been only damp pitches on the way in were now in full flow. Quickly we retreated up the rope with Derek de-rigging as we went. We finally emerged to find that a lot of the snow had melted and a stream was now entering.

On the walk back down to the car park we were amazed at how Clapham Beck had turned in to a full on white water torrent in the time we had been underground.

A most excellent Christmas adventure with Snow, Carol Singing and laughs, what more could you ask for!

A Wintery Start To The Weekend

Duncan admiring formations below the 2nd pitch

Derek at the formations below the 2nd pitch

Present: Mark, Jess, Brendan & our hosts Duncan and Derek

Gaping Gill Winch Meet - Flood Pot to Bar Pot and an explore

We had arranged an early start as we knew the winch became very busy as the day went on, so everyone except Loz had driven up to Yorkshire the night before. Loz managed to surprise us all by arriving no less than 10 minutes early at the Yorkshire Ramblers Club where we were staying. We consolidated into 2 cars and parked at the Clapham car park to start the long walk up the hill. Upon reaching the top of the hill we split into 2 groups. Brendan, Mike, and Lucy queued for the
winch while Loz, Marc, Mark and myself were abseiling into Wade's (Flood) entrance. However first I had to find somewhere to get changed as I didn't fancy stripping off in the amphitheater filled with public waiting for the winch, so I was naturally drawn to the cover of the Bradford beer tent!
Our SRT group headed back down the hill a short way and popped into Wade's entrance. The first pitch was a simple descent down a rift with a single re-belay which caused no issues for anyone. This was followed by a fair amount of awkward passage to get to the top of the very short second pitch which again caused no problems. A short crawl over a bedding plane led to the third pitch followed by a climb down a cascade using a handline.
I headed down the forth and final pitch, passing a re-belay without issue, only to find a hanging re-belay where we had expected to find a deviation. I had led the descent with Mark behind me so I could talk him through anything tricky as it was only his second SRT trip. However as I was so preoccupied with getting myself unclipped from my cows-tails after threading my stop onto the new rope, that I managed to make the rookie mistake of abseiling down the wrong side of the
loop of rope! Mark obviously learned valuable lessons from my example, as I had to do some interesting acrobatics with my legs flailing in the air to get my body over the correct side of the rope, much to Mark's amusement! Fortunately nobody else made the same mistake as me and we were all soon stood firmly on the bottom of the pitch. We had arranged to meet the winch group at the bottom of the main chamber so headed off down the crawls only to meet them half way through coming towards us. We decided to investigate Sand Caverns followed by Mud Pot and the Northwest Extension. The mud in this area was so thick that not only did it pull our wellies off, it made a good attempt at pulling poor Lucy's leg off! After having fun in the mud, we popped up to Stream Passage as this was originally one of our
possible exit routes, and we took the opportunity to rinse off some of the mud in the waterfall.
We then went to the main chamber where we took some time just looking in awe at the huge shaft above us. Once seeing the winch, Marc and I immediately decided it looked like fun, leaving just Loz and Marc to SRT back out. They had picked to go back out of Bar Pot so we escorted them to the foot of the pitch and even arranged a chaperone called Sally to assist with the navigation. Brendan, Marc, Mike, Lucy and myself headed back to the main chamber to join a rather long queue for the winch. Mike and I filled a little of the time by handing out hot Ribena to the public huddled in plastic ponchos like we were running a soup kitchen for the homeless. Mark and Loz had made the ascent much faster than we could get up the winch and were waiting to greet us as we came out of the top. The walk back down the hill seemed very short in comparison to the way up in the morning, and we were back at the bunkhouse having hot showers and food before we knew it!

Trip Report: Chloe Burney

Present: Brendan Marris, Lucy Collins, Mike Bonner, Loz Appleby, Marc Carney, Mark Burgess and Chloe Burney.

In and out of Gaping Gill through lots of 'oles

On the Sunday of the Yorkshire weekend we all met up (after several breakfasts and some shopping) at the car park in Inglebrough, ready to take on Gaping Gill. Not everyone was aware of the long walk up, and in full caving gear including wetsocks and wellies Mark was soon hobbling with blisters. Finally at the main entrance we found out that there would be at least a 3 hour wait for the winch. Brendan, Rob and Tony agreed to wait but Keith and Rich had to drive back fairly early so decided to explore other small caves in the vicinity.

