16th February 2016 - Mistral to Gour Hall

Formations in Gour Hall

With the days starting to draw out and a slightly earlier start, we stomped across the moor in daylight, passing Lancaster Hole before heading up and over again.  The final gate leading to Easegill had been equipped with a child lock, but having figured this out we were granted access to the dry river bed.  Directly in front of us we noted the position of Link pot, knowing that this may serve as a useful waypoint on our return in the dark. Turning downstream we followed the true left bank of the gill until we came to the beautifully dry stoned enclosure around Mistral, a real improvement on the pile of planks that used to mark the entrance.

The description says to carefully down climb the 6m pitch and it is worth noting that the bar belaying the knotted rope that can assist the climb will take a downward pull, but definitely not a horizontal one.  Having regained my composure for a brief moment a wobbly hold saw me wobbling again too. Then into the blasted rift with its 90 degree bends, past the fallen block, over the boulders, enjoying just moving through the passageway. Little squirms were always followed by stand up and stretch chambers and before long we were in much larger chamber that I recognised, The Hobbit, distinctive with its large, flat roof.
Crossing the Hobbit, the detailed RRCPC route description constantly reassured as we picked up features, rope on the left, rope on the right, squirm over calcite, until we arrived at our next major landmark, Dusty Junction.  Here I'd pieced together two descriptions, one coming from the Hobbit and the other coming from Pip.  By putting the two together we were pretty sure our right turn was the right direction, though there was still some uncertainty.  The draught, mentioned in the description, that should have been coming down the crawl leading to Link was entirely absent.  This was not too disconcerting as I distinctly remembered a huge draft blowing along Mistral on my last visit, the name of the entrance unquestionable and this too was now non existent.  More worrying was the lack of an obvious cairn mentioned in the description.  I know there has been a lot of tidying up done in caves of late, but to remove a cairn?
Our description now became a little less detailed, follow "sandy tunnels" to Hall of Ten.  Taking the most well worn way on at each possible junction payed off though and despite encountering more smooth mud than sand, we soon entered the huge darkness of the Hall.  Enthusiasm to enter its vastness had to be curbed as a convex, muddy slope lay directly between us and its bottom, a good way below and a more indirect, but pleasantly slower route down was taken.  No sooner had we reached the base of the chamber but we had to climb back out on the other side, once again on smooth mud.  Turning right from our balcony we once again found ourselves alternating between low squirms and much larger pieces of passageway.  These larger sections being filled with beautiful formations.

On the way to Gour Hall

Ascending into Gour Hall it is hard to imagine the sight that greeted the original explorers.  Tucked away in alcoves lie patches of pristine mud formations, towered over by brilliant white stalagmites.  Liquid mud has though over the years been spread over an ever larger area, it's advance only now  stemmed by conservation tape.  Fortunately Tony had admirably dragged a tripod to this point and I was glad of it to keep the camera out of mud's way.
With only one slight navigational glitch on the return, leading to a hasty backwards squirm down a crawl which thankfully Tony had't followed me down, we had worked up quite a sweat by the time we reached the surface.  Rather than emerging into a stunning star filled night though, we ascended to thick clag, our torches' range only a few feet.  Noting Link on the way payed off and Tony spotting it in the murk allowed us to find the end of the path, a helpful arrow, and our route back across the moor.
Even though we weren't as cold as last week, it was still great to have a warm welcome in the Barbon Inn and a very tasty pint.  We are definitely going to have to return to this part of Easegill and spend a little more time getting to know our way around amongst some of the most consistently well decorated passages in these parts.

5th March. Mistral Hole to Link Pot.

The ice gleamed blue in the sunshine and high above a Condor wheeled in the warm air high above the South Patagonian Ice Cap. The horses, grazing quietly on some scrubby grass were glad of the rest after the tough going of the last few hours as John had struggled to find a way around the glacier moraine ... or so he wished. Why was he standing at the top of the Mistral he wondered, on a Thursday night of all nights, facing the next few hours of darkness, wetness and tightness when the rest of the world was beckoning and anything was better than this.

No Comment

The Mistral/Link connection is the remaining section to be checked leading to the linking of sections to become what was at one time the longest underground trip in England, Pippikin to Top Sink. Mistral entrance leads to a drop down to a left hand bend and continuing rift passage that seems less strenuous after having done it a few weeks back. At the top of a 3.7m climb the way on is to the left over a boulder and into a rift which changes to a flat out crawl under a cross rift to emerge in The HOBBIT, a flat roofed chamber.

At the far side of The HOBBIT a fine walking sized passage passes two ropes, past these a large boulder in the middle of the passage at a right hand bend is met, down a trench in the floor the passage changes to a phreatic tube carrying a stream, eventually a slide over calcite on the right drops to a low passage which degenerates to a wet and muddy crawl. Soon drier passage is met and a tall rift in a wide bedding is followed its around two bends up a slope into the low wide flat-roofed chamber of DUSTY JUNCTION with cairn straight ahead. On entering Dusty Junction the draught which whistles through Mistral can be followed around to the left to enter Trowel Crawl which is the way through to Link Pot.

