Trips & Reports

Not being the best at getting up in the morning, it took three alarms to wake me up at 6 in the morning in time for an early container meet at 7 to pack all the ropes we needed for Pen-y-gent pot. I was quite nervous about doing this cave after Chuck’s horror stories about flooding in the pub on Thursday night and the fact that it was a Grade V (the first one I’d attempted). Our drive over to... read more

Bottomed Pen-y-ghent Pot: Awesome :) Pen-y-ghent pot is a fine stream cave, but in the words of our president ‘should not be underestimated’. I would concur with this and probably say that for anyone intending to bottom any grade V cave should have good amount of varied caving behind them. For Pen-y-ghent pot itself I strongly advise wearing a wet suit (unless there is a drought) and go in a team of three to keep the pace reasonable, this is a... read more

Awesome caving weekend Part two: Lost John Cave Team Monastery: Chad, Tom and Sam Having done a Dome – Centipede Lost John’s exchange a few months back I was rather glad to be going down Monastery route, described as the wet route, which the other two are not. Team Dome was ahead of the other two teams rigging to the bottom as well as Shale Cavern and Sink Chamber for us to go through. Our team followed Team Centipede down the entrance to... read more

Team Centipede: Jennie, Marcus, Matt G and Maz. We arrived at Leck Fell in high spirits, with our bellies full and the sun shining. The day\'s entertainment began with Matt emphasizing the luxury of having a warm, dry undersuit as he ran up and down the road in an attempt to thaw his. The cave entrance is situated through a gate on the left, a short walk down the road. With Matt taking the lead we climbed down to the stream, entering... read more

Titan: Titan shaft – the largest natural shaft in the UK standing at 141.5 m tall. Discovered in 1999 from the bottom through connections from speedwell by a team led by Dave Nixon after careful research upon reading an account by James Plumtree written in 1793 describing cave networks beyond that of Speedwell. Access from above is a 45 m deep 2 m wide man made entrance shaft which took four years to excavate. The bottom of this shaft joins a... read more

Middle route would make a great early srt trip (the worst parrt of the wet crawl is avoided)

Since the failed exchange trip last year ( http://www.yucpc.org.uk/trips/details.php?id=865), I have been looking forward to the Big Meanie – Death’s Head permit for some time. This time the exchange successfully happened on a very enjoyable trip. Every caver in England seemed to be on Leck Fell, and with one guy in Bernies going around asking what caves people were doing I was rather suspicious as to who had permits. The eight (? in addition to ones parked by the gate, tut... read more

This trip was awesome fun, I think the fact my stomach muscles are hurting so much today is more from trying to rig whilst in hysterics rather than from cave crunches. After a very quick change from myself (slightly less so from other team members :P) we set off up the snowy hill in search of the cave entrance. It did take a while to find, Chad beating me there by about a minute I reckon. After rounding up Alistair, the... read more

Alright cave and out before dark for many cups of tea back at the YSS hut. The last pitch was elusive but i think we were glad that we actually got blakey down a cave this weekend!

i've been again and the last pitch still remains ellusive (too wet). Although I think the yucpc trip got further. My 2nd trip was with kev francis (yorkie fart), mike topsom (tsg/musc fart), tom spriggs (tsg/musky fart), mark (tsg) and luna (tsg)

The entrance was nice and easy to find, but when Matt & I headed down the entrance climb we immediately hit a bit of a problem: what looked like a ridiculously easy climb was lined with ice on all sides, so after rigging it and abseiling through I smashed away all I could for the others to follow. After very little time we got to the first real pitch (only about 3m!) but were a bit stumped by the traverse afterwards.... read more

A great trip down a much under-rated and under-visited cave! The entrance is a concrete pipe about 20 minute walk up the (usually dry) valley from the farm. We reached there by early afternoon after much faffing at the YSS. Gary started rigging while we all played with the snow. The short entrance pitch is rebelayed below the pipe. A couple of easy climbs down and a few wiggles soon reaches the top of an awkward descent... read more

Actually the hardcore rating needs to be changed to a 5. I didn\'t feel *too* broken after the trip, but I\'m definitely feeling it now!

