Trips & Reports 2009

It was quite nice to be involved in helping out Jim Lister who is working in Ink Sump, which may in the future open up miles of unexplored Peak Cavern caving to all us cavers. We each carried two pieces of Scaffolding through and carried out Oxygen cylinders. We all got wet; we were out in no time to enjoy Castleton sun!

I also carried a 1kg tackle sack of nails, hence extra hard points! We have absolutely no idea what Jim needs that many nails for but it's quite exciting. We think he might be building his own house down there :)

It's going to be a skyscraper! None of these comparisions like "a shaft bigger than St Paul's Cathedral" stuff. It'll be "a shaft containing a full size replica of Blackpool Tower " or something like that! Or, what about a secret underground lair a la Bond Bad Guys? With Monorails and the like? With a Missile Silo! Someone has to build them. Good quick trip though - sorted my awakeness issues. (And what about Blakey appearing from that "sump"!!)

I tell you all you really don't want to see Blakey in a dark ally, never mind coming out of sump!

Feeling sore and unadventurous I was quite glad to get back out into the sun! As for a secret underground lair, could Jim actually be planning world domination?

Epic: adj. Of, constituting, having to do with, or suggestive of a literary epic: an epic poem. Surpassing the usual or ordinary, particularly in scope or size. Heroic and impressive in quality. Epic is perhaps a word that is used too liberally when describing caving trips. Our Titan through trip is one of those rare instances where the word epic can be properly applied. Hopefully this report isn't! We started our day at the Chapel with Westminster Speleo Group. They... read more

What an awe inspiring place Titan Shaft is! A great trip involving 7 hours of wall to wall caving. Prior to reaching the entrance we has a lovely walk up in the sun. To get to Titan there is a very highly engineered 45 m entrance shaft with a Scaffold cage at the top to rig the entrance rope off. This in itself was a nice decent, the rigging was somewhat bizarre, two sling were rigged off two scaff bars... read more

Chad - That Noose at the top has been there for ages. I just found a picture of Jimmy G contemplating it! http://www.yucpc.org.uk/imgsize.php?img=http://www.yucpc.org.uk/photos/2006_06_TitanJH/014.jpg&w=500&h=500&constrain=true

Originally we were supposed to be doing Ireby II but Matt wanted a short trip and we couldn't be arsed packing ropes so we changed to Maracaibo instead. Matt and Andy were already in Ingleton so we met them in Bernies before 10 after a super-quick start and drive, despite having to collect the car from Ollie's after beerage! We told the others we had changec plans, and convinced Andy to buy an Omni (I want one too!), and one... read more

I rigged.

Along with a recent Easegill trip this has to be one of the most satisfying trips that I have done so far. We had a focussed team of five who embarked on a mission entitled ‘Operation Silent Echo’ with the aim of getting to Jupiter Cavern. This was a total success ensuring that we were the first members of YUCPC to reach Jupiter cavern. Matt G put so much effort into planning this trip that it became the most organised... read more

This turned out to be a relatively faffy trip. It took a while to find the hole for Swinsto and confirm it was the right one – there are quite a few in that field! There was also lots of faff from the other team – Mark’s helmet was locked in Chucks car and Josh’s hire light had failed. Eventually though we all got undergound. Chuck rigged the first 2 pitches then I did the rest. The third (my first) had... read more

A good trip, looking back on it it was pretty hard, should porbably get 4.5, although I was in cordura. By the end I was absolutly frozen and I think Andy had to talk/drag me out of the last bits!

The slit is hard to fit through even if your a scrawney runt, much easier just to rig the Aven up to the left of the slit.

Our intended trip was to do Flood entrance, but this was not an option after finding out in Bernies that the caves around Gaping Gill were been set up for the winch meet. Naturally I was disappointed as I had spent much of the previous evening studying the rigging guide and descriptions as I was to rig. So I hope I get the chance to do this cave in the near future. While deciding what we were going to do... read more

After Ben and Craig from MUSC informed us that this was the weekend of the winch meet at Gaping Gill, we called off our Gaping Gill trip and decided to join them at Marble Steps Pot. A short walk up the hill reminded me of how unfit I was, but the pleasant entrance made up for it. Ben was to rig sidewinder, with Craig and myself following, while Chad would rig for the others down Gully. The cave was dry, and... read more

We got to the bottom! More to follow...