This route is described as Trowel Crawl and the Muddy Wallows! Setting off down the passage the roof quickly came down and the water rose up. Crawling through cold water with gloopy mud underneath it and the roof lowering to flat out crawling eventually led into the roof going up. We had done the wallows! After more crawling the passage opened out and we sort of thought that we had done it but caves have a way of tricking you and immediately, after some photos the roof came down again and we were flat out squeezing through a shingly crawl. On the other side taking another photo Tom realised he had left his gloves behind so he had to go back and through again!

In the Wallows

Beyond this a chamber opened up with a scenic tube heading down at an angle. At the bottom of this the roof came right down onto a wet looking squeeze, this really was 'the wallows'. With head to one side, breathing through the side of the mouth and lots of hiffing and blowing the tight bit was passed. The others came through with helmets off that made ot slightly easier. We were very wet and cold by now and we pushed on towards Pybus By-pass. An awkward squeeze, well John and I made ot awkward but going face down Tom made it look a lot easier, and we popped out into Hylton Hall and our SRT gear dropped down the pitch earlier.

It was freezing at the bottom of Link as the cold air was sinking. The rift that you climb out of on SRT gear is narrow and constricted and with cold hands the change over of ropes was really hard as ones hands were so cold they didn't work. Eventually we were all out on the surface , cold, wet and looking forward to the pub or ... was it Patagonia.

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21st November 2008 - Where there's a worm, there's a way

Ray en-route to 88' pitch

In preparation for a traverse of the Easegill system later on in the season, this evening we made a return to Link pot.

There's something I like about snow flurries lit by the beam from your headtorch. It's possibly as it reminds me of when the Millenium Falcon makes its jump to hyperspace, the stars flying past at unimaginable speed. Soon though the real stars crept through the clouds and we made our way across the fell under a nothern winter sky, Orion just rising over the horizon.
While half the resident bat population of Hilton hall has decided to settle in for the winter, the other half was still very active, navigating its way at high speed around the complicated nooks and crannies of the chamber.

We dropped down through boulders into an awkwardly sized vadose rift, before another skwirm through boulders brought us to more solid streamway and the pitch in Echo aven. While the pitch seems to be permantly rigged for those completing the traverse, Tom thought he recognised the rope from when he had done the trip 15 years previously and so we rigged our rope too. Some of the older bolts and the karabiner on the deviation are certainly showing signs of having been underground for a good number of years.

As Tom arrived at the bottom of the pitch, the warm, soft glow of Ray's carbide lamp appeared at the top. Caving with LEDs is a bit like central heating; efficient and economical, but it does make you miss the glow and crackle of a real fire.

The way on lies under a shelf in an innocuous little streamway that Dick was quick to remind us, "fills to the roof in even moderate rain". There are signs of flooding everywhere, foam in the roof and every surface covered in mud deposits in which the eponymous worms of the Wormway live. An aven gives brief respite from the streamway. The colours in the formations a stark contrast to the omnipresent mud of the tunnel. Tatters of bang wire evidence of possible further exploration and clawed scratch marks on the walls evidence of more sinister activities?

In the Wormway

Back in the sewer a right and then a left brings you to another aven, which in turn leads to the bottom of the 88' pitch, our goal for the evening. Once again we found this rigged and though it held Dick and Ray's combined weight, we're probably going to have a trip to see what it's attached to at the top.

The 88' Pitch

The return took Ray in search of a waterfall down one of the previously unexplored passageways only for him to find himself at a sump, the sound of falling water being the sound of him crawling through the passage!

Once again Tom, our directeur de photographie managed to convince members of our party to lay in cooling pools of mud in his continuous search for the shot to epitomise the sheer joy of caving (it will have to have John in it).

Dick enjoying the Wormway

Throughout the whole of the return journey I was thinking about the last few awkward meanders and weaving the tackle bag back through them. It came as a very pleasant surprise therefore to be moving easily through a high bedding plane, looking down on the trench that had previously caused such grief.

On the way out

Out on the moors once again, the skies had cleared and we made our way back to Bull Pot farm under a stunning array of constilations and a lone shooting star, streaking its way across the sky.

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14th Dec 2007 - Link Pot & Easy Street

A long trip , but worth it for the great photos we got. A very cold night outside the cave, and warm air from the caves created a thick freezing fog for our return walk, blocking out what had been a great display of shooting stars.

Easy Street is certainly a great bit of passage way, and not visited very often, it's only the second time I've been there, and even some TNC members have still not been there! (Bruce!)

The photo of Alistair on the main Serendipity pitch really gets the atmosphere of the place. Click here for a full screen slide show. Click here for some sumptuous sump sounds!

Alistair on Serendipity pitch