We had planned to do a big caving trip on 10th June – entering the Gaping Gill system via a one hundred metre pitch and venturing to the Whitsun Series, one of its more remote sections that includes, among other things, the joys of a mud-filled duck under a low arch. The weather had been dubious and the entrance we had planned to use can be hazardous if it rains – so can the mud duck. We had two people with us who were keen to get basic experience with SRT (single rope technique) and one person who was new to caving. So we decided instead to enter the Gaping Gill system via Bar Pot and just go as far as the main chamber. This, on the face of it, left the novice out in the cold (or in the warm, the way the weather turned out), since the pitches in Bar Pot are no joke on ladders and certainly not appropriate for someone with no previous experience. However, we had a cunning plan.
We were providing training for the two existing members with limited or no SRT experience on the Saturday, before going to Bar Pot on the Sunday. We reasoned that everybody has to learn SRT at some time if they take up caving in Yorkshire. Once you get used to it, it is easier than using ladders anyway. So why not teach the novice SRT from day one?
Saturday morning found the three trainees being sent up and down ropes in the training room at Inglesport and learning how to get past bolts without plummeting to the ground. The novice, who would have been expecting a conventional tramp in and out of a benign, level cave with one or two squeezy bits, was a bit alarmed at the idea of dangling from exceedingly thin bits of rope at great heights. No doubt so were the other two, although they had the advantage of knowing in advance what they were in for. All three got on fine, nevertheless, and were pronounced ready for the real thing. We went to Sell Gill Holes in the late afternoon for some outdoor and underground experience but the most entertaining bit of the trip was that we found a team there from Craven Potholing Club. They had never heard of Gay Outdoor Club Caving Group and made valiant efforts to get their heads round the concept. The big event was on the next day.
It takes an hour or so to walk up to Bar Pot from Clapham and it was warm in the sunshine. We went across to see where the beck plunges into Gaping Gill before we entered Bar Pot. The first pitch, of about ten metres, comes almost immediately and it starts with a narrow section which is difficult to deal with even if you are experienced at SRT. All three novices (in SRT terms) coped and we were soon descending the winding passage and slopes that lead to the main pitch of thirty metres. That is a long way to descend on a rope and potentially very alarming. On the other hand, the big advantage of the pitch for a novice is that getting on and off the rope at the top is very straightforward and, this being a single drop, there are no bolts to pass.
From the bottom of the pitch the onward journey just involves some walking, crawling, and grovelling. There are a couple of places where you need to take care not to fall into chasms but you would have to be pretty careless to do so. As you get close to the main chamber the crawl becomes lower and less promising but you feel a breeze travelling with you towards the main chamber and start to hear the crash of the waterfall. Suddenly you break out into the biggest underground chamber in Britain, entering at the top of a slope and getting a dramatic first view. Dropping over a hundred metres from a hole at the top of the chamber, the waterfall is lit from above – a vertical stream of water in its own, private shaft of light.
We walked across the stony floor of the chamber and looked up, with spray on our faces, to see the water arcing from one side of the hole above and rebounding from the other to stream down to where we stood. After a few minutes it was time to turn back, along the passages, up the thirty metre pitch and, finally, to struggle through the narrow section at the top of the entrance pitch. Even though it was mid-evening, the sun was still shining and we enjoyed the downhill walk back to Clapham – tired though we were and long though it seemed.
All three newcomers to SRT faced difficult moments but showed themselves well able to deal with them. It is great news for the team to have them with us and I hope we have not put them off by expecting too much too soon. Having done this trip they will find the next few in the caving programme pretty easy going.
