Trips & Reports

Good to finally get to Brown Hill. We'd been umming and ahhing about which cave to do on account of being joined by Fleur, Pete and Avelina and not wanting a late one. In the end we decided it'd be fine to derig Brown Hill and wouldn't be any slower than doing Dale Head on our own. On arriving at Floyd's entrance, we found all three of them still on the surface. Pete had gone down and struggled with the... read more

Brewery Shaft is a 3.5m diameter vertical free hang, descending from a wooden shack in the woods 100m into the ground beneath Nenthead. This trip had been talked up all weekend, and the time to head out had finally arrived, but with the sheer scale of the descent, a good degree of apprehension was in the air. Once at the hut, we headed through the dim rooms to find a wooden gallery, surrounding the steel grid which protected the seemingly... read more

I was fairly keen to do Brewery Shaft, but not if there was a big team going. A 100 m pitch with more than 5 people sounded like a recipe for a lot of waiting around, and judging by the level of enthusiasm the night before, it wasn't going to be a small group of people who were keen. But surprise, surprise, in the cold light of day, the beer-enhanced enthusiasm of the previous night had dwindled for many, conveniently... read more

The morning of the trip was a nice faff free affair with a quick trip to the bakery providing breakfast, and the warm(ish) TSG providing a convenient changing environment. With no ropes to pack we were soon sauntering through Castleton, eager to reach the impressive entrance to Peak Cavern and begin our trip (which had been planned the previous night after I got all excited when Lumens mentioned a free-diveable sump). Upon reaching the entrance those of us who were... read more

With rope and gear already packed the day before it was an excellent start to the day, the team was hyped and ready to leave Inglesport by 10.30am. I made the mistake of mentioning the efficiency so far considering it was a YUCPC trip… Next challenge, for me at least, was getting my car and all 5 of us up Leck fell. The weather was reminiscent of a previous trip this time last year (http://www.yucpc.org.uk/trips/report.php?id=1428) where I failed miserably and ever... read more

‘Twas the morn of the Christmas meal, and with strict instructions from Matt to be back for 6, most of us arose with plenty of time to spare, and we made a swift departure by 11. Unpacking our gear on Leck Fell an hour later, we all took a moment to appreciate the incredible moment, with the blazing sun, streaks of snow on the peaks, and uninterrupted views to the lake district, the Morecambe bay, and even the Isle of... read more

An entertaining, albeit failed exchange. There was a bit of debate in the morning about whether there'd be too much water for the LKE side of the exchange with Rift, but we (I?!) thought there probably wouldn't be enough snow melt to cause a problem. It was nice to visit an unfamiliar cave, and we made good progress to the bolt-littered head of the big pitch. There must be about 3 or 4 times as many resin anchors here than are needed. I... read more

A last minute change of plan, prompted by enthusiasm from Sandy, led us to Boggart's Boring Holes. It turned out Sandy and I had both had uncannily similar trips (on different occasions) where for one reason or another we had only made it as far as the bottom of the first pitch, and we were keen to rectify this. There was also not much else in the way of options given the recent weather. The forecast for the day had... read more

Uploaded October 2019, after finding this written in paper form. The morning began with a substantial breakfast cooked by Matt, after which the usual YUCPC pre-trip faff ensued. Once all the kit (or nearly all) had been packed, myself, Josh, Martin, and Chad began the short drive from the NPC hut to the Kingsdale area. Upon pulling into the layby where we were to get changed it became obvious that it had been snowing, something which that is somewhat unfamiliar... read more