Trips & Reports
Chad wrote...
So the third time I\'ve done Sell Gill and the third time I\'ve done that duck (hence the scumyness of three!) because Tom fancied it, I think mainly becuase to make me do it again :-P. If I keep on doing this I should at lease take a rope to have a potter down the pitch that is at the end. But as I said to the other the day I wuss out will be the day I should... read more
Chad wrote...
Tom :@
Caitlin wrote...
Really enjoyed the trip :) The entrance pitch was gorgeous, (lovely to abseil down in the daylight !) went across a little traverse by the side of the massive hole, then abseiled down (or for Chad swing into..) into the rift, traversed along some more - quite a bit tighter this time. We all abseiled down the longest pitch - with just enough rope!! (stupid rigging guides). But all was fine, no one disheartened at all. This chamber was very... read more
Richard wrote...
A much lower hardcore grade than I would have predicted - we were only underground 2 hours 10 mins and the squeezes while \"interesting\" generally seemed easier than when going down, mainly due to you not popping out over a big hole.
Catherine wrote...
This is the third time I\'ve done this trip and I still haven\'t tired of it. Despite being short, its a great route with a lot of variety; from the sandy crawls and formations of Montague west to the beatifully formed Wilf Taylors passage and Double Decker Pot, to the awesomeness of the Main Drain and Fall Pot. Confident I knew the way, I handed the descriptions over to Sam who did a cracking job of navigating. A short detour to... read more
Karim wrote...
Feeling very much worse for wear following the saturday trip and some table traversing I was looking for something a little more straight forward an this was the perfect trip! Short but lots to see! The main pitch was fun and a nice main pitch that wasn\'t too big. The streamway was fantastic with a fun climb to fall pot. We stopped off to see the colonnades which was really impressive! Thanks to all involved, another really good trip to... read more
Nicola wrote...
Girly trip! We fancied a nice short trip, and I wanted see if I really knew the way without backup from others so we decided to do the round trip that I know so well! I really enjoyed doing a trip where I knew exactly where I was and where I was going for once! I always find this route really friendly and enjoyable. Caitlin was navigating, with me occasionally helping out, but she did very well and probably could have... read more
Caitlin wrote...
Very fun trip :) Although there was one stupid squeezy bit into Sandy Chamber (distinct lack of sand btw..), with a stupid bit of rock digging into my back, gave me a nice bruise to show off anyway!! I enjoyed trying to navigate, and going first was definitely something to do again. Chest tapes were definitely useful for some climby bits. I think the Broadway part may have been a bit hairy without.. perhaps borderline impossible on the way up, gave us... read more
Matthijs wrote...
Cow pot is an amazing cave. The entrance pitch is beautiful and very enjoyable. It continues into a tight slot, in which my helmet got stuck and managed to rip one of my diveligths off. It then opens out into some very enjoyable caving passages. Eventually we reached the pitch into fall pot, which had already been rigged the day before. The pitch is probably one of the best I\'ve ever done. When I was coming down into fall pot,... read more
Jonathan wrote...
Felt like hardcore 3/4 but that\'s probably due to lack of sleep!
Mike wrote...
Finally down Easegill proper! That didn\'t take long :-) The traverse and final pitch out the ceiling into Fall pot are absolutely stunning. Full credit to Andy for the crazy rigging, it\'s bad enough when you\'re just hanging from the rope! Traversing through giant chambers with the roar from the main drain like a monster deep below, very cool, and the traverses/climbs out of Wretched are fantastic fun without being too high for vertigo to start kicking in. Hardcore 3 just... read more
Catherine wrote...
This was another trip intended for route finding. I’d done Lancaster-Wretched Rabbit once, over a year ago, and whilst I knew the route well on paper, I wanted to get a few bits of it clearer in my head, in particular the escape route out of Wretched Rabbit. I also quite fancied doing Cow Pot so thought what the hell, lets do Cow to WR for a bit of variety! Armed with many descriptions we set off in high spirits. The... read more
Karim wrote...
