Tutman’s Hole
Monday the 7th of May 2018
Chris Scaife, Don Miller, Andy Wardlaw
My third visit to this cave, having been twice when water levels were high and the long duck was impassable. At the end of a warm, sunny and dry Bank Holiday weekend, this seemed like a natural choice for our second cave of the day.
We parked by Gilderdale Bridge, just north of Alston, having had our lunch at Alston Station. It’s quite a long walk in, following the burn upstream, so we very sensibly packed our caving gear into rucksacks for the approach. Well, except Don, who just carried his in an Inglesport bag slung over his shoulder like Father Christmas or Burglar Bill. And if we’re talking sense and sensibility, I suppose Andy deserves a dishonourable mention for failing to apply sun cream to his pale skin, thus spending the entire walk in fear of sunstroke.
So the cool, dark entrance was a welcome sight. There are one or two dryish chambers in here, but Tutman’s consists almost exclusively of crawling through water. The water was surprisingly warm though, not what you’d expect from a Northern Cave at all.
Before long we were at the long duck. Don was in front and had found a small alcove where there was enough room for all three of us. Andy looked upon this section as a question of Would you rather drown or burn alive? He chose the burning option and headed back out into the scorchio sun.
For about 30 metres Don and I lay on our backs in the warm water, edging forward carefully with our faces pressed against the ceiling. There are one or two points along the way where it’s possible to sit up briefly, but this is a duck best treated carefully and methodically.
The formations beyond the long duck are fantastic, with immaculate white straws and stals hanging from above, draped in flood debris just like every other part of the ceiling in Tutman’s. We proceeded upstream with big smiles on our faces, before turning around to savour the warm duck one more time, fighting to keep our smiles above the water.
.
