Trips & Reports 2006

A very easy stomp down a stream passage for a few hundred metres. We turned back when we got to a line of P-hangers and the water suddenly became 'kin deep! Well worth a quick visit when up doing Calf Holes or Birkwith.

We found a dead sheep far into the cave! i thought it was foam, but it was a very adventurous sheep! hence the scum rating :)

We missed the sheep (probably a good thing!). There was quite a lot of water down there but it must have dropped significantly in the past day or so, judging on the amount of foam up the sides and at the bottom of the staircase. Apparently, that was about 3' deep until Gover and Chuck started kicking it at each other! A fun, little trip with a bit of everything.

We found a super fun happy slide! it was amazing! :)

I've got a boat in my garden. Can we go back?

Just found this report: http://www.pennine.demon.co.uk/NPC/1959/OLDING.HTM Describes explorations in the late '50s around Birkwith and Old Ing.

Bar Pot was rather busy this weekend. We ended up rigging underneath two ropes, which we expected to be gone by the time we came out, but it was not to be. We arrived to the bottom of the big pitch to find several people descending/ascending. A long wait was required! Otherwise a very efficient trip down to GG main chamber, quite speedy with no issues. Unfortunately the sun had passed the point at which it streams... read more

Great trip, though I wasn't expecting the ma-hoose-ive trek to the cave. OK, it wasn't that bad... it was frankly scorching on the way up to Bar Pot itself, especially carrying the evil tackle sack. Really enjoyed my first practical use of SRT, although need to get fitter for those climbs back to the surface. The short ascent to the very top was great fun with the little squeeze towards the top. Need to get some gloves...... read more

Ok so there was lots of crawling in water which was rather refreshing! However, let me just say this - FOSSILS!!!!! amazing.

Well, apart from a slighlty late start, everything went OK! Three groups, all in staggered, and out again. Out team kicked @$$ as well, our freshers are hardcore! Dom

An excellent and very efficient trip! Three staggered teams worked well, we never saw eachother (even when the final team was getting changed just outside our car we were still completely oblivious to them!). A great cave with a nice mix of everything. Some slightly awkward climbs up assisted by fixed handlines provided a good challenge for our new folk, and a nice balance of ladder/stompy/squeezy and crawly. Really easy to navidate too, with the exception of the bit in... read more

A fun little jaunt down Long Churn. Ollie and set off first with 4 freshers (I'm crap with names!), got to the entrance to find that Ollie had left the rope at the stream! DOH! Whilst Ollie went back to get it, I showed everyone else the delights of the entrance to Borrins Moor. I then stepped into the stream heading towards Long Churn and promptly fell flat on my arse in the stream! :) Down Dr Bannisters, down the waterfall, down to the... read more

A really successful first trip of the term. We had a much much better turn-out of freshers from the AU Mart than we'd expected so it took a bit of time to get organised. We split into three teams at Long Churn lead by Rich, Matt and myself, which seemed to work out quite well. We were only 10mins apart but just far enough not to wait for each other. As always long churn was busy, more so than I've... read more

Fun little trip! Was amazed that Ade actually remembered where the entrance was! Some small pitches provide a great location to help Freshers with their SRT. Jo and Sam did amazingly for their first time!

Ade may have been a little over zealous, rigging the massive 1.5m entry pitch :p The bottom chamber was quite cool, with scope for exploring the window halfway down the pitch. The dig at the bottom was fun to flat out crawl down. Honest.

I do like this fun stomp of a cave and it's a good way to get across to Sunset, via Middle Washfold, thus missing out a large chuck of the boring sunny walk (what's that all about eh?) It is a shame the cave lacks some proper pretties though. Also, the slightly different route gave us an idea where Congress, P98 and Tit Pot were as we didn't take the usual walk round Braithwaite.

This was our second attempt at the Manchester - Goyden through trip. The first notable difference was that the reservoir was not spewing water from the top. In fact it looked several metres lower than last time. We took this as a very good sign. The cave was easy to locate again, and the number of flowers outside had depreciated greatly. It took us about five minutes (in bizarre light conditions - for some reason none of us could see... read more

Like Manchester, this was considerably drier than last time, and we got much further in. We were limited by time, but if we hadn't been it would have been a more longer, exploratory trip. First we headed upstream, to see if we could find our newly bashed hole through to Manchester, but there were so many options and side passages that we stopped to concentrate on exploring the rest of the cave. Downstream this turned into an absolutely huge stream cave.... read more

This is a cave I've wanted to do for AGES and the weather looked settled so off we went! Considering I didn't have my trusty GPS we had no problem finding it. Andy in Bernies helped a lot by describing the entrance. An initial climb down leads to an interesting bedding plane crawl which soon opens out to a spectacular cave with some superb SRT. Black Dub pitch is the weirdest place I've ever seen in a cave. I got down... read more

Sat at the top of a wet pitch, freezing cold with no idea what is going on down below, for a loooooooooong period of time, to then be told to go back up as soon as you start descending the first of the main pitches = not fun. Next time I will wear a neofleece, and go to the bottom.

