Cavers: Chris Scaife, Alex Ritchie
The night before the Black Rose annual meal, I stayed at Gearstones Cottage with Carol, Oscar, Daz_of_parenting and Daphne. Young Alex came to join us for breakfast and then the two of us went to Horton in Ribblesdale. We walked up to Little Hull Pot and found the entrance easily. A short crawl at the start is followed by some pleasant stream passage, then the first pitch. Alex rigged, through a window, then off along the side of the wall and down. Our first pitch rope actually reached the first bolt for the second pitch, which Alex again rigged. The usual way is up and over here, but as water levels were low we just popped straight down following the trickle of water. When I descended, I added a deviation from a spike just to the right of the main hang, thus keeping us dry.
I then rigged the next short pitch, with the end of the 70m rope we had on the second pitch. The way on is either through a duck or a squeeze. Needless to say, we opted for the squeeze – although you still have to walk through water after that. Some easy traversing and we were at the final pitch, which I rigged. From the bottom of the pitch, we headed downstream, up a chimney, through a couple of crawls and were soon at the impressive sump pool.
As far as I remember, the return journey was uneventful, with nobody losing their temper about having to return down a pitch because he’d left a tackle sack at the bottom. Before long, we were sipping sambucas in the Station Inn, catching up with old friends.
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Knew I had been down there
