Cavers: Chris Scaife, Don Miller, Dan Jackson, Mike Skyrme, Chris Sharman, Stephanie Libby.
We went up to Long Kin West on a warm, dry day. Don stayed on the surface to watch an ovine rescue mission, while the rest of us went down, down into the abyss. The first pitch in Long Kin West is one of the finest in the Dales, 83m with some daylight from the fairly small entrance. There is then a short pitch, followed by a traverse out to another pitch with two rebelays. Dan was looking for rocks to take to school for his geology teaching, so on my way up the pitches I could hear Wacko Jacko thrashing around and rolling stones. The sound of breaking rocks is a surprisingly unsoothing thing to hear when dangling over oblivion, but needless to say I coped admirably.
We sat out in the sun for a while on the surface and then ate a full meal in the Three Horseshoes. I only really go there for the hospitality. The Stuffed Tiger Team of Scaife and Miller then got in the car and went to Alum Pot Lane, waving a tearful farewell to our departing colleagues. We quickly skipped and jumped down Lower Long Churn to slither through the Cheesepress, then climbed back round the side and went up to Upper Long Churn.
Not far from the waterfall in Upper Long Churn, when heading downstream, a small stream enters from the left. We crawled above that to enter the very entertaining November Hole. If a new edition of Not for the Faint-Hearted focuses on trips that can be done in less than an hour, this will surely qualify for inclusion. After the initial flat-out crawl, there are a couple of ducks, which we both found easy on our backs. There is then a chimney climb that has no real holds, but jamming your body into a chimney beats mincing around looking for hand holds any day. Above the climb the rest of the cave is mostly tortuous sideways crawling, never particularly difficult but I’m glad we didn’t have to reverse it. There is one short section where we had to climb up as it was too tight at floor level, but for the rest of the trip you just follow the floor of the passage.
At the end of this passage there is a climb up of about 3m, exiting into a field of cotton grass. Don went first up the climb and shouted down to warn me that the exit was quite narrow. I’m glad he did that or I’d still be there. I think he was confusing “narrow” with “cobwebby”.
We finished the day with a run through Upper Long Churn, five minutes from end to end. And then ice cream.
.
