Sunday 22 February 2009

Calf Holes to Browgill Cave, Yorkshire

Boyd headed off to the Lakes after breakfast while Waggy, Dave, Chris, Dawn, Karen and I decided on an easy, short trip was in order and we chose a trip to Calf Holes which only myself, Karen and Waggy had been in before. Waggy rigged and I followed him down followed by the others. We toook our SRT kit off and had a look at the upstream section until it got quite low and then headed back to the pitch. I put my harness back on and and the rest of my SRT kit into a small bag and headed downstream. The others followed and I eventually reached the short flat-out section leading to The Contortion and the connection with Browngill Cave. Karen and the others soon followed and we were off downstream again. We then headed for the flat-out waterfall bypass and was soon at the narrow "staircase" of rock leading down to a short, handline-assisted clamber down to the rift leading in a short distance to the chamber at the foot of the waterfall. We all had a look around the chamber and noticed the lovely fossils in the blocks on the floor.
Karen headed back up the short climb and "staircase" to retrace the route back to Calf Holes and the pitch back to the surface, while the rest of us headed downstream. After a short distance Dawn was asking "What's that light ahead?" and I replied "The Sun!". We were at the entrance to Browgill Cave. We clambered up the river bank and headed back along the lane to Calf Holes. Just as I got to the head of the pitch, I saw the rope moving and after a "Coooeee!" down the pitch, I heard Karen "coooeee!" back. She was just getting ready to prusik back up and was soon back up at the top of the pitch. After Karen had de-rigged the rope we headed back to the parked cars and Pete and Dave decided to have a look for Old Ing Cave, while the rest of us got changed and then headed to Pen-y-Ghent cafe in Horton-in-Ribblesdale for some tea and cake before the trip back home to Derbyshire.

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