Whalf Pipe Mine

Roy Rogers had contacted the Club Secretary, Chris, as he was interested in joining the Orpheus Caving Club so Karen and I arranged to accompany him on a caving trip.

We had agreed on Whalf Pipe Mine at Knotlow.

After meeting up at the café in Monyash for breakfast, we drove to Knotlow Triangle to find several cars already parked there but they were starting to leave as we arrived. Roy asked them what they were planning to do and they said they had camped in Hillocks mine overnight and were leaving to have breakfast and then a few would return and clean any mess they had made.

We got changed in the light rain or drizzle and then dropped down Whalf Pipe Climbing Shaft with myself rigging the pitch and Roy following next with Karen taking up the rear.

We had a look around various parts of the old mine and cave and then returned to the surface to get changed and have a mug of tea again in the café.

Afterwards we drove back to the OCC cottages to clean ropes and also show Roy around.

White Edge and Curbar Edge

It was a lovely autumn day with the coldest weather since last winter. The sky was clear and the sun was shining but there was a very cold wind keeping temperatures around the 4 degrees centigrade mark.

After breakfast at the café in Outside at Calver crossroads, we parked in the pay and display car park near Curbar Gap and got our boots on.

Leaving the car park, we followed a track which was marked by a wide flatter area of grass and heather, passing a group of highland cattle unconcernedly munching on grass or laying in the sun.

Soon we arrived at an intersection of paths and our route lay to the left heading along the gritstone escarpment of White Edge.

To our right was the large expanse of Big Moor and Karen soon spotted a large group of Red Deer with a stag and around a dozen hinds. We had brought binoculars as we knew the red deer were often in that area and soon spotted more stags and harems of hinds.

We stopped at the trig point near the Edge to take advantage of the high viewpoint and soon spotted more red deer in the distance.

Continuing on along the path following the Edge, we took advantage of some flat gritstone boulders with a bit of shelter from the wind to have a short stop and have a hot drink from our flasks.

After the break, we started walking again and followed the path until we arrived at a gap in a drystone wall where the path continued on the other side after passing another path and soon we were passing the White Edge Lodge and then the main road, the A625.

After crossing the road, we went through a gate onto the Longshaw Estate and walked across the grounds to the National Trust owned Longshaw Lodge where we had some coffee and scones in the café.

After the break we again crossed the Estate grounds to follow a path through oak woods above Nether Padley and then through Hay Wood which brought us a couple of kilometres along the A625 which we again crossed and then after passing through a stile by a white wooden five-bar gate, we followed the sandy path along the top of Froggat Edge and then Curbar Edge, two of the Peak's many fine gritstone rock climbing crags.

The path offers views across to the village of Hathersage, and the Hope Valley in the distance and the limestone gorge of Stoney Middleton. Further away we could see what looked like a large plume of white smoke until we realised it was the large fountain at Chatsworth House lit up in the sunshine.

We walked along the remainder of Curbar Edge to arrive back at our starting point.

Short Drop Cave

It was an Orpheus Caving Club trip to the Yorkshire Dales this weekend and we joined come others on a trip in Short Drop cave and Gavel Pot. What a coincidence as we were at Gavel Pot last weekend during the British Cave Rescue Council Conference.

Anyway, we were joined by Keith and Boyd Potts at Bernies for breakfast along with Brian Potts, Phil Wall and Jo White.

After meeting up afterwards at the Cowan Bridge car park we decanted into three cars and made our way to the Leck Fell car park where we parked up and changed into caving gear.

Boyd, Karen and myself made our way to Short Drop Cave while the others headed for Gavel Pot. The plan was for Pete to rig the pitch and traverse in Gavel Pot linking with Short Drop Cave so we could exit that way, while they then had a look at Gavel Pot and then exit via Short Drop Cave.

We made our way through Short Drop, pausing to rig the short pitch and soon reached the traverse at Gavel Pot which had been rigged as planned by Pete. I saw Brian Potts there and assumed that he was coming down, so I waited until he could pass by but he disappeared again.

