1st May 2025 - Slow is smooth and smooth is fast

Tony's thoughts on Rowten to Valley entrance

I can't remember when this challenge was parked inconsiderately in the driveway of my

consciousness and left for me to deal with. I do remember clearly though when late into

Alistair's birthday celebration last August, he took me aside with two glasses of those

fantastic whiskies he collects and looked at me intently. 'Slow is calm, and calm is fast' he

said deliberately, and held my gaze. Oh boy, I suppose it's time.

During the winter two of the dynamos in my life wordlessly begin preparations. Why else

would they ask for a dive vest and a neoprene hood when I offer to include them in a kit

order? Come to that, I did put 'diving mask' on my own Christmas list.

You dream up plans for settled dry spells, but that kind of weather becomes a friend whom you've lost touch with, and you can't quite remember their being. Then they show up out of nowhere and you think, 'Oh! I remember you!' The warmth continues and I feel a bit sick when the message arrives. I don't know if I'm still capable of this, or if I have the heart. There are many tasks I should be doing but I can't think of anything else. It can't be that hard? Other people do this, probably fairly regularly. There are no reports of accidents. It's just a psychological challenge to be met with rationality and good preparation. Slow is calm, and calm is fast.

I lay a weighted rope in the lake and standing waist deep in Crummock Water in full caving gear, looking certifiable to Buttermere tourists, I measure 11 metres, turn on both lights and pull myself below and along. I repeat the journey five times, trying to visualise the event and enact composure. On the drive down I do something that I haven't done since sitting bored in secondary school lessons, looking down at my Timex and trying to hold my breath for a minute. It seems a bit harder than it used to be but I can still do it, just.

It's a beautiful evening when we ascend to the Turbary Road, but there is tangible anxiety. Chat is interspersed with heavy silences. As per usual, Mike efficiently rigs us down via the impressive 70m pitch. The moment is getting closer. Rigging is left mockingly in place, should courage fail. All too quickly we arrive into the calmness of death's waiting room, where a yellow hand line runs impassively into the unseen.

'Well this is all a bit serious!' pipes in Mike with a welcome disruption to the tension.

Alistair's characteristic thoroughness is reassuring as he triple confirms that we are in the right place. Neoprene hoods are fitted and masks wetted. Mike pokes his head down for a look into the submerged bedding. We recap on procedure then Alistair disengages from us, takes his breaths and disappears. Cord pays quickly out of Mike's hand until it comes tight; he pushes Alistair's gear bag down under the roof and it vanishes.

It's my turn. I duck into the water for a practice and don't even notice the cold. I peer down the line of the rope but it becomes gloomy after a couple of metres with no encouraging indication of liveable space beyond. I take my breaths and to my surprise, lose myself to the process. I'm off, pulling, pulling, disturbing some small stones and then I quickly sense the end. I emerge into a surreal, small, gold hued dome with the unusual large scalloping that seems to characterise this area of cave. I feel very alone but elated that the longest of the dives is over. I have no desire to hang around and with urgency I pull my bag through, re-stack the cord and commit to the following section. Torpedoing through the surface into the next cross rift I clatter into the wall on the opposite side. How did you say we should do it Alistair? Barrel through at top speed? Right you are!

I pull my bag through again and we wait for Mike. Soon there's a glow, a red helmet

appears and a beaming smile. We're jubilant, the relief in such contrast to the mood of the last two hours. We stomp gaily through to the roof tunnel pitch and on to Valley Entrance to emerge in the stillness, warmth and fading light of an exceptional day. Kirby Lonsdale's Royal Barn then hosts for us the cheeriest of trip appraisals.

Al's ramblings

Once upon a time:

My recollection may be a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure for as long as I've known Tony he's been doing a series of short dives in his native Crummock water. These have always been of the same length 2m, 4m and 8m. Asking about this ritual he told me about the Rowten sumps, a trip he'd love to do in the future.

The future:

In readiness for a wash out summer the weather in the Dales has been dry and stable for weeks now. Mike and I had great conditions for our sump practice (see here), we'd been on a Cantabrian adventure (see here), come back and it still hasn't rained. Conditions are perfect. "What do people think about rigging Rowten on Thursday?" read the text and each of us began to prepare to see if we could make Tony's dream a reality.

