JB
Member
I haven't done much in Yorkshire but some people on here (Paul and Tubby Two I think) had recommended Ireby Fell as a good Dales trip.
From the parking, the description said walk up the track for 500 metres to a stile. Thought I'd time the walk – should see the stile in about 7 and a half minutes. Timing can be very accurate method of navigation but does rely on you walking down the right track. You walk up the rocky track - not along the green lane. Returned to car where mate pronounced that perhaps the wetsuit was overkill and spent ten minutes trying to extract his sorry ass from same.
Which was lucky cos it's a right walk to the entrance. We slid down the entrance tube and sketched our way down to the head of Ding pitch. This and Dong pitch got rigged with one rope and we landed in a nice aven. Follow the passage down to Bell pitch. From there headed down the fixed rope on Pussy pitch, bit of crawling and into winding canyon passage. Well pitch followed which is in two bits and quite nice really then it's down through some walking/stooping stuff to Duke Street. Amazing place this. You've been through lots of different types of cave at this point and then it opens up into a huge motorway type thing. Really spectacular and I'm sure if you like your geology it's not to be missed. Finally reached the sump at the end.
Sitting having some food near the end of the cave we tried to guess how far we'd come horizontally. I always find it hard to estimate in a cave. I thought maybe a kilometre. The guidebook says the cave is 4.6 km long so not sure where the other passage is. Surely we hadn't walked that far?
Return was uneventful apart from mate removing his jammer from his SRT bag to find it in a sort of gordian knot with a krab. The krab and jammer were totally stuck so we were one jammer down. Extraction will require introducing the krab to Mr angle grinder. Wierd! The mini-traxion saved the day and saw us out.
Took about 4 and a half hours in total. Really good, varied trip.
From the parking, the description said walk up the track for 500 metres to a stile. Thought I'd time the walk – should see the stile in about 7 and a half minutes. Timing can be very accurate method of navigation but does rely on you walking down the right track. You walk up the rocky track - not along the green lane. Returned to car where mate pronounced that perhaps the wetsuit was overkill and spent ten minutes trying to extract his sorry ass from same.
Which was lucky cos it's a right walk to the entrance. We slid down the entrance tube and sketched our way down to the head of Ding pitch. This and Dong pitch got rigged with one rope and we landed in a nice aven. Follow the passage down to Bell pitch. From there headed down the fixed rope on Pussy pitch, bit of crawling and into winding canyon passage. Well pitch followed which is in two bits and quite nice really then it's down through some walking/stooping stuff to Duke Street. Amazing place this. You've been through lots of different types of cave at this point and then it opens up into a huge motorway type thing. Really spectacular and I'm sure if you like your geology it's not to be missed. Finally reached the sump at the end.
Sitting having some food near the end of the cave we tried to guess how far we'd come horizontally. I always find it hard to estimate in a cave. I thought maybe a kilometre. The guidebook says the cave is 4.6 km long so not sure where the other passage is. Surely we hadn't walked that far?
Return was uneventful apart from mate removing his jammer from his SRT bag to find it in a sort of gordian knot with a krab. The krab and jammer were totally stuck so we were one jammer down. Extraction will require introducing the krab to Mr angle grinder. Wierd! The mini-traxion saved the day and saw us out.
Took about 4 and a half hours in total. Really good, varied trip.
