25th July - CPC Penyghent Pot

 AJ, Mick, Simon, Jay, Adie, Patrick and Mike

23rd July 2026 - Ribblehead

 Middle scar with Tony

9th July 2026 - A pause for reflection

 Not Growling with Mike

1st July 2026 - I can see clearly now

Since our previous visit to Spectacle at the end of May, work has put paid to a few potential trips and this week too was going to be a non starter. I have fantastic colleagues though and Mr Hamilton exceptionally kindly agreed to running a parents' evening by himself allowing a trip in a brief weather window.

Caving on a Wednesday as opposed to a Thursday meant there were different folk around and we had the pleasure of bumping into one of the Thunder pot diggers as we set off from the lay by. Just before Heron we heard a muffled bleating sound and peering down a small hole we could just make out the nose of a sheep who, living in an area famed for it, had decided to try its hoof at pot holing. Fortunately she had the attribute of being a team player and allowed a straightforward capture and hoick back to the surface. Undettered by her initial experience, she seemed keen for more and followed us towards Spectacle before being distracted by a patch of grass.

A month of warm and fairly well watered weather seemed to have resulted in a huge expansion of the tussocks and the crossing of the moor from Heron seemed much harder work than previously, an exchange of waves with the diggers at their tripod giving but brief respite.

Our previous recce allowed us to find the entrance much more easily than before and we were soon down the first pitch and the ensuing free climbs. At Splutter crawl there were distinct pools of water, rather than the continuous canal of our earlier visit, so I assumed my best Superman pose and inserted my body. I'm still not quite sure about where my source of forward propulsion came from but I was concious of trying to use my toes to udge me forward inch by inch. A couple of metres in, the cave seemed to give me a welcoming hug and there were a couple of opportunities to cool my face in well placed puddles before a narrow slot in the floor signalled an expansion of the passage. The fun though continued with a head first descent of 2 metres of ladder which I'm glad Mike wasn't able to witness.

Pulling the rope I'd been towing the tackle sacks emerged through the crawl, shortly followed by Mike. The second pitch was close at hand and, though described as 'narrow and awkward', after Splutter crawl, seemed fine.

The next obstacle was the Wet Crawl. While 'wet' is a perfectly adequate adjective to describe the crawl, low, loose and quite long could also be used without arguement. As ever in these situations, Winston Churchill's paraphrased words about a tackle sack being a good way to ruin an enjoyable cave, came to mind. The bow wave of displaced gravel in front of the pushed sack was frustrating, but when an enthusiastic push broke a thin flake of rock from the side of the crawl and loose rubble poured in, I was genuinely frightened. Fortunately as the stones knitted together the flow stopped and I was able to carefully clear a way forward, the end of the crawl lying just a few metres ahead.

Once more in relatively expansive surroundings we redonned our SRT kit and scrambled over a boulder or two to the impressive Dodd's pitch. I struggle to find rebelay bolts, even with my lamp on full beam and so resorted to the natural described in NFTFH which was more than adequate to give a free hang. Just below the bottom of the pitch, the lower of twin eyeholes (the source of the pot's name?) gave access to the penultimate and increasingly loose pitch. Where this ends is a matter of opinion as the angle of the pile of choss gradually relents. 

A further scrambling descent of the Great Rubble Heap leads to the final pitch. It's worth noting that there is now a resin bolt here, so no hanger required, as well as a forlorn plank of wood that seems to do a surprisingly good job of preventing the pitch filling with scree. A few metres down the sum of the obstacles we'd overcome to get here, coupled with a narrowing of the pitch and further tottering choss got the better of me. This was going to be another bit of passage that we'd reluctantly leave for when Tony could join us. Mike seemed happy with this arrangement and we began our swim up the slope to the bottom of our ropes.

Fortunately the Wet Crawl seemed shorter on the return and we soon seemed to be at the ladder contemplating how we were going to get our tackle sacks back through, the slot at the crawls entrance denying an easy pull through. Depositing the bags into this slot, I crawled over them, once again towing a rope behind. Mike then udged up into the crawl, tied on each bag and manoeuvred them into position for me to pull through. I doubt that this was as easy to do as he made it seem, but they were both soon on their drag through the crawl.

Normally it takes a couple of days before I start to ache after a trip but putting my SRT kit back on, I could feel it in my shoulders straight away. It was with quite a bit of relief that I pulled out onto the moor, the not insignificant rain slightly worrying as we hadn't expected it for a further hour or so. Even the short climb back up to the car caused leg muscles to remind me they'd been working hard and removing my wet t-shirt proved to be quite a struggle with shoulders now calling time.

