Peter Burgess
New member
Cap 'n chris and friend.
Cap 'n chris and friend.
cap n chris
Well-known member
Gone cavin'....
gus horsley
New member
mrodoc said:
I'd forgotten about goon suits. I had one you could inflate by effectively giving yourself what looked like a blow job. On the first trip it leaked when I went in the canal in Dismal Hill. I couldn't move for the amount of water trapped inside it.
Sorry, went a bit off-thread there.
R
rob_
Guest
more "walking in a cave" than "going caving".cap 'n chris said:Gone cavin'....
the thing is i don't know whether i'll like it, if i do i'll probably contact a club and take it from there but this seemed like a good (and more importantly cheap) hassle free way of getting a taster.
Brains
Well-known member
Go for it, have fun, and assume you will end up wet to the skin and over your head, any thing less and it is a bonus, so take that full change of clothes for after. Remember, mobile phones and electronic key fobs, never mind any other electric widgets dont like being taken swimming in muddy water! Perhaps a look in the Long Churns or Great Douk would be an option, as gear can be hired from Inglesport (and Bernies?) in Ingleton. Think about wearing an old boilersuit on top of everything else to hold it all together...
shotlighter
Active member
Amen to Brains comments especially the bit about lecky keyfobs. Self & mate Ross spent a very noisy hour or so one night trying to silence alarm/disable immobilizer on the first car I had with one. This was after a not particularly wet trip!
Wear the boiler suit over your Lidl waders & no one will know except you (who will be dry as long as you can wade through rather than lie in the water).
Wear the boiler suit over your Lidl waders & no one will know except you (who will be dry as long as you can wade through rather than lie in the water).
Roger W
Well-known member
Comments on keyfobs and mobile phones apply even more to light sources, of course - so if you decide to go with an ordinary torch (or candle) make sure it's waterproof! And a backup light is equally important - Murphy's Law says if you only have one lamp with you you will drop it/ the bulb will decide to blow/ the freshly-charged battery will suddenly lose all its charge... And trying to feel your way out of a cave in pitch blackness is no joke.
And wear some sort of helmet on your head. Cave roofs are hard, and have a nasty habit of going low just when you don't expect it!
Enjoy!
And wear some sort of helmet on your head. Cave roofs are hard, and have a nasty habit of going low just when you don't expect it!
Enjoy!
R
rob_
Guest
AGAIN AGAIN!!
Well it started out disastrous! I forgot my bag so we had to leave the spare clothes and food in the car, then before we even got to the cave I fell flat on my arse in a stream with one of the torches and had to run back to the car and get changed, then on my way back to the start a boulder fell from the cliff to my left and nearly killed me! But when we eventually got in the cave it was brilliant, plain walking for most of it, the waders were brilliant, we got to what I assume was the start of the providence pot route – a crawling height tunnel that looked man made – had a quick look in it then started back. Took us about 1½ - 2 hrs in total.
So I'm interested in other cave systems similar to Dow, Brains mentioned the Long Churns and Great Douk, can you tell me more about these?
Thanks for all your help,
Rob.
Well it started out disastrous! I forgot my bag so we had to leave the spare clothes and food in the car, then before we even got to the cave I fell flat on my arse in a stream with one of the torches and had to run back to the car and get changed, then on my way back to the start a boulder fell from the cliff to my left and nearly killed me! But when we eventually got in the cave it was brilliant, plain walking for most of it, the waders were brilliant, we got to what I assume was the start of the providence pot route – a crawling height tunnel that looked man made – had a quick look in it then started back. Took us about 1½ - 2 hrs in total.
So I'm interested in other cave systems similar to Dow, Brains mentioned the Long Churns and Great Douk, can you tell me more about these?
Thanks for all your help,
Rob.
rob_ said:
Great Douk is the easier of the two and, if you wish, can be turned into a "thru-trip" (in one entrance and out of another). In normal water conditions it is a very safe and easy trip. Park at the Hill Inn pub and walk through two (or is it 3?) gates. Turn left having gone through the 2nd (or 3rd). Head up to some trees and a huge sink surrounded by a wall. Climb down into the shakehole and follow the water upstream to the cave entrance. You can either do a slightly awkward climb up into the entrance or bypass it by climbing up on the right a bit further back and crawling along a ledge. Follow the stream upwards and keep going until either you've had enough, or you find your way through to the upper entrance and emerge on the surface again - by climbing up a slight rift.
