Trips & Reports 2006

Quality trip... lots of string and rebelays. Arrived at the container to realise no-one had a key, and so it was time to do a grand tour of York, waking various cavers to find a key. Luckily, second attempt proved fruitful (sorry for breaking in, Dom!) Due tothis and various other reasons, didnt get to the cave head 'til 2, at which point I realised we had no official call out. Pete assured me that Bridget knew where we were,... read more

A not overly-difficult SRT trip, with lots of string and one relatively short crawl in the middle, though the pitches are quite long with lots of rebelays and deviations and hence not suitable for beginners. The constant worrying of people that doing anything but a bone dry cave if it has rained within the past month proved unfounded, I put in the deviations on the last pitch but it really wasn't very wet at all. Though I really musn't forget... read more

Quality trip... once we found the entrance. First bit of scrot for me,crawling through tight muddy spaces. A little worrying to find foam on the roof of the lower passages... Got a little lost on the way back, but found anamazing chamber with the ceiling covered in pencil sized stalactites. Peter's insane light came in handy illuminating that! My first bit of cave rigging (A bowline and stopper at the top of the second pitch), and the first cave I've derigged... read more

Somehow the cave finding strategy of "walk up Easegill valley and go down the first entrance you see with a lid on it" worked. We had been underground 10 minutes by the time I was convinced that we were actually in the right cave, but Chuck was convinced we had got the right one within about 30 seconds as it matched the description so closely - it was "tall and winding". A fairly efficient trip followed until the very last line... read more

What a jolly jape! :) After lots of faffing about about who was in which car, where everyone's gear was going, a trip to Hitch and Hike to take lights back and a quick look at gear, and finally we ended up at Edale station. We looked longingly at the pub as we walked past but carried on. Headed up the path along the side of a stream. The wind was stupidly gusty and strong. Being buffeted by the wind caused lots... read more

We realised we were in the wrong cave after we got down the entrance shaft and it didn't even slightly match the description! Never mind - on we went into the unknown haveing no idea where we were or what was round the next corner. Quite an interesting little cave really, lots of scrotty crawling and LOTS of mud. We were determined that there must be a second entrance (we later found out that was ture) and spent some time... read more

It gets a faff factor of 5 for us going down the wrong cave. But a great find. Layby pot is more reminiscent of Moors caving. A very scrotty crawly cave, involving lots of mud and continuous crawling on belly with elbows. Navigationally, not too hard. At the bottom of the entrance ladder (CARE... keep away from the bottom while people are ascending/descending) there is an obvious way on (the correct way) and a narrow... read more

The only good thing about this muddy pit was the exit. Which was fun. But stank. Oh - and I got to dance infront of walkers in my babygrow/trainers combo.

MUD!!!! And proper brown smelly mud, not the soft clay stuff!!!

I've wanted to go to Lancaster to try out photography for ages and finally got a chance. We didn’t' have as much time as I would have liked but got some great shots of the colonnades and the graveyard series. Took ages to get down the entrance as there were already 3 other ropes there and the main y-hang was a crazy collection of knots! I eventually rigged a different router on the other side of the chamber. It’s worth... read more

I loved the mud!

This was pretty good… After leaving the the bunk house we hit our first problem. The Station Inn was still shut and we hadn't planned a proper route. Nevermind, we would just walk to the Hill Inn and think about it there. So off we marched into the cold mist, being splattered by light spots of rain. Within an hour we arrived at the pub, but to find it too was shut. Nevermind, further down the road was White Scar,... read more

Possibly the most efficient Rowten trip ever (well team 1 was anyway)! We were in and out in less than 3 hours, all the way to the bottom. Admittedly we weren't de-rigging but even so, a super fast trip. Plenty of time to sit in Bernies for tea and cake! Not as much water down the man pitch as I would have expected considering the recent wet weather, although none of us fancied getting passed the waterfall at the bottom!

really fun trip, rope rope rope which was a change from the summer and the few trips ive done this term. Everyone told me its definitely a good trip and i'm inclined to agree!! middle pitch in the middle of the chamber pretty cool, looking at the waterfall, and the traverses not actually that scary - hurrah!!