As we drove back towards Kirkby the rain fell ever harder and it was a desolate town centre we found on arrival. The Barn was shut tight, the Snooty Fox likewise, so through deepening puddles we tried Avanti, no joy, before finally a welcome in the Red Dragon. Joined by Uncle Dan we more than doubled the clientel and the Scots barmaid seemed more than happy to close up around us while we drank. It has to be said that no-one would ever confuse any one of the three of us with a professional basketball player so it made Dan's evening when he was asked if he could help reach some napkins from a high shelf.

As the barmaid contemplated the flooding cellar, I was wishing for the immense shoulders of the referree in charge of the football game on the TV and knowing that the satisfaction of this trip would last considerably longer than the aches and pains.

28th May 2026 - What's Goyden on here then?

For as long as I can remember a trip to Nidderdale has been on our wish list, sporting as it does a trio of caves that should, I'm told, be on every LCMLA level 2's ticket. The coinciding of a period of dry weather and a holiday Thursday aswell as a well timed MOT and service for Tony's car meant the dream could become a reality.

A brief cuppa and slice of, as ever, delicious rhubarb and custard cake at Mike's, a garage pick up of Tony and we were East bound on the Skipton road. Landmarks becoming less familiar and the steady flow of travellers' bow topped wagons heading towards Appleby gave an exotic feel to our Oriental adventure. Past Grassington and I really had no idea where we were anymore, the moors becoming bleaker, their gritstone crenellations silhouetted against cloudless blue skies. Surely there can't be any caves here, it's the wrong sort of rock? The sign for Stump Cross caverns soon put paid to that theory.

We descended into the metropolis of Pately bridge and began the steady climb into Upper Nidderdale before parking next to a bricked up railway tunnel within sight of our first objective of the day, Manchester Hole. Hawthorne in full bloom shone bright in the late May sunshine as we crossed the stiles to the entrance. The cool darkness below in stark contrast to the warmth and daylight above. Tony, keen to fully explore with the aim of taking trips here in future headed up stream while Mike and I headed down.

The entrance to Manchester pot

If this was your first experience of caving I'm sure you'd be impressed, it's a stunning stream way. At a knotted rope up a mud slope Tony and I chose to take the high road through the main chamber while Mike took the low through the stream. With no other navigational choices to make we shortly arrived at the sump pool with seemingly no way on. Fortunately we had an ever excellent Braemoor guide with us and quickly located the obscured, wet crawl through to the actual sump chamber.

Tony exiting the damp passage through to the sump chamber

Mike too, enjoying the cool waters

From here the guide that I'd read took you to the surface at Bax pot in just three, fairly innocuous sounding sentences to complete a lovely trip, exactly what Tony was wanting for his clients and what I was expecting for our day out. Mike though had with him a newer guide and a different plan.

He read out the next part of the description and following his instructions I returned down towards the stream. I don't think the next bits of passage will be on Tony's tour itinerary. There's low bits, there's wet bits and there are low, wet bits, even in fact some low, loose, wet bits. Worryingly when we arrived at the 'jumble of boulders tied up with string', the string was missing and Mike quoting other Sound of Music lyrics to me didn't do much to ease my nerves. Mike kept us on track with the description and after a final shimmy through some boulders we were in the vastness of Goyden. Locating a chain that was to aid our exit we stashed our gear and consulted the guide and survey. Tony's survey had a lovely tour, suitable for a group, marked on it but oncd again Mike had found an alternative trip suggestion.

Getting our heads around the layout of Goyden pot

The route is well described by Braemoor so I'll leave you with the general gist. Follow crawly passages either with flood detritus on the floor or improbably wedged in the ceiling via a number of rope and ladder climbs and over the occasional pipe traverse. At all times marvel at the incredible chert nodules and try not to worry too much about the fact that wherever you are the cave probably floods to the roof.

At one point we emerged out of the impressive, main Goyden entrance and basked in the Sun. All too soon though we retraced our steps and then followed a boulder slope back down to our bags. From them we enjoyed a vertical adventure playground climbing chains, ladders and the odd pile of stacked boulders. The vertical shenanigans finished at a lidded entrance and we emerged from Church pot into a small dry valley. Where we were now in relation to the main valley I had no idea (in actual fact we were still in the main valley), but my attention was drawn to a couple of Kites seemingly annoyed by the behaviour of a Buzzard.

Not quite sure where we were and also not quite sure where we were going we headed back to the road and while Mike returned for the car Tony and I began making our way down the valley. It's worth noting that up to this point we'd been carrying our SRT gear and a couple of ropes for the pitches in New Goyden. Personally if I were to do the trip again I'd leave them on the surface and collect them only when heading for New Goyden.

