Paul Lydon: Shuttleworth Pot

A first trip to this beautifully decorated cave for most of us, which was found by divers after diving from Witches Cave on Leck Fell.
Although the weather was forecast as a bit wet with heavy showers, this is one cave where the weather isn't as important as many others in the Dales.
Karen and I drove up to the Dales last night to join Pete Wagstaff, Alan Hatton and Mick Hogg at the Railway Inn at Ribblehead, a short way out of Ingleton. We were staying in adjoining bunk house accommodation with Keith joining us this morning. Meanwhile, because we only had the bunkhouse booked for the 6 of us, Boyd and Jenny Potts plus Phil Walker were staying at a 4 bed bunkhouse at the Dalesbridge centre near Austwick by the A65.
The pub was not very busy and there was plenty of room in the car park but we knew that the 11 space bunkhouse had been booked by bikers so it may be a bit busier today.
As usual, the morning gathering point was Bernies in Ingleton for breakfast. Ingleton seemed busier than usual in terms of parked cars. Keith and Dave Phillips met us there, with Dave just up for the day to go caving.
Breakfast accomplished and an after breakfast faff with more mugs of tea and a bit of gear buying (as today would be a relatively short trip), we all set off to park some cars at the village car park at the Cowan Bridge and then drive the three cars allowed by the required permit for caving on Leck Fell up onto the fell.
We ended up behind a convoy of several other vehicles with a couple more coming up behind, which turned out not to be cavers as they all drove past the cavers' car park and parked further up towards the farmhouse. Interestingly, a cattle grid had been installed next to the gate across the road near the route to Lost Johns Cave, so we no longer needed to open and close a gate on our way.
There were a couple of other cars already parked with their occupants getting changed into caving gear. I forget which cave they were heading for , but there are quite a few on the fell. As we were getting changed, another couple of cars also arrived out of which emptied three more cavers.
Once everyone had changed, we started the old Yorkshire Dales game called “Spot the Cave Entrance”! We followed the drystone wall for a bit and then spread out and after a relatively short time we found the entrance, which is a raised concrete platform with a rectangular manhole cover and an anchored short length of scaffold pole serving as a belay.
Keith and Pete set off down the hole with the two tackle bags of rope, followed by Karen and then myself with Dave and the others following.
The first bit at the surface is only around 3 metres of large diameter tubing buried in the ground with a flat base and a cut-out window opening on one side onto the first pitch-head. There was a short length of aluminium builders ladder and I was able to lower myself down and get onto the ladder and clamber down a few rungs to reach the floor of the tube. Unfortunately there was a lip between the floor and the cut-out window allowing a puddle of water to collect and as it was easier to sit on the floor with legs out over the pitch in order to get on the rope, this meant a wet bum!
The first pitch was short with a simple deviation using a drilled hole and the lower section was easily free-climbable on the way out. As I was already abseiling, it was just as easy to continue abseiling down the remaining few metres.
Then there was a short clamber down another solid ladder which was held in place with some scaffold tubes, placed in an angled drop over loose rubble and then a scoot along a low passage to the next pitch-head, ignoring the small muddy chamber on the left.
From the top of the next pitch, there was a sequence of short pitches with a short tightish section at one rebelay, to arrive at the top of the biggest bit, which is a called the Divers Pitch.
This pitch started with a short abseil to a small ledge next to a Y hang with a good view down into the large chamber below with Karen dealing with the next rebelay on a nose of rock sticking out below and Keith at the bottom of the pitch in the chamber and a few metres above me, dave waiting for his turn to descend.
Karen has passed the final rebelay and shouted “Rope free” from the bottom and I soon joined Keith who was sitting on a block which overlooks the large hole dropping down to the short length of stream leading to the sump below.
He had somehow managed to hurt a middle finger and Pete was busy rigging the traverse across to the pitch leading down to the stream and then the sump.
On the opposite side of the chamber from the drop down to the stream was a mud slope with a taped route leading up the slope. Keith said Karen had headed up the slope so that she could take photos before the rest of us arrived and created a steamy atmosphere. I soon followed and at the top of the slope there was a short crawling section.
The end of the crawl broke into a wide and high passage partially blocked by a large stal formation and curtain.
What an amazing cave! Lots of lovely straws and helectites and other formations! We made our way along the taped route largely following the path of a small, narrow and shallow stream which had worn its way down through several metres of sediment. We were both pausing frequently to take photos, and Phil soon caught is up and the three of us wandered along the taped route with frequent exclamations of “Wow!” and “Amazing!”.
We passed a boulder to one side of the path with taped off cups of thin stal which had formed by water dripping and splashing only to be left behind when the surrounding sediment had been washed away.
One section of passage wall was heavily coated with helectites and was right next to the path so it was very easy to have a goof look at them.
Sadly, even though there was a taped off route, here and there the tape was being trampled by previous visitor and there were even a set of large boot prints right through a section of sediment on the “wrong” side of the tape.
We reached a split in the route and followed the lower route to the right to begin with through more towering banks of sediment which again had been cut through by the small narrow stream and after quite a bit of well decorated passage I squeezed through a short narrow section, and reached a dead-end blocked by rock and/or flowstone.
Karen heard me coming back and as there was a only a short section of passage with sand and mud, she decided to turn around where she was.
Returning back to the junction, we then followed the left-hand section or taped-off path which started steeply up dried mud and passed a small hollow with the disturbed skeleton of a small dog. Again there more decorations and then again, a blockage and the and of the passage.
Making our way back the way we came, we met some of the others making their way through on their way in. We continued back to the chamber at the foot of the Divers Pitch. I decided to not bother descending the short drop down to the stream and sump as there was quite a lot of loose rock at the beginning of the traverse and I didn't want to risk having any stuff dropping down while I descended or while I was down there by others following afterwards.
Phil started to make his way across the traverse and I heard from Boyd that Mick had decided to call it a day on the way down at the deviation and was back on the surface.
I started making my way back to the surface followed by Boyd as we made our way up the rope passing each rebelay in turn. It was a bit awkward getting back up through the short tightish section while on the rope, but not too bad and soon I was clambering up the short section of ladder at the low passage leading back to the low crawl.
From here I heard Mick shouting down something about the karabiner on the deviation above me and I started clambering up the pitch as it was an easy climb, at least to start with. I then heard Mick say he had dropped the karabiner after detaching it from the deviation loop and let it slide down the rope. I asked Boyd to grab the karabiner as he was standing next to the remainder of the rope below me and he was able to pass it up to me. I then replaced the karabiner on the loop for the deviation.
From here the climbing was a bit trickier and there was some loose material which could be knocked down onto Boyd, so I attached my jammers onto the rope and then prusiked the last few metres to the Y hand by the window in the entrance tubing.
I got into the tubing, detached my jammers and shouted down “rope free” to Boyd and clambered back up the short ladder and hoiked myself out back onto the surface. I checked my watch and saw it was 14:30. I had been I and two and a quarter hours underground, having started in at 12:15.
What a very enjoyable and excellent trip!
All that remained was the walk back through the heather for around a kilometre uphill back to the cars. This was more tiring then the underground bit!

To top off an excellent caving trip, we had our obligatory chip butties back at Bernies.