It was a very wet day in the Dales and, eager as I was to avoid another group abseiling on top of us in one of the traditional wet-weather options, I did some outside-the-box thinking during the drive over. That took me to Pillar Holes, somewhere I'd quickly visited about 20 years ago, and now had little memory. The hope was that it would provide Sophie with some useful pitch-head and rebelay practice.
With everyone else heading to either Leck or digging, it was just the two of us who headed up the hill from Cold Cotes, typically just as the rain began. The description I had reckoned the most westerly hole would be driest, so we tried that first. A couple of rebelays led to a y-hang right under a substantial drip so being soft, I called it a day there and had a look at the middle hole while Sophie has a second trip down the first one "for practice".
The second (middle) hole was quite interesting and I could get down to the final y-hang without getting too wet, so I left it rigged and popped back up to Sophie (who was now escaping the worst of the weather in our shelter). It turned out she was now quite cold, so I popped back down, derigged and we headed back off down the hill
So was it worth it? Probably not but that was more down to the weather than the cave. I reckon I'll be heading back for a proper look around it all, but on the basis of what I've seen, with a few more anchors, it would make a great little SRT practice route.
Damian & Sophie
(About 2 hrs)
