Kirk Pot - 5th May 2012
An evening trip to Kirk Pot, Ease Gill, to have a look in a small passage beyond a perched sump not far from the entrance. Alan drained the sump while I had a tourist trip down the pitch to the sump (where John Cordingley has had some considerable diving success recently).
Once Alan had done his draining, I removed oversuit and helmet, slid through the now-empty sump and down the rift on the other side into a squashed-lemon-shape passage. As it was a fairly good size, fairly quick progress was made to the previous limit of exploration, on past two minor S-bends and then down a couple of small drops. The prospect of backing out of this was becoming interesting, so I was very pleased to see a window onto what looked to be a climb/pitch and a fairly good prospect of turning around.
The passage now turned almost 180o and became a series of short climbs down a rift. These led to another couple of windows and bends before I could see the silted-up end of the passage just infront of me. It looked like I was going to have to turn around and go back, so I was very pleased to spot a continuation up-dip to the right. Three body lengths later and I found myself on familiar ground. Just infront of me were the same diving fins I'd been looking at a few minutes before, when I had dropped down the pitch ... I'd found a new route to the bottom of the pitch, emerging directly opposite where the main route joins. A bit of a shame, but I hadn't really expected to get anywhere in the first place, so it didn't really matter.
The decision now was whether to go back the way I'd come, or to go back to the pitch, shout up and get Alan to re-rig it for me. I decided to try the latter, but got no reply so decided to have a go at free-climbing. It was actually very easy.
Party: Alan & Damian
Time: 1hr
looks like young Alex has a job 