As ever trips like this require solid foundations and Sam had once again excelled herself with a lemon tray bake and a bottomless pot of tea. Replete we then headed over to Kingsdale under clear blue skies. Conversation in the car based on how we were going to approach the sumps and the ferrying of our gear. It seemed strange parking at the Valley entrance spot for a Rowten trip and our attire too, neoprene heavy, hinted at a more unusual excursion. I'm aware I probably mention it too much but we're very privileged to live were we live and Kingsdale looked stunning as we climbed up to the Turbary road, a gentle breeze preventing over heating.

 

A stunning evening in the Dales

As Mike began rigging the first pitch I realised that my mind had been entirely on the sumps, I hadn't thought about this part of the trip at all and I needed to get back into a ropework mindset. I'm just glad I wasn't doing the actual rigging.

Mike rigging the first pitch

I love caving at this time of the year. Daylight really adds to some pitches and Rowten is one of them. It's at the fringes where things are exciting, a transition between two states. I love paddling close to rocky shores and running (well probably walking to be honest) along airy ridges. In caves the light, the colours and even the smells all change as you head into the twilight zone and the perpetual dark beyond.

Tony descending the daylight shaft

As we weren't pulling through we'd opted for the eyehole route but, landing on the wide shelf at the edge of daylight we joined the traditional route and crossed the bridge to a narrower ledge on the side of the open pot. Given what we were to be doing later in the trip, it seemed odd that we all avoided the puddle on the ledge even though it would hardly have covered the bottom of our wellies.

The last vestiges of daylight

Trying not to get wet in the puddle

Mike beginning the descent into darkness

A very short pitch took us from the ledge to a small alcove and another y-hang. From here it's once again just a few feet down before we could swing into the top of a bottomless rift. A handful of bolts further on lies a final y-hang from which the rope hung freely down the main, stunning pitch. 

In the bottomless rift, Mike rigging the main shaft

From the landing it's probably best not to go on too much of a wander, holes between the boulders leading to the stygian abyss. A careful traverse by the right wall though brought us to the more secure surroundings of a streamway that offered a number of terrific little free climbable drops.

Two short pitches interrupted the flow and left us at a point Mike and I had been to a few weeks prior. On our earlier visit no further progress was possible as just round the corner lay a thundering wall of water. Today it was markedly different, a small babbling brook inviting us to follow the water. Before we did so we needed to sort out our gear. Harness were removed and put in dry bags, masks and extra neoprene donned. Thus attired we began the solemn procession to the sump pool. 

Rigging the last short pitch

The sumps can be reached by going with the flow but this involves a short duck and once again, ridiculously, I wanted to avoid getting wet so took the dry bypass to the left. At the pool there was no choice but to drop down into it, but by the line it was only knee deep allowing us to make final preparations.

We had three small drybags of gear and the plan was that I'd take a line through with me and pull two bags through, Tony would then follow, again with a line and recover the last bag. This would allow Mike to feed out lines and make sure bags went freely into the sump before coming through.

I went through my usual mask routine. Wet my face to cool it down, spit in my mask, wipe, swill and then put it on. Check it was beneath the edges of my hood and then don my helmet once more. I tried to concentrate on my own preparations but was aware of Mike testing his mask by laying in the water next to me. Once he was done I checked he was happy with the line which I "held" by pushing a knot under my elbow pad, the theory being that it would detach if it were to become snagged. I then turned from the others, calmed by breathing and dived. Pull, pull, pull, check I still had the line, pull, pull, pull and breathe as I broke the surface into the first air bell. Now for the bags. Courtesy of Mike ensuring that the buoyant bags made it under the lip of the sump they came through easily and immediately I entered the second, shorter sump. It was over in a flash and once the bags were through I set to ensuring that there was no free line that could cause problems for the others. Line retrieved I hurried to dig my camera out of the bags to capture the others coming through. 

No sooner than I was ready, the line began twitching before Torpedo Tony came through at a rate of knots. With no anchor to deploy he was only stopped by the far side of the air bell. Now just the wait for Mike. The water turned from inky black to an eery green glow and then Mike was through too. Stooping, up to our knees in water it seemed a strange place to be jubilant but there was now uninterrupted air through into the master cave.

I've always enjoyed a stomp down the main drain but today the experience was taken to a new level and their was definitely a skip in each of our steps. Approaching Valley entrance the air began to smell thicker, filled with life and emerging from the pipe into the daylight brought a grin to our faces. As Mike Cooper puts it in his Black book, "[the trip] is likely to represent a memorable high point in their Yorkshire caving career". He's not wrong.