Ireby Fell Cavern

It was 5 to 5, but it wasn't Friday, and it wasn't Crackerjack. It was the sump in Ireby Fell Cavern, and I was starting to get a little concerned about our call out time, which had been set for 9 PM. Still 4 hours to go, but Geoff, Lucia and I had 6 pitches to get up and derig, plus a fair bit of caving to do in between. We'd better get cracking.

The way in had gone fairly well, apart from a few rigging difficulties caused by a party of 3 cavers ahead of us who had rigged a 100m rope from the top of Ding Pitch to the bottom of Bell Pitch using krabs throughout, which made getting our maillons in underneath a bit awkward. I rigged Ding (9m) and Dong (12m), and then Lucia expressed a burning desire to rig Bell (13m), which, since this is the most awkward and exposed pitch to rig in the cave, I gallantly allowed her to do.

I followed her into the rift as she was rigging and tried to remember which of the multitude of hangers I had used last time. The other group had a hang that missed the ledge a few metres down by inches, but Lucia traversed further out, which I think is what we did previously. Just for practice - there wasn't any water to avoid - she also put in the hard-to-find deviation from the tiny thread round the corner near the top of the pitch.

At the bottom of Bell we had a brief chat with the other party, who were on their way out by this time, having turned back at some point prior to the end of the cave. We pressed on down the small drop called Pussy Pitch (3m) and then along the long section of canyon passage that eventually leads to a couple of climbs down just before the divided Well Pitch (3m + 10m).

Large canyon passage leads to the last pitch, known as Rope (3m), which, as we'd done at Pussy, we rigged with our own rope in preference to using the dubious assortment of "ready-rigged" alternatives. At the bottom of Rope, a stooping and crawling section of tunnel eventually rises into sandy-floored walking passage leading to the T-junction where you turn left for Duke Street.

The high, wide Duke Street with its massive scallops on the roof in the section known as Whirlpool Chamber is a real contrast with the rest of the cavern and is well worth the effort of reaching it. Soon after this the cave comes to a decisive end where the roof dips suddenly down to the sump pool. The sump itself seemed to be fairly low today as quite a long section of the dive line was on dry land.

Due to time constraints we didn't hang around too long here. Our exit went fairly smoothly: Geoff went ahead and carried out the full rope bag while Lucia and I derigged. We were out just after 8 o'clock and after getting our breath back following the effort of scaling the concrete pipe at the entrance, which has been polished over the years to a near-frictionless state, hurried back to Masongill to cancel the call-out. It was a good 7-hour trip - I think we all enjoyed it.

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	Swaledale Outdoor Club

Ireby Fell Cavern

Nick James