Aquamole - Phil Wolstenholme

The final day of our Yorkshire Dales jaunt was blinding sunshine again, but with a bitter, bitter wind, making the cars warm cocoons that no-one really wanted to leave. We'd had exchange trips up until now, but for this one we decided to split into two teams and do a cave each - Ann, Grace, Jenny and Mark would do Bull Pot, and Andy, Louise, Dominika and me would do Aquamole - so both teams had at least two people who'd done the cave before, and we all had plenty of rope. We knew also that we'd be dry this time, after our soaking in Diccan/Alum Pot the day before. And getting out of the wind at last would be an absolute joy.

Louise was up for rigging again, so Andy followed, with Dominika drawing in third place and me following behind with the final rope bag. The shaft entrance is artificial, and is a lovely job of concrete blocks on set beams, if a little snug, and it drops you straight into a natural rift, with obvious enlargements in places, both with small snappers and also something much larger! The rift is pretty tight throughout, with numerous (five?) rebelays on the way down, but nearly every one is accompanied by a handy ledge that you can stand on, so in reality, as long as you're not claustrophobic, the descent is pretty straightforward. At the base, a larger chamber with a rubble floor initially seems to have no exit, but then a vadose passage can be seen at 90° to the main rift line, beautifully scalloped with a pointed roof. This meanders awkwardly for about 50m before reaching a pitch down into a larger area. We were all enjoying ourselves, with the rigging going steadily ahead, and lots of drawing getting done.

A larger bedding chamber, with a profusion of breakdown on the floor suddenly hints at a change in geology, and the chamber has a small tube branching away with an awkward squeeze (I should have checked this), or the main route which drops down a couple of steps, and then - echoing can be heard. The change in audio space is quite dramatic, and even at the back of the queue, it's obvious something large is just ahead. The Aquamole shaft, at least 40m deep and very broad, lies just ahead, and its smooth walls are both inviting and terrifying in equal measure. As we filed up to go down, Dominika was slung from her cowstails, drawing Andy descending in front of her, singing happily. A large ledge on the left, just off the main pitch head, had a rope going up with a passage leading off, but we decided not to bother with this. As Louise and Andy reached the floor, it was still easy to hear them talking from the top, so effective is the sound transmission in there. Descending the gigantic shaft is a real treat, with multicoloured staining on the smooth, slightly widening walls. The base has a gravel floor, blind almost immediately in one direction and leading to a large black sump at the other - in reality no more than 20m can be walked before diving becomes the only way on. A pair of cylinders and flippers waited ominously for their owner to return and use them.

It was obvious from the chilly air and the 100+m return journey that we shouldn't be hanging around too long, so Andy set off up the rope, with Louise following. As Dominika hadn't de-rigged any pitches before, the decision was made to give her this one - all the way to the top. Accepting her fate with equanimity, I set off back up the rope and waited at the top for her. The next five minutes were spellbinding, as she treated me to a performance of improvised singing, in a booming operatic style, about the joys of the underground and her rightful  place in it. Or something like that. The echoes were spellbinding, and I spent most of her climb laughing my head off. Taking the bag from her, I set off a little way ahead, where I could hear Andy shouting me that he was waiting for a bag. The next pitch got done easily, and I met Andy at the beginning of the meandering passage to hand one over. Once me and D were both at the base of the entrance series, things were looking up - only five easy rebelays to unthread and we were out.

Sadly, not all went exactly to plan. One thread of our rebelay had been rigged through a loop on an already-installed rebelay, and once realised, took a bit of unthreading to sort out. But then the nightmare occurred - a seriously jammed krab, with three pitches still rigged above, and a lovely 90m length of Gleistein rope that really did not want to be cut. And as it was Mark's, none of us wanted to cut it either! Dominika was getting nowhere with it on her own, so I abseiled back down the other rope and had to put my entire body weight onto it before she could twist open the sleeve - that was a close one, as we figured the others might be done - I was sure I could hear Jenny at the top talking to Louise, so we didn't want to have to send Mark down for his rope! Eventually we all stepped out blinking into the sunshine, with Andy and Louise already turning a bit blue in the wind - but the sunshine beat the wind, and we all steadily tramped back down the hill, by now properly exhausted from three days solid caving, but very happy to have done it all successfully and (fairly) safely.

Having looked at the survey afterwards it turns out that the rope up near the main pitch head leads into the One Armed Bandit Series, and it seems that the little crawl I saw in the bedding chamber also leads there. Apparently there are avens reaching almost to surface, and a floor-hole that also leads back down to the main sump. So we could have done more, but without any rope, it would have been futile, and probably a bit dangerous. Another time!