Cavers: Chris Scaife, Chris Kelly, Alex Ritchie, Ian Lawton

This was a great choice for an evening trip. We met on Leck Fell at 6:30pm and found the entrance thanks to the Ordnance Survey app on my phone. Down the well-made scaffolded shaft, we wriggled at floor level to the head of the first pitch. I rigged and after putting in the first deviation it just didn’t look drippy enough to warrant the few minutes of swinging around needed for the second one.

Xaaaaaandah rigged the second pitch, with an expertly tight rebelay, which I rerigged like a coward. We all pootled along to the final pitch, which I rigged again to Alex’s soothing words: ‘The bolts are really far apart, so if you fall you’ll be in trouble’ or words to that effect. As luck would have it, I didn’t fall, so we all made it down in one piece.

After a quick wander around at the bottom, pointing out the sites of such celebrated mishaps as ‘caver gets stuck in The Tube’, we began our ascent. All good fun, and we were back at the cars less than three hours after we’d met. We then went to the Whoop Hall, where the landlord, as always, went above and beyond the call of duty to make sure we had everything we needed.