Yorkshire Trip, Bar Pot

March 22nd

Ray, Mark, Bryan

We parked up and Ray cheerfully told us it was only a “bit of a trek” to the entrance. Spirits were high heading off, and not long into it we stumbled across a café, which felt too perfectly timed to ignore. Coffee was had, excuses were made, and we convinced ourselves it was essential preparation for the “real” climb ahead.

Eventually we dragged ourselves away and pushed on up, helped along by the scenery and the promise of what was ahead. At the top we had a quick chat through the plan and got ourselves ready to drop in.

Ray took the lead on the first pitch, rigging it nicely while myself and Mark followed down after. At the base, I took over and set up a short traverse into the second pitch and rigged that as well. From there, I was handed the survey and given the job of getting us through to Gaping Gill.

Mark then rigged the traverse where we struggled to find anchors which set the conversation of "what constitutes a safe anchor?" in motion. With the traverse in place we made decent progress before, unsurprisingly, getting side-tracked into the Sand Caverns. We split up a bit here for some exploration where Mark went off exploring further on while myself and Ray stayed behind. Progress slowed to a halt as we got distracted building questionable mud sculptures, and Ray came up with some sort of underground boules style game that probably needs refining before we try and patent it...

We eventually regrouped and carried on, making our way through to Gaping Gill. The chamber itself is something else and is extremely impressive from below. We spent a bit of time taking it in before deciding to turn it around.

On the way back I pushed on ahead with the survey, leaving Ray and Mark to rely on memory alone. To be fair to them, they only got turned around once, which isn’t bad going. I derigged the traverse on the way back and waited for the rest of the crew back at the second pitch. Ray took the lead on the climb out and It didn’t take long to realise the rope in use (mine…) was dynamic, which made things interesting. Watching him bounce his way up while I sat there with a sheepish grin.

Once we were all up I derigged the second pitch and followed Ray out, while Mark took care of the first pitch behind us.

We trudged back to the car, fairly well spent, and headed back to the hub where the first proper shower of the weekend was very well received. A bit of food, a couple of beers, and we were done, straight into bed with the looming thought of the trek home the next day.

-Bryan