Wormy
New member
Last winter my freind Chalky and I decided to have a wander up to Harnishaburn pot to have a poke about and maybe have a look in some mines as well. However the weather being slightly worse than inclement (as it always seems to be in Weardale) the mines were out of the question, as Harnishaburn regularly floods, so we decided to mooch around the stream around the pot.
In the cave guides the entry for Harnishaburn pot mentions two inpenetrable sinks just downstream, nothing more is said, and in this case they werent thought about any more apart from me casually suggesting we have a look back in the summer.
Roll on a couple of months and Chalky messages me, he had taken his kids for a walk up Harnishaburn and noticed the sinks were now dry and access could be made, he didnt try not having any gear and the kids with him. So a few days later I took it upon myself to go back and have a poke about.
The sink is tight, and there were a lot of cobbles and general Debris washed into it (including an errant car tyre) but after about 20 minutes of chucking rocks about there was enough space for me to squeeze in on my side. The entrance opens after a couple of meters into a nice waterworn rift, and then I noticed the surprise, about 4.5 to 5 meters in there was just a vast black hole in front of me. I squeezed in until i could sit up and realised there was a fairly substantial pitch in front of me but again progress would (at this point) have to stop as I was by myself. However, the next day we returned in numbers and whilst the others debated rigging ropes etc I climbed down into the pitch.
Thats not me BTW.
It is a fairly substantial hole with beautifully water scultped walls, and much to my delight, a nice tunnel leading off in a South Easterly direction.
Turns out that the pitch is 5.9 meters in height but reaches approximately the same height up from the entrance tube, it also appears to go straight down as well although there is a solid gravel floor in it. The tube that cuts off from it extends straight for 16.2 meters with a slight climb at the top, it then narrows too tight but can be seen getting bigger again after about 1.5 meters, it could possiby be made bigger.
There is also a left hand turn part way down the main tube which leads off to a nice zig-zagging squeeze which eventually ends in a small aven and drops into tube partially full of water, again there is the possibility of this continueing at a later date as the bedding is gravel and can quite easily be dug out.
So there we have it, and in the couple of weeks since getting into this we have found another 6 caves in the same valley, on top of the 4 originally listed in the guides. Apparently Moldywarps dicovered one of them a while back but there are plenty more just waiting to be poked into. And as it was Chalky who first identified this as a viable option for exploration he has the dubious honour of having Chalkys Pot named after him.
In the cave guides the entry for Harnishaburn pot mentions two inpenetrable sinks just downstream, nothing more is said, and in this case they werent thought about any more apart from me casually suggesting we have a look back in the summer.
Roll on a couple of months and Chalky messages me, he had taken his kids for a walk up Harnishaburn and noticed the sinks were now dry and access could be made, he didnt try not having any gear and the kids with him. So a few days later I took it upon myself to go back and have a poke about.
The sink is tight, and there were a lot of cobbles and general Debris washed into it (including an errant car tyre) but after about 20 minutes of chucking rocks about there was enough space for me to squeeze in on my side. The entrance opens after a couple of meters into a nice waterworn rift, and then I noticed the surprise, about 4.5 to 5 meters in there was just a vast black hole in front of me. I squeezed in until i could sit up and realised there was a fairly substantial pitch in front of me but again progress would (at this point) have to stop as I was by myself. However, the next day we returned in numbers and whilst the others debated rigging ropes etc I climbed down into the pitch.
Thats not me BTW.
It is a fairly substantial hole with beautifully water scultped walls, and much to my delight, a nice tunnel leading off in a South Easterly direction.
Turns out that the pitch is 5.9 meters in height but reaches approximately the same height up from the entrance tube, it also appears to go straight down as well although there is a solid gravel floor in it. The tube that cuts off from it extends straight for 16.2 meters with a slight climb at the top, it then narrows too tight but can be seen getting bigger again after about 1.5 meters, it could possiby be made bigger.
There is also a left hand turn part way down the main tube which leads off to a nice zig-zagging squeeze which eventually ends in a small aven and drops into tube partially full of water, again there is the possibility of this continueing at a later date as the bedding is gravel and can quite easily be dug out.
So there we have it, and in the couple of weeks since getting into this we have found another 6 caves in the same valley, on top of the 4 originally listed in the guides. Apparently Moldywarps dicovered one of them a while back but there are plenty more just waiting to be poked into. And as it was Chalky who first identified this as a viable option for exploration he has the dubious honour of having Chalkys Pot named after him.
