Alum Pot

Karen and I drove up to the Yorkshire Dales last night and met Keith in the New Inn in Clapham on one of his rare visits on a caving trip starting on a Friday night. Pete Collins was expecting to accompany Keith but sadly his mother wasn't well.

We stayed in Greenclose, the Northern Pennine Club's hut near Clapham where except for Dave (of 'potholer.com' and Bisun Lights) who is an NPC member, we had the place to ourselves.

We had an excellent trip to the bottom of Alum Pot via Lower Long Churn Cave and had the system to ourselves until we met an instructed group making their way into Lower Long Churn at Plank Pool.

There had been a bit of rain the day before and last night but the forecast was for occasional light showers so we had changed plans form Diccan Pot to Alum Pot and decided we could have a look at how much water was flowing down Diccan and perhaps return tomorrow and drop down that pot.

We had a good look first at the top of Diccan and later looking up from the sump at the bottom of both Alum and Diccan Pots. The water levels were fairly low so there should be no problems the next day.

There had been reports of car crime occurring at Selside Lane where you park for Alum Pot and it was nice to see a Police van checking things out both while we were getting changed to go caving and also afterwards.

Another visit to Bernies for a meal and afterwards back to the New Inn. Later on we met Mike Child who had come to go caving for a couple of days but has to work Saturdays.