Sunday 18 November 2007

15th Nov 2007 - Tatham Wife Hole

Starting down pitch 2



Our third trip of the season saw us heading steeply uphill from a layby on the Chapel-le-Dale road, just north of the White Scar show caves. Passing through old quarry levels it feels as though the summit of Ingleborough must be close by before the ground levels and the search for the deep shake hole containing the cave begins. Fortunately a GPS makes this process much easier, but it is easy to see why many cavers have become lost in poor visibility.

The entrance in the bottom of the shake hole leads into a beautiful streamway before a short pitch, which could be free climbed. Descending this you begin to realise that this is no place to be in wet weather.
Carrying along the streamway again brings you to the first real pitch of about 8m with a deviation. Arriving at the bottom of the pitch its possible to rig the second pitch almost immediately. Once again we were glad that there was hardly any water flowing along the streamway, otherwise this would be a very wet pitch.


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