WHO'LL COME A-CAVING, MATILDA, WITH ME?

Access details borrowed from the CNCC website.
Yorkshire has been a popular destination for the club for the past couple of months. This report from Hon Prezz, Elaine Oliver, arrived just after our February issue had gone to press.

The Sunday of our Yorkshire trip dawned neither bright nor clear, which was entirely expected given the dreadful forecasts. We had spent much of Saturday night trying to find a cave which was a) not liable to flood horrendously in the wet, b) not an hour’s march from the nearest road and c) new to all of us. FOUL Pot eventually revealed itself to be at the intersection of these criteria, and Henry in particular fancied a rematch after only getting partway up the lane due to heavy snow a few months previously. Apparently the name stands for a rude comment about a Northern university, not that cavers would know anything much about rivalry.

We don’t cave for fame and fortune...

A Grade Two change later (cold and VERY windy, but at that point no precipitation) and off we set to find the cave, linking arms to prevent ourselves being blown over. Some faff with Jacob’s GPS coords ensued, before we decided to look at the description instead and easily walked straight to the entrance. We made sure to take a bearing back towards the car, though, just in case.

If a man’s a caver he will find the hole, if not then he’ll roam the fell…

Four (and a bit) pitches and four team members presented the perfect opportunity for us all to share the load of rigging and derigging. Having won the prize of first bag, I set off down the entrance, where a quick clamber and wriggle into the immature streamway saw me nose to whisker with a mouse suffering from severe rigor mortis. I carefully set him out of the water so we wouldn’t crawl on him, and it was perhaps for the best that I didn’t look at the other side of him, judging by Henry’s protestations.

The pitches in Yorkshire all end in dead meese…

The way on was easy enough to find: follow the “puddles or small stream” (definitely a stream) down a low bedding crawl, through some wriggly bits and down a handline into a chamber called Octopus Hall. Due to a smudge on Jacob’s carefully written notes I thought this said Octopus Hell: it certainly guarded the secret to the way on well, with Henry and Jacob enduring a thorough and gritty soaking only to discover that their route did not go. Looking at a previous picture of this chamber, there appears to have been significant movement and one of the very large boulders shows evidence of capping. The way on is now through the back of the chamber passing to the right of the Octopus.

It’s a mud story, baby just say yes!

A pleasant if drippy pitch with some nice P bolts in the roof ensued – a good pendulum halfway down let me lasso a spike of rock with a bit of tat I had found for a deviation. (I am still learning to love pendulums as I find it hugely disconcerting to fling myself about on a bit of string, however fun people claim it might be.) Next up was an enveloping rift, followed by another of even snugger proportions, then it was time for Jacob to leapfrog me and lead the way to the next pitch. The vadose canyon in this part of the cave was well worth the effort, with beautiful straws in the ceiling over a metre long. Henry and I had a good singsong to make up for the fact that nobody had known the words on his trip the previous day, then ROPE FREE! I was slightly puzzled but pleased to find an extra rebelay on the pitch, which Jacob had added further back along the rift to keep us away from the very noisy volumes of water descending alongside us!

And he sang as he listened to the murmur of the waterfall...

Henry was up next and rigged his two pitches in quick succession, landing us in the final chamber bang on our pre-agreed turnaround time. We went off to take a quick look at the sump (and in one case add to it) “for completeness’ sake” as recommended by the guide before the journey home commenced.

The only way is up, baby, for you and me now...

To keep things speedy (read: warm), Ash and I headed up as a pair to wait in the group shelter in a slightly nicer chamber as the others derigged the bottom pitches, before Ash took over derigging and I became a pack mule. Back through the tight rift to the last big pitch and I was suddenly very pleased about my deviation from earlier: the drips had got somewhat more numerous. I had to get Jacob to wait wedged on his side in the rift (sorry Jacob) while I got my head down and wished my tackle sack was lighter. Back in Octopus Hell, the only thing we had to think about now was the crawl to the entrance (that, and remembering the car keys).

And he sang as the water flowed into the bedding plane…

But we needn’t have been concerned: although noticeably up from earlier in the day, most of the water sinks elsewhere so it was perfectly pleasant (although Jacob maintains that his wet ear made it officially a duck). Goodbye to our murine friend and out into the sleet on the surface – this time a Grade 4 change, and a three-hour wait to regain feeling in my toes!

Time underground: 5 hours, songs sung: too many to count.

Elaine Oliver