So the three of us passed the traverse and I headed up the entrance pitch to arrive in the large impressive open depression of Gavel Pot almost exactly an hour after entering Short Drop Cave. Not a very long caving trip then!

Pete had found that you could get into Gavel Pot via a muddy slope at the foot of the entrance pitch and he and the others had dropped down the rest of the pot.

Karen, Boyd and I walked back to the cars and got changed out of our caving gear and then sat in our car or Boyd's van to await the others.

After 4 hours (!), Pete returned followed by Brian some distance behind. They had re-ascended Gavel Pot's entrance pitch and joined us at the car park while the rest planned on exiting via Short Drop Cave. There was no sign of them, which was unexpected, so Pete headed off to find them as they had obviously not found their way out yet.

By now Karen and I had reached the time we planned to head for home so we left Keith's gear (which he had left in our car) with Boyd and we headed for home.

Walking in the Lake District – Return to the Dales

Although it had rained overnight, by 0800 the weather cleared giving the tent a chance to dry.

We ate our breakfast alone on the campsite and after reading for a while went to Keswick at 1100 for a coffee and a wander around the shops to give the tent a chance to dry even further.

After an hour and a half in Keswick we returned to the campsite to pack everything up into the car.

We drove back to Ingleton in the Yorkshire Dales and had a meal in Inglesport as Bernies would be closed at that time since it was a weekday.

After the meal we headed for Clapham and collected a key for Greenclose at the New Inn and unloaded the car and claimed a bunk.

Walking in the Lake District - Coledale

After another visit to Keswick, as it was on the way anyway, we drove onwards to the nearby village of Braithwaite and parked in a small layby on the road leading to the Whinlatter Pass.

There was a footpath leaving the road by the layby which followed the deep valley formed by the Coledale Brook.

Soon the narrow footpath which followed the contours joined a vehicle track with a firm and flat surface of small gravel.

As we were walking, we could see a quantity of rain coming our way in the distance, so I stopped to replace my Paramo Fuera Ascent wind-proof jacket with my Paramo Viento jacket which I then kept on for the remainder of the day.

The vehicle track continued along the valley side at around 230 metres in height for about 3 kilometres heading for old mine workings at Force Crag Mine at the head of the valley.

A few hundred metres before the mine buildings there was a rough track leaving the vehicle track and crossing the beck to the opposite side before gradually rising to bring us near a saddle at the top of Low Force between Eel Crag and Sand Hill at around 450 metres.

Karen wasn't feeling very well so we decided to stop hear to have a sit down and eat our sandwiches. Afterwards we followed the same route back to the car.

Walking in the Lake District – Cat Bells

A wet and windy start to the morning but things improved by 10:30. We drove to the hamlet of Little Town which is below Cat Bells on the other side from Derwent Water from our camp site in Borrowdale, and parked in a small car park by an old bridge.

From here we walked a short way up the road towards Little Town and just by the first couple of houses, we left the road to follow a track which was marked on the map as a bridleway.

The bridleway led us along the bottom of Cat Bells until we arrived at a minor road where the ridge began at the northern end of the Cat Bells – High Spy ridge. After following the road for a few hundred metres, a path by another small car park was sign-posted “Cat Bells 1 mile”.

We followed this path which gradually ascended the ridge and there were lovely views across Derwent Water below and across Keswick to Skiddaw.

After a very short rocky section which was slippery due to the rock being polished from the heavy traffic of walkers and also from being wet from recent rain, we arrived at the top of Cat Bells which was bare and rocky compared to the rest of the hill.

In the meantime the weather, which had shown signs of improving, worsened with ominous dark clouds appearing in the direction of Blencathra.

As we approached Cat Bell's summit, there was a distant clap of thunder but luckily other than even more distant rumblings, that was all.

