This I think must be my first Black book trip! I made it as far as shale pitch, which is pretty impressive.
Chris Scaife wrote: Birks Fell Cave is a fairly flood-prone trip requiring a CNCC permit, so a real privilege for all those
lucky enough not to have broken fingers or other paltry excuses preventing them from caving. Four
of us met in Buckden and headed up the hill in bright sunshine to the easily located entrance.
The trip begins with a very short drop and brief wriggle leading into a pleasant walking passage.
This merges seamlessly into a short flat-out crawl known as the Bradford Crawl, named in honour
of those kind people who rigged Disappointment Pot for us during the week. After a bit of crawling
there is an easily climbable cascade and a flat-out rocky crawl leading to the 1st pitch. There is
apparently a free-climbable alternative to this but it didn’t look very tempting so we slipped into our
SRT kits and headed down.
From the foot of the pitch, some exciting passage is followed, including something for everyone.
There are cascades and boulder chokes to scramble through, wet crawls to cool down the neoprene
and plenty of well-decorated streamway. There is then a fun squeeze under a jammed boulder with a
rope at the other side for an ape-like descent of a 2m drop. Almost immediately follows an
enjoyable free climb into the stream passage and the top of the 2nd pitch, a short one that is fairly
wet and made wetter by Rob’s hilarious trick of blocking the flow and then unleashing a torrent
onto the unfortunate caver below.
Some flowstone formations decorate the rift leading up to Elbow Bend. This is a hairpin bend to the
left and after this point a few minutes of crawling in chest-deep water lead to the Thrutch, a
remarkably easy traverse given such a grand title. After a bit more crawling, Shale Pitch is reached.
This pitch is bizarrely rigged from an enormous Y-hang using spits and a sling as backup. There is
quite a lot of water coming down the pitch and a cold ledge used for a rebelay does little to keep the
water away, especially for me, as when I ascended the pitch Beryl had already managed to flick the
sling out of place.
At the foot of this pitch, we stripped elegantly out of our SRT kits and headed to the sump. The cave
changes in character here and the last part is narrower than before, culminating in an awkward
crawl to the head of Slimy Slit Pitch. Anyone who had carried rope or a ladder (as Selected Caves
suggests) to this pitch would be annoyed as this is a straightforward free-climb. From the foot of the
pitch a canal is followed to the sump. This is a very enjoyable few minutes of caving in water of
varying depth, from knee-deep to neck-deep. My neofleece, which had almost burned me on the
approach walk, kept me warm to the bitter end.
This is a long trip and on exiting, Rob had to hurry off home, whilst Dom, Alex and I headed to a
restaurant beside the car park.
