Alex
Well-known member
I went down well attempted to go down these little Dent gems yesterday, and here's me report.
High gill upper cave - Status BLOCKED
Unless I was looking in the wrong place and believe me I was looking for a while, it looks like the shale bank above the entrance has collapsed and completely covered the entrance, there is still 1 slot there, but about 0.5m in, it's less than 6 inches wide and I think a far rabbit would have trouble. The rift is solid rock, so that can't be the way in and I can only assume the entrance is buried under all that shale.
High gill middle cave - Status BLOCKED/UNKNOWN
I went to the location described and is indeed is still blocked by farm plastic, I even had a little dig but got no-where. However, in this case there is something odd. The shake hole as described by NC is just too high (above the shale). Secondly I looked at the survey for this cave and it describes "Stream sink" at the entrance, so I don't think this is where the entrance is and instead one should look in the stream bed below which would make far more sense as to the location, precisely where, I don't know? I did not see an entrance on the way up.
High gill lower cave - Status OPEN
Finally I was able to do a little bit of caving, however, there was no rope on the up pitch so like the book says a scaling pole would be required. There's also a few side passages not mentioned in the book or survey that must add 50 or 60m onto the place, one dry, one wet. The dry one being the largest and longest, where I was stopped by a too tight squeeze (probably too tight for anyone but a kid).
Just thought I would mention all this before anyone else has an almost wasted trip up to these caves.
High gill upper cave - Status BLOCKED
Unless I was looking in the wrong place and believe me I was looking for a while, it looks like the shale bank above the entrance has collapsed and completely covered the entrance, there is still 1 slot there, but about 0.5m in, it's less than 6 inches wide and I think a far rabbit would have trouble. The rift is solid rock, so that can't be the way in and I can only assume the entrance is buried under all that shale.
High gill middle cave - Status BLOCKED/UNKNOWN
I went to the location described and is indeed is still blocked by farm plastic, I even had a little dig but got no-where. However, in this case there is something odd. The shake hole as described by NC is just too high (above the shale). Secondly I looked at the survey for this cave and it describes "Stream sink" at the entrance, so I don't think this is where the entrance is and instead one should look in the stream bed below which would make far more sense as to the location, precisely where, I don't know? I did not see an entrance on the way up.
High gill lower cave - Status OPEN
Finally I was able to do a little bit of caving, however, there was no rope on the up pitch so like the book says a scaling pole would be required. There's also a few side passages not mentioned in the book or survey that must add 50 or 60m onto the place, one dry, one wet. The dry one being the largest and longest, where I was stopped by a too tight squeeze (probably too tight for anyone but a kid).
Just thought I would mention all this before anyone else has an almost wasted trip up to these caves.
