Maybe large numbers of TSG folk lacked passports to travel ‘oop north’, maybe they were afraid of having to dine on tripe and onions, or maybe the lure of pretty formations was weaker than that of the Derbyshire mud. Whatever the reasons, just a small, but very enthusiastic, band of stalwarts travelled to the Dales for an excellent weekend of caving in a couple of the more obscure Yorkshire pots, both of which were declared to be worthwhile.
Hagg Gill Pot - Saturday 18th April 2009
Not in any of the guide books but well worth a visit as it has some fine stream passage and some equally fine formations. The entrance pitch was laddered, though two members of the party preferred to abseil down the rope. We visited the upstream reaches of the cave followed by the downstream end, progressing all the way through to White Line Chamber. There was much admiring of helictites and straws and Larry complained that we were all breathing too much and steaming up his photos. Some of the traversing near the end was a little awkward in places, though those of smaller stature managed to avoid much of this by pottering at stream level. Due to a faulty Imperial-to-metric conversion, Elaine managed to bring a rope that was too short to reach the bottom of the pitch when it was used as a double lifeline. Consequently Larry despatched her upwards first when exiting, using a set of cows’ tails to clip into the ladder, following which she lifelined the others out. Donald had a bit of an argument with the constriction at the top of the pitch whilst Thomas didn’t seem to notice it. There was glorious sunshine and blue skies to greet us on the surface. For some inexplicable reason cars full of tourists seemed to keep slowing down to watch Thomas getting changed…….
An excellent curry supper was provided courtesy of the assembled ranks of the Northern Pennine Club and the White Rose Pothole Club at the NPC’s cottage, Greenclose.
Illusion Pot Sunday 19th April 2009
Another slightly obscure cave, well known to Elaine. Unusually two other cavers were also in the system and – even more unusually – the old sumps were virtually dry. We went to view the pretties at both ends of the Expressway before heading into Rushton Chamber and across the traverse in Brunel Rift to the sumps. No-one was tempted by the long crawl into Perfidia so we headed back out into an afternoon of hot sunshine, rescuing a centipede from the entrance climb in the process!
Two days of excellent caving and superb company – and absolutely no tripe and onions!
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