This trip nearly killed me! The first half went fairly well. Got to the YSS hut in time for a quick breakfast then headed straight out, and the Echo Aven pre-rigging team (Rich and Chuck) were off by 11.30. Me and Cat followed after a little sunbathe and lovely warm change, getting to Lancaster Hole about half 12. The others arrived shortly after and we set off down. A quick stomp to Stake Pot and off down the EPC71 route to... read more

The Brown Hill Massive! An extremely demanding trip, which was well rewarded towards the end with a magnificent 60 m pitch and a fine stream passage ending at the frothy sump. Quite an easy cave to find, parking by Yordas wood, over the style, up the hill turn right at the wall, go through the gap and walk along the next wall, where you turn left, Floyds entrance is located in a shakehole 20 m from the wall marked by an oil... read more

A tiring but rewarding trip. This cave is somewhat tight in places, especially at the entry series, though the rift later on is also a bit of a squeeze, and is a little tricky to negotiate, made harder with the presence of tacklesacks which always seem to find the worst places to get stuck. De-rigging was relatively easy as most pitchheads were tight enough to wedge yourself into a stable position, though this did make packing the ropes somewhat harder. Definitely... read more

Report posted on YES. NB faff completely absent as the trip was a well organised YESpedition

Sparkling Crystals in Ireby II \"The only real treasure is in your head. Memories are better than diamonds and nobody can steal them from you\" - Rodman Philbrick Rigging the shadow route down Ireby Fell Cavern is incredible fun; firstly you traverse across the ceiling then execute a series of pendulums between intertwining rifts. There is quite a lot of work to get to the top of the main hang but once you abseil from this point you are taken a long... read more

I think Matt G\'s report sums up accurately the day but here are my own personal highlights: The cave entrance is brilliant. rcp and ladder! Shadow route looks fun to rig, lots of sound effects and pendulum action :P Lots of fun stompy stuff, a bit of a horrible wet bit of stooping An evil crawl to Ireby 2. The diggers efforts amaze me..... The water as you drop into Ireby 2 that gets deeper....and deeper.....and then reduce grown men to girly screams as cooling... read more

A lovely cave for my first rigging trip. Bit of a trek up to the cave, but well worth it. Rigging was good fun, nothing too terrifying. (My knots weren\\\'t the neatest.. but then there was Mark following me, and if all else fails Ade behind him). Tatham Wife definitely has a bit of everything to offer... nice pitches, squeezey bits on a slant and crawling parts. (All of which were made slightly more awkward with a tackle sack on the way... read more

Duckk bypass: certainly worth the effort :) A good laugh to do apart from anything as it\'s not immediately obvious how to get there!

Virtually all the faff on this trip was down to me, I\'m pretty sure I owe everyone involved a drink, regardless, definitely a cave with a lot to offer and a great trip.

woop woop more cave animals! only usurped by some other trips going on during the same day, but this was the most clear cave shrimp i have ever seen. The Duck really wasn\'t bad on this day and i have been in worst and it is good to note that having a new undersuit is great as it drys quite quickly! bit cold on the way back but it really didn\'t matter as there were plenty of drinks back in... read more

Valentines Day fun down Ireby Fell! Awesome trip down probably my favourite cave, for a team of nine people I dont think the trip could have run anymore efficiently (nine people leaving the container before 8.10 am !!!), everyone knew exactly what they were doing. Rigging Shadow route is just so much fun that its probably the best rigging experience to date. The exposed traverses, the hidden p-hangers further down, swinging into slots, and then the main shaft. Maz and Jennie got... read more

\"thigh deep water\"? Definitely waist deep for us littl\'uns!! :P

A fantastic trip with lots of variation to keep us all entertained. The group were all in high spirits, the enthusiasm and banter shared (not to mention the countless innuendos) made this trip to Ireby Fell one to remember. The route down Shadow was great fun, requiring us to show off our spider-like skills climbing up to the high traverse, before descending onto a ridge above the other team where Toby was busy rigging Ding Dong Bell, and down the big... read more

To be honest it was waist deep on me, but I didnt think much of it :-P Chuck\'s reaction was the best :s

I always enjoy wading through water in caves, the shock was a sudden dip in the floor and the water level going from knee height to waist, hence the squeals :p

It takes it\'s time along the traverse or else it gets the hose again. Lesson learnt. What a mega trip, Ireby has absolutely everything you could want from a cave in one. De-rigging shadow was off the charts. Took my time through skylight passage, just glad I didn\'t turn back 2.2m from the end! Cheers Maz :p

Ireby Insect!!!!!!!!!!! COMING SOON!!

too scarey to be fun. the entrance pitch on its own would be fun 4

I probably should have given it hard 4 as the entrance pitch was at least easy. Not sure about the rest like :-s

Its fine, I love JH and will be back soon to visit my favorite intertwining mine/cave! Here is three kisses for one of my favorite caves, see you soon babe xxx