aricooperdavis
Moderator
Posted on behalf of Andrew McLeod
Suffering from a bit of a cold, general faff and the long, long drive up from Exeter meant I arrived at the great tent city of Eurospeleo just before midnight on the Saturday night. I soon bumped into a few people from the BEC and EUSS and pitched tent near the inflatable cow and the BEC flag in the (remarkably quiet) 'noisy campers' field. Despite this field being mostly empty the other three 'quiet campers' fields were totally rammed! Obviously the BEC's reputation precedes us?
I mostly caved with EUSS members for the week (there aren't many of them!); first trip (Sunday) with Ari was down Pool Sink and up Wretched Rabbit in a pair. This was my first Easegill trip and so we chose to see the streamway via Eureka Junction rather than the shortcut from Stop Pot. We also managed to climb completely the wrong handline in Wretched Rabbit, ending up at a window looking out over the massive fixed ropes and realising our mistake!
Monday we (me (Andrew), Ari, Holly and Ed) made the long descent down the NW route in Alum and down to the sump, returning by the Long Churn/Dollytubs route and crawling out the resurgence at the Diccan entrance - and then under the bridge for good measure. Some of the party struggled at the top of the first pitch swinging up onto the Bridge, but much fun (and wetness) was had - a bit of a theme for the week!
Tuesday, on a gloriously sunny day, me and Ari bailed from caving and headed to Brimham Rocks for a bit of bouldering. I am normally pretty cynical about British bouldering, given that most of my bouldering has been in the glorious French bouldering mecca of Fountainbleau while my local bouldering is the esoteric skin-ripping horror of Dartmoor, but we actually had a really good day and I can recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Yorkshire with a boulder pad, boulders about Font 5 or more, and doesn't want to cave... Bouldering was then followed by a mostly vegetarian BBQ and of course the CHECC toga night. I am looking forward to this year's CHECC which will be held in the Mendips - albeit at a safe distance of a few miles from most of the local caving huts!
Wednesday we gained a keen caver visiting Eurospeleo on their own (Charlotte) and headed to Gaping Gill as a five-some for a epic cross-system trip. Due to classic yet epic faff we ended up leaving well into the afternoon for the long trip of the week; faff only being added to when, having arrived in Clapham, Ed realised he had left his thermals behind and had to go back and get them! In keeping with my usual tendency to select generally unpleasant and awkward caves (and then insist on dragging a tackle bag along - suffering is all part of the fun of caving, right?) we headed over the moor to the entrance of Corky's Pot. This fairly newly-dug entrance is not that long but largely consists of awkward or flat-out crawling with short pitches - initially free-climbable and then dropping down deeper rifts and into larger chambers. It is all worth it though as it emerges impressively high into Mud Hall with a long free-hanging pitch contrasting heavily with the rest of the system!
We then headed for Main Chamber where Ed and Holly escaped us heading up the winch (cheaters!). With only three of us, instead of five, speeds increased and we set off at a rapid pace for Stream Passage Pot. I finally got to see the Sand Caverns and their seasonal varving, and all was going well until a misreading of the survey sent us into the squalid and muddy North West Extensions. We ended up completely coated in mud, with Ari losing a welly temporarily at one point, until we decided to go back and look elsewhere for the promised rope up to freedom. After heading up the stream we finally found the rope and began our ascent, getting a bit of a rinsing as we climbed. It is a lovely entrance, and actually one of the oldest entrances as it was first connected in 1949; only the main shaft and associated holes, Flood Entrance and Disappointment Pot were connected to the GG system earlier, while Corky's Pot was only connected in 2004. It also has a fantastically sized stream passage at the top - just wide enough to run along with a large tackle bag and only occasionally having to squeeze past things. This is very different to the streamway in Disappointment which is a nightmare to carry tackle bags upstream as it has lots of awkward cascades and bag-eating tight bits!
We were pretty tired at this point and all of our gear was totally coated in mud, so for Thursday me and Ari opted to a slightly easier option and headed for Yordas Pot, which turned out to be ideal. After dropping into the middle entrance we headed up the very low and very wet crawl to Top Entrance and back to start the cleaning process! The SRT in Yordas is not hard but for a 20-30 minute cave is actually quite tricky in places with arm-heavy traverses. Descending the last pitch Ari received cheers of awe from the small children visiting Yordas Cave at the bottom! Much gear cleaning commenced in the pool before heading into the surprisingly large chamber of Yordas and out into the glorious sunshine which began to dry our newly-clean kit immediately. A very easy, but very pleasing day!
The final cave of the weekend on Friday was a rainy trip with Ari, Josh and Ellen down Death's Head Hole on Leck Fell, an impressive (if somewhat mossy) vertical shaft dropping to a large chamber. An impressively scaffolded dig through the boulders at the bottom, apparently only three years old, connects to the Death's Head Inlet of the Lost John's system allowing access to the main streamway. We wandered down this until we reached the Lake, a 100m wading/swimming section, which we refrained to cross as we were not really dressed for water and our callout was only for Death's Head.
The rain and high winds finally drove me away on Saturday after watching the BEC Philippines lecture, but it was an awesome week of caving, partying and exploring parts of Yorkshire caving I didn't even know existed. I am now keen to go back and explore some more!
