I'm not too sure where to start with this one as it's been a little overwhelming reading all the comments both on facebook and on the forum. I tried to make an account on the forum but there seems to be some kind of validation system so I've chosen you as you seem pretty human and understanding. I suppose it would make sense to give my viewpoint and then maybe people will realise where I'm coming from.
Me and my brother's have always been the outdoorsy type people, always willing to go out and try stuff out. About a year ago we went up to Malham cove in the morning to watch the sunrise. Up there we saw a slackline across the cove and we thought," that looks ace", so we went out and we bought ourselves a slackline and learning the skills from the internet, as most people do these days.
Around a month ago, the same thing sort of happened. We went out for a walk to Gaping Gill and was blown away by it. We ended up looking around crevices as you do, just exploring the area. We came across a hole,(to which we now know is called Bar Pot) and saw the anchors in the wall. Instinct was to look down, we realised we would need some sort of rigging equipment to get down there.
Thats's where youtube comes in, I know it's probably frowned upon using youtube to learn things but we were curious on how we would be able to decend and ascend the hole. Had a lovely time at GoOutdoors getting "all the gear" (still no idea).
We came back after practicing what we had learnt and descended down the first drop and carefully made our way downwards until we found the larger 30M drop. Gutted yet amazed we headed home and left it for yet another day.
After another trip to go outdoors we arrived again, this time with more rigging equipment, It's probably not the best of ideas returning over and over after realising we are still yet unequipped but this all added to the excitement when we did return with enough equipment for the decent. We lowered ourselves down one by one and then began to head to Gill. We crawled through various tunnels until we heard the roar of Gill and finally got there and felt a real sense of achievement, We looked around and found loads of stals. I was saddened to see that some had been snapped off, maybe by accident or on purpose but nether the less it was a shame.
On our way back we noticed the amount of engravings saying which way was back. We then reached part of the passage where we could stand for a while and take a breather. As we were doing so we noticed that other people had engraved their names around this area of the passage and so there assumed that it must be where people engrave their initials. We also took part in this. I made sure that I did it out of the way others engravings as I didn't want to ruin an old marking. I'm not one to post everything on social media as I think it stops it from being special. We carried on our journey and returned home.
This morning my friend sent me the link to the UKcaving forum showing what we had done. I've been reading the updates on this throughout the day and taken into consideration every comment. Some are quite humbling, especially the opportunity to go with and gather some caving experience - despite doing what has upset a large amount of people from the caving community. I know the most sincere apology wouldn't change the circumstances because what's done is done. I can also tell that there's a lot of understanding people out there too who don't know where the line is drawn. We didn't even know there was a line, we didn't know what the SSSI is, who Natural England are, that you needed a permit to go caving. We literally just saw a hole and decided we wanted to go down it.
Hope this is readable as I'm tired yet unable to sleep trying to get this of my chest.
Thank you!
