Swinsto Hole
- combinedcavingdivi
- Apr 8
- 3 min read
21st March 2026
After the AGM meeting that morning, we were itching to get out caving. After a decent fry up we hit the road, the weather was fantastic. Nearly too good to be in a cave all day. But we didn’t travel from Dublin to Yorkshire for sunbathing. The plan today was to do a classic Yorkshire trip, a pull-through of Swinsto Hole. A pull-through caving trip is:
“…an advanced technique wherecavers use a single rope to descend a pitch (shaft), then pull it down from above to use for the next pitch, effectively "burning the boats" as they cannot return the same way. This method reduces the amount of rope carried and allows for efficient, linear exploration of deep, multi-pitch systems.”
We got booted and suited, and after a steep and sweaty climb up the hillside to the entrance of the cave we took a breather and then climbed in.
The entrance passage was a low wet crawl with a small stream. Swinsto Hole is quite similar to caves in County Clare, clean, wet and with scalloped walls, evidence of a steady flow of water.
We made it to the first (thankfully small) pitch, Ray rigged up the pitch in the pull through fashion and abseiled down, Bryan was next down the pitch and finally I was to alter the rigging setup, then abseil down and pull the rope through. With us at the bottom of the first pitch and the rope pulled through this was the point of no return!
Next was the long crawl, a 234-metre…long crawl. Not challenging really, just cold, wet and well…long. We got to the second pitch, followed the pull through procedure and all got to the bottom safely. Then pitch 3, then pitch 4. Nearly all the pitches end with you getting soaked, which is fun but it gets a bit nippy.
It was around this area that we found a rope hanging from an anchor, it seemed that a team had got their rope stuck while trying to do a pull through. To be fair this was probably the most challenging pitch in the cave. Ray was able to safely remove the rope and rig up our ropes after some impressive bridging. We now had 3 sets of rope.
Next we came to the most impressive and largest of the pitches, the split pitch. We went down the first pitch to a middle ledge, the force of the water created a strong breeze and it was probably at this stage where we all started to get cold. The issue with Swinsto is there are very few dry places, very few places to stop and even fewer places that have both. We had to just keep our heads down and press on regardless.
2 pitches later we made it to the Swinsto Great Aven. We used the found rope for this last pitch, we all got to the bottom and sure enough the bloody thing got stuck on an anchor. This rope was cursed, it clearly wanted to stay in the cave. Ray climbed back up and unlodged the rope, and with that we were in the Kingsdale Master Cave.
We exited through the Valley Entrance, the warm sunny day we left behind had been replaced with a clear, freezing night. We nipped down to the car, got changed and warmed up. Saw a few shooting stars, heard a few owls calling. All in all a banger of a trip! Would do it again in a heartbeat.
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