Don Miller, Ariana Preston, Pete Bell, me.
This trip was planned at fairly short notice, and a permit obtained by phone from the helpful folk at White Scar. We turned up, parked in a suitably secluded corner of the car park, got changed, and were ready to enter at 10am.
We walked through the show cave, where Don had a main light failure, and on to Long Stop Lake. This was refreshing as always, with less ledges and ropes than I thought there were, but Pete (a non-swimmer) coped well. We found our way around Big Bertha and through the duck, and then on up the main streamway.
Don explored up an in-situ handline on the right – not really sure where it was – didn’t seem to be Sleepwalker, but not certain.
We found Straw Chamber, which now has a knotted handline up nice clean rock, as an alternative to the mudslide that used to be the way up.
We continued up the streamway into the phreatic series, where it started to get a bit chilly. Everyone rose to the challenge and went through sump 1. From there we explored the various dive lines, but there was no clear short dive line route through sump 2, so we turned around.
We’d taken around 2½ hours to this point, and were required to be out by 3pm, so we didn’t really have time to look for Sleepwalker Series, but headed out. The trip out was uneventful.
Our secluded changing spot now had 40-50 kids picnicking, but decency was preserved and we went back to Ingleton for a beer in the sunshine – the Three Horseshoes was shut, so we walked up to the Wheatsheaf.
A great trip including a duck, a sump, and a long swimming canal – well done all.
Chris Sharman
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