Calf Holes to Browgill

Sunday October 11th 2015

Members present: Aaron Clarke,  Adam Hughes,  Adrian Turner,  Alfie Mayhew,  Andras Peter,  Chuck Holder,  David Willis,  Evan Cooper,  Evgeny Gluzman,  Ezephy Lea,  Fujun Wang,  Gajani Sriragavan,  Jayna Bains,  Jordan Pears,  Laura Vaccarieva,  Philip Drew,  Stefan Petrycki

So once again the York University Cake and Pudding Club met to take a band of freshers into the subterranean world of the Yorkshire Dales. The team met at the new gear store at 9 to distibute items of safety to the newbies and then proceeded through the hordes of runners who'd gathered for some marathon or other. Onwards to the dales!

Breakfast was sought in Inglesport, and soon we were heading to the darkness underground.

Arrival on the fell saw us begin the change in overcast skys, a sense of excitement was in the air, or was it trepidation? Ade and Chuck headed off to rig the entrance ladder, soon to be followed by the rest. Let faff commence. We arrived at the entrance to find Newcastle heading down and a family of four coming up, some time passed while we waited for the entrance to clear. Soon enough Ade had placed the ladder and our freshers began decending one by one.

Chuck, Evan and I took a group of 5 upstream whilst the rest continued down the ladder. The upstream section is much as I remember, a mix of stooping and crawling to reach the chamber at the end with a few formations along the way. Soon we were back to the entrance where the last few were reaching the bottom. And so we continued downstream, negotiating the passages, crawls and climbs till we met daylight again at Browgill entrance. Over the fell we walked to return to Calf Holes to derig the ladder. Someone had left a harness attached to the bottom of said ladder - ohh how we hoped that nonone would reappear to reclimb the ladder....

Most seemed content with the caving so we decided to continue our exploration in Old Ing. Sadly it seemed the Gods of caving had removed it's location from Chucks mind so some stomping accross the fell was required before this passage could be explored. Some were now too cold and so wanted to return to the cars to change, sadly Chuck and co had dissapeared into the cave before this could be communicated, so a run underground was commenced to catch up.

Soon all were back on the surface and returned to the cars. The change was rapid and soon we were off to fill our faces with the compulsory Bodrums.