Penyghent Pot - 13th Mar 2010
Saturday March 13th 2010
Members present: Chad B, George Bunyan, Marcus Roby, Marion Holloway, Steven Spall
Report by Chad B
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 very cold cave and waiting at the bottom of the pitches is actually quite energy sapping. For future reference, I’d say that if the third pitch at the p-hangered Y-hang has water flowing past them one should probably not continue – which is the advice given on the Braemoor and selected cave descriptions, which for us was not flowing on the way in but was on the way out!
My plan was to get to the bottom of the cave by using all 11 pitches, my alarm went off at 5.30 am, and I was quickly ready and decided to get to the container early to start organising the ropes to get this show on the road. I arrived at the container at 6.30 am half an hour earlier than the 7 am meeting time. Got out all the ropes required into the three tacklsacks, the others soon appeared and we were on our way at about 7.30 am.
After a diversion to the Dales, Bernies, finding out where we could park, meeting a guy from Starless river, changing and finding the cave time had flown by top to about 1ish. Directions to the cave is to follow the footpath to Pen-y-ghent (which we didn’t do originally) then at the third fence turn left through and old red gate and the cave is to the right of the adjoining wall from the next field.
I was soon down the entrance which was a 5 m free climb aided by scaffold followed by Maz, Marcus, Steven and George, from here a short crawl leads to a short drop into the stream way. It was then a 15 minute crawl along Pilgrim’s way (the canal), never mind ‘Pen-y-ghent knees’, I was getting ‘Pen-y-ghent hands’, I was wishing I was wearing both my wetsuit and gloves at this point. It was also just my luck for the tacklsack to get stuck at the flat out section.
We were soon at the Twin Falls pitch, where you descend in between two waterfalls, this is rigged a traverse to a Y-hang off a P-hanger and an insitu iron bar. If you are careful on your descent you can avoid getting wet and avoid landing in the thigh deep pool. From here was an annoying stooping height passage, where someone has jokingly called ‘Easy Passage’, after a deep pool of water we were at the Second Pitch. The second pitch is once again a traverse with a single p-hanger quite a distance out on the right hand side of the ledge. This was a little difficult to reach from the ledge so I had to use some of the barely existent footholds. Once rigged, I put my cowstails on the traverse, rigged my rack and hand jammer and slowly lowered myself over the pitch. Other than Maz, this didn’t seem to be the method that the others had chosen and it was a little uncomfortable seeing people swinging out so much over the pitch head – use the traverse line!
Onwards to the Third and Fourth Pitches which involved a short drop down a narrow rift followed by a flat out crawl to the top of the pitch. I had completely missed the p-hanger which Maz spotted and came back and started a traverse from it. The pitch head is a Y-hang off two P-hangers, at this point there was no water coming down this part, the main water fall is around the corner to the right hand side. A ledge at the bottom of the third pitch leads directly to the fourth pitch, a carefully balanced Y-hang is required because from here you go straight to the bottom past a ledge 11 m down. At the bottom to the right hand side the water fall can be seen, this is a very cold and draughty place to have to wait.
Going past the chamber with the waterfall is a huge block on the left hand side, beyond which the Pen-y-ghent rift starts. Traversing to the top leads to the fifth pitch which is belayed off a jammed block – for anyone unsure that this is the correct place to be, it actually has some old tat around the block. The NFTFH description describes a further jammed block to rig a rebelay, however there is a spit on the far right hand wall to rig a rebelay off. It should be noted that when rigging this that one should not over tighten the bolt and expect the hanger to freely twist.
Onwards to the Coffin Pitch involves going past a cascade to your left, staying high you continue traversing until there is a sensible point to drop into the streamway, once again the tacklesack got a bit stuck at this point. Coffin pitch itself is a little awkward, it’s rigged of a natural at the top, followed by a rebelay to the left hand side off another natural, rope rub on the return seemed unavoidable, so careful prussicing is required. It was also at this point where the Grade V aspect of the cave was really kicking in.
While the others came down, Maz and I traversed ahead to the top of Flake Pitch. Maz found the traverse difficult but persevered none the less which was pleasing to see. Rigging Flake pitch itself was rather sketchy, simply involving rigging a loop around a flake and then straight down. I communicated to the rest of the team that everyone had to make sure that the loop was sitting correctly when going past it.