Trapdoor has to go down as one of the best trips I’ve ever done. I had been lead to believe that it would tight, wet and horrible with death around every corner; however I found it quite the opposite. An efficient breakfast in Bernies (and purchase of a new Omni main mallion for quick release of the SRT kit in the promised awkwardness of trap door) lead us to the cave for about 12pm. Nice sunny weather (contrary to the report)... read more

Garys description is a spot on recollection. I think I would suggest the cave is a little harder than he does, however my legs are longer than his and much less bendy, which poses greater challenges in some of the more restrictive sections. The esoteric squeeze was so much fun as it provided some great manoeuvering challenges without being unpleasantly tight. My purchase of a Petzl Omni (screwgate main maillion for quick release) was worth every penny as my... read more

After an interesting route up the hill we quickly found the cave, an un-inviting scree crawl in a large shake hole. Gong carefully down this we followed the stream through a fun rift to the first pitch, a short 6 metre abb, then more of the rift until we arrived ina large-ish chamber at the top of the second pitch. An interesting collection of jammed boulders hung like Damocle's sword above the pitch head, I didnt hang around when it... read more

Extra faff points as the other teams had all the ropes suitable for the double decker pull through. A little bit of time wasted finding out the hard way that the rope we brought was too short. Progress continued down the fixed hand line down the rift. All in all the trip was very efficient and we made swift progress throughout, with Anna getting to derig her second cave, to be back in time for lunch.

We arrived at the car park just after 10 and after double-checking with the manager that it was “dry” enough to go in, we all set about changing into our wetsuits. At the end of the show cave we let the keen early-bird tourists past then hopped over the railing into the underground lake. Swimming with an oversuit on was very bizarre, even more so was trying to swim with wellies! After maybe 100m of swimming we reached the boulder... read more

A nice abb down Lancaster Hole saw me in Ease Gill for the first time. What felt like a few miles of passage, but probably wasnt that far, led to highlights such as the chamber below the Cow Pot main pitch, which looks very inspiring and would be a great dramatic pitch in either direction. After listening to the booming tackle bag noises and muffled swearing of the Cow Pot team we decided not to wait for them as... read more

After several emails to & fro between Cat & I we decided that a round trip including Easter Grotto, which we were both keen to visit, would be a great start to a Bull Pot Farm weekend. On the Friday night we recruited another couple of Chemists in Anna & Chad and after a very small amount of sleep we were ready to go, complete with reams of descriptions/surveys, cereal bars and the obligatory scones. The weather was better than expected... read more

After deciding that I wanted an epic Easegill trip on Saturday and really wanted to see Easter Grotto, Mark and I came up with a plan, and I spent half of Thursday and Friday printing off descriptions and surveys to make sure we didn’t get lost… Saturday morning came, and after a severe lack of sleep we kitted up and headed across the moor. Mark and I went into County to rig the ladder then we set off further up the... read more

After a nice drive and a plesant walk up to the moor we then spent a while watching Chuck poke his head down several shakeholes looking for Flood entrance but eventually we just decided to do Bar Pot, so off we went. After several late nights looking at pictures of the gaping gill main chamber and daydreaming during lectures about standing by the waterfall I was excited to be going there, a place I'd wanted to go to since I... read more

a big and enjoyable, sunny, walk past tourists heading for ingleborough cave or mountain brought us to the canyon of death, a wall of darkness ensued as the sunlight passed the tip of the rock climbers paridise and the first of the dead bunny rabbit's. sunlight could be seen at the other end of the canyon...... to be continued .... waiting by the entrance to some unknown pot was quite funny as we were describing to families of people why we... read more

The walk up Inglebrough was baking, but at least there was a nice breeze… Turns out we did find Wades, just didn’t realise it at the time, as it didn’t look like the description (first pitch looked like only 4m so we assumed this was Flood – but actually what we saw wasn’t the floor, just a shelf). Oh well, we’ll be back! In Bar Pot, Chuck knew where he was going whereas I’d never been so I let him lead between... read more