Brendan had already informed us that the Bradford club rig all the other entrances into Gaping Gill, so with an ambitious plan to enter and exit various entrances in the system, Mark, Andy K., Loz and I set off to the first entrance; Corky’s. Following GPS coordinates we soon found an oildrum entrance with a fixed ladder inside, so we kitted up and Mark led the way. We soon entered a tight, awkward phreatic passage which made wriggling through in SRT kit very interesting! On arrival at an unpleasant duck Keith (who had decided to accompany us to the first pitch) chose to turn back, and shortly afterwards the passage got even tighter, but there was a shout from Mark: “I’m at the head of the pitch! And there’s no rope!!) With a grumble we all found somewhere wide enough to turn round, and struggled our way back through the passage to climb back out. After chatting to one of the Bradford guys we discovered that we had not found the Corky’s entrance, but had instead gone into an entrance called Hensler’s Pot. “It’s not rigged” he said “and you wouldn’t want to go in with SRT kit, it’s too tight and awkward!” He also informed us that the Corky’s entrance was being rebolted, so we had to revise plans.

Brendan then led us to Stream entrance, to make sure we got in the right one this time, and the trip began in earnest. As Andy K is SRT competent but it was Loz’s first proper SRT trip we wedged her between me and Mark and headed off down the pitches. Every pitch was interesting, some with quite awkward deviations but straightforward routefinding. We had to wait at one point for a party which was coming up the other way, and I made use of this by asking each one for directions to Flood Passage, our destination, so that I could impress the others with my routefinding. With a very vague idea of the way I asked directions from a very muddy caver who said he would take us part of the way. Trotting along through muddy, mud-filled chambers, I lost sight of our guide, but we continued along until Mark decided to stop and have a look at the survey. While he was doing so, a caver who had been following us at a distance came up and asked him for directions – it was our muddy guide who had gotten lost and wound up behind us!

With the survey and as a team effort we made our way to Sand Cavern, and from there to the main chamber, just in time to see Brendan, Rob and Tony arrive on the winch – talk about timing! We decided to team up and all do the short round trip that Brendan had planned for the guys, which gave us the chance to see a bit more of the system and gave Tony and Rob the chance to carry some kit for us, which I’m sure they appreciated.

After a climb up out of the main chamber and a rope traverse in Mud Hall we followed Brendan into Hensler’s Mud Crawls. The name says it all, though Mark thinks there should have been more mud and less water! There was certainly plenty of crawling…

Brendan skilfully found his route back towards the main chamber, but took time on the way to point us in the right direction for Flood Passage. Mark took a small detour to go through the Blowhole and found that getting through was easy; coming back not so much. While lying with his face in a puddle, blowing the water out of his mouth (hence blowhole) and trying to contort his knees backwards, he wondered if any of us would actually come back for him if he didn’t return!

The way back up to Flood entrance was really interesting, with a variety of pitches joined by little tunnels, crawls and bedding planes. Loz coped well with the various rebelays and long pitches and we arrived at the foot of the last pitch to hear Brendan’s “Cooeeee” from above. The head of the last pitch was designed to catch us out, a really awkward squeeze, but gave us the opportunity to laugh at each other before we popped out.

Andy K volunteered to return the winch tags and we all made our way down to the car park and from there to the YSS hut, where we had a very late but very delicious chilli courtesy of Brendan. A very good day!!

Swinsto Classic Pull Through

On the Monday Mark and Brendan seemed fairly ambivalent about caving at all, Andy K, Carl, and the Telford Twins had gone home and it was up to Loz and me to demand a trip. “How about the Swinsto Pull Through?” I asked, as everyone had said what fun it was last Yorkshire trip. Mark agreed it was a classic, and Brendan said he would go for a walk and meet us in about 3 hours.

3 hours sounds like a nice bumbling Sunday afternoon trip, so Loz and I dressed in thin furries and we all ran (I puffed!) up the hill to the small entrance to start the trip. We were carrying a rope to rig the pull throughs and a backup rope, which I really enjoyed pulling through the long crawl. Already regretting the thin furry and the fact I had lent my new kneepads to Mark, we arrived at pitch after wet pitch after even wetter pitch, which left Loz and and I cold and shivering and wondering what we had let ourselves in for!

