What a fun little trip we had in there. We entered by the Langcliffe entrance
where we had the usual faff (for me and Chris) of trying to work out where
some of the anchors were such as that initial rock at the entrance (Turned out
its the one on your right in the small bit of cave when you enter). With the
correct rock found I eventually rigged it and we both then descended
Langcliffe Pot.
What a spectacular pitch this is, lit by day light bleeding in at the top a very fine shaft. P.S. the rebelay bolt at the ledge is actually below it and to the left with your back facing the pitch wall (the NFTFH description of the "dry bit" was meaningless as it was all relatively dry).
We decided to do a recce to the second pitch as it was already getting past lunch time, so we left our
SRT gear and bag and set off unencumbered. It was not long until we hit the wet misery of Craven
Crawl, nothing desperate mind you. Shortly this was over and we hit the stooping stuff of Stagger
Passage. This did go on a while, then a while longer, then just when you think you're there it went
on a little longer still. But this arduousness was rewarded by the fine walking passage ahead.
After ten minutes the passage split into two, a dry route and a wet route. We took the wet route, it
was a relatively easy passage with a bit of crawling following a channel like the one Kneewrecker,
Mossdale. This gave way to waste deep water, though it was all mainly traversable if you wanted to
stay dry. We rejoined the route by an obscure climb through boulders to hit the pleasure of
Langstrothdale Chase, a mile long walking passage. I felt like I was back in Agen Allwedd in
Wales, and the moderately arduous passages we came through to get here were soon a distant
memory, though the passage was not as large.
At the end almost 30 minutes later we reached dry rocky crawling and a few so called “squeezes”
before popping into Boireau Falls chamber. Boireau falls did not seem a logical name I hardly call a
2 foot trickle of water a water fall. I was a little bit disappointed, I was expecting something more
spectacular for such a grandeur name, but later I found out the chamber was in-fact named after one
of the fallen in Mossdale, may he rest in peace. The way on to the pitch was through a really small
hole in the floor, with bugger all to stand on for return. Chris bravely went first but I asked him to
make sure he could climb back out before I joined him, he struggled but eventually pushed him self
back though. It was an arm strength only vertical squeeze through a body sized hole. I went in and
lowered my self half way trying to feel for a scaffold bar but it was out of reach so I stopped as a
wave of good sense strangely came over me (a rare thing) and decided it was pointless as we could
not go much further anyway, another day then.
On the way out we took the dry route which involves a lot of boulder clambering and in my eyes is
more arduous then the wet route. More walking, stooping, crawling, crawling in water, prussicing
finally saw us to the surface past 5pm. If it took us over 5 hours to get about half way and back
unencumbered, (Could have done it in 4 and a bit I guess had we not took any photos and knew
where the anchors were.) But a full trip would still be an epic, especially with that bloody hole in
the middle of it! I would say that hole was the crux of the cave but there was probably worse in
Nemesis boulder choke.
Great trip though, I grade the trip we did as a 4 (No squeezes, and 1 pitch but lots of distance and
crawling), but the full thing would be a 5 (+) easily.
