Ease Gill - Dominika Wróblewska

I have managed to write up the first day of our NYE trip to Yorkshire - Ease Gill. Hopefully there will be more to follow but this one took a million years to write and sucked all life out of me! 

We (Lizzie, Al, me) arrived at the farm at about 9:30pm. The road leading up to the farm was extremely foggy but Alastair, who was driving, claimed that he could see a little bit of road in front. The farmhouse is the headquarters of the Red Rose Cave & Pothole Club. It’s a big house with lots of rooms, making it into a bit of a maze for the first timers. Lots of people were already there, all gathered in the ‘Members only (and guests)’ common room, they were drinking and chatting away. A large group of Cambridge University Caving Club was booked into the hut alongside Leeds University club, TSG, and others including RRCPC members. That night also a caving club from Stockport called ‘Rubber Duck’ was there. After a few hours of talking and listening to some peculiar caving tunes, I went upstairs to save myself a bunk bed space and noticed immediately that there is no sound protection from what went on in the common room directly below. All sounds seeped through what seemed like a very thin floor. A specifically interesting sound was that of the so called ‘wood chipper’ – a green device secured onto a big wooden log, which stood right by the back door in the Members common room. It was operated by lifting a metal handle in order to position a piece of wood under a blunt ‘blade’; then a metal slider wrapped around another handle is slid up and then rammed down. A strange decision to put such a thing in a room often filled with drunken people, I thought.

We agreed to be out at 9am next morning. I got up at 7am and went downstairs and to my surprise all the rooms were still empty. A few moments after, the place started filling up again with now sleepy, squinting people, all greeting each other with a ‘morning’. The most common dish of that morning was porridge, which at the end of the trip I began to loathe.

It was decided that we’re going to go down Ease Gill which turned out to be quite a massive system of caves (at least for me). Our group also turned out to be quite massive so we split it in half and decided on a kind of ‘exchange’ trip dropping in one shaft and coming out of the one the other group dropped in and vice versa. After a considerable time of waiting around, we finally left at about 11.30am (?). Jess, Louise, Beth, Lizzie, me, and Dickon headed for the County Pot entrance while the others (Alex, Alastair, Luke, and two CUCC novices (?)) made their way to Lancaster Hole. Jess led our party as she was the most familiar with the cave system. We slid down a hole hidden under a hatch in a ditch surrounded by hills with bared limestone. The passage was very clean and followed the stream as it twisted and turned. I was last in the group and further in, we bumped into two cavers dressed in yellow boiler suits crawling out of a hole on the left hand side. They shouted something to me but the stream was loud, I couldn’t really make out what they were saying exactly. From what I made out, they were asking whether we were going into ‘Sport hole’ but I had no knowledge of any names in that cave system nor of the route we were taking! Since the rest of the group had already disappeared, I had nobody to consult this with so I simply said that I didn’t know and the men pointed at the hole from which they’d just come out of. I rejoined the group further along the stream and found out that the part we were supposed to go down was much wetter than Jess had encountered before. As it turned out, we were going to ‘Spout Hall/Passage’ and I seemed to know the alternative way thanks to those two cavers. I confidently lead the way back up the stream to return to the previous chamber. The way back seemed very obvious and yet I still managed to take the wrong turn and completely lose sense of direction. Me and Louise realised after a while that nobody’s following us anymore so we went back following their voices and lights. Suddenly we emerged in the correct passage and I honestly have no clue how that happened. We continued without any confusion after that.

We entered a higher route which had an interesting climb through a slot entered from under a solid wall. The slot was narrowly surrounded by smooth rock walls. The walls were maybe 2 – 2.5 metres high and not reaching to the ceiling, so while still at the bottom of the stream, you could see whoever just climbed up there. A rope hung down the slot and dangled in the opening at the bottom of the rock wall. I sat at the other end of the chamber and observed everybody climb up one by one. It was taking quite a long time but provided a hilarious point of view of people standing upright within a rock with only their legs visible through the bottom hole. When my turn has come to climb up, I quickly understood why it was taking so long. I decided that it would be easier to free climb it rather than use an ascender. The gap was very tight but horizontally long so supporting yourself with legs on both ends of it was very difficult and so I failed the free climb. I clipped myself onto the rope and ascended the ‘easy’ way. After the climb, there came a crawl. We crawled semi-flat out through a passage with a few columns connecting the low ceiling with the ground. The next part of the trip becomes a slight blur. I know for certain that we had hit a junction chamber with the roaring river which gave us many possible ways on. We followed the river, climbing over very large boulders, then around the bend and over more boulders, getting ever so higher. We left the river far behind, entering Gypsum Cavern full of beautiful thin and long white straws adorning the entire ceiling. We sat there for a while to observe. I was amazed at the complete change of acoustics and environment. The noise of the heavily flowing river in the passage below pierced the ears. We had been surrounded by this sound for a large portion of the trip now. It is a strange sound – through its continuity and loudness, the cave reminds the humans of its presence. It lives and it is powerful. The Gypsum Cavern was silent, completely soundproofed and abandoned by water.

We were on our detour to see Easter Grotto which was ‘advertised’ as a very pretty passage full of stalactites, stalagmites and columns. After a bit of semi-crawling, it seemed that we’d taken a wrong turn so we backed up and tried a different hole which had to be climbed up. We sent Dickon in first for reconnaissance. Sounds of effort came out of the hole, which as we later experienced on ourselves, was an incredibly tight crawl, especially with SRT kit attached around our waists. Jess’ descender managed to get stuck between her and the floor and she battled with it for a while. In the meantime four of us assumed ‘comfortable’ horizontal positions on the muddy floor, with the ceiling inches above our heads.