We may not have got to the bottom due to the huge amount of water going down but this was still fun, even despite my inclination to make spaghetti out of the rope on the y hang. The waterfall was very impressive (standing at the bottom of the pitch looking up was awe inspiring, I think not having a roof made it less fun than a cave though) but the day was cold and damp and the change was more... read more

A bit of a disaster. Descent of the entrance was fine. The way on is down a nasty scrotty chute at the far end of the entrance. I went down (an in-situ handline provides assistance for the upward trip). Neil attempted to come down but got injured in a nasty place. John then came down, by which time we decided Neil could not go on. I climbed out, had to drag John out, and the we... read more

Quite an efficient trip (for a change!). Already two groups of three down the cave when we got there and so sat about on surface in the gorge which had become a wind tunnel. Had a quick look at Goblin Route and saw shed loads of water going down it. Three blokes from Red Rose came out quite soon and Ollie rigged the entrance. We met the other group of three (some rope-access group on a day out) coming up the... read more

Wet! I don't think I can remember seeing sooooo much water in the dales. Sat at the bottom of jingling it sounded like there was a waterfall coming down it, and far from being bone dry as normal, it was positively damp! Inglebrough looked really cool with snow on it, but I doubt the summit came out of the cloud all day. Hail not fun either!

Note to self... make sure to double check the size of oversuit borrowed from stores before setting out. Hail + Suit that barely covers knees or elbows == aggravating. Great cave: tight bits and pretty dry throughout. Dead sheeps at the bottom. Went down the bit that's been dug to try and reach aquamole at the bottom, reached the bottom and shouted up that it was tiny down here, but was quickly joined by both Ade... read more

Crazy amount of water going down Bell pitch. When it got over my head we thought it best to sack off the cave and go for cake. We'd already met another group on the way out who'd said it was too wet to continue. Never mind though, it was some good SRT practice for the freshers at least and everyone seemed to enjoy the bit we did.

Nothing much to add to the other report: but gave it quite a good fun rating simply for standing in the wet singing some nice fun songs with Max & Charlie: this is what caving should be about: none of this hard work or "exercise" (:o) stuff, just a happy joy joy sing-a-long! :) (Ed: 7/3/07. I think I was high when I wrote this as it sounds crazy reading it back to myself. Sorry all)

Hey! we only got back from the trip an hour ago! You computer geeks are all a bit keen for my liking! Note for future P8 trips - this cave has a lot more water in it in November than in say August when I am sure I didn't get wet at all. This time we ALL got very wet :)

Pretty uneventful trip down the dry route. There were a couple of other groups down there - one behind us (MUSC, including Debs Last) and one in front - but we didn't spend too much time waiting behind people and the pitches were relatively warm and dry places to wait anyway. Went down the streamway for a bit but didn't bother trying to go right to the end as the water level was relatively high. We turned round when the... read more

Spent perhaps 15-20 minutes finding where we were supposed to park and a further 55 minutes of wandering around to actually find the cave. We ended up asking another group of cavers for directions, though we were about to go and look in the right place anyway. Pretty busy down the cave, rather a lot of waiting around near waterfalls, even more so with 4 beginners. It's not too hard as a beginners cave, but we should probably limit future learning-SRT... read more

A cave of contrasts... The entrance and route to the first pitch look like a tourist cave with all the work that's been done, while the meandering streamway a few pitches in(I lost count) is so organic I thought I was in the intestine of some massive petrified beast. Found all sorts of stuff at the bottom of the pitches, from abandoned metalwork to a wetsuit. Very random. Having gotten down all of the six pitches with... read more

We had fireworks after! scares the ducks on campus, hehe :)

Ah Cambridge! All I can say is I wish everybody knew how to do everything perfectly just like them. So we sat and waited while those permit-carrying bastards played around in their perfectly formed '3 teams of 4- like it's supposed to be' while I tormented the rest of the team by singing disney songs for 2 hours. 2 HOURS! You know how BAD disney songs get after two hours? Oh sure there are a couple of good, even great ones... read more

Giants Hole is a fun cave, but the name is deceptive and missleading. As the only giant in the caving club I can conclusively say this cave is not optimised for the larger end of the population. Generally its an interesting maze like rift that tends towards tightness, opening into a large cave with a bit of everything every caver needs, mud, water, climbing and in the case of the wind-pipe a little bit of fear (in my case the worry was... read more

A lovely cave to be small in.

Not a bad trip. Took us while, however. Almost 5 hours. Had some minor Nav issues after the crabwalk. Was plain sailing after that.

i had well a good time today - back on the old srt lol. Felt good to abseil again hurrah! (but do i miss prussicking, hmm no!) Rigged which was exciting. Spent lots of fun trying to avoid the waterfalls, although peter did make a good dam, and theres some cool pretty things in there too, red iron oxide etc. yay!

We thought this was the entrance to Old Ing Cave (to the left of the track, on the way to where Old Ing actually resides...). It comprises a tight bedding plane entrance (several spiders' webs accross the entrance!) in a 5 ft deep shakehole. After a couple of metres it opens out into a low crawl with a few inches of water in it. After about 6 meters, I reached a constricted pitch head. It was quite difficult to see the... read more