paul
Moderator
For what it's worth, I usually have a very small tackle bag made by Meander about 20cm high which can be clipped to my belt. I carry a spare light (Petzl Tikka plus spare batteries, but I also have a more available spare light permanently attached to my helmet), whistle, small penknife and also the car keys in a Nalgene bottle which fits into this bag. I also have a fleece balaclava and Petzl Traxion, Petzl Fixe pulley and spare krab in the same small bag (you may not need these right now but the balaclava could certainly be useful. Usually a couple of Mars bars or the like as well.
I have a very small, when packed, "exposure" bag (a large plastic bag which could be useful in preventing hypothermia) which I keep taped inside my helmet.
I have a very small, when packed, "exposure" bag (a large plastic bag which could be useful in preventing hypothermia) which I keep taped inside my helmet.
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rob_
Guest
kay said:
approximately how far beyond the Y junction do we have to go before we get to the hole in the roof?
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rob_
Guest
and does it matter that its been raining lately?
kay
Well-known member
rob_ said:
Read what others have said about tackle bags, and look at having waterproof items rather than a waterproof container. If your spare light is going to be any use in a wet cave, it needs to be waterproof, or at least water resistant, so it can be in a tackle bag not a waterproof container. Choccy bars which come in a foil rather than paper wrapping are waterproof - they may have changed shape by the time you come to eat them but will still be edible. Fruit juice cartons have a plastic lining - they can get battered into a ball shape before they leak.
Have a good breakfast before you go (Bernies or Inglesport) then for caves like Great Douk you probably won't need to eat on the trip - the food is there in case anything goes wrong.
kay
Well-known member
rob_ said:
I haven't a clue! If you get to the end you've gone too far, but it's more than half way. Once you're down on elbows an knees, just keep looking up at the ceiling. It's not a tiny hole (you don't have to squeeze through it) and I (5ft 4inches) can stand up in it, with the floor of the continuation passage being about waist height for me. It's not hard to find once you know what you're looking for.
Yes, it always matters that it's been raining recently, but how much it matters depends on the cave. Great Douk is basically downhill all the way to the entrance, so if it's too wet you'll know pretty quickly. Always err on the side of caution, and take local advice on the day (eg Inglesport). I'm just back from a week in Greece, so haven't a clue what it's like in the Dales at the moment.
langcliffe
Well-known member
rob_ said:
If I remember correctly, it's about 20 metres. You can't really progress more than a couple of metres beyond the hole in the roof which is on the left-hand side. Some of the passage between the junction and the exit is flat-out in a little water, but never tight.
antmcc
Member
I thinks it's more than 20 metres, but not a long way perhaps up to 40m, or is that just because it always feels worse when you're crawling in water... :thumbsdown:
As langcliffe says there's a couple of points where calcite formed on joint lines in the roof force flat out crawling in the water, but most of it (for me) is not quite high enough for hands and knees, but too high for flat out. The floor gets covered in small stones the nearer you get to the hole in the roof, particularly on the right.
When you go up the hole follow the higher level passage (left from your original direction of travel) to a small chamber, then take the left hand way with either a rift exit to the right or continue straight ahead to an easier exit. I beleive there's supposed to be a way out of the small chamber following the right hand way, but I've never tried so I don't know if there is
As langcliffe says there's a couple of points where calcite formed on joint lines in the roof force flat out crawling in the water, but most of it (for me) is not quite high enough for hands and knees, but too high for flat out. The floor gets covered in small stones the nearer you get to the hole in the roof, particularly on the right.
When you go up the hole follow the higher level passage (left from your original direction of travel) to a small chamber, then take the left hand way with either a rift exit to the right or continue straight ahead to an easier exit. I beleive there's supposed to be a way out of the small chamber following the right hand way, but I've never tried so I don't know if there is
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rob_
Guest
tried again yesterday, but unfortunately i am mildly claustrophobic and it was too low for my liking so we came back
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rob_
Guest
Lidl are doing wetsuits!
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rob_
Guest
One of the reasons I didn’t want to continue is because the waders would have been useless when crawling on your belly in freezing cold water.
