Topic

As we were the first group going in we went for the early start option, crack of 10.45
After rigging the entrance pitch it was a nice surprise to find the rest of the cave rigged to the bottom. Once we were all down we went for a look round the exercise yard first, before heading off to look at the pretties. As Lee and Myself were eager for another trip, we made our way out leaving the rest of the party to finish off looking round and taking photos.
Trip time 2-4hrs
Ruth Smith, Stu Weston, Anthony Mathews, Gordon Aitken, Lee Langdon, Keith Mason

After days of trying to set a start time on the website. I decided the best ‘plan’ in the end was to drive to the hut on Saturday at 9. Within 5 mins I was heading back off with the first party.

We stopped off at Leck car park to leave surplus cars/see if there was anyone to pick up. Then drove up to the parking area at LJ. -Where two guys from CNCC were just ‘going to do some bolting at Deaths Head’.

Nice downhill walk to Shuttleworth. Stuart was saying ‘how well it looked now since the dig’ – so good that he was worried for a second he wouldn’t walk straight to it, but no problems there! (Worst thing about it was getting eaten by midges at the entrance).

Easy pitches down. Roomy all the way. A lot cleaner than I was expecting being a newly dug cave. Weather had been dry for last two days and sump looked well down.

Crossed the bridge over the sump explored to the right then came back to the bottom of the pitch. Keith and Lee went ahead I waited for others to catch up. Alex R appeared at the top of the pitch and lit up the chamber (a bit better than the candle I was using) but he then went on to explore other bits – see other thread.
Our ‘b’ party then went up and did the short crawl to the left. …and saw some fantastic formations. Really impressive. thousands of straws, some from floor to ceiling. Saw the Dog bones. Helictites, all shapes and sizes. We wondered how some seemed to be defying gravity and be growing upwards? ( I now know some of the other unusual features were due to false floors having been washed away leaving bits clinging to the walls).

It’s really amazing thinking how Jason found this cave and then free climbed to within 17m of the top. All on his own. Another incredible achievement.

A big thank you to all those diggers involved in opening up this cave. Had a good chat to Alan about it at the barbeque, totally fascinating.

I do hope that the permit system works and it is preserved as it is. .... Perhaps it should have a gate just to make sure? But only my thoughts.

I was in the second party into this cave and met Keith and the others as they were SRTing their way out up the main pitch. This has to be the best cave for formations that I've visited in the Dales so in the end we spent a long time having a very slow careful look around and taking lots of pictures. My photos are on the YSS FaceBook site or the direct link is

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Had an interesting chat with Alan Speight at the evening BBQ about the opening up of this fantastic cave. Like Gordon I hope that the parties into this cave are careful and that it is preserved in good condition.

A great weekend, a friendly atmosphere at a well organised and catered BBQ.