Suffering from a bit of a cold, general faff and the long, long drive up from Exeter meant I arrived at the great tent city of Eurospeleo just before midnight on the Saturday night. I soon bumped into a few people from the BEC and EUSS and pitched tent near the inflatable cow and the BEC flag in the (remarkably quiet) 'noisy campers' field. Despite this field being mostly empty the other three 'quiet campers' fields were totally rammed! Obviously the BEC's reputation precedes us?
I mostly caved with EUSS members for the week (there aren't many of them!); first trip (Sunday) with Ari was down Pool Sink and up Wretched Rabbit in a pair. This was my first Easegill trip and so we chose to see the streamway via Eureka Junction rather than the shortcut from Stop Pot. We also managed to climb completely the wrong handline in Wretched Rabbit, ending up at a window looking out over the massive fixed ropes and realising our mistake!
Monday we (me (Andrew), Ari, Holly and Ed) made the long descent down the NW route in Alum and down to the sump, returning by the Long Churn/Dollytubs route and crawling out the resurgence at the Diccan entrance - and then under the bridge for good measure. Some of the party struggled at the top of the first pitch swinging up onto the Bridge, but much fun (and wetness) was had - a bit of a theme for the week!
Tuesday, on a gloriously sunny day, me and Ari bailed from caving and headed to Brimham Rocks for a bit of bouldering. I am normally pretty cynical about British bouldering, given that most of my bouldering has been in the glorious French bouldering mecca of Fountainbleau while my local bouldering is the esoteric skin-ripping horror of Dartmoor, but we actually had a really good day and I can recommend it to anyone who finds themselves in Yorkshire with a boulder pad, boulders about Font 5 or more, and doesn't want to cave... Bouldering was then followed by a mostly vegetarian BBQ and of course the CHECC toga night. I am looking forward to this year's CHECC which will be held in the Mendips - albeit at a safe distance of a few miles from most of the local caving huts!
Wednesday we gained a keen caver visiting Eurospeleo on their own (Charlotte) and headed to Gaping Gill as a five-some for a epic cross-system trip. Due to classic yet epic faff we ended up leaving well into the afternoon for the long trip of the week; faff only being added to when, having arrived in Clapham, Ed realised he had left his thermals behind and had to go back and get them! In keeping with my usual tendency to select generally unpleasant and awkward caves (and then insist on dragging a tackle bag along - suffering is all part of the fun of caving, right?) we headed over the moor to the entrance of Corky's Pot. This fairly newly-dug entrance is not that long but largely consists of awkward or flat-out crawling with short pitches - initially free-climbable and then dropping down deeper rifts and into larger chambers. It is all worth it though as it emerges impressively high into Mud Hall with a long free-hanging pitch contrasting heavily with the rest of the system!
We then headed for Main Chamber where Ed and Holly escaped us heading up the winch (cheaters!). With only three of us, instead of five, speeds increased and we set off at a rapid pace for Stream Passage Pot. I finally got to see the Sand Caverns and their seasonal varving, and all was going well until a misreading of the survey sent us into the squalid and muddy North West Extensions. We ended up completely coated in mud, with Ari losing a welly temporarily at one point, until we decided to go back and look elsewhere for the promised rope up to freedom. After heading up the stream we finally found the rope and began our ascent, getting a bit of a rinsing as we climbed. It is a lovely entrance, and actually one of the oldest entrances as it was first connected in 1949; only the main shaft and associated holes, Flood Entrance and Disappointment Pot were connected to the GG system earlier, while Corky's Pot was only connected in 2004. It also has a fantastically sized stream passage at the top - just wide enough to run along with a large tackle bag and only occasionally having to squeeze past things. This is very different to the streamway in Disappointment which is a nightmare to carry tackle bags upstream as it has lots of awkward cascades and bag-eating tight bits!
We were pretty tired at this point and all of our gear was totally coated in mud, so for Thursday me and Ari opted to a slightly easier option and headed for Yordas Pot, which turned out to be ideal. After dropping into the middle entrance we headed up the very low and very wet crawl to Top Entrance and back to start the cleaning process! The SRT in Yordas is not hard but for a 20-30 minute cave is actually quite tricky in places with arm-heavy traverses. Descending the last pitch Ari received cheers of awe from the small children visiting Yordas Cave at the bottom! Much gear cleaning commenced in the pool before heading into the surprisingly large chamber of Yordas and out into the glorious sunshine which began to dry our newly-clean kit immediately. A very easy, but very pleasing day!
The final cave of the weekend on Friday was a rainy trip with Ari, Josh and Ellen down Death's Head Hole on Leck Fell, an impressive (if somewhat mossy) vertical shaft dropping to a large chamber. An impressively scaffolded dig through the boulders at the bottom, apparently only three years old, connects to the Death's Head Inlet of the Lost John's system allowing access to the main streamway. We wandered down this until we reached the Lake, a 100m wading/swimming section, which we refrained to cross as we were not really dressed for water and our callout was only for Death's Head.
The rain and high winds finally drove me away on Saturday after watching the BEC Philippines lecture, but it was an awesome week of caving, partying and exploring parts of Yorkshire caving I didn't even know existed. I am now keen to go back and explore some more!