My intro to train caving! Ade had bailed out on us claiming that he needed sleep (that boy always needs sleep! :p), leaving us with no driver… A last minute decision was made that as Mark, Chuck and I all still wanted to go caving, we’d get the train to Ribblehead and have a potter round a few of the smaller caves there, scout out some alternative fresher trips and hopefully be guaranteed not to miss the train back again.... read more

After locating the entrances to Thistle, it was time for another picnic!! We were sat at Thistle entrance 2, which again had 2 directions. While we were eating, a group of cavers came out the uphill entrance, and the guide pointed them towards the downhill entrance telling them that it was a bit smaller and they wouldn’t be able to walk around like they had in the last bit… “Stompiness?” we thought… “Ace!” So that’s the way we headed next.... read more

I can't actually remember much about this cave. It starts up the top of the hill by a limestone scar, next to what Chuck described as "a boulder choke adventure playground" (it was quite fun I have to agree!) You can do the whole thing as one big (well no not really big at all..) through-trip, coming into daylight at various points which makes it quite fun. We made it through pretty speedily, there wasn’t too much crawling as far as... read more

Imogen and I headed down to Castleton 8ish on Friday night planning for an early night and a long kip. However as soon as we stepped off the bus outside the Peak Inn my nostrils twitched and I smelt fire. I knew this could mean only one thing... a late night! SUSS, TSG, MUSC and Big Eldon Jim were out (due to a DCRO practise trip running on the Saturday) and a barbeque had been going complemented with plenty of... read more

This trip started early on the Friday night. We decided to save some time by travelling down and wild camping on a cliff by a Gwrych Castle. The walk up was fairly eventful, our chosen route had been blocked off and we hiked up a very steep incline that claimed several of Gover's cans of beer. Disaster was avoided however as most were retrieved despite them heading as fast as they could back down the hill! We got to... read more

The JH ropes had been put in the previous Friday and needed taking out. In need of a good trip we volunteered to remove them. A team was going down JH and out of Peak that day too, so timing was crucial to make sure we didn't meet them in Colostomy! Can't remember much about the start of the trip, I think I was on auto pilot. I do remember reaching the Trenches and constantly lying to Gosling about how... read more

IIRC, Main Streamway, Far Sump, Wigwam Aven, Treasury Sump Easy trip as Imo was still tired from the Moose Trap the day before. Followed by a long wait at the top of Titan watching Zebedee.

A great trip! Particularly the part where we left at 9 after a lovely lie in :-) Apart for the slightly tight bit in the entrance (only for tall people!) pool sink is a really easy, nice entrance. 4 short pitches as a pull through so nice and quick, with wiggly streamway in between. From the bottom of that we went into county via ignorance is bliss. Someone has put a rope down where you climb up into the streamway roof... read more

Lancaster hole is my second trip in the Easgill system and certainly less confusing that the County pot side. This was Angela’s first trip! Cat was leading. Lancaster hole SRT was fairly straightforward; Cat rigged all of this and then it was off to the Colonnades first (I think those on the process of cleaning this section appreciate people who go here while they are clean i.e. not after going into slug world), after Wales week it was nice to... read more

I’d finally convinced Angela to come on her first caving trip!! She’d done some training in the sports hall but was yet to go down a real cave, so I wanted this trip to be relatively short and easy, yet inspiring and slightly challenging…. It had to be Easegill! As I was going to be leading, I decided to repeat the route Chuck, Tom and I had done a few weeks previous. This involved going in Lancaster to practice a bit... read more

failed major well not that major we decided when w got to swcc that we weren't doing the full trip and we would just potter round ofd2 instead of going down to the no doubt flooded main steamway saw wedding cake??????????????????? gnome passage where we actually saw a gnome!!!!! ask for photo proof selebrious streamway possibly spelt differently. wetwetwet oh and the trident but missed the damn judge who was just sitting round the corner not like he moved very far. oh yes and me... read more