Below Flake pitch, you immediately get to the Eighth Pitch, I had a bit of indecision of where I should have been rigging from, either there was a large flake but would have to go through a water fall or traverse over and rig off a jammed block. The traverse over itself was pretty exposed. At this point I called George over to discuss the rigging options; we went for the waterfall option. It was at this point where Maz didn’t fancy going on any further, can’t blame her really because this was certainly getting more difficult. The pace had been quite slow, it had taken five hours to get to this point, and I was pretty cold waiting at the bottom of the pitches for everyone. George agreed to take Maz out and I thought it best for Steven to go as well. Having done a fair few Grade V caves now I knew that things were going to get more difficult, as they did.
Marcus and I continued and we got pretty wet after descending the eighth pitch, from here we reached a drop back into the stream. We wondered whether this was the short drop to Pool Chamber as described by the description, it looked rather intimidating. Not being sure we traversed over and then climbed up to a ledge, we found one spit and thought that we must have been standing over pool chamber, so that meant that we should have gone down the slot that we bypassed.
So back to the drop we went and reached Pool Chamber, carrying on leads to Boulder Chamber where the way on a short climb down beyond a large boulder on the far side of the chamber. This leads to Myers Leap Pitch, where you traverse into a pool of water and then rig a Y-hang off two spits over the pitch. The spits I used looked very new, but they were the furthest out from the ledge. The closer ones looked unusable.
The passage that leads on from here has to be taken very carefully because it could be a bit of an ankle breaker, there is plenty of room and is a really nice passage. It is a really cold part of the cave, expect to get wet as there are many unexpected deep pools. There are plenty of side passages which one could explore; apparently these are to an inactive Hunt Pot inlet. This passage ends with the Tenth pitch, again rigged off naturals; one can keep out of the waterfall by staying left.
The Tenth pitch lands in quite a large chamber where on the far side is the Eleventh and final pitch Niagara. This was rigged tightly off a natural spike on the right and a dodgy looking hanger on the left wall. The descent is rather wet as you go directly into the Niagra waterfall. What follows from here is another ankle breaking passage which goes into a huge chamber and beyond this to the terminal sump – a rather uninspiring sump. After stopping back in the big chamber for food and drink it was off out.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as cold in my life as I was coming out of this cave. Prussicing back up Niagara was pretty evil stuff. Then getting back up the rift just after Pool Chamber provided quite a test, the walls were like glass. Without footholds it was simply a case of wedging in and using all your strength to get back up. Both Marcus and I found this pretty difficult, probably the most difficult free climb I’ve ever done. I’d imagine that tall people would have no issues.
The most difficult and painful part of the cave was getting up the Eighth pitch, which seemed to be flowing faster that I remember it. Prussicing up over a torrent of water was torture. Getting off the pitch while freezing and carrying a tacklsack was the most difficult thing I think I’ve ever done. Marcus found it equally hard. There is no way that a few months caving experience is enough to be prepared for this bottom section, being in a situation of having to help others here could have proved nasty.
Beyond here things were a little easier, although getting off the Flake Pitch head again was difficult. There was clearly more water now as evident by the cascade of water coming down the third pitch, having coming out of Notts Pot once as it was flooding I managed to keep a level head. I suspect the warmer temperatures had resulted in additional snow melt, as there was no rain forecast.
Beyond the third pitch, things got a little more difficult for me, because for the second week running I was carrying two tacklsacks out of the cave – all good practise though. It was just typical therefore that back in the canal that the cord on one of the tacklsacks snapped. Having to do emergency repairs when you have no feeling in your hands was pretty difficult.
It was nice to be out I have to admit, I was completely shattered but was so happy about making it to the bottom. Good job Marcus for de-rigging and Maz and Steven who I think did a fantastic job of getting as far as they did. It was rather nice to be made tea by the guys at Bradford Pothole Club, if I had know that they were there I would have probably preferred to stay over, driving back and not getting to bed till 4.30 am after been up for 23 hours was pretty grim going I have to say. Quite interesting meeting a guy in Bernies who had done some caving!
I’d be well up for giving the Friday the Thirteenth extensions a go sometime – but I think it would have to be when the water levels were considerably lower than they were on this occasion.