A fantastic trip! The entrance to cow pot is good, along with token sheep bones. What followed was a small but worrying squeeze where my rack got stuck on a knot in the handline. A bit of wriggling and mallion undoing and I was free. Next up was the insane traverse and rigging of the cow pot main pitch. We sat and watched andy rig what is probably the most exposed and \'interesting\' pitch heads I\'ve seen. The main pitch... read more
Marcus wrote...
Mostly quite tight, we went as far as we could before a sharp, very tight squeeze prevented further progress, Chad explored a little further (then a little more to find somewhere to turn around) and I attempted to follow, but progress was slow so we decided to call it there. All in all a fun trip.
Chad wrote...
Good stuff was Pegleg, after about four hours down County I was glad that we were trying to locate this cave in the light. Walking along the Beck from County it is located beyond Mistral across a few fences. The entrance is fairly obvious as there is a wall built in front of the entrance. Free climb down leads to a 90 degree bend, and with my tackle sack below me I couldn't go any further, so I had to go... read more
Catherine wrote...
It had been several months since my last (and only my second) trip to County Pot. I could remember little bits of it but struggled to link any of it together so I was keen to return and try to cement it better in my mind. Following our Cow Pot - Wretched Rabbit trip, Andy and I decided we’d nip into County for a potter about, with the aim of completing the round trip. Armed with the Braemoor descriptions I set... read more
Nicola wrote...
Really good trip. Nice to go off the beaten track a bit and do some SRT in Easegill (never thought i\'d say that!). Down Lancaster and Fall Pot, then found the side passage to Arson aven, near Bob\'s boss. More of a window into the first pitch, which starts about 10 m up. Slightly strange prussiking up ropes you\'ve not been down first but they all seemed good! Up the first pitch, you rebelay and enter a little gully in... read more
Sam wrote...
Well what can i say about this trip...... I know a total cock up :P. I think the day was cursed from the beginning, with Alastair being too ill to go on the trip, although spirits were high as Matt was going to document the trip. The walk to the entrance was fine and it was nice to find it already rigged, so we started to decend Josh first, then me and Matt at the back. All was good until my... read more
Catherine wrote...
A very enjoyable Friday evening trip. Minor faff at the start when we had doubts as to the way on but after finding the next pitch and realising we were right the first time, it was plain sailing. Gour Chambers was very impressive, definitely worth the squeezy bits (which resulted in some very amusing squeaking sounds coming from Andy T) to get there. After the gour pools we carried on up to where the description told us there was a very... read more
Matt wrote...
A jovial bunch of lunatics arrived in Bernie’s Café and Caving shop, eight in total including in the line up such colourful personalities as “Always Swash-buckles” Captain Chuckles and Toby “One Bar” Finbarr Buxton, so with banter like that flying around was it any wonder that this trip turned out to be absolutely banging? I had personally been allocated onto Team 1 with Chad, Rippon and The One Bar Ranger. As the road up to Leck Fell was covered in... read more
23 photos by Jennie...
Caitlin wrote...
An awesomely snowy day :) (made the walk there harder work than the cave. :P) Really fun - thanks to Ade for the good idea to make the entrance actually possible. Would love to go back and do the whole thing at some point! (A day with less snow perhaps..) Really fun traverses across what , to me, felt like nothing!! A fair amount of nuts and harmonica-ing made a short wait half way down quite amusing. I seem to be getting bad luck with... read more
Marion wrote...
5 for Hardcoreness mainly due to excessive quantities of snow, swimming through snow to get to the cave and the number of times I fell on my bum on the ice (ow!) Otherwise, it was a really fun cave. Thanks to Chad and Chuck for some impressive bridge making skills on the way down, and thanks to Ade for mitten lending and getting me back out without me noticing the scarily deep hole the ground. Having a big bum has its... read more
Catherine wrote...
