Topic

Due to crap weather conditions we decided to give Birksfell a miss, instead opting for Ireby as Nigel and Gordon had not been there before.
Went in via Ding Dong route and made our way down to Duke Street for a look at the sump, then went through Skylight Passage into Duke Street 2 for a quick look at the other side of the sump before making our way back out.
Trip time 4hrs 30
Nigel Steel, Gordon Aitken, Stu Weston, Keith Mason

Brilliant. Fantastic. Great choice!/Alternative to Birkwith [which was off the menu due to weather].
Stewart was pleased to see his ladder had found a use in the entrance pipe.
Interesting cave. Nice pitches.
A lot more horizontal caving than I've done before = Great!- [Thought I was going caving not for a long walk!] No complaints as all ‘walk able’ and some lovely bits of wide cave, stream passage etc.
The 'near duck' under the flow stone was straight forward 12” gap (even though it was raining).
At the sump I was glad the team persuaded me to carry on through the ‘not to be missed’ newly dug out crawl passage - which by passes the infamous sump. This is where Keith was trapped ...last year? - Very interesting to hear 1st hand about this.
Crawl
After climbing the fixed rope to the ceiling we ditched our SRT kit ready for the ’20 min crawl’. The crawl took ‘Commando Keith’ 5 mins and us mere mortals 10 mins = flat out/hands & knees crawl & lots of swearing later. We emerged in the other stream passage to descend the 3 m free climb aided by fixed rope down into the stream passage. Got to hand it too the guys who dug out this passage amazing work!!!!! It reminded me of the Great Escape. All mud so not too hard on the knees.
At the other stream passage
We had a look around upstream; Keith remembered the water level as being ‘below knee height’; but either I’m better endowed than I thought or he wears platform wellies… Cold water or what?! …..I would say waist height!
Unfortunately due to time constraints we could n’t explore all of this part. It’s Certainly worth a re visit with more time.

A big thank you to the guys Keith Stewart and Nigel. A great day out.
Also a big thank you to the guys that dug that crawly passage out. Marvellous achievement.
Excelllent trip. If this is a 'B' trip I'm really looking forward to the 'A' trips!