Long Churn - park in the lane just beyond (or before!) Selside. Pay 50p per head trespass fee to farm in Selside (has black & white signs up outside it). Walk up the lane and on up to the tress surrounding Alum Pot. From here cross the stream going down Alum and follow the track to a fenced-in cave entrance. This is Diccan Pot and is best avoided. A few metres further up is another entrance. This is Long Churn. Start by going upstream - a very easy walk - and then come back and go downstream. When the water flows into a narrow bedding plane on the left, take the dry passage on the right. Following this you have two damp pools to navigate (try to avoid a soaking!). Keep going and you come to a climb down a rift, followed by another climb. These may prove a bit awkward, but there's not much beyond, so don't worry if you decide to turn around.
Have a good trip and don't forget to leave a "call-out" with someone incase something goes wrong. Cave, car reg number, number in party, details for calling out CRO and time to initiate Call Out.
Damian
kay
Well-known member
Some more suggestions in
http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php/topic,3626.0.html
and I think there was another thread earlier on the Yorkshire page with easier caves - might have been suggestions for taking children down - have a mooch around and look.
Don't forget that the week beginning May 26 is the Gaping Gill Winch meet
http://www.bpc-cave.org.uk/gaping_gill.htm
- winch access to the bottom of the main chamber, from where, if you can lay your hands on a survey, you can do a fair bit of exploring.
You're really getting to the stage where you need guide books, not to explore the caves, but to assess which ones are worth trying and to find the entrances! Unfortunately I think the useful volume of Northern Caves, Vol 2, which covers the Three Peaks area, is the one that is out of print. So if you are enjoying caving, consider joining one of the local clubs.
http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php/topic,3626.0.html
and I think there was another thread earlier on the Yorkshire page with easier caves - might have been suggestions for taking children down - have a mooch around and look.
Don't forget that the week beginning May 26 is the Gaping Gill Winch meet
http://www.bpc-cave.org.uk/gaping_gill.htm
- winch access to the bottom of the main chamber, from where, if you can lay your hands on a survey, you can do a fair bit of exploring.
You're really getting to the stage where you need guide books, not to explore the caves, but to assess which ones are worth trying and to find the entrances! Unfortunately I think the useful volume of Northern Caves, Vol 2, which covers the Three Peaks area, is the one that is out of print. So if you are enjoying caving, consider joining one of the local clubs.
R
rob_
Guest
Had a great time, found the entrance easy enough after a good look at what I assume to be the entrance to great douk pot (scaffolding with ladders leading down into a hole in the ground), climbed up the waterfall and started off into the gloom! We’d only been travelling a few minutes when we saw daylight again and came out into a shake hole that we assumed to be the end, we were rather disappointed at this, I decided to follow the stream and see where it went and hey presto! We’re back in the cave system again. The rest of the walk was good fun, a few places where we had to crouch to get past stalagmites at chest height, a few what sounded like giant waterfalls but turned out to be little swirly pools of water. A little spur pot only crawling height that we investigated for a few meters before crawling backwards into the main cave. But we came to a part where the main stream veered off to the left into a passage about groin height so we continued on up a step into a passage that gradually got lower and lower until we were crawling, we then got to a “Y” section where we had to decide left or right, my friend went off to investigate both passages whilst I stayed in the original one, she came back with nothing to report so instead of risking getting lost we came back the original route. So what I want to know is where is this “rift” we were supposed to get out of? Did we go past it? Did we not go far enough?
Thanks again for all your help.
Rob.
Thanks again for all your help.
Rob.
rob_ said:
You were doing brilliantly and crawling in the right area. Now that you know you were doing the right thing, I think you should go back and have another ferret about at the far end and, assuming you go in daylight hours, you'll see daylight above you ... that's the rift. Well done on finding the way that far.
