Thanks Alastair for your help on Saturday (and great to see you).
Given the forecast and the storm, we were not expecting to get any anchoring done this weekend. Five Ways Pot is, we understand, perfectly passable in quite wet conditions, but some of the climbs do result in a quite a wetting, which is not ideal when anchoring and therefore not moving fast enough to stay warm. Plus, the 40 minute walk up the hill in a storm was not enticing.
But... Saturday morning... no rain... and the dry ground suggested it hadn't rained overnight. The rain didn't make it to Ingleton!
We got away from the CNCC meeting a little later than expected and, after a quick lunch, we were at the parking area for Five Ways Pot (at the bottom of the Dowlass Moss path) by 2pm. With a team of four, we headed up, and with thanks to Tim Allen as a guide, we were taken directly to the entrance which saved us having to faff about with maps/GPS to find this rather remote site.
We headed directly to the bottom of the pothole and started anchoring outwards, but with time pressing on (and a table booked for dinner) we only got anchors into the bottom two pitches. Several holes were drilled further up ready to receive an anchor the following day.
On Sunday we headed down the pothole to where we left off. It was marginally drier but still very drippy and draughty. We soon realised that we had only brought one of the two packs of anchors, so we were not going to be able to complete the job today. This was initially gut-wrenching, but nearly three hours and two and a half pitches later, we had used all the anchors and the cold was starting to bite. There were still two pitches left to anchor, so even if we had the anchors to do them, we were not going to get this finished today without hypothermia.
Therefore, most of the pitches are now anchored, and the exploration ropes and hangers have been removed. However the first two pitches, and the start of the traverse to the third pitch, are still not complete. Holes for all the anchor placements have been drilled throughout which means we can return on a future weekend and finish the job without needing to haul the drill and batteries.
Therefore, we're gutted not to have finished the job, but pleased because the forecast had me assuming no work would happen at all!
We will get back there at some point over the next month to complete the work. Five Ways Pot is an excellent pothole, nothing too challenging, some fine pitches, lots of action in relatively quick succession, and passable in fairly wet weather (albeit rather drippy in places). This is another very nice find by the 'Chums' and I expect that this will become a popular trip.
Thank you to Badlad and Pegasus for your help and hospitality over the weekend
We will post further once work is complete and provide a topo and description for the CNCC website.
