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Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

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

Stayed at Stainforth Youth Hostel the previous night (which is very nice by the way, has a brilliant drying room) and since neither of us had been in Gaping Gill before decided to put that rather serious omission right. Parked in Clapham and walked up to the cave entrance in trainers (it's a long way in wellies). Trusty Warmbacs in full effect in case we were mistaken for Yorkshiremen. Once over the twin stiles spent a bit of time poking around in the bottom of a dig in the first shakehole before finding the actual Bar Pot entrance. In we went. Note to self - don't throw your tackle bag down the entrance next time because it almost disappeared down the first pitch. The first pitch is tight at the top but not desperate and once down a few metres opens out nicely down to the floor. Spiralled down from here towards the top of the second pitch. A bit of shall we say 'eccentric' rigging here led to the pitch-head proper. There's a mixture of P-bolts, Spits and Rawl bolts everywhere but found a nice hang off the two P-bolts on the RHS looking down the pitch. Past a rebelay and down to the bottom. Brilliant pitch this. Totally dry and a really nice place to be.

A friend had told me that route finding isn't a problem and so it proved to be. The climb down to SE Pot was uneventful and we motored on down through Pool Chamber (you can easily identify Pool Chamber cos it's where the water goes over your wellies) and follow the draught into the Main Chamber of Gaping Gill. Incredible place - every caver should visit at some stage and Bar Pot is a really nice simple route in.

The journey out was uneventful except for a mild battle with the 'eccentric rigging' at the top of the second pitch. The top of the first pitch just needed a bit of thinking about but was fine.

Compared to the Tatham Wife trip the previous day this was physically much easier and substantially more impressive underground scenery. A nice, dry, half day trip.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

Hits: 4611

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

The two of us headed up from Sheffield on the Thursday morning for a look at Tatham Wife Hole. Rope etc. had been packed in the comfort of my communal stairwell and the journey was uneventful. Arrived at Ingleton Granite Quarry Risings early in the afternoon and made our way to the cave. You definitely want an OS map for this one. The sketch map in Marshall and Rust's 'Selected Caves of Britain and Ireland' isn't very clear. It's a stiff pull straight up the fellside from the Ingleton - Grassington road but things ease once on the limestone pavement. One member of the party had opted to wear a wetsuit and regretted it on the walk up. The swallet entrance is to the west of Ingleborough, where the sloping ground meets the flat limestone pavement and is fairly easy to find in a large shakehole.

SRT kits on and we climbed down the small entrance and into winding canyon passage. This leads quickly into a chamber - Ogden's Chamber and on down to a short drop. This is free-climbable but we rigged it and carried on down towards the top of the first pitch. The first and second pitches are rigged together and pretty straightforward. From the bottom of the second pitch the going gets a bit more awkward and there's a load of stooping/crawling in fairly constricted passage. We made our way down the third pitch and The Ramp and on to the Duck. There wasn't a lot of water around so The Duck was pretty tame; just a short grovel in the water but never completely submerged. From here we continued down the fourth pitch and to the end. Never had to use any of the deviations as there wasn't enough water to warrant it. Just under 2 hours to the bottom.

We went a bit faster on the way out and exited in an hour and a quarter. There was a fair bit of frost on the ground outside the cave entrance and we headed back across the plateau and down to the road. A very enjoyable trip with plenty of proper caving rather than just swinging about on rope.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 11 April 2013

Hits: 4524

Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Jules Barrett (EPC) and Sam Townsend (EPC)

Sam and I discovered that we both had a Monday off work and a daytrip to the Dales was discussed. The organisation was mostly conducted by text message:

"Diccan, GG, Juniper Gulf. Which 1?"
"Good-looking list caves that. Decide Mon morning."

Monday morning arrives and it’s been raining heavily for 24 hours or so. In fact Carlisle’s afloat again and there’s been 63mm of rain in the last 7 days. 20-odd mmfell on the Sunday/Monday so the Dales are obviously going to be awash. Sam had a vague idea that Juniper Gulf shouldn’t cause too many difficulties in the wet so we settled on that. Everything got packed and we headed off in the rain. Like many cavers, I use the stepping-stones at Gargrave as an indicator of water levels and they were well submerged under a fast-flowing sludgy river. We arrived at Crummackdale late morning. It was still raining and all around were resurgences and streams in spate; we even swapped our trusty warmbacs for yellow gimp-suits. Not something either of us do lightly. Now we’d not been to The Allotment before and it would be dishonest of me to say that we headed straight for the target. In fact, we later agreed that without the GPS the cave may have eluded us for even longer. Eventually however, we arrived at the small valley containing the entrance shaft. Looking down it, we were glad that we had opted to rig the alternative dry way in. The stream bounded down the north end of the rift and disappeared amongst some jammed boulders at the bottom. I opened the batting rigging the first 12m pitch down onto a sloping ledge above the stream. Just as my feet were about to get uncomfortably wet a traverse takes you over the jammed blocks and downstream leading to a short, slightly constricted pitch down into the streambed. From here, we traversed above the stream into what has been described as a “gloomy and watered shaft”. This Monday it was particularly gloomy and watered with a waterfall thundering down the left hand wall. We both zipped up and headed on towards a nice 15m pitch down.

Sam took pole position as we traversed along, crawling above the streamway, straddling the rift on hands and knees. This section is pretty awkward and would be a particularly bad place to fall. Next comes ‘The Bad Step’. Here, the passage widens and a swing off a flake lands you on a sloping shelf. There are bolts if you want them. Sam breezed past that and headed for the superb 25m third pitch. Constricted at the top, the shaft bells out nicely to leave you hanging in the middle of the wide rift. Bit of a knot pass focused the mind here and we landed on superb ledges in the rift. Up to this point we hadn’t considered the water too much. You know there’s a torrential stream below you and you’re getting thorough soakings along the way but at this point Juniper Gulf really started going into overdrive. Standing in the chamber at the bottom of the rift the Big Pitch started to make itself known. Taking over the rigging I took us along ledges and into a healthy shower where a spike protects a short drop down onto a big ledge. Cascading down out of the roof was a proper torrent of water falling 90m vertically to the bottom. I set off traversing round the right-hand side, rigged the Y-hang and over the lip. All I remember about the shaft to be honest is the noise, the wind, the water and the bolts. I don’t think either of us looked around once as we descended past a rebelay and down a further 45 metres to the bottom of the shaft. The bottom was a mash-up of spray, falling water and wind. Sam arrived and we stood in a hurricane of wind and water. Standing with our backs to the pitch-head there was definitely a set of rapids coming in from the right and a waterfall hammering down in front of us. They joined and disappeared down into the floor. After a minute at the bottom Sam raced off to be battered by water on the rope.

Once at the top of the big pitch we both relaxed and got on with de-rigging, packing bags and transporting rope; the bread-and-butter stuff. We exited three and a half hours after starting.