Easter Grotto was indeed smothered with beautiful formations and what made it even more impressive was that the passage was quite low so you really felt like you were immersed in it. However, it’s only when others illuminate the passage from different directions that you can truly appreciate its beauty. Viewing drip stone with light shining from the back of it turns it into something I can only describe as a lantern – it reveals its colours and transparencies.

Luckily, there was another way of getting out of the Grotto. I seem to have lost track of what went on the way back but after a while we reunited with the river junction chamber and went on up again but the other way this time. We entered the Minaret Passages which completely didn’t follow my expectations of where the way on should be. A wide passage at first glance suggested that it continued further ahead and yet it was blind. The way on was through a small arch by the ground in the middle of its wall and brought you to another passage of similar structure.

We finally reached a yet another check-point – the Painter’s Palette – a caver’s ‘attraction’ with a very adequate name. The pool-shaped area on the left hand side of the path was adorned by multicoloured blob-like flowstone and short, round, and thick stalagmites. They were red, orange, white, yellow, and black. Their petrified melted state really did resemble an artist’s palette full of variously coloured paint. We stopped there for a while to examine that scene. The stalactites looming over the pool were sharp, almost triangular and deep grey and black. I’d never seen black stalactites before.

We continued the trip down the slope, securing our descent with knotted ropes which were already there. Next, we faced another climb - this time up the knotted rope and over the next slope. The chamber we were in now was enormous and you could hear the fast river speeding somewhere down there, between the canyons. It was too far for me to reach with my light. Somewhere at this point Dickon decided he’s going to go ahead at his own pace and that he’d see us at the farm. We could still see his light for quite a while after he completely disappeared.

We reached Fall Pot, which again was guarded by an enormous slope covered with mud and rocks. Slipping on it multiple times, I reached the middle of the chamber and noticed a sign pinned to the biggest rectangular slab of rock I’d ever seen. The rock slab reminded me of a piano, only a hundred times bigger. The sign was in memory of a caver who lost his life there. Me and Louise went beyond the rock slab and a while after, I heard a loud shriek coming from back up the muddy slope. I continued walking forward in order to examine where the way on was. I looked into a hole beneath my feet and realised how high above the ground we were – there was a substantial drop, with the bottom of it barely visible, therefore not the way on. I then tried a squeeze through an awkwardly tight slot in the rocks and followed it up. That brought me to a knotted rope climb onto a 3-4 metre cliff wall. I waited there for a while then shouted to Louise to find out what was going on and whether that was the way on (there was another rope in the main chamber which required prussiking up). There were no answers from anyone so I squeezed back down to find Beth asking if anybody had any water and informing that Lizzie had slipped down the slope and hurt her ankle. I produced a water bottle and Beth disappeared behind the slab and rejoined Jess and Lizzie. After finding out that both the prussiking rope and the knotted rope were the right way on, I went for the knotted one in order to wait for the rest at the top. This secluded passage was my only chance I’d had so far to finally relieve my bladder which had been bursting since the very start of the trip. Peeing in full caving gear and a harness while being a female is no quick business as one must dismantle and take everything off first and then put it back on again. 

After a good 10 minutes, I climber up the rope and reunited with Louise and Beth who were already up on the edge of the cliff overhanging the chamber. They were clipped onto an additional rope and were setting everything up to haul Lizzie up the cliff. I couldn’t see past the edge of the floor but I heard Lizzie’s voice coming from below and observed Beth and Louise manage the ropes and communicate with Lizzie and Jess at the bottom of the chamber. Soon, Lizzie was up by the top and Jess arrived via the knotted rope climb. I was amazed at the smooth action delivered by Louise and Beth and felt slightly useless just sitting there drawing! Me and Jess hurried ahead to get back to the farm and inform others of the incident in order to arrange a rescue team. Luckily it wasn’t that much further to the exit. As we rushed to the exit, I started to get visions of us taking the wrong route, becoming lost and a massive rescue team having to save us all. None of this happened however and soon we were prussiking up out of Lancaster Hole. After what felt like an entire day underground, going up that rope wasn’t easy. I slid the circular hatch door above my head to the side and came out into the darkness. Jess went up after me and in the meantime I observed the starry sky. We sprinted back to the farm and Jess went to organise the rescue party – it was 8pm. All covered in mud, I decided it was time to wash my gear. I went into the changing room but there was no sign of a washing station. Two people were sitting there so I asked them about it. They said they weren’t from there so they didn’t know but there was a ‘gear pool’ outside and some brushes. I went out and noticed some brushes tied with strings onto two bolts, right on a concrete ledge in the middle of a small stream running across the farm. A mild waterfall was created by water coming off the concrete ledge. It’d been a long day and I couldn’t wait to finally eat so I took off my harness and went into the stream in the rest of my gear. I submerged myself in it and brushed away the mud. It took a while and was a perfectly miserable yet refreshing ending to a long day underground.

The atmosphere at the farmhouse was exciting; people at the farm were communicating with those at Lancaster Hole, making sure that the rescue action was running smoothly and checking if they need anything. I continued being useless and started cooking my dinner as at that point my stomach was screaming for food. Around the time as I sat down to the roast vegetables, bramley apple pork sausages and salad, the information came that Lizzie is out and on her way back. We prepared a big jug of tea for everybody who was heading back to the farm. They returned at around 10pm. The rescue was carried out smoothly; you could tell that everybody who participated in it knew exactly what needed to be done and there were many eager hands to help in any task, small or big. And again I was amazed at how well everybody had worked together.

The drinking and chatting resumed and I removed myself from the scene and went to bed.

All that said, It would be interesting to see Lizzie's side of the story from that day because as you can see, I wasn't there as the rescue was happening!

Illustration Copyright © Dominika Wróblewska.

Illustration Copyright © Dominika Wróblewska.