Birks Fell Cave, Wharfedale

The two of us set off from Winster yesterday at around 6:30pm and arrived in Kettlewell in Yorkshire (the village where the film "The Calendar Girls" was based) about 3 hours later. We had to look for the agreed camp site, Fold Farm and after a bit of a search, we found it. It was fairly busy, mainly with "Duke of Edinburgh" groups, as we found later in the morning. They were all in their tents by 10:pm and very quiet so, after a pitching the tent (first time it was used even though I bought it many months ago!) and a quick brew-up, Karen and I joined the sleeping throng.
The problem was that the DoE groups were up before 7:00am and cooking breakfast and getting ready to pack up and head off by 9:00! I got up just after 8:00 and got the stove going. after a quick trip to the port-a-loo, the only facilities besides a tap for water, we started on cereal for breakfast and not long after, Pete W arrived after driving up this morning. Not long afterwards, Mick H also arrived - he had arrived last night as well but had spent the night in Kettlewell Youth Hostel. As he could book for this evening, he decided to also camp and put his tent up. The camp site was an overflow from the main one nearer the village centre and was in a lovely, quiet spot with rabbits on nearby grassy slopes and a heron not far away near a stream. It had been fairly cold last night with a clear sky and loads of dew in the morning.
We set off a few miles up the road to the car park in Buckden and got into our caving gear and started the route towards the cave by walking down the narrow road for a short distance then following a winding track with a loose stone surface. We left Pete checking in at the farm, but he soon caught us up.
After a short search, we found the entrance and Karen headed in at about 11:30, while I followed with Mick and Pete coming next. After a bit of rift passage we came to a small chamber with the expected continuation, "The Bradford Crawl", a flat-out crawl with a rough ceiling of eroded limestone. The problem was that there wasn't much room! It appeared that recent floods had washed stones and gravel into the crawl and raised the floor by a few inches. Karen had a look and realised it was too small and I agreed after trying to get in. Pete managed to crawl through for the fifteen feet or so to larger passage and I started digging out stones and gravel from the floor while Pet started doing the same from the far end. Once we had done this, I came out for a rest and Karen had a go at getting through the crawl and was soon through. I decided to give my shoulder a rest and head for the surface so told Mick to follow on. As he doesn't like this sort of cave passage, I wasn't surprised when he had a couple of half-hearted tries and gave up. Pete and I convinced him to try Agni and he set off feet-first and was soon through to the other end.
I said good-bye to the others and headed for the surface. Once at the entrance, I had a rest and then decided that my shoulder didn't feel to bad after the rest, so I stashed my bag containing my SRT kit and headed back into the cave. I thought I would just follow the others taking my time and possibly get as far a the first pitch (15 metres). I was soon back at the Crawl and passed this then into hands-and-knees crawling followed by easy-walking passage, some clambering and climbing and a nice chamber with and easy climb down. Soon I reached hands-and-knees crawling on a sandy floor with elbow-deep water. After a short distance, a couple of boulders partly blocked the way at a right-angle bend. Once past the boulders, the passage was still low and a bit narrow with a rough floor. I decided I had gone far enough (the others told me later I had nearly reached the first pitch) and again headed back to the surface.
I reached the entrance for the second time at nearly 2:00pm after 2 and a half hours underground and laid out my SRT kit in the sun to dry and then sat in the sun looking at the views of Wharfedale for about 45 minutes. I then packed everything up and headed back to car park and got changed. I went into the nearby cafe and had a beefburger and chips and then back to the car where I waited for the others and they arrived about three quarters of an hour later.
We tried the cafe again for a snack, but it had closed. So, it was back to the campsite where Pete put up his tent - a new one he had got from Oxfam for £10: apparently a Glastonbury remnant! Other small groups of DoE kids started arriving and also pitching tents. Later we went to the Kings Head in the village for a meal but they weren't doing meals as the chef hadn't turned up! So we had a meal at the nearby Bluebell Inn instead.