Garys report is spot on and sums it up well. A great cave, very reminicent of Tatham Wife (which is only about 500m or so along the base of Inglebrough) but rather more hardcore. A rather vespers-style entrance crawl leads quickly to the first pitch. More nasty shaped passages lead quickly onto the second pitch and the third is quickly reached. The deep pool at the bottom of the forth (?) pitch is rather scary... and is traversed around... read more

We planned to do Diccan due to it being a beautiful day and Andy Whitney ensuring us it had not rained since Tuesday. Despite this the amount of water going over the first pitch lip was just ridiculous. After about 2 mins of constructive "umming" and "aahhing" we decided not to commit to certain death. The only alternative lay in a lallygag down Alum Pot. True enough the water cascading down the bottom of the last pitch of Diccan was... read more

This mine was a great end to the weekend. Apart from a small entrance tube constructed of old school tables(!!) the mine is really big and stomply throughout. There are several dodgy boulders hanging in the roof that you might not want to stand under too long though! I'd recommend getting a copy of the survey as it would be easy to get lost, however the cart tracks keep you within the main passageways. The one we had was cleverly... read more

Very impressive to see the amount of stuff that they've found down there: old buckets, bits of cogs, tins, etc. Was particularly impressed by the 100-year-old (a complete guess) horse hoofprints in the mud! The sheer number of cave pearls was absolutely incredible! :o The roof is a tad scary in places, especially where the wooden props have fallen out and splintered, or dubious-looking railway lines are all bent under the weight! Some of the old writing on the walls is covered... read more

It was a superb mine. Walking through it was like taking a trip back in time, and it was very easy to imagine what it must have been like to work down there many years ago. Many implements still intact though rusty, including a saw sharpening bench (eek!), the crane was immaculate though I fear it won't stay that way for much longer. At each of the working faces, a small cubic indent in the ceiling had been carved, where... read more

This trip was an accident! We were looking for Pierres Pot when we found this. It's a major dig at the moment, which looked a bit unstable so we didn't go far down.

Never seen a cave with quite so much metal in it. We were brought there by locals you had emerged from Goatchurch slightly after us, and they took us in completely the wrong direction to Pierre's. It was still interesting to know it is there as it was only a short walk from the car and judging by the equipment they had in there it may be much bigger by next year!

Not very challenging (especialy as there were kids in jeans and trainers coming out when we got there) although 'The Drainpipe' was interesting! Lots of slipery mud slides - yey! :p

Really excelent fun trip. We spent half an hour bailing out 18 inches of water from the first of the ducks in the Troubles Series which was bloody hard work. The bad air seemed to affect all of us as we were all nakered by the end and glad to be back in the streamway.

A fairly leisurely trip but well worth it for the pretties in Bat Passage. There are some straws that are clear rather than being white (or even a mucky brown colour), and a couple of clear curtains and stals. The calcite flows near the end are unbelievably snow-white (and I don't mean the one from the fairytale!) and gleaming. We gave up trying to find our way through the boulder choke up into the big chambery bit but then most of... read more

A great fun weekend in the rain! The intention was to do Dowbergill Passage, however it pissed down all weekend and it looked rather damp. Instead spend the weekend walking round the moors prospecting for new caving areas to explore. Defiantly lots of potential for caves we've never done before. Neil and I were in a tent and Matt and John were in the camper van. Spent Sat night in the pub then played drunken Monopoly in the camper! Apart from... read more

This has to be the most arduous cave I have done so far. It was Matt's and my last day caving which is just a well because me knees are only just recovering! There was shed loads of crawling but the end chamber was great to reach. Just a shame we ran out of time to go down the pitches at the end. One day in the future I would like to go back to have... read more

Very hard cave!!! Not particularly tight, except perhaps that slither down through the boulder choke, however, very hard work, constant crawling, stooping, crabwalking and flat out crawling/elbow-walking with very little breaks in between. Took us a long time to get down to the pitch (3.5hr, which for a non-SRT cave is a long time) and it seemed to go on forever. The cave bears very little reseblance to the guide. The best way forward is to follow the streamway... read more