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!