Trips & Reports 2020

The morning began with uncharacteristic efficiency, however, it soon slowed to a gentle meander, with Liv appearing to 'definitely' have a virus named after a well known Mexican beer. Eventually, it was concluded that she probably didn't really want to go caving, so was sent home with Ade. Faff concluded, we headed to a quite uninspiring Kingsdale, where a rapid change was had, before we began our supposedly easy plod up east Kingsdale. GPS, and hand-copied description in hand, we... read more

A tasty little day, the five of us first set off the Gavel Pot (after much faff involving my wellington booties being a 20 minute drive away at Greenclose whilst we were on Leck Fell) where on the way Conor deciding to try out bog swimming. After graciously falling into an iced-over bog and smelling like a Swamp Monster for the rest of the day, Conor and I nipped down Gavel to rig the pitch for Jean Luc's team to... read more

A trip recommended by both Matt Ewels and Clive Westlake is typically guaranteed to be worthwhile. Short Drop, through to the Gavel Pot sumps is no exception to this rule. We headed off from the Leck Fell car park in good order, getting underground by around 1300. The entrance to Short Drop was easily found by following the right-hand side of the wall from the car park. I was surprised, however, to find that there was no pitch at the... read more

So, even though our Caving Masters at the CNCC had provided us with a brand-stonking massive warning telling us very clearly when and how the hydrology has changed, we still thought we should test it out after a 24 hour period of dry weather after a bit of a wet week (which, from memory of the old water in Ireby, I would have expected it to be quite soggy, but still perfectly doable). We wandered up the fell and into... read more