Well Lidl has provided me with a solution
We’ve bought a Pegaso full length wetsuit each from Lidl for £25. Mine’s a “medium/large” and I would say I’m an average 5’11” guy.
Wetsuit questions.
1. Do you wear them nekid?
2. Is there a best way of getting them on and off? When it’s finally on after a lot of pulling it’s a snug fit but not uncomfortable, it looks tight and loose in the same places as the guy on the box. It comes off relatively easily if you just pull it off turning it inside out in the process but I don’t think I could take it off and it remain inside in.
3. How do you dry them?
Socks? Now we’re going to be without our waders so our footsies will be getting mighty cold. Do you lot wear wetsuit socks? And would you recommend them?
Anything else you want to add would be great as I know nothing.
PS. No this isn’t a windup
Well Lidl has provided me with a solution
We’ve bought a Pegaso full length wetsuit each from Lidl for £25. Mine’s a “medium/large” and I would say I’m an average 5’11” guy.
Wetsuit questions.
1. Do you wear them nekid?
2. Is there a best way of getting them on and off? When it’s finally on after a lot of pulling it’s a snug fit but not uncomfortable, it looks tight and loose in the same places as the guy on the box. It comes off relatively easily if you just pull it off turning it inside out in the process but I don’t think I could take it off and it remain inside in.
3. How do you dry them?
Socks? Now we’re going to be without our waders so our footsies will be getting mighty cold. Do you lot wear wetsuit socks? And would you recommend them?
Anything else you want to add would be great as I know nothing.
PS. No this isn’t a windup
Peter Burgess
New member
I usuall wear a pair of gruns to stop the bits chaffing.
kay
Well-known member
rob_ said:
And the rest of us do Great Douk in a furry suit.
(It's what passes as a 'dry' cave in Yorkshire )Wet socks are good, even with a furry. I got wet socks long before I got my neofleece (sort of shortie wetsuit with fleece arms and legs)
I was thinking of you the other day (we were wandering around up there looking at the rather special early spring flowers). You could try poking around from the other end. If you're standing on the path, to the back left of the Middle Washfold pavement is the 'wet' entrance where the obvious stream goes underground. I've not been down it, and it apparently chokes before the junction with Great Douk. At the other end of the pavement there is another stream, and you can follow that down a daylight rift, and that passage goes via a bedding plane crawl into the chamber before the passage to the hole in the floor which drops into Great Douk.
The usual entrance is at the back of the pavement towards the left - an 18 inch wide rift which you can drop into and which develops into a winding passage which leads into a small chamber. Way on is more or less opposite you,slightly to the right - duck under into another short crawling passage which leads to a hole in the floor (the hole in the ceiling from the other side). If you do it that way round, you know it's going to get steadily better.
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rob_
Guest
kay said:
I've no idea what you’re talking about but that’s probably because I don’t know WHERE you're talking about, but you're making me worried about getting lost now! How likely is that? There seem to be lots of passages in great douk.
What’s a bedding plane crawl?
kay
Well-known member
rob_ said:
Not at all
Just get in there and start exploring and have fun!
Remember, you can always go back out the way you came in. (It's worth looking back every now and again, so you know what the cave looks like in both directions). Finding the way on can be a problem in some Yorkshire caves; getting lost rarely is.
Another fun thing to do is look for a passage just on your left after you've climbed up the waterfall at the Great Douk end - it leads to a sump, but more interestingly it leads to a 'window' in the cliff where you can look down on the shakehole.
Limestone is a sedimentary rock - it was originally layers of sediment at the bottom of the sea. The layers are called bedding planes, and vertical cracks in the layers are joints. Acid water seeps into the joints and the gaps between bedding planes and enalrges them to make caves. A bedding plane crawl is where the gap between two bedding planes has been enlarged, but not much - in practical terms, it is a wide low passage between two horizontal slabs of limestone.
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rob_
Guest
kay said:
done that, i walked along a little ridge over the waterfall and then down the grass back to the entrance
