Tatham Wife Hole

Karen, Keith and I had decided on a caving trip to the Yorkshire Dales for the Bank Holiday Weekend. Karen and I had arrived at our accommodation for the weekend, the Northern Pennine Club's hut, Greenclose, near Clapham last night to find Dave Wilson and Clive Westlake already there. Later on a couple of members of the Derbyshire-based Masson Caving Group also arrived.
We met Keith in the morning as usual in Bernies for breakfast. Last time we attempted to have a trip in Tatham Wife Hole on a very misty day and we failed to find the entrance! Today we had no problems and after parking in the layby overlooking the old quarry by the road from Ingleton to Ribblehead and changing into caving gear we walked across the fields then up the steep route leading through the limestone escarpment. We reached the large flat area with quite a lot of exposed limestone pavement below the nearby Ingleborough.
In the distance we could actually see the location of Tatham Wife Hole and soon we arrived at the large shake hole taking a small stream and also the small entrance dropping down through shored up boulders.
Karen had not been well recently with some sort of virus (I also had been under par last weekend with some sort of bug so we had stayed at home all weekend) and found the trip fairly tiring. When we arrived at the top of the pitch which follows a sloping ramp, we decided to call it a day and return to the surface.

We had the customary return trip to Bernies afterwards for chip butties. Some things never change!