A very wet caving trip up to the Yorkshire Dales
A wet walk up the hill to Bar Pot and an even wetter trip in the cave. I was suprised just how wet this usually dry cave was after a lot of wet weather. Gaping Ghyll main chamber was very impressive with a huge amount of water coming out of all the openings in the roof which also created a very powerfull draught. Also, where the Flood entrance route drops into South East Pot there was a huge waterfall, so we were glad we didn't do that route!
This proved a very popular trip as water levels were very high throughout the dales. We rigged our ropes amoungst the others and descended Lancaster Hole. From here we went to have a look at the very impressive formations in the Colonnades Chamber. We then went onto Fall pot to try and do an exchange trip with our other group who were meant to be descending Cow Pot. There was a rope coming out of Cow Pot but it didn't belong to our other group (we later found out that they hadn't managed to find the way on after the entrance pitch so turned around). We then decided to head out back to Lancaster Hole where we had to queue to get out the cave.
An exchange trip down to the lower streamway. Helen, Claire and I headed down Centre Route following a group from Cambridge University. We were suprised just how quickly we made it down all the pitches and reached the Lower Streamway. We didn't go any further here due to water levels. The other group (consisting of Barry, Crispin and Dave) then dropped down through the roof out of the Adamson's Route to join us in the Lower Streamway. However, it wasn't quite that simple as there rope wasn't long enough to reach the floor so we had to throw them the end of our rope and then laugh at them doing a knot by-pass to reach the floor. <br> <br>The Centre Route was much more impressive than the muddy Adamson's Route.