Taking on our usual roles when we play 'Hunt the cave', Tony and I slithered around on some boulders in the stream bed while Mike located the entrance and made the most of the shade from the tree above it. Our well carried SRT kit was finally donned and we made our way down the short entrance crawl to the top of the pitches. These are rigged from new looking bolts all except for the deviation, a more traditional looking bolt.

At the foot of the pitches we found ourselves in a streamway of impressive proportion. Upstrezm quickly led to a duck allowing access to the upstream sump. Nicely warmed from our brief sojourn in the Sun I was reluctant to get wet again so turned and headed back with the stream's flow. Again not far from our ropes we found the frothy downstream sump. A muddy climb just before it however led up to a brief wriggle through boulders and the impressive Planetarium. A small inlet trickle, Astronomers' passage led to further evidence of the Black Sheep diggers handywork: a low dig following the inlet with some impressive dry stone walling and another aluminium ladder leading up a small aven. Wratch about completed we ascended our ropes with Tony kindly taking on derigging duties. On the surface we once again basked in the now, early evening, Sun before the short wander back to the car. 

While it was great to visit three totally new caves in a day the highlights for me were the connection between Manchester and Goyden and Goyden pot itself. It's a truly remarkable place which, while devoid of any calcite formations of note, more than makes up for this with some unique rock architecture. 

26th May 2026 - What a Corker!

Reading the papers or watching the news it can be hard to disagree with Jarvis Cocker's 2006 treatise on the nature of those running the World. A quality day's caving, or even a bad day's caving for that matter, is therefore a fine antidote to the general state of things.

Firstly you tend to be with fantastic friends but then there are the guides and topos. Equipped with either a Braemoor or Cooper description you feel navigationally invulnerable. Incredibly, for such quality work, the Braemoor routes are freely available online (here) and while NFTFH was purchased, profits from it went to cave conservation projects. The CNCC topos (here) and indeed the majority of the bolts we dangle from are also produced, installed and maintained by volunteers. Then you have days like today where your chosen trip is only possible due to the hard work of folk prerigging nearly all the entrances to the Gaping Ghyll system, cheers to the Bradford for this. Finally there are the diggers without who many, now classic, trips just wouldn't exist. Many of their stories can be found in the excellent Adventures Underground, the profits of which again have gone to good causes. I feel exceptionally priviledged to be able to escape to this bubble of magnanimous altruism, even for an evening.

Parking in Newby allowed a pleasant walk up, avoiding the half term crowds, to the tented shanty town surrounding Gaping Ghyll. The new online booking system was working a treat, a relaxed atmosphere pervading the shake hole and no queue snaking its way back down towards Bar pot. Perhaps the Bradford should offer consultancy services to the Nepali government, they'd soon sort the Everest queue. We checked in at the winch tent and set off to find Corky's. We found various other shake holes and Hensler's before finally locating our chosen entrance. Not so sure about the "250 m on a bearing of 110°". "Just behind the toilet block" being possibly a better description.

We changed out of our sweat sodden clothes into, even more inappropriate for the temperature, neoprene, fuelled up on banana cake, quaffed some drink and descended the ladder into the coolness. The dug/blasted nature of the passage was immediately evident as we crawled, via a couple of short drops, towards the first pitch. It's recommended to approach this feet first along the preceeding crawl and this approach did make it easy to get onto the pitch.

Short pitches then come thick (thin?) and fast before the Nemesis crawl which isn't as bad as it sounds, though it is at a slightly funny angle for much of its length. Another short pitch intervenes before a shuffle under (through?) the Elephant's arse leads to Chemo Tim, the penultimate pitch.

Carefully descending the boulder slope below, the echo from beyond became unmissable, something big lay beyond. If we weren't disappointed I can't imagine the emotion among the diggers as they reached the aptly named Vindication. It's an awe inspiring place that drops you into the vastness of Mud Hall. At the foot of the pitch we had chance to do something we'd been unable to do since the start of the trip - walk. 

It wasn't to be a huge leg stretch, just a wander up to the top of the col that leads into Boulder hall before retracing our steps for 30 m to find on the left, behind jammed blocks, the entrance to Mud Hensler's. A slippy slide down for a couple of metres before an uninviting hole on the right led to an even less inviting muddy slip down to the crawl. "Are ducks a thing?" is an oft discussed question in our office and this became the subject of conversation, albeit about ducks of a different feather, as we passed an aqueous section before an almost pleasant crawl over smooth, low friction, bedrock - our small bags containing our SRT kit just seemed to keep sliding when pushed. Suddenly we popped out of the crawl into a towering aven with a rope hanging out of the darkness, Hensler's High aven.