There was a rain shower as we continued towards the next small peak of Maiden Moor and when we arrived at the top, we sat in the lee a grassy bank and sheltered from the wind as we ate lunch.

A heavy rain shower began and I pulled out my 2 person bothy shelter to allow us to finish our lunch as it was 13:30m we decided to cut the walk short and miss out High Spy further along the ridge. So we dropped back down to the wide col between Maiden Moor and Cat Bells, then followed a path down past some old mining spoil heaps, then down again to the track we had followed earlier on our way up.

We retraced our steps along the track back to Little Town and after changing out of our walking boots, and dumping our rucksacks in the car, we returned to Keswick to buy some food at the supermarket.

Walking in the Lake District – A Wet Day

After a night with a lot of rain, it was still raining when we got up at 08:00 and had breakfast.

We sat around and read until 10:30 hoping the weather would improve but the rain continued and it also began to get a bit windy.

As the rain seemed to be set in to remain for some time still, we decided to have a drive to Keswick to pass the time of day and maybe have a coffee and wander around the gear shops.

Still, it was better than being at work!

Walking in the Lake District - Watendlath Tarn and Dock Tarn

We camped at Chapel House Farm in Stonethwaite where we camped earlier in the year. Most of the time there were only a few other tents and on one day, we were the only tent there.

Today was cool but dry and mostly sunny and we went for a shortish walk directly from the campsite starting back along the road towards Keswick as far as the minor road leading to the Youth Hostel. Next we followed a footpath through fields to Rosthwaite village. Leaving the village, we crossed the Keswick road and then followed the route of an old packhorse trail which nowadays is a bridleway.

The bridleway passed Yew Crag and gradually climbed upwards until we reached the lovely Watendlath Tarn where we had a short stop sitting on boulders by the tarn watching a small group of ducks of a variety of types and a fisherman launching his boat onto the tarn to go fishing.

Leaving Watendlath Tarn we continued along a really nice path which soon brought us to another tarn, called Dock Tarn.

We had lunch sitting near the tarn on some rocks and afterwards followed a path which dropped in height and followed a long section of rough stone steps. The steps ended as the path levelled out and passed between drystone-walls which forms a short section of the Coast to Coast Long Distance Path.

Continuing along this route we soon arrived back at Rosthwaite again and had some coffee and cake in the “Flock Inn” tea room.

The walk back to the campsite was very short from here.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

Today was the last day of the BCRC Conference. All activities were taking place at Ingleborough Hall.

We started with Pain Relief and went through analgesics and the handling of injured casualties.

There was a graphic demonstration of why you should handle fractures carefully and apply splints by breaking some pigs leg bones with a hammer and examining the sharp broken bone edges.

This was followed by a comparison of various stretchers used by different Teams, using the SRT practice platform to haul a couple if stretchers. One was a modified Neil Robertson stretcher and the other s Slyx.

This was followed by a session on wear and damage on nylon slings and using a Lyon testing rig to find out at what load some “Quick Draws” as used in rock climbing, broke when subject to various forms of damage.

New Quick Draws with no treatment rated at 22KN broke at 24KN. When wet, another new Quick draw broke at 20KN, a 10% decrease. Taking another new Quick Draw and cutting a tear for about 10% of its width resulted in a 10% weakening. This is explained by there being 90% of the original Quick Draw left.

Burning a part of yet another new Quick Draw again weakened the sling as expected, again in proportion to the amount of sling left undamaged. Lastly, a new Quick draw was abraded and damaged for the full width so that it resembled a Quick Draw which had seen plenty of use. This sling was weakened much more than in other cases as parts of the sling's nylon filaments were weakened for the full width of the Quick Draw.

Lastly, there was a good wrap-up session about the week-end and the Conference was over until next time.

Afterwards, Karen and I packed our gear in the car and set off for Borrowdale in the Lake District.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

Although Karen and I had only brought SRT kit (we were planning to spend a week walking in the Lakes next week and had no room for caving kit: Keith was bringing our kit up on Saturday next week as we would be returning to the Dales for an OCC Meet on Leck Fell) and the activities today were all involving being underground.

