Rift Pot (Allotment) YRC and Bob Hole Route

Sunday November 2nd 2025

Members present: Antje White,  Flynn Robertson,  Joshua Young,  Will Barlow

It all started with a message from Flynn in the group chat the previous Tuesday, asking for interest in a trip on Sunday. After a little bit of deliberation we settled on Rift Pot, a suitable choice for the day's forecast. Rigging both routes down seemed like a fun idea, the YRC and Bob Hole route. A mini-exchange. Some rope packing the day before, and a 9am start began the day.

Meeting Josh at Inglesport, he’d informed me of his keen interest in navigation. And would be delighted to navigate us across the easy to get lost in allotment. After breakfast, we set off for Crummack Lane, got changed and headed off. Josh got us straight there in practically no time, allowing me to promptly begin rigging. Now, the topo shows 3 sets of y-hangs belaying the entrance pitch. However, seemingly not all of those anchors are CNCC. I rigged a massive y-hang from two IC anchors on opposite sides of the rift, backed up by an additional IC anchor further back. Descending this, I was expecting to find two anchors for a rebelay, which I did find, however again they did not appear to be CNCC. So rather than rebelaying, I rigged a deviation from the one on the left wall (left as you approach the pitch head), which the description does suggest as an alternative. This created a hang which was fine for about 2/3rds of the descent, but was a bit close to the wall for the final part, though did not rub significantly.

The topo has the 2nd and 3rd pitches (anchors 7-13) as two separate ropes, however the description warns that you should stay on rope between them. We used a 17m rope, in place of the 15m, and staying on that rope was only just possible. I’m not entirely sure why the topo doesn’t have this as a single rope. The next bit (anchors 11-13) is shown as a descent with a deviation on the topo, however the description calls it a rebelay. I chose to rig it as a rebelay, as a deviation would have a significant amount of rub. However, the rope length given is seemingly expecting a deviation, as we were using a 13m (instead of a 10m), and the rope did not reach anchor 14. We had to borrow a bit of the YRC route rope to tie to the end of this rope to avoid descending from just a single knot in a single anchor.

This is where we split. Flynn and I rigged Bob Hole, Antje and Josh rigged the YRC route. Bob Hole route was quite nice and presented no rigging issues, we chose the option with all the rebelays. The very bottom of the pitch is quite spectacular, and was quite exciting due to the spray. We met up at the bottom, and observed that the rope length chosen for the YRC route was pretty perfect, with only a few metres spare. Which made sense since Josh admitted he’d rigged quite conservatively. However, I quickly realised that that rope was 10m longer than recommended. I’d packed the 80m to do both ropes on the topo (25m + 45m). This confirmed a suspicion from Paulina that the rope lengths on the topo are quite short.

Once cave snacks had been eaten, we began our journey out. Exiting via the YRC route was quite enjoyable. Though it is worth restating the warnings that it is a bit loose in places, so a bit of care was required. We met up again on the balcony where the two routes split, then headed out. Some more expert navigation from Josh got us back to the car in reasonable time, despite the fact we got very distracted by a slug climbing a blade of grass.

Overall a nice wet weather trip, with a spectacular final pitch (particularly so on the Bob Hole route). Though bring a fair bit more rope than you think for the 2nd and 3rd pitch, and the YRC route.