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Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

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Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Jules Barrett (EPC), Toni Murphy (non-EPC)

Fancied a nice easy Yorkshire trip today with some traversing, straightforward abseiling and ladder climbing practice for Toni. Heron Pot looked like it would fit the bill. Arrived at the parking opposite Yordas wood early afternoon and walked over towards Kingsdale Beck. Met a party of four cavers on their way back to the car after a Heron trip and they said that there was still another party in the cave on ladders. We walked up the dry valley towards the entrance and found it pretty quickly. Dropped into the entrance and a bit of crawling and slightly awkward stuff leads to a junction with the water. From here we went downstream passing under some nice flowstone curtains in pleasant stream passage. Eventually arrived at the top of the first pitch to find the other team just on their way up. That was handy cos after five minutes wait they were out of the way and I was rigging. Since my SRT kit was elsewhere I was experimenting with a set up which consisted of basically a climbing harness, gri-gri and mini-traxion. Toni abseiled down the first pitch with a figure-of-8 descender and I followed. Second pitch got rigged (using the world's biggest Y-hang) and then we dropped down there. The bottom of both pitches was pretty wet and you certainly wouldn't have wanted much more water in there. There is a single-bolt rebelay that you can put in on the second pitch but since Toni's never seen a rebelay we left it well alone and took our chances in the water at the botttom of the pitch. After a mooch downstream we headed back to the bottom of the second pitch. I started to ascend (generally slowly) with my minimalist prussiking set-up but thankfully it's not a big pitch and soon was at the top. Dropped a ladder down and lifelined Toni up. Lots of screaming and giggling as she swung into the water but she was soon at the pitch head. Similar fun and games on the first pitch and then headed out.

A very pleasant (though short) trip and excellent abseiling and ladder practice for Toni. There is a through trip that you can do but was a bit wet today for that.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

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Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Sam Townsend (EPC), Jase Rider (EPC), Jules Barrett (EPC)

Me and Sam arrived at the Oxlow parking to meet Jase and Nige. Packed the bags for Oxlow and set off for the entrance at 7:30 pm. Rigged Oxlow as we went and prussiked up the pull-down thing into Pilgrims Way. Easy hands and knees crawling for a fair way to Mecca Aven and then turned left towards the Chamber of Horrors. A short section of low crawling passage needed a bit of excavating but after that it's low but not particularly tight for a while. I was wearing a 5mm wetsuit so overheating at this stage. Eventually got to the first duck so hoods went on and helmets off. Sam went through first; me and Jase are sure it was sumped but Sam reckons he didn't hold his breath so not sure about that. Going through on your back with helmet between your knees seemed to work. After the first duck there's another one (felt easier) that leads to a short section of passage and soon into Poached Egg passage in Giants. Water levels about average for the time of year. Out for 10:00 pm so off to the pub. Good evening trip! Thanks to Nige for helping with rigging/de-rigging.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

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Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Jules Barrett (EPC), Chris Schofield (EPC)

I'd heard lots about the Swinsto and Simpsons pull-through trips but never done either of them so thought that we ought to see what the fuss was about. We chose Swinsto over Simpsons purely because we didn't have a guidebook that had any information on Simpsons. In fact we didn't have a lot of information about Swinsto but we did have the CNCC rigging guide so at least we'd know if we were in the right hole. Neither of us had been in Valley Entrance or the Kingsdale Master Cave either so we were sort of getting two trips for the price of one.

Walked up onto the Turbary Road and had a quick hunt round for the cave entrance; found a likely contender and went in. The rigging guide recommends two 50m ropes. Unfortunately I'd cut up my 50m rope the day before to get us down Gingling Hole so we were using a 70m. There was a rope on the first pitch but it didn't look very clever so we rigged ours and abseiled down. Next we were into the 'long crawl' which leads to another pitch which also had an in-situ rope. We arrived at the pitch-head and quickly rigged our 70m rope (or as quickly as you can rig a 70m rope for pull-through!). We then descended and found that the pitch would have been easily free-climbable and felt daft. Curtain Pitch and Pool Pitch followed and by this stage we'd got a system going with Chris pulling the rope down and me packing the bag. Arrived at the top of the Big Pitch and descended the first part. Tried to pull the rope down and it wouldn't pull. Hmmm! Chris prussiked back up to the pitch-head to see what was going on. Everything looked fine so he came down and we tried a bit harder. It started to move and soon we were on our way again. Sounds as though a few people have had the same thing happen here. Eventually found ourselves in Swinsto Great Aven and set off towards Kingsdale Master Cave. This proved easy enough to find and after a great (but short) section of splashing along in the streamway we found the rope up towards Valley Entrance. From here we were very much following our noses but thankfully the route-finding was dead easy.

Exited Valley Entrance after a very enjoyable three-hour trip.