Sunday 3 May 2009

Aygill Caverns, Yorkshire

Today we planned on a trip into Aygill Caverns. I thought I remembered a trip there many years ago with the Saint Albans Caving Club but later on after reaching the entrance I realised I had remembered incorrectly and I hadn't been there before. Anyway, Pete, Dave, Phil, Keith, Karen and I arrived at Bull Pot Farm to get changed into caving gear while Boyd planned to accompany us to the entrance and then go for a short walk. We walked the short distance to the cave entrance - unusual for the Yorkshire Dales, and arrived at the smallish hole beneath a small crag next to the small beck flowing past. There was a bit of a barrier made from rocks which appeared to divert some of the water from the entrance in high water conditions. I dropped the tackle bag I had been carrying and after Boyd and Dave had taken some photos of us standing by the entrance, Pete and Phil clambered down the short climb into the small chamber below. Keith had injured the end of one of his fingers while moving a rock in Water Icicle Cavern back in Derbyshire last weekend and with the nail coming off and the finger tip swollen and painful, he decided not to go underground and give it a chance to heal. SO we said good bye and Karen dropped down the entrance next only to find that her Stenlight wouldn't work! She handed her helmet to me and since Dave also had a Stenlight, we plugged Karen's light into Dave's battery and it worked fine, so Karen's battery must have been flat.
Karen decided rather than totally abort the trip, she would go at least as far as the first pitch using her back-up light attached to her helmet. So we let Dave overtake us and then followed him inwards. After the small entrance chamber, the cave continued as a low crawl and after a junction and a short climb, we reached one of those annoying sections of passage which is too narrow at the bottom so you have to traverse along in a wider section, still not very wide, and not very tall either, using slippery footholds and bracing yourself with your arms and shoulders and hips. After a short bit of this, I decided to give up as we were only planning to go a short way due to Karen's light problems and as I didn't wan to wrench my shoulder, just in case anyway, we decided to turn around and exit. We were soon back on the surface after spending an even shorter time underground than yesterday! As we told Dave that we were heading out we heard Pete's voice saying "Paul's not allowed to have more cake as h hasn't done enough!".
We were heading for County Clare in a fortnight and as Keith was arriving a week later by flying to Shannon, we agreed to take his caving gear and had arranged for him to stick his tackle bag full of gear under Karen's car after he head headed back earlier. When we returned to where the cars were parked, we found Keith still there waiting in his car. He realised that his bag was too big to hide underneath Karen's car and not wanting to leave it somewhere else in an also inconspicuous place in case we didn't see it and assume it had been taken, he decided to wait until Boyd had returned from his short walk and ask him to look after it and then pass it onto us later.
Soon after we had changed form caving gear, Boyd arrived and we all decided on another trip to Bernies before heading for home despite the next day being Spring Bank Holiday as Karen and I had already planned to do this as my car was off the road and I planned to go to work on the Bank Holiday and take the next day off instead, while all the others were also going home for one reason or another - plus the weather forecast for the next day was quite bad,

Saturday 2 May 2009

Ireby Fell Cavern, Yorkshire

Bank Holiday weekend and the two of us arrived at the YSS Old Schoolhouse last night to find a large group from Holland who had been staying there all week and a few others. In the morning we headed for Bernies as usual where we met Keith, Boyd, Mark Silo, Dave Phillips, Phil Wall and Pete Wagstaff. The plan was for Boyd, Dave and Pete to have a trip in the Easegill system, as per the Trip List while the rest of us planned on the Shadow Route in Ireby Fell Cavern.
After breakfast we all headed for Masongill or Bull Pot Farm. When Karen got out of her car near the water treatment building on Masongill Lane, she spotted a ten pound note and picked it up. It had been there for a while as it had mud splashes. She shouted to Keith what she found. I the started waving a twenty pound note and Keith came running over shouting excitedly "Where did you find that?" I told him "in my wallet!" which had Karen laughing. Anyway, we got changed and headed for the cave with the plan to do the Shadow Route, which I hadn't done before, with Mark doing the rigging.
Someone has made a stepped path down into the shakehole and also quite a lot of work stabilising boulders in the entrance passage. Another party were in front of us, it seemed, as the usual "Ding", "Dong" and "Dell" (the first three pitches which unite at the same position as the bottom of the Shadow Route) route were already rigged. Mark set off on the initial traverse section followed by Keith and the rest of us. At the end of the traverse, it seemed getting onto the "Y" hang would be a little tricky as it didn't seem to have a lot in the way of footholds and on closer inspection I thought it might be even more tricky to get off again on the way up. Since my injured shoulder is still not back at full strength, I decided not to risk having problems so I returned along the short traverse and let Karen and Phil through. I thought I would have a try at getting past the traverse but wait until I was the last so that I could take some time over it. Karen made it look straightforward by clipping her footloop onto the top of the "Y" hang.
A short way down this first bit, the Shadow Route is parallel to the rope on "Ding" pitch, but part way down, you swing through a hole into a parallel shaft. Karen swing across and soon shouted "Rope free" and Phil followed down. Karen soon returned before Phil had reached the hole saying she was having trouble getting past a rebelay beyond the hole and was coming back up. So Phil pulled the other party's rope over so that Karen could use it to prusik back up to the traverse, where I was waiting. She was unhappy that she had had to give up and we both returned the short way to the surface.
We walked back across the moorland and down Masongill Lane to where we had parked the car and started to get changed out of our caving gear. Karen spotted Keith's car keys in her boot and didn't remember him saying he was leaving them there. We would have to be there when the others came back so that Keith could get his keys and get changed as his clothes were locked in his care, plus also be able to drive his car back to Ingleton! Estimating that we would have to wait at least an hour and a half for them to return, we decided to return to Ingleton for a coffee and then come back. This we did, but we parked in a different place behind Mark's car instead of behind Keith's, where he wouldn't be able to see it as he returned down the lane, leading him to think we had gone off with his keys...
We waited a while and sure enough the others arrived and Keith started hunting around his car to see if we had left his keys anywhere without any luck. We saw him then borrow Phil's mobile phone and guessed he was phoning Karen so she quickly set her phone to silent mode before it started to ring. She answered say "Hello Phil!" and Keith started saying that we had his keys and where were we? Karen couldn't prevent herself from giggling thus giving the game away!
Once the rest were changed out of caving gear we mounted the top of the small covered reservoir to see the distant view of the sea and Morecambe Bay in the distance with the sun glinting off the water - than back to Bernies!