A difficult cave, the one memorable thing I have about this cave is coming out of the entrance and having the floor fall away from me by about a foot as a large rock on the entrance pitch slumped!
After much indecision, we opted for the original plan which was Crescent. The unsettled weather
was bothering us but we decided that a recce to the bottom of the 6th pitch would be ok.
Crescent Pot is notoriously difficult to find so we worked out a marker for a subsequent trip. As
NFTFH says, you walk to the north end of the scar and then approx. 180 metres east. Around here
and about 130 metres from the north wall, the pot is almost opposite the right hand of the broken
section of wall as you look at it. There is a second shakehole next to it with a load of wooden stakes
lying in it and we put a small stake in the ground for an extra mark.
Having got all the gear ready the day before, Alex sent me a text late on that it was rigged by
Ian, one of his YSS colleagues who gave us permission to use his ropes (thanks Ian). This
helps a bit on the walk up that steep hill.
The entrance is a series of smallish pitches which is small at the top but opens up further
down, arriving quickly at a chamber with a shored excavation. It must have taken a lot of
digging to get that lot out, akin to spiral staircase but not as pretty. Someone has put
some home-made ladders down it for extra protection.
This leads to a bedding crawl in a small stream with a short squeeze in the middle which we did
with SRT kits on, followed by muddy, rocky crawling until you reach another squeeze. I opted to
take my kit off because it seemed tight, but I had my gear on on the return, although it is tight, but
only for half a metre.
This drops into another stream which winds down to the main streamway. At this point you have
now got 3 streams running into the pot, hence the reason why Crescent is quite wet on the pitches
and further down.
A short stroll in the stream brings you to a sidewards crawl on the left. This is awkward rather than
tight and is assisted by a handline and a nice space in the middle to haul tackle. We both kept full
gear on both ways which is useful on the way down as the 4th pitch immediately follows. This is a
short pitch which could possibly be free climbed but it would be exposed (maybe half climbed with
cows tails and hand jammer).
The 5th pitch quickly follows which is awkward at the top but not that tight (not as bad as
Langstroth 2nd or the Executioner) but opens up to reveal a fairly big chamber and pitch with a lot of
water beating down. The bottom is slippy and caution is needed.. After another short crawl, you
reach the 6th pitch which again is wet (very wet when we were there) and is inclined all the way
down.
This was supposed to be our limit because of weather concerns, but we carried on a bit further. Alex
stopped at the top of the 7th pitch, I went down and carried on crawling in the very sharp floored
crawl to a small climb and the duck. I decided to turn back here (the threat of a flood pulse down
here was bothering me not to mention very recent evidence of flooding to the roof) and caught up
with Alex at the top of the 5th, both of us considerably wetter after the 6th pitch prussic.
Progress was swiftly made out from here, through the sideways rift (note of caution: the handline is
threadbare at the 4th pitch head and urgently needs replacing) and out through the other squeeze to
the shored chamber, with several photos en route to amuse ourselves later.
On the way out, the sun was pouring down the entrance pitch which gave it an ethereal appearance
and provided some more good photo opportunities.
I look forward to returning see the sump, duck and other passages when the weather is a little
kinder.