A really fun trip, though rating slightly reduced due to extreme cold from burying ourselves in the snow to act as belay/anchor for mark! The walk up to the cave was stunning - glistening snow everywhere :) A bit tiring when off the main path though as we kept sinking up to our knees in snow! Some crazy traverses in the cave, which as usual had my heart racing ever so slightly, but I managed not to fall and die so... read more
Mark wrote...
The trip really started off on the Saturday night: I was callout for the team doing JG on the first day of the permit, but from the sounds of things the weather was horrific and the amount of ice and snow on the walk/around the entrance just made it impossible. Time for a rethink! We had a long look through selected caves pondering what’d be best, and come 8 o’clock on the Sunday we were packing ropes for Marble Steps. Juniper... read more
Chad wrote...
Another awesome trip in the Gaping Gill system, without going to the main chamber. Some brilliant white formations in stunning condition..... 5 for scum beacause I had to dig out grit/sand from under me to get though a passage, of which there was a choice of two and I went down the grotty one! Next point of interest the Whitsun series.
Mark wrote...
7:30am saw me trudging through the snow enjoying the sunrise over campus and seeing the lake frozen for the first time this year. We were off for a weekend of longer trips, with GG planned on the Saturday and Easegill on the Sunday. As there were only a few of us we thought we’d try staying at the NPC hut as it was pretty centrally located, and it turned out this was a pretty good decision… The snow got thicker as... read more
9 photos by Mark...
Luke wrote...
Faff levels are currently over 9000
Jonathan wrote...
If it can go wrong, it will go wrong (the caving was effiscient and faff free, everything went smoothly underground but once we were out we were immediatly tronned by just about everything.
Alastair wrote...
in true YUCPC style harking back to sell gill in laz\'s day, when disaster hits there shall always be a source of alcohol for those passengers who don\'t need to worry (honorary drunk). however due to being in modern times and not medieval where reliance was heavily on phone boxes (although the signal around aquamole is poo poo- so we may as well have had phone boxes). the perks of the day were seeing the man who dived the cave from... read more
Caitlin wrote...
Marcus\' German efficiency made up for the rest of the teams slightly slow changing skills. Really fun trip with really good company :) (the wet crawly bit wasn\'t the best though...) Shame we couldn\'t get all the way down... Should be done another time...
Marcus wrote...
\"Is that a map case? We lost a map case....\"
Caitlin wrote...
Hard because of slight rope shortage. (If we ignore the knot issue) it was an awesome trip with good banter and monster munch !! Would love to do again with the exchange next time!
Luke wrote...
Will bring more food next time. BTW this was meant to be an exchange with dihedral but missed them by about 10 minutes.
Matt wrote...
I have to admit that I had forgotton that Stream is a little more challenging than I remembered. We made quick progress down the entrance pitch, which is a little awkward at the top (rig rope from scaffold bar at top of pipe for return journey). We followed the streamway down until we reached the second pitch, which we started rigging at stream level from some naturals, however, although something didn\'t seem right. We then realised that the pitch... read more
Toby wrote...
In no way did we get lost.
Nicola wrote...
Oh dear we don\'t seem to have endeared Luke to this cave! I enjoyed it in hindsight, and enjoyed about the first half on the day, then I got a bit demoralised by the never-ending rift and extra climb and streamway some of us did! The lovely farmer up at Leck Fell Farm not only let us park in the farmyard and walk across his land, but also let us change in the cowshed (the cow free side) out of... read more
Alastair wrote...
excellent!! I needed that, a good cave, was quite blurry as i woke up with my head spinning from the night before!! But the walk to flood entrance was good for clearing the head, if you walk past bar pot then there is a hall that contains Henslers crawl if you don\'t go down Henslers crawl then you have the opportunity to go across a muddy traverse to go and see some more cave. Pretty glad that we didn\'t go down... read more