The highlight for me was watching Loz swinging wildly into the full flow of the water at one point, where she learnt quickly to abseil with eyes closed but mouth still squealing loudly!

Mark did well rigging all the pitches safely and finding his way through to the Kingsdale Master Cave, where we exited to sunshine, Brendan and cake. Definitely a classic trip, definitely a lot wetter than I expected!

Keith proves Hensler's Pot is indeed a crap hole!

Jess abseiling Flood Entrances Pitches

Loz in Stream Chamber

Andy K in Stream Chamber

Present: Carl Knot, Keith Edwards, Rich Gibbons, Andy Kempster, Loz Appleby, Brendan Marris, Tony Ferran, Rob Campbell, Jess Burkey & Mark Burkey

Yorkshire Dales - a bit of SRT

Not knowing the area at all but advised by Emma, we decided that Sell Gill is the right choice for us as it is easy to find. The dead sheep in the middle of the Pennine Way next to one of the cave entrances made the decision for us which route we going to take. Wind blowing towards the Wet Route made the smell impossible to bear, so the only choice was the Fossil Route, located downwind (of the rotting corpse). Paulina, me and Rich got changed by the cave. Monika who was going to take a walk up the Pennine Way, but headed back to the car parked in Horton in Ribblesdale as it started to drizzle. We quickly reached the darkness above the 2nd pitch.A large number of P-bolts on both sides of the passage was slightly confusing, so in the excitement of the moment the more obvious one seemed to be the one on the right. After reaching the Y-hang I realised it would have been much easier on the left hand side of the passage, which was behind me now, so I stuck to my own strategy (and let the others struggle behind me :-). The rest of re-belying went according to the survey. Richard, bored with waiting for the third and last pitch to be rigged, tried to assemble his own sheep out of the numerous bones he found while Paulina was looking for fossils.

Straight in the face, that's bright

Richard descending 3rd pitch of the Dry / Fossil Route

We've left our SRT kits on the bottom of the 3rd pitch and went exploring light-weight. Bearing in minds Emma's story about flash flood during her last visit in the cave we were anxious passing through the partially flooded tight passage and crawling towards the next big chamber. We ended our journey at the top of another 6-8 meters pitch, as we had no more rope, and made our way back to the surface.

We've had no caving plans for Sunday, but we visited the White Scar show cave, a treat for Monika. From there we drove back to Clapham and went for a walk to Gaping Gill 105m deep entrance pitch and investigated some shake holes on the way.

Gaping Gill

The Team: Bartek & Paulina Biela, Richard & Monika Wilkes

Gaping Gill, Clapham, Yorkshire

After a trip down the Main Shaft courtesy of the Craven Pothole Club winch, the route we followed was: Mud Hall (to experience the mud traverses), Mud Hensler's Crawl (to show Del wat real caving is all about), Hensler's Stream Passage (very nice), Hensler's Passage, The Blow Hole (an entertaining squeeze), New Hensler's Crawl, bottom of Bar Pot, Sand Cavern, some of North West Extension (more mud) and back to the Main Chamber for a ride out.

The Main Chamber during the winch meet.

Derek in Hensler's Master cave

Derek in Hensler's Master cave

Derek in Hensler's Master cave

The Team: KeEd, BrMa & DeRo

Gaping Gill Winch Meet, Yorkshire

We (JCa, MCl, KEd & BMa) descended Disappointment Pot as far as the bedding plane where Brendan's helmet and lamp floated through but Brendan was too large to follow!  After frantically kicking through the silt with his feet a very wet and very cold Brendan managed to retrieve his helmet.

We then attempted (JCa, MCl, KEd, BMa & EPo + Cara) Bar Pot but after waiting for a long time to descend the second pitch Keith decided he had had enough and exited with Jason and Brendan.

Mike was last seen descending Gaping Gill on the winch with a party of 15 'cavers' in tow.

Jason in the entrance to Bar Pot.

Present:  JCa, MCa, MCl, KEd, BMa & EPo + Emma's friend Cara

Gaping Gill (Flood Entrance), Claptham, Yorkshire Dales

Gaping Gill was as impressive as always. It's a shame that the walk is so far with 160m of rope shared between two. Tony got hung up at the re-belay at the top of the last pitch, unfortunately he got off before I managed to rig a rescue. We came out into 100m visibility, it was more pleasant underground.


Present:  ACr + Tony Jordan