And while you're at it, why not buy a copy of "Selected Caves" in one of the two caving shops in Ingleton. It's full of descriptions etc to fire your enthusiasm.
kay
Well-known member
rob_ said:
From the step up you basically keep going straight forward, keeping alongside the left hand wall. It gets lower and lower, and you pass ?three trickles of water coming in from your L. Look out for a hole in the ceiling - you wont see daylight from it. Pop through the hole in the ceiling into a passage which is off to the left (compared with your travel along the stream passage below). That comes out into a small chamber, bear left again and you emerge in a rift, with daylight above you - this is now Middle Washfold Cave, and you clamber out on to a limesone pavement.
You either didn't go far enough, or you did go far enough but didn't look up ;-)
You can go right in the chamber, where there's a body sized tube which wiggles its way along for quite a distance - I haven't pursued it to the end.
And there is a 'wet' entrance from Middle Washfold - again, I've not been in that.
When you emerge and walk back towards the entrance, look out for a long thin fenced area on your right with a few trees and a couple of stiles - the daylight shaft you went through is in there. It's nice to see it from the top as well.
gus horsley
New member
kay said:
I've done the wet entrance. It's basically a longish damp crawl which enters Great Douk upstream from the Middle Washfold exit. There's no real difficulty but it would become very soggy after rain, possibly impassable.
langcliffe
Well-known member
Speaking of Great Douk, I noticed last time I was there that small hole had appeared in the roof - somewhere in the vicinity of the cascades.
R
rob_
Guest
yes we noticed this too, about leg width.
we will probably be going back to Great Douk to “finish” it, the question I have now is what do you do with your supplies, presuming you have any, We usually take a backpack each with food, drink, spare torches and space for the waders, this has never been a problem before but if were going to be crawling along wet passages then we need to either not have these or have them waterproof?
we will probably be going back to Great Douk to “finish” it, the question I have now is what do you do with your supplies, presuming you have any, We usually take a backpack each with food, drink, spare torches and space for the waders, this has never been a problem before but if were going to be crawling along wet passages then we need to either not have these or have them waterproof?
You can buy a range of waterproof (and fairly solid) containers from the main caving shops. The best are so-called Daren Drums (white drums with red screw-on lids) but they are also quite large and cumbersome. The half-size ones are very good for food, lights etc though. The other main alternative is Nalgene bottles (which can be conveniently hung from a belt using some string around the top). Take a look at a caving shop website, such as Inglesport (under "waterproof containers" for Daren Drums and under "Emergency Equipment" for Nalgene bottles).
Les W
Active member
You could also use a "Peli" case
I, and most other cavers, carry kit in a specially designed caving 'Tackle Bag' eg
http://www.inglesport.com/shop/catalog.php?category=Tacklesacks
The most durable and expensive of these are those made by Petzl. They put up with some harsh abuse and are designed to be dragged through crawls etc. The Petzl ones have no stitching around the base which is why they last so long.
Things I want to keep dry I put inside TWO drybags eg
http://w01-0504.web.dircon.net/acatalog/Exped_Dry_Bags.html
There are more robust versions of these but the thin cheap Exped ones are lasting me quite well!
Things I don't want to squash I would put inside a Darren Drum, but I know from bitter experience that sandwiches never seem to cope very well with caving!
http://w01-0504.web.dircon.net/acatalog/expedition_barrels.html
Of course everybody has different ideas as to how best to carry kit!
http://www.inglesport.com/shop/catalog.php?category=Tacklesacks
The most durable and expensive of these are those made by Petzl. They put up with some harsh abuse and are designed to be dragged through crawls etc. The Petzl ones have no stitching around the base which is why they last so long.
Things I want to keep dry I put inside TWO drybags eg
http://w01-0504.web.dircon.net/acatalog/Exped_Dry_Bags.html
There are more robust versions of these but the thin cheap Exped ones are lasting me quite well!
Things I don't want to squash I would put inside a Darren Drum, but I know from bitter experience that sandwiches never seem to cope very well with caving!
http://w01-0504.web.dircon.net/acatalog/expedition_barrels.html
Of course everybody has different ideas as to how best to carry kit!