Trips & Reports 2004

Always a supurb trip. Great cave with lots of variaty and challanging in many places for all. The whole group did really well. Bit of faff at the car with Steve managing to bring one size 13 wellie and one size 6 (how?) meant we had to go back to Bernies to hire him some. Took us a fair while to get to the bottom, not helped by two other groups in front of us. Coming out was super efficiant... read more

A supurb cave, and a really long trip (must have been underground for nearly 7 hours!) Thankfully the water level on the ducks wasn't too high and we managed to get through keeping upper body dry. Was fairly challenging, especially one of the early pitches where getting to the top of the rope meant hanging on the traverse line by cowstails (though no-one else had a problem with it... so perhaps it was just me) A little... read more

Great cave with loads of different pitches some of which are quite challenging (If you tried hard enough it would be possible to get strung up on four seperate ropes on the same pitch). The wellie was a simple mistake that anyone could have made... They were the same height ok.. well theres no excuse sorry guys. it would probably be a good idea next time to allow more time for callout as we were quite efficient... read more

Speed and efficiency saved the day and stopped us getting stuck behind the queues that must have inevitably formed. Seemed as though world & dog was down long churn. It appears that I need to put on more weight however, as I'm not fat enough to undo stuck crabs. Still, all out in time for soup at bernies. Then back to YSS for CHECC über drinking session. My head is still recovering... And do... read more

Lots of fun! Althought became very conscious of the fact all I had was a rope! BTW, I was lazy and only did Alum, and didn't exchange! Got very cold for my laziness!

Dom

And the moral of Dom's story is "thou wilt not be lazy on a caving trip or thou wilst feeleth the cold"
A nice trip, got to look at lots of pretty green scenery rather than just rock for a change! and although there were lots of people in longchurn they were all nice + let us push past them! Hurray for lovely cavers! The first exchange trip I have ever done which has actually worked - yay!
And Dave did... read more

Do not jam your Rack in a groove and then hang on it. It will break. Do not trust Gover to know the way. He is rubbish.

Unfortunately due to two lamp failures, we didn't get very far into these caves, and the majority of our time was exploratory up until then, which meant we had to wait in Ingleton Pub for over two hours til the Lancaster Hole people were done... over a nice pint :-) which ain't so bad! The first pitch down into the cave entrance hole (rigged from a tree) was good, and initailly quite scary, as being in broad daylight you... read more

Very very very very wet and cold!!! At the end of the tourist bit was a 20-30 metre 'swim' which was just about walkable if you are tall, but meant ice cold water up to the chin. Made swimming in the North Sea seem warm, and left me speechless, shivering, grumpy (sorry to everyone) and on the verge of turning back, for the first half of the downward journey. However, once I had warmed up and stopped... read more

This was a very fun trip!! It was quite awesome to see the nice pretty bits in the show cave (+ scare the tourists on the way back!) and after a southerscales weekend was nice to get clean again with a bit of a swim. + once past the swim I got warm again fairly quickly by stomping. And I led the way for quite a bit, all very exciting + adventurous. Very pretty cave, nice streamway + a random... read more

When wearing a wet suit it's warmer to stay in the water.

Don't wear wellies one size too big for you, you will NOT come out with both of them! And wear a wetsuit, its bloody cold!!!

High scummines levels as a result of the dead sheep...

Which was very recently dead and had obviously bounced when it hit the floor. Somewhat inefficient trip due to the presence of 6 Leeds cavers who were the reason for my scummyness vote of 5! SPOOOOOON GUARRRRRD!

The trip was cut a bit short cos we couldn't find it, but we did get a nice two hour tour of the local hills. Once there, it became obvious that it was going to be wet! Tatham Wife gave me my first test of a pitch where getting to the pitch edge meant wedging myself over a rather large drop (with cowstails in of course)... terrifying, and thank you to Beth for encouraging me onwards. However,... read more

Don't go caving with a hangover, and i mean REALLY BAD hangover, its not so fun! especially since gary lies and tells you the next hill is the top...for about 5 hills! then we had fun wandering in the mist for a while, good for clearing my head! fun once we found it, must go back and finish it sometime when feeling less ill :)

Fantastic trip, it was like one giant water slide. Slightly scary at first as thought we might get washed away, but it was so fast you could just lie there and let it carry you down the cave. It would be great if lonchurn was aways that exiting

For future reference. The cave is not JUST past the gate as the guidebook makes up but in fact about a mile past the gate (+ very obviously next to the path)
We OF COURSE found the cave no trouble, I just write this for future cavers....

Rowten is one of my favourit pot holes! Rigging went smoothly and I really enjoyed the trip, partyly cos I hadn't done any serious caving over the summer and was gald to get back underground. There was loads of water in the streamway and we couldn't even get past the waterfall down to look at the sump. Never the less, we all stayed dry... that is until we got back to the surface. Dom was de-rigging as I was first... read more

Cracking trip until emerging into very scummy weather. The waterfall at the bottom was very impressive.

surprisingly efficient and competent considering we had the wrong ropes and no rigging guide (we had packed for another cave). All in all a frighteningly civilised trip, nice and sunny then pub garden afterwards. A dream.

It's taken me three years to find out the Wheatsheaf has a beer garden!!?! Ah well, better late than never I suppose... Oh yes, Rowten, err... same as ever really, just with more foot jammers and considerably more LandRovers.

This was more of an exploration trip to see what interest the moors offer. Small but it was nice to see almost totaly unseen formations. Ade was going mad with flash guns and bulbs, almost blinding everyone but hopefully the pictures will be worth it. I was dieing of hay-fever at this point which spoilt the day a bit, but a good and very intesting trip non-the-less. With any luck we should be able to get more permits for the... read more

Apart from twisting my ankle on the way up the hill and being nakered before I even got in the entrance, this was a really good trip. The first section was bloody hard going with lots of tight winding passage. Then came the duck... great fun! Gover and Andy were very unsure about the duck but I couldn't see what the fuss was about! Depends if you like the water or not I suppose. An all, round good trip but... read more

I believe this cave is listed as grade IV and is definately worthy of it. I think the only reason Gover and I made it through the duck was the knowledge that the Hobbster had done it a few years back (although reportedly with much swearing and whinging)! Once through the duck I was totally psyched- rock on. I've heard people say that the further reaches of disappointment are bland and this simply is'nt true. This is a top cave... read more

Much faff was involved, particularly because i'd just bought a new safety link and cows tails. Then we got underground and found the route already rigged. 2 pitches down we came across the school party responsible exiting...school party in an SRT cave - what's going on? Much sitting at the top of that pitch before the group behind us went past as they (wrongly) thought they could free climb the next pitch. So we sacked it off and spent further... read more

This is a cave I've wanted to do for ages and never had the chance till today. A great trip in a great and classic Yorkshire cave. It was a lot shorter than I expected but still a great deal of fun. We had to wait for a while at the top as two other guys had just beaten us to the entrance, never mind, it was a nice sunny day! Ade and I went off exploring Roweten Cave while... read more

Christian derigged for his first time, and he did the high traverse! He is insane! Also I think this was the Rowten with the "blue bastard", long may it rest in the land of broken tacklesacks! Dom

Hangover: bad. Cave: good. Curry: fantastic.

Steve forgot his undersuit and caved in jeans!

Gover was also on this trip... At last, we made it all the way round!!! Fantastic/knackered. Could have done with a ghetto blaster. I slid down a rope which I coldn't climb up. I am a lemming.