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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

Hits: 4915

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.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

Hits: 4225

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

Chris and I set off from Sheffield early on Saturday morning and spotted Gingling Pot in Mike Cooper's book 'Not for the Faint Hearted' whilst having breakfast at McDonalds in Keighley. The book describes Gingling Hole as "the indisputable caving gem on Fountains Fell offering a truly grand day out with something to please everyone." Since neither of us had caved on Fountains Fell before this sounded perfect. We had decided to do the Big Pitch route and after stepping out of the car we looked closely at the pitches. According to the book we needed almost 190 metres of rope which was rather more than I hoped we would need to carry between the two of us. In fact we ended up with about 210 metres of 10mm plus associated hardware (P-bolts haven't reached this part of Yorkshire). I had a few long ropes in the back of the car but Gingling Hole needs lots of short ones and one big one. Half an hour later I had one less long rope and more short ones. Unfortunately we didn't have anything handy to melt the ends so many of our ropes had frayed and rapidly fraying ends as they went into the bags which was nice! We trudged slowly over to the cave entrance towing our two 'pigs' behind us.

Fortunately the walk to Gingling Hole is 25 minutes on the flat and when we were in the right sort of area Chris climbed onto his tackle bag to get a better view. We found the entrance, rigged the 9m entrance pitch with a bit of (frayed) rope and abseiled down into a chamber with a sloping floor. From here a drop through a slot in the bottom (called the Letterbox) landed us in a small streamway with sections of canal. This led to the top of the second pitch which was already rigged with a rope of unknown vintage. There are some good footholds here so we handlined down the in-situ rope to land in a small chamber below. Since the pitch was rigged we ditched the second pitch rope that we had brought and carried on following the water down a narrow twisting rift which leads to the top of the third pitch. This was similarly rigged and so we traversed out and abseiled down, dumping another rope. An awkward downwards squeeze in a narrow rift led to the fourth pitch which overlooks Stalactite Chamber and a nice 10m pitch lands in the bottom of the chamber. We were having a great time having rigged precisely nothing and finding the caving very enjoyable. From here the route on is through a small slot in the bottom of the chamber and into a low bedding which leads to the well-decorated Fools Paradise. This is a lovely and well-preserved section of walking and stooping passage with straws, columns, large stalactites and flowstone curtains. We found the fifth and sixth pitches rigged and eventually arrived at the 'Ammered Ole'. We had opted for the 'Big Pitch' route to the bottom which meant abseiling down the 'Ammered 'Ole pitch' which is very tight at the top. In fact our 'Big Pitch' bag wouldn't fit through here so the end of the rope had to be dropped down for Chris to pull it down and re-pack the bag...kept him warm anyway whilst I wrestled with the pitch head. At the bottom there's the 5m 'Little Pitch' and before long we were at the top of the 62m 'Big Pitch'. There was no rope on here so we rigged our own and I set off down. The pitch needs a couple of deviations and despite a very good look I couldn't find the lower one so came back up to the pitch head without having descended the full length of the pitch.

By now we had rope and hardware liberally strewn throughout the cave (and virtually none of it in use) and set off back up to collect it. This we did with much swearing but were soon on the surface having enjoyed a superb trip.