A Wharfdale Weekend. (May 4th - 6th)
A big Red
Rose turnout for the weekend of the year.
Friday
night: Giles Barker, Ray
Duffy, Pete Hall and Richard Jones somehow managed to locate the correct pub
and meet up.
Saturday: Dave Crellin and Bob Stevens turned up and
managed to clean the cafe of Kettlewell tourists, after a lot of misgivings
about the weather we set off to tackle Pasture Gill Pot at about 2pm! — early
for us! Pete rigged down a scruffy entrance pitch which took us t a better wet
pitch, the water was avoided by dropping out of a window over to the left of
the pitch head. After a short scramble through a shale band we dropped down a
magnificent forty metre pitch —all clean washed — then through a bouldery rift (a
bit like Brown Hill Pot) then into Tadpole Passage. This is a crawl in water,
nothing desperate except for Richard who was in “dry” gear, most of the rest of
us wore wetsuits.
After that
a couple of easy pitches which we free climbed then a rift, then a duck
although Richard added another to his repertoire, whilst the rest of us walked
over the top via a walking passage Richard tried to force a “nose—to—the—floor”
squeeze at the duck. After that the cave became mainly hands and knees or
stooping through a superbly decorated stream passage to eventually arrive at
The Forest where tree roots come through the roof. Got to the last pitch but we
had not brought any tackle for it, the sump was immediately below that.
Superb and
enjoyable trip, no real difficulties, plenty of variety and superb formations
at the end. Ask the farmer at Top Farm, Yockenthwaite first or Beckermonds if
he is not in.
Sunday: The Z team, campers got totally smacked on
Saturday night. The A team has been luxuriating at Buckden house but were ready
to go caving, eventually Ray and Giles were joined by Richard to go in
Meanwhile
Anne and Andy had turned up on Saturday and they went down Pasture Gill on
Sunday.
Giles
Barker.
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