I had one of the more enjoyable trips in a while down Langcliffe Pot on Saturday so thought I'd write a brief piece about it here.
On our way in we had a brief stop at Gypsum Passage, that I’d read about as draughting strongly, but there was no trace of this today. After a couple of hours we reached BF chamber and it was nice to have such low water levels for the squeeze. The warning label was still on the resin anchor on Nemesis, so presumably there have been no visitors since March 2021?! Thankfully all was pretty straightforward in the choke (no digging required this time!) despite realising at the bottom of the pitch that we only had the first page of the description, i.e. the description of what we’d already done. The stream passage below Nemesis choke was draughting strongly inwards and that continued into Sacred Way.
We were surprised to find a wet wallow on the way through to the old camp, and it looks like floods have moved a lot of stuff round again.
The strong inward draught from the Sacred Way was no longer present once we reached New Fearnought, and it really ought to be noticeable with the relatively small passage cross-section at this point. It's certainly intriguing to ponder where it does go.
It was about 4 hours to the New Fearnought choke, where we had a bit of a poke for an hour or so. We managed to open out a bit of the choke just above stream level into space beyond via a hideous squeeze (that took some skin off my back on the return!). The space was big enough for the two of us, and we both went through a short crawl in the water to another small space beyond. At this point the choke got a bit looser-feeling and after a bit of pulling and poking at blocks we decided we were a bit far from home for that sort of thing. You could see ahead about 5+ m or so through a small gap, but there was no clear indication that it enlarged much along that distance, and it would surely need engineering to make safe.
On the return we had a look at the dug sediment-filled passage on the true right of New Fearnought, which was draughtless and soon got too tight. It would need a lot of digging, and is probably just an Oxbow. Our next stop-off was where Simon had done a climb a few years ago a bit further downstream on the left. There was an SRT rope and a knotted line, but it looked like quite a sketchy free-climb. Not the place for that sort of thing. We then went up to the dig at the Dementor end of Silver Rake. This didn’t look too great until the end where it popped up into a very well decorated chamber. At the far end it looks to finish completely, filled with calcite. On our way back along Silver Rake we paused briefly for a thrutch up and along one of the larger inlet passages, which got small and calcited up after a few 10s of metres. Back at Poseidon our enthusiasm for a sightseeing detour to the sump itself wasn’t quite as high as it had been on our way in, so we opted against it.
I had a bit of an issue in BF squeeze again; I need to remember to put my left arm up first – it felt like a familiar failure, so presumably I’ve failed to do this at least once before! It was a steady trip out from there, although I felt like I was flagging a bit towards the entrance
Out at 7:30 after a thoroughly enjoyable 9 hours underground. There are few caves that occupy my mind so much after a trip as Langcliffe.
On our way in we had a brief stop at Gypsum Passage, that I’d read about as draughting strongly, but there was no trace of this today. After a couple of hours we reached BF chamber and it was nice to have such low water levels for the squeeze. The warning label was still on the resin anchor on Nemesis, so presumably there have been no visitors since March 2021?! Thankfully all was pretty straightforward in the choke (no digging required this time!) despite realising at the bottom of the pitch that we only had the first page of the description, i.e. the description of what we’d already done. The stream passage below Nemesis choke was draughting strongly inwards and that continued into Sacred Way.
We were surprised to find a wet wallow on the way through to the old camp, and it looks like floods have moved a lot of stuff round again.
The strong inward draught from the Sacred Way was no longer present once we reached New Fearnought, and it really ought to be noticeable with the relatively small passage cross-section at this point. It's certainly intriguing to ponder where it does go.
It was about 4 hours to the New Fearnought choke, where we had a bit of a poke for an hour or so. We managed to open out a bit of the choke just above stream level into space beyond via a hideous squeeze (that took some skin off my back on the return!). The space was big enough for the two of us, and we both went through a short crawl in the water to another small space beyond. At this point the choke got a bit looser-feeling and after a bit of pulling and poking at blocks we decided we were a bit far from home for that sort of thing. You could see ahead about 5+ m or so through a small gap, but there was no clear indication that it enlarged much along that distance, and it would surely need engineering to make safe.
On the return we had a look at the dug sediment-filled passage on the true right of New Fearnought, which was draughtless and soon got too tight. It would need a lot of digging, and is probably just an Oxbow. Our next stop-off was where Simon had done a climb a few years ago a bit further downstream on the left. There was an SRT rope and a knotted line, but it looked like quite a sketchy free-climb. Not the place for that sort of thing. We then went up to the dig at the Dementor end of Silver Rake. This didn’t look too great until the end where it popped up into a very well decorated chamber. At the far end it looks to finish completely, filled with calcite. On our way back along Silver Rake we paused briefly for a thrutch up and along one of the larger inlet passages, which got small and calcited up after a few 10s of metres. Back at Poseidon our enthusiasm for a sightseeing detour to the sump itself wasn’t quite as high as it had been on our way in, so we opted against it.
I had a bit of an issue in BF squeeze again; I need to remember to put my left arm up first – it felt like a familiar failure, so presumably I’ve failed to do this at least once before! It was a steady trip out from there, although I felt like I was flagging a bit towards the entrance
Out at 7:30 after a thoroughly enjoyable 9 hours underground. There are few caves that occupy my mind so much after a trip as Langcliffe.
