Well what a turn up for the books, it was sunny and people turned up for a trip!
Again there was no plan as it was still too wet due to the rain that had fallen recently for our original
plan, of something from Northern Caves 1. Talk of Quaking reconnaissance was suggested, however
that was soon dismissed, thankfully. Various other ideas were batted around until we finally resigned
ourselves to do something on Ease Gill and would you believe it my old favorite BPOTW came up
trumps.
This time however, it would not be a novice trip, we decided to visit almost everywhere in the cave and
chose not to use any tackle, to save on the faffing.
We were soon in the cave and looking up the last glimpse of sunlight in the Big Pot chamber. We set
off behind the way we came in to head down the climbs (These climbs are now “P” anchored and the
hand lines have been removed, if there was any). That did not put us off and we set off free climbing
them. The first top bit was easy though exposed as you can see it’s a long way down. The second lower
bit through was far more difficult as it required a very brave move to progress. This move requires one
to lean out over the passage from a slippery ledge and land on the far wall to steady yourself, before
falling forwards and landing on your face with a 10ft drop below.
It took me a bit of time to work up the courage for said move but I was soon down and after several
more easier P Bolted climbs we were joined by the stream. We headed off down stream for the next set
of climbs/pitches.
When I was here last here taking “Daz of Caving” around the place by a different way, this climb was
where I stopped and turned around as it looked like a straight drop, however Pete showed us a nice
traverse route over the top to get down. This quickly led to the next climb which was very exposed and
required another brave move where you need to grab hold of the wall on your right and swing your legs
around a corner to the ledges there before climbing down at an inlet.
We headed up the short climb to the sump by pass route and then down stream in the crawl before
dropping down a couple of climbs to rejoin the stream, where we found water levels were at normal
levels and we could progress in the “Wet Way”. After a cold journey through the water I spotted an
inlet on the left which led into a chamber along the dry route. We made a quick round trip to the sump
and back up to the inlet again. We then explored a small inlet leading off before heading along the dry
route to look at the Monolithic Towers and the “Far Gallery”.
We did not stop for long at the Monoliths and continued on in a surprisingly large passage with the roof
at least 30 or 40 ft above us, however, this passage soon terminated in a boulder choke. The choke was
passable by an interesting 20ft rope climb up, of which we all scaled led by Dunc. This led to a short
continuation that again stopped at another boulder choke. Numerous ways were looked for getting over
this one. We eventually wedged a scaffolding bar at head height that was lying around for some reason.
Dunc tried to get up and couldn’t and then I tried and succeeded. This broke into a crawl between
boulders. This again quickly choked, however I could see a very slippery climb going up further above
me.
The others were getting bored with my ferreting up there so I did not investigate the climb but managed
to wedge a piece of scaffolding in it for a return attempt at another time.
We headed out via the dry way. We then hit the stream and the climbs up however I completely missed
the climb up and ended up in very wet and low duck. Realising I had gone wrong I went back and
found the climb.
Once up the water fall climbs, we went to our next stop of “Burnetts Great Cavern”. We had a quick
mess around in there, until, we headed back via the lower part of “Cavern 32” towards entrance and
then crossed over heading towards “Gour Chambers”. Once there, Me and Dunc, with the help of
Pete’s shoulders had a look at “Upper Gours”. Unfortunately Pete could not fit through as he had “a
mans chest” in his words and had “Bone against rock” both on front and back so no matter how much
we tried to pull him up he would not come through. Oh well I took a picture or two for you Pete.
We headed on out into the daylight and realised we had managed to spend a good 4 hours in BPOTW it
was actually a fun and sporting trip, so you can have fun in novice caves.