I love the tales of how the ever resourceful Hensler tried to ascertain the height of this aven, from rockets to Helium balloons trailing tape measures. While shy of his initial estimates it's still an impressive pitch and I'm glad I wasn't rigging it - I'm not sure how I'd reach the deviation at the transition between open aven and the shapely runnel in its side.

While Hensler's aven lies directly beneath the entrance of Hensler's pot, inbetween the two the passage follows almost 200 m of dog leg. Velcro passage lived up to its name grabbing at my bag and SRT kit at every opportunity before we arrived at Burnley pitch. At the top of the pitch we removed our gear for the thrutch to follow. While never tight the connection and Birth canal were often snug, at least navigation was straight forward, just follow the shot holes.

Haigh's Bottom pitch (is there a Top pitch or is it purely anthropomorphic?) allowed us to stand once again and also to admire the pitch's rock architecture. Monica's, AC/DC and Buzzy pitches followed in short order (though I did almost miss Buzzy opting for a side trip to the ropes hanging from Big Benn aven). From the pitches it was once again back onto hands and knees with the occasional respite of flat out sections in which to rest in the cooling water.

A solitary frog signalled that the exit was close before a short piece of shoring, a wall of warm air and the foot of the exit ladder. We emerged back into the Dales in the middle of a heat wave and I staggered back to our clothes drying at Corky's, my legs unaccustomed to walking after nearly four hours of crawling. Thirst quenched washing down another piece of banana bread we made our way to sign out at the winch tent. Those about to descend and those who'd just returned determinable by their expression of either anticipation or quiet reflection.

For us too the return to Newby allowed us to begin to contemplate a truely cracking journey through two amazing pots. Even after a few drinks back in the Barn the experience still hadn't fully been absorbed. In NFTFH Cooper states that trips only made it into the book if they left them smiling for a few days after. While far from a Black book trip, where use of prerigging would definitely be eschewed, it's a trip that will definitely keep me grinning for a while.

21st May 2026 - River of no return

It's that time of year when the Bradford pothole club take up residence at Gaping ghyll. As well as setting up the winch into main chamber, they also kindly rig most of the entrances. This allows the visiting caver to choose from a smorgasboard of through trip possibilities all without the encumberment of tackle sacks. It doesn't get much better than this! Despite everything being rigged the recent wet weather limited our choice slightly so Tony chose Stream to Marilyn from the specials board and we headed to Clapham. The village was living up to its name with Fell beck making a thundering entrance into the village and we wondered if it might be too wet even for our 'wet alternatives'.

On the walk up through Trow ghyll we encountered a couple of heavily laden Bradford lads. Mike kindly reduced their load and we chatted about the recent successful climbs out of the main chamber. As we had our own call out and they weren't winching they also suggested we could just crack on with our trip rather than having to head up to their camp to let them know our intentions.

Leaving the main trod we headed directly for the dry valley on the slopes of Ingleborough and at its foot located the tubed entrance of Stream.

Last time we were here I was preoccupied with helping a bird of prey escape the confines of the tube so I'd completely forgotten about the slightly awkward moves between the entrance and second pitches. Once through these though the cave opens up to superb proportions. The pitches that follow are classic Yorkshire caving and it's almost too soon that you arrive at the horizontal part of the cave, a dash past a couple of waterfalls waking you from your revery.

Fortunately Mike has a good memory and led us through to Sand cavern without the numerous side excursions that we went on during our previous visit. At the junction between South and South East passage we dropped our gear for the obligitory trip to main chamber. It truly is a magnificent place and we're so fortunate to have it so close to home.

Retracing our steps to our cache at the junction we followed the trade route to the bottom of the Bar pot pitches before carrying on to South East aven and the drop down into Hensler's new crawl for a refreshing squirm. Despite our earlier concerns the water levels were fine and at the end of the crawl we went on a quick sight seeing tour to Hensler's master cave, passage on a much grander scale than either of his eponymous crawls.

From where the Disappointment water joins the master cave it's just a short distance before the scramble up to the bottom of the pitches and another classic Yorkshire streamway. It's worth noting that the warnings about loose rock should definitely be heeded, I'm really not sure what's holding some of the pitches together.

The distinctive grating cover of Marilyn was silhoueted against the dying light of a perfect Dales evening. Not for the first time this evening we'd missed last orders but once again Casa Brooks came to the rescue. More pubs should definitely serve cake with their pints!

Tony's Blair Witchesque video of New Hensler's: