Red Rose Cave and Pothole Club - Newsletter Vol. 2 No. 2 - Summer 1964
MAGETOMETER POT: (11th. June '64.)
With a promise of a fine day the Red Rose made its way
to Neats lug Farm on Fountains Fell to
tackle Magnetometer Pot. After a most cordial reception and after the
usual preliminaries of eating and getting changed Ron set off with
the first party whilst the rest of us waited for Jim Newton who was
playing football. (Jims side lost) After a short walk up Fornah Gill we arrived at the conning tower entrance
of Magnetometer to find that the first party had descended so we
quickly set off with Les in the lead. According to P U. the pitch
is 25' but our 36’ ladder
only just reached the bottom of this pitch. The only difficulty encountered was
where the drum lined shaft breaks into natural shaft, as the pitch narrows at
this point. Ray and I were the last two to enter the pot but we son
caught up with the rest of the party. The way down presented a
choice between climbing down through a hole in the floor or taking
a crawl, some confusion followed after taking the crawl as to whether the
way was up or down but after finding that up led out we went down. This leads
to the Well pitch which as the name suggests leads to a pool at the bottom. It was
easily climbed over and then the crawl began. As we had a rather large
party which always seemed to stop in a pool of water the requests for those
ahead to get a move on were varied with the degree of discomfort that one was
in. (we then came to a T junction and the party led by Jim turned left and
eventually came to a halt, Lol, Jim Newton and I then attacked the right which proved
to be the right way. The wet crawls followed with water 6"-1' deep.
Eventually the roof rose sufficiently for us to walk but then the water
deepens and eventually reaches the roof We made our way forward by dodging
some large rock pcndants hanging from the roof
to a dry crawl
which is a hands and knees affair with a gravelly bottom. Everyone then
visited thin Styx rising and the long sandy slope with a small pool
at the bottom is
very impressive considering that the water comes up the passage with sufficient
force to move the sand and pebbles Some nice formations are seen in the next
passage and the floor was deeply eroded with various sized bore halos. The
pitch to Caton Hall is reached by traversing because of the narrowness of
the passage. Ron took some photographs and then the party set off out to be met
at the surface to be mey skies and a threat
of rain.
Michael Bateson.
P. S. to those who forgot. Knee pads and suits are a must in this pot.