Once everyone had got out of bed, again we headed to Ingleton and Bernies for breakfast. We were joined by Duncan Young who was up for the day to go caving. It had rained earlier in the morning but seemed to remain dry for the immediate future. After breakfast, Boyd headed off for a walk while the rest of us returned to the car park in Cowan Bridge.
Again we re-arranged cars and contents and drove in convoy to the Leck Fell car park. The plan was for Chris and Duncan to enter Short Drop Cave while Karen, Mat, Nikki, Dave and Pete headed for Gavel Pot. We walked straight to the shake hole surrounded by barbed wire with a stile containing Short Drop Cave and after seeing off Duncan and Chris we headed for Gavel Pot. We knew it was another shake hole with a barbed wire fence and stile further away, but only Pete had been there before and he wasn't sure which particular shake hole with a barbed wire fence and stile was the correct one and we walked to four wrong ones before arriving at the correct one! It was the other side of the dry stone wall from Short Drop Cave, on the same side as the car park.
I was a bit stiff from yesterday and had a nagging pain in my lower back probably from a pulled muscle and thought the walk to Gavel Pot would loosen me up, but it didn't. So I decided on a quick look down Gavel Pot, where I had never been before and then an early return to the car as the planned Gavel Pot/Short Drop Cave was not a long trip.
Pete dropped down the steep path into the shake hole and I gave Mat my tackle bag of rope (we brought enough to rig both the pitches leading to the connection with Short Drop and also the large open Gavel Pot). I followed the others down and Pete started rigging the entrance pitch. While we were waiting, I had a look at the large Pot and slipped and ended putting my hand in nettles - typical!
Once the entrance pitch was rigged, Karen, Dave, Mat and Nikki dropped down in turn and once the rope was free, I followed.
This was a shortish pitch of about 10 metres landing on a muddy slope dropping down towards Short Drop Cave while up slope was back towards the open pot. A short distance down slope, the rope was tied off to an Eco hanger at the start of a narrow shelf with a roof about 50 cm. above and peering around this I saw the soles of Nikki's wellies and Duncan and Chris on the opposite side of a drop beyond. Obviously it would not be easy for Duncan and Chris to get past if I followed on behind Nikki, so I decided that I might as well return back to the surface - after all I was planning on a short trip anyway!
I waited on the surface for the two of them to arrive and after saying bye, decided I might as well have a quick look down Short Drop Cave on the way back to the car. I returned to Short Drop and after dropping down through the entrance, I stripped off my SRT gear and headed into the cave. After a low section and a crawl with a flat-out section, the cave passage got quite a bit bigger and very pleasant and fairly well decorated in parts.
After some distance, I met Karen, Mat and Nikki on their way out to complete the through trip having de-rigged the pitch in Short Drop Cave. I continued on to see the rest of the cave as far as the top of the first pitch while the other three made their way out.
On the way I passed below an amazing arched bridge made entirely of boulders which had fallen from on side if the cave to the other side with a small rock the size of a football resting against the opposite wall with several other boulders increasing in size to the largest which was the size of a fridge or probably a bit bigger! Having reached the top of the first pitch, I turned around and headed for the surface myself and found the others waiting at the entrance.
We returned to the cars and after changing, Mat and Nikki headed for home while Karen and I had another trip to Bernies as it was only around two in the afternoon.
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