Heron Pot

Yikes - my first SRT trip as leader without Paul - would I be able to cope? Only one way to find out, I thought, as Geoff, Mike, Nial, Terry and I split up to scour the slopes of East Kingsdale for the elusive entrance to Heron Pot. I had brought various diagrams and descriptions of the location of the cave, but somehow these didn't seem to help much on the ground. How embarrassing, can't find the cave - good job Paul's not seeing this!

A sudden shout from the Scarboroughs (Mike & Nial) signalled possible success, however, and the rest of us made our way over to see what they had found. The small outcrop in a hollow of the fell matched a picture I had seen of the cave entrance, so I felt confident that this was the right place. After getting our SRT kits on and packing the rope bag, we made our way down the short drop into the cave. The way on started as a crawl under the entrance climb, but the going eventually became easier as the roof lifted and the passage became a narrow, twisting rift.

This continued for some distance, and I pushed cautiously on. Having already banged my leg on a rock I didn't see in the entrance shaft, I wanted to make absolutely sure I did see the top of the first pitch before I walked off it. Eventually, a pair of P-bolts in the passage wall announced that the pitch wasn't far away. After rigging these with a Y-hang, I looked up for the next bolt, but there wasn't one - not that I could see, anyway. "Mike, can you have a look at this, please, I can't find the next bolt." "Hmm... see what you mean - maybe it's round the corner." This was the only possibility, but the corner was more or less over the pitch, and to get round it you had to jam yourself in the rift and inch your way along, remembering not to remove too many bits of your body from the rock at the same time.

Once I'd udged myself round a bit (using my top jammer on the rope for protection - this seemed the best option in the circumstances), I noticed the glint of metal in a small alcove a little further round and below me. What's more, it had a floor, so I made for it. After dropping into the alcove, I found that there was a bolt in the back wall for the traverse line and two more over the pitch for the main hang. So the remaining rigging was straightforward, and I was soon giving the "rope free" call at the bottom of the pitch.

The second pitch follows almost immediately, and is approached by a rising traverse up to a Y-hang from opposite walls of the passage. The bolts for the main hang are placed quite high and appear out of reach at first sight, but once I'd worked out a good stance I could get to them quite easily. The book said that there was a deviation bolt about halfway down this pitch, but despite having a good look round on the descent, I couldn't see it anywhere. However there was no water to avoid, and I could see there wasn't going to be a problem with rope rub, so it seemed OK to go all the way to the bottom without deviating the rope.

Below the second pitch the walking-sized rift passage continues for some way with occasional boulder and stal obstacles, until the roof suddenly lowers and hands-and-knees crawling in water is required for a short distance. After a section of alternating stooping and crawling, the roof lowers further and a fairly long crawl ensues, partly over cobbles, and partly over smooth rock. Eventually we could see daylight from the lower entrance of the cave at Gaze Gill. The only problem was that to get to the outside world involved a fairly aqueous crawl through a low-airspace section. Scarborough cavers just love this kind of thing, and Mike and Nial shot through it in no time at all. The rest of us had a good look at it first, and decided that it probably was worth a bit of dampness to be able to sit outside for a while, so we followed them out.

We thought about walking back round to the other entrance and derigging from the top, but rejected that in favour of simply reversing the inward trip. The Scarboroughs offered to derig, so they gave us 10 minutes start and Geoff, Terry and I headed back into the cave again. In the event, Mike and Nial caught us up at the bottom of the second pitch, and as I prussiked up I was regaled with a rousing rendition of "Red Bag" (those are the only words) - one of the Scarborough cavers' extensive repertoire of songs. From the bottom of the pitch we'd located the deviation bolt, around a corner of the right-hand wall. As it's impossible to see when you're on the rope, Mike shone his lamp on the wall at the level of the bolt as I ascended, and I then found it was possible to swing round and reach it.

Everyone had their own method of dealing with the thrutch out of the alcove at the top of the first pitch, but all too soon we were back on the surface. We decided to give Yordas a miss, as we'd done Heron pretty thoroughly, and the Marton Arms seemed like a much better idea!

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

Heron Pot

Nick James