As I suspect you may have gathered by now, I have a couple of screws loose or as others have remarked, I’m not wired in the head properly. This leads me to undertake activities that involve getting very wet and very cold. Hopefully you’ve come across some of my kayak surfing and gill scrambling exploits so now here’s another – caving – in winter!
I’ve dabbled in the speleological arts in the past including some of the dangling from bits of rope type but that takes a lot of things I don’t have. Like ability, skill, strength, commitment and the like. These days me and GM are more than happy with couple of hours scrambling about in easy walk-in, walk-out caves with no need to scare the crap out of ourselves abseiling into deep pot-holes.
Luckily the Yorkshire Dales has plenty of these easy caves so we met up for a pre-caving planning session in Bernie’s cafe in Ingleton over a lunch of Lasagne and chips. Despite the fact that we’d found numerous options we plumped for the local classic, Long Churn cave above Selside on the lower eastern slopes of Ingleborough. We’ve been down there many times and it has loads of interesting features as well as being easy and straightforward. This time however we had the advantage of waterproof cameras to capture all the various thrills and spills. Taking photos underground in a cave is not as easy as it looks. It’s, well, dark and, well, wet. Kind of hard to find a setting that works well and keep the water off the lens. Mind you, considering the limitations of severely testing conditions and little or no ability with a camera I don’t think we’ve done too badly.
Pen-y-Ghent from Alum Pot
It was a miserable day, cold and wet and neither of us were particularly enthused by the idea of stripping off to put wet suits on in the pishing rain. Needs must though and after a very hurried apparel change we were heading off into the hills.
Me in full garb
GM ready for action
The views improved a little on the way up as we passed the entrance to Alum Pot, a massive hole around 100m deep. The Long Churn system runs just below the surface with several entrances before it eventually joins up with Alum Pot where novices reach their limit. We wandered about in the rain for a few minutes before we found the top entrance and the underground journey began.
GM in the entrance point
Me above Dr Bannisters Hand-Basin
The first section is the hardest as you descend a 4m waterfall called Doctor Bannisters Hand-Basin. It looks quite intimidating with the water dropping down a chute at angle into a deep pool. Not as hard as it sounds. Whilst out in the open air, Limestone is one of the planets slipperiest surfaces, underground without any sun to grow the green slime that lives on the surface, it gives really good grip. It looks and feels a little intimidating, especially with the noise of the water but you just straddle the stream and inch your way down before climbing down into the pool.
Me descending Dr Bannisters Hand-Basin
It’s a great introduction to the cave and from there it’s a classic underground water passage, more than head high, snaking around with loads of small waterfalls and side passages from long abandoned courses with little mini-calcite features and crystals.
Calcite features
Caving isn’t for everyone but for me it’s fascinating that there is a whole underground world just below the surface. Combined with some entertaining scrambling and crawling around and a chance to play in the water it’s a great day out. At this time of year it’s a bit cold on the hands and feet but providing you have a wetsuit on it’s actually not that cold as all the crawling and scrambling about is hard work enough to keep you warm. Mind you I have to admit that the getting changed at the start and finish is pretty unpleasant on a cold wet December day in Yorkshire.
More calcite features
The main passage splits and we headed away from the water down a drier side passage. There are several spots of crawling and little falls, narrow squeezes and the like to keep the entertainment up as you head deeper into the system.
GM descends one of the small cascades
The Long Churn Ghost
Calcite columns
You eventually pass one of the caves most famous and endearing sections. The Cheese Press. You get to crawl through a bedding plane just about high enough to squeeze your body through into a parallel tunnel. I’ve done it a couple of times before and remember feeling the rock on my back and stomach as I squeezed through. Both me and GM gave a look and decided we didn’t need to prove ourselves and more importantly didn’t want to get stuck now that middle age has had its inevitable impact.
Me slithering about on the waterfalls
We squirmed and squeezed our way down to the point where mere mortals have to stop at the Dollytubs pot where the cave plunges into some serious potholes where you in fact come out in Alum Pot where we peered down earlier. GM has been all the way to the bottom on a previous outing but this was far enough for today.
Looking into Dollytubs pot
We clambered back up, followed an alternative passage to rejoin the main flow.
GM in one of the more restricted passages
We took a short detour to look at the top of Diccan Pot, another serious and deep pothole. The water was much deeper and fast-flowing here as well as cold.
GM en-route to Diccan Pot
Me en-route to Diccan Pot
The ghost is coming to get me
GM was giving me palpitations by standing far too close to the edge. We were both pretty cold by now as some of the pools were waist deep.
GM climbing one of the smaller falls
To make the most of the day we followed the stream passage all the way back to Doctor Bannisters Hand-Basin so we could climb back up, again much easier than it looks.
GM climbing Dr Bannisters Hand-Basin
We were back out in the open air again and it was cold and raining. Enough fun and stupidity for one day so it was a quick dash down the hillside to the car, and off to Uncle Festers for the weekend to take in some football.
We’re planning a return visit to the area in the summer when it’s warmer to explore some of the areas other easy caves. If you are ever keen to try this you can hire some basic gear and lamps at Inglesport in Ingleton and get some advice on where to go for an easy introduction. Go on, give it a try, you know you want to. 🙂
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