Turbary Pot / Yordas

Turbary Pot

The programme showed Sinclair & Meregill, but he has sadly been unable to face the prospect of big caves with the SOC since his difficulties in Hammer last year. A much reduced and distinctly unenthusiastic assortment met at Inglesport with a huge pile of caving guides and time to kill. The forecast was for heavy showers with thunder & hail & probably some snow too, so as we didn’t have 4 years free to siege the Mere, we decided discretion was the better part of valour. That was actually the only decision we did reach for a couple of hours & then the bright sunshine & blue skies tempted us up to Turbary Pot.

Imagine our surprise when we discovered a queue at the entrance – the fact there were 7 of them should have made us suspicious. It was indeed the Craven, having another storming day out in West Kingsdale. On their search for Simpson’s Pot they had crawled through Simpson’s Cave & re-emerged to meet another of their party who greeted them with ‘No, you wazzocks, it’s over here’ and promptly led them to Turbary. Having broken the news to them we had to go & fill our lights at Swinsto to indulge in a chuckle or two. Having cleared the Pot of extraneous dwarves, James went down to rig while Paul and I ~~sunbathed~~ sheltered from the driving rain.

Turbary Pot was a real revelation. It wasn’t the scrotty boulder-choked rut you’d expect. The pitches were actually quite airy & spacious (I wasn’t really having a total mare – ‘what do you mean I have to let go of the deviation to be able to pass it?’) The chamber at the bottom was chilly and spray-lashed (wouldn’t fancy sitting there on a pull-through waiting to be rescued) with a narrow low crawl one way – ‘not going there, I might have to get wet’ & an airy climb on the other. We headed back out, leaving Paul to reduce the 6m choke to the Turbary Inlet down to 5.9m. Got out to more ~~brilliant sunshine~~ lashing rain. What a relief we didn’t do anything dodgy and flood-prone.

Yordas

As it was only mid afternoon, and to shelter from the weather, we decided to have a quick look in Yordas to round off the day. The three of us crammed into the Peugeot 106 in full caving gear, including SRT kit and helmets. (Note to Peugeot – increased headroom and a place to put your carbide generator would be a definite enhancement).

Arriving at the top of Yordas we made a full evaluation of all possible rigging alternatives – I believe the correct speleological term for this is ‘fannying around’. After having finally satisfied Paul that the hang would be OK, the rope would pull through, etc. I set off down. About half way down a pleasant inlet made things a bit more bracing. The others followed and then into the wet crawl through, making it a wet knicker trip. A quick look to the middle entrance, then on to the final pitch. This is more a slope than vertical and has a sporting amount of wetness. Kirsti did an excellent move of bridging out of the water until nearly down the first drop, then swinging into the full flow, which raised a cheer.

Emerging from the bottom of Yordas the weather had only deteriorated and we had to dash back to the car to avoid ~~sunburn~~ a total drenching.

~~A thoroughly enjoyable and classic trip~~. Bu**er

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