Meregill Hole - 13th Sep 2009

Sunday September 13th 2009

Members present: Ellie Jones,  Max Spicer,  Steve Gilbert

Not really a YUCPC trip, as we didn't use a single item of YUCPC gear.

We went in via the Mere entrance as it was a dry day following a lot of dry weather (this entrance is usually sumped). Finding the entrance took a while, as we hadn't twigged that you start off going upstream. We spent quite a while looking for the other entrance, but couldn't find it. After rigging the Mere entrance, Steve went for a nice 'refreshing' swim across the lake at the bottom in order to look for the way on. Finally we realised it was the obvious hole immediately by the pitch, and the trip began. Ellie and I were rather relieved, as the swim did not look pleasant!

A really good SRT trip, with some rather bonkers traverses and a great canyon section, where you can look down and see the others on some distant part of the rope. We went down to the end of the final pitch, then went through the streamway at the bottom as far as the main drain before turning back. The trip out was pretty efficient and we arrived outside just in time to see a pretty sunset, showing Ingleborough off well.

On the way back, we immediately found the alterative Aven entrance to the cave. It's easy once you know to look upstream! It turns out that Selected Caves describes exactly how to find it. - maybe we should read it properly beforehand. ;-)

NOT a wet weather trip!