We explained the situation to BCRC Conference organisers at Ingleborough Hall and we were told it wouldn't be a problem as we would either be on the surface or only near a cave entrance.

After breakfast we joined Pete Roe from Swaledale (also an Orpheus member) plus Ivan Youg and Dave Warren from Scottish Cave Rescue Organisation and Julie Hardy also from Derbyshire CRO in a Cave Rescue Organisation land rover for lift to Leck Fell.

We attended a session on using a Larkin Rescue Frame. This was done over a small lidded pot called Cupcake which was just the other side of the wall from the road up to Leck Fell parking place. Luckily it was a dry and sunny but cool day.

Afterwards we walked up the road to the car parking place and had a lunch of soup and bread plus lovely flapjack provided by the Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Organisation's mobile canteen.

The afternoon session involved a session on 2 to 1 hauling at Gavel Pot. What was interesting was the releasable deviation formed by attaching a short length of rope to a karabiner using a barrel knot and the rope was wrapped through a second karabiner then back and forth several times around both karabiners and then the end was tied off.

When the “casualty” reached the “Y hang” on a 2 to 1 haul (using a Z rig at the surface to take in the active rope on the 2 to 1 system), the deviation was released and the rope now formed a Tyrolean Travers.

The “casualty” was then hauled across the Tyrolean Travers to get across the slope at the shaft top.

BCRC Conference Clapham, Yorkshire Dales

I had taken the afternoon off from work and we drove to Clapham in the Yorkshire Dales to pick up the key for Greenclose, the Northern Pennine Club's hut, where we were staying for the weekend.

Then as it has just opened for Registration at 17:00, we visited nearby Ingleborough Hall to register for the British Cave Rescue Council's Conference which was being held in the Yorkshire Dales this year.

Afterwards we drove to Greenclose and put our sleeping bags on a couple of bunks and dropped off some of our gear there. We had camping and walking gear with us as we were moving on to the Lake District for some walking after the weekend.

Returning to Ingleborough at 19:30, we joined Bill Whitehouse, Julie Hardy and Ron Price from DCRO for dinner.  

Lathkill Dale

In the morning we started with breakfast at the café in Monyash before driving to the Orpheus Caving Club cottage to attend the Half-yearly General Meeting.

It was a lovely sunny day so afterwards we went for a walk in Lathkill Dale as I had taken the plastic box containing the log book for Lathkill Head Top Entrance a couple of weeks ago as it was damaged and had repaired it and was now now replacing it.

We continued our walk following a farm track to One Ash Grange Farm and from there to Cales Dale which we followed northwards to Lathkill Dale.

Crossing the footbridge to the opposite side of the stream flowing from the Resurgence Cave, we followed the ascending path on the opposite side of the dale to reach the top.

After walking back along the top of the dale, we returned back to where we had started at the layby on the Monyash to Bakewell road.

Goyt Valley

First Karen and I met up with Keith at the café in Monyash for breakfast. He was planning on a trip into Water Icicle Close Cavern to sort out the bicycle-based hauling winch and tarpaulin cover so that he and Pete Collins could return to digging on his return from Thailand.

After breakfast, we left Keith to his caving while we drove to Buxton and then to the small car park at Derbyshire Bridge in the Goyt Valley.

From the car park we walked for a kilometre or so along the minor road leading to the A537 near the Cat and Fiddle pub. After walking past the pub, we left the road to follow a rough track and after about 800 metres just past Stake Farm to follow a descending path passing Stake Clough to reach Deep Clough and a small footbridge crossing the stream to a path junction.

We sat on a ruined drystone-wall to have a snack and then continued on the path leading northwards to another small footbridge crossing another stream flowing down Berry Clough.

There is a path leading up the clough and we followed this to a path junction where a path led us south to reach a rough vehicle track.

The track the led us for a kilometre westwards back to the car park.