A reasonable crowd gathered at the hut for the trip into Ireby Fell Cavern.
Some people were keen to have a go at Bubbles route, some wanted to have a look at Cripple Creek and I was keen to have another go at Shadow route.
We all left the hut by 9:30, parked in Mason Gill Lane, changed and kitted up for the chilly walk over the fell to the cave.
Paul, Robin, Long Bob, Ade, Andy & Dave disappeared down Bubbles route, while I set off across the traverse to Shadow route with James, Klaudia & Lukasz.
Shadow route is an airy route with three rebelays before the descent to the junction with the now wet Bell pitch.
We continued down with Pussy pitch and then a reasonable amount of caving to Well pitch and then Rope pitch.
After which it was mainly easy walking to Duke Street. On the way we passed Paul, Robin & Long Bob who had visited Duke Street but were not keen enough to do Skylight Passage.
We went down to the Duke Street 1 sump and then through Skylight Passage. There was quite a lot of complaining about the deep water (waist deep on me) possibly due to its temperature.
We then went to see the other side of the sump and some of the chambers on the other branch.
When we started heading back, there was sufficient complaining about the cold water for James to offer Klaudia a piggy back through the deep bits.
There were also complaints about having to do Skylight Passage again but this paled into insignificance when compared with my complaints about Bubbles route.
This has some tight pitch heads, tight rope climbs and tight rifty tubes to add to the interest.
With all the twists an turns in the passage, the team were directionally confused by the time we popped out of the scaffolding near the entrance.
Then there only remained the walk back across the fell, this was no warmer than on the way out & we were now soaked.
James, who had been given a lift to the cave by Dave, stole Dave's car key from his kit in the cave, so that he could get changed and wait for him in the warm. It was a good job he had as he waited over an hour for team Jupiter to appear.
Klaudia visited Inglesport for some wetsuit socks on the way back to the hut and managed to get pizza as well.
A good trip, and mainly type 1 fun with the odd excursion into type 2.
Team Bubbles-Shadow: Paul, Robin & Long Bob
Team Jupiter: Ade, Dave & Andy.
Team Shadow-Bubbles: James, Lukasz, Klaudia & Dave.
Shadow-Bubbles Time: About 5 hours.
