Ingelborough Cave 10/11/2012

Ingelborough Cave 10/11/2012
Present: Dan, Paul W, Fay, Bob & Conrad

Saturday the 10th of November so me (Dan), Paul, Fay, Bob and Conrad making our way to Ingleborough show cave. I was eagerly anticipating the trip as due to commitments, I had not been able to go caving for the past few months. I thought Ingleborough would be a nice introduction back into active caving, “After all” I thought, “It’s only a show cave, it must be easy”. Turns out it was a bit tougher than I expected, quite strenuous, but ultimately enjoyable and worth doing.

We all met in Clapham on a fine, crisp autumnal morning at 9.30, to find the cafe shut. However, the New Inn saved our skins and made us a pot of coffee while we discussed the route and perused the survey. After our caffeine hit we all stripped off in the freezing cold, got our wetsuits on (while Conrad got his ‘sheepsuit’ on), and began the trek up to Ingleborough. Upone arriving at the cave we paid our dues and discussed the route with John Cordingley, one of the employees of the establishment and all round good guy. He recommended we didn’t go past ‘the wallows’, due to recent rainfall and the threat of showers. These are two sections of passage towards the end of the cave known as the near and far wallows. They are essentially grotty little flat out crawls full of water with a small amount of breathing space that flood rapidly and regularly. Before the trip I knew about these sections, but had also heard of a difficult but doable bypass around the wallows in an upper series. I mentioned this to John but he informed me that this bypass was actually in between the near and far wallows, and even if the far wallows flooded and you could bypass it, you would still be stuck. Definitely not an option. A shame as after the wallows you get to ‘Inauguration Passage’, which is supposed to be one of the finest sections of passage on Ingleborough. Before we headed into the cave we ran into the first problem of the day - Conrad's light packed in. Luckily we all had a spare torch and I gave him my hand torch, which is the same LED as my helmet lamp and is extremely powerful.

Conrad trying (and failing) to fix his lamp

So knowing we weren’t going to be able to do the full cave, we set off through the show cave, which is about 5 minutes (brisk walking) of beautiful passage, absolutely chock full of really nice formations, some pretty little waterfalls, and a lot of impressive looking flowstone. I’ve been in the show cave when I was a kid and I remember thinking it was great then, but I had forgot how spectacular it was, and the guys who run it have done well keeping the alteration of the cave to a minimum. When we got to the end of the show cave, I realised I had left my gloves back in the hut, probably due to my frustration at trying to get my wetsuit off whilst going to the toilet before entering the cave. I didn’t want to hold everyone up by running back so I decided to brave it bare handed - like a real man (my bruised and cut hands that are typing this trip report seriously regret that decision).

Anyway we hurried on into the first unlit section of the cave, which is essentially a walkable series of passage punctuated with a couple of wadeable puddles. In the first one was a rubber dinghy, when I saw it I thought ‘rude not to’ and jumped in, paddling myself across the freezing water, much to the chagrin of Conrad, who I imagine was silently cursing my wetsuit-wearing self while I stayed dry and he got his sheepskin undersuit wet and heavy. After about 5 minutes of sandy passage you get to the ‘second gothic arch’. Emerging into this passage from a sandy tunnel is quite a sight. It’s an amazing bit of passage which from beginning to end has formations running down the walls from a pointed ceiling, creating a gothic arch effect. We admired this for a while while Paul took some photo’s and video, then we sat down and had a look at the survey. There was a couple of ways on at the end of the passage, one to the left and one straight on. “I’m sure it’s straight on!” proclaimed I - then proceeded to dive headfirst into a very wet, small passage in front of me. I carried on for a minute but it got narrower and narrower until I realised that it wasn’t actually this way. I shouted back to Bob then wriggled backwards out the hole, to find everyone had found the right route and were making their way onwards and downwards. I decided I didn’t need my belt, as I had forgotten to fill my water bottle (2nd thing I forgot), so I undid it and left it in the passage before following the others.

Me & Conrad in the second gothic arch passage

Giger-esque rib like formations

Me walking down the passage

After a few more minutes crawling around, we got to the first real wet section. You can see on the survey that about halfway through the trip there is a complicated looking section full of water. John had told us what to do when we got here, there is a ladder bolted to the floor which is covered in conveyer belt that leads through a wet section. This came in handy as my hands were really feeling the cold while fully submerged. After the ladder he had told us go downstream, then continue on 10 meters and there is an obvious passage. Paul was leading at the front, and he immediately found the passage, however me and Bob said we would go and have a look off to the right further downstream. I folowed Bob and just round the corner there was a passage on the left. I thought this must be what John was on about, so I shouted to everyone “FOUND IT!”. I was wrong.

After everyone had caught up I again jumped headfirst into the hole which I though was the way on, only to find that once again I had got the wrong hole as it began to close up shortly from the entrance. When I got back out everyone was disappearing further downstream following Bob. After splashing on hands and knees we then ended up spending 15 minutes flat out crawling over some really horrible, sharp rock covered in gritty sand. I think this was the place that caused the rip in my indestructible cordura suit! All the while during this little detour we were getting further away from the actual route, but eventually Bob found the way he was going simply looped back round to where we started, so we made our way back the way we came and went back to the passage Paul had originally found. You can see on the survey there is a section which looks flooded and has a couple of lakes, ‘Lake Avernus’ and ‘Lake Pluto’. We figured that our detour was around this area, so not a complete waste of time, at least we saw a bit more of the cave.

The next section is the final crawl before the Wallows, known as the ‘Far Eastern Bedding System’. This passage is a long, hard crawl on a bedding plane. Nothing much to say about it, other than I had horribly sore elbows due to not being able to use my hands properly, and I could hear a lot of huffing, puffing, and cursing coming from the guys near me (including myself). Again the rock was quite sharp stuff and it was nasty stuff to crawl on. After what I judged to be about 15 minutes flat out, we got to a downward slope which led to the near wallows. Paul knew it was the wallows from a description which mentioned some emergency telephone wire which we found. Me and Paul wiggled our way down to have a look. I couldn’t really get a brilliant look as it was so low that I couldn’t turn my head properly, but it just looked like what we had just been doing, except lower and filled with water. After we both reflected on how horrible it looked, and how glad we were we weren’t doing it, we promptly made our way back.

The return trip passed without incident, we made our way back to the second gothic arch in much quicker time due to the lack of detours, and when we got there we went and had a nosy round ‘giants cavern’, a sandy cavern with some nice formations. There was a steel ladder in the cavern and Bob untied it and tried to get up to some passages higher up the walls of the cavern, but after 10 minutes or so messing about, we decided to head back. Again the journey back the rest of the way to the end of the show cave passed without incident, and we made our way out the cave. On the way me and conrad had a shower in a waterfall to save the grit in our washing machines when we got home.

Just as I thought I was about to leave the cave, I realised mistake number 3 (or 5 if you count my navigational errors) - I had left my belt & water bottle in the second gothic arch passage!! By this point I was sore, tired, and very cold, and normally I wouldn’t have bothered just for a belt. But the belt in question is actually a bit of a family heirloom, as I was given it by my grandad who used it to cave himself when he was a young whippersnapper back in the 70’s. Too much history to leave it for sure! So I spent the next 15 minutes running all the way back, on my own, through the cave to find it. When I finally exited into the cool morning sun, I was given my keys by Paul & Conrad who had kindly waited for me, and made the trek back to the car / pub.

Emerging into the light

All in all a good trip, a shame we couldn’t do the whole thing, but nice for me in particular to get out caving again after a few months hibernating!