Out Sleets Beck Pot, Pen-y-ghent Gill#
Sunday 30th October 2011
Grade III Length 975m Depth 67m
Jonathan Tompkins, Henry Exon, “Water” Mark Stoneman
The plan was a caving trip down Out Sleets Beck Pot(SD 86800 73710), a cave that requires settled weather as the entrance is below the level of the stream and there are some low crawls. Sunday’s forecast was dry but overcast and there were still low clouds on the hill tops when we met up at the track to Litton (SD856729). It had rained on Saturday and overnight; MyLocalWeather recorded 8mm.
There are descriptions in both the Selected Caves of Britain and Ireland and Northern Caves.
Two awkward climbs that may require a handline, two potentially wet pitches, low wet crawls, a duck and an entrance below the level of the stream with a makeshift dam to hold it back. What’s not to like?
Mark was pleased to point out that I was late (by 2 minutes), luckily I had my revenge because I hadn’t told him about the duck. To quote his text of the day before: “Not done any of those so as long as theirs no ducks it’s all good!” I went to visit Pen-y-ghent House Farm to get permission to go down the cave. Northern Caves 1 says that permission should be obtained from Manor Farm in Halton Gill but this post at ukcaving.com says differently. The CNCC website still lists it as Manor Farm. The land owner at Pen-y-ghent House Farm wasn’t in but the gamekeeper was; a quick conversation revealed that he didn’t really know what the situation was.
After packing the bags we proceeded to the cave, a nice easy stroll along the track to Litton. The stream that flows into the cave is easy to find; go through the gate near the stream just before the third wall from the road. We followed the stream down to where is disappeared underground and found two suitable holes in the bank, one of which smelled of death and turned out to have a dead sheep in the bottom. The guidebook mentions a dam which holds the stream back but we couldn’t find it and assumed that it was washed away. We decided to build a dam, mostly to put off the inevitable descent into a cave that is right at the end of a stream. After we completed our, quite frankly, pathetic pile of stones Mark and Henry investigated the first hole which looked promising. Unfortunately it turned out to be blocked by rocks and an initial dig resulted in some cursing from Mark as he hurt his fingers. I had a climb down the second hole but couldn’t fit into the rift at the bottom without standing on the sheep which was something I was desperately trying not to do. At the end of the rift was a low crawl which didn’t fit with the description. By this time I’d decided than neither hole was correct but I managed to persuade Henry to go down sheep death hole whilst I looked along the stream bank for the real entrance. Unfortunately Henry heard me say I’d found it before he had to step on the sheep.
The real entrance was back upstream. The stream flowed straight past the entrance, held back by a dry stone dam which looked marginally better than our effort. There was some water entering the entrance but not enough to be worried about. We slithered down the slope and followed the walking sized passage to the first awkward climb. We didn’t put a rope on it and I proceeded to make a right mess of the final metre of descent. Surprisingly I found it easier going up on the way back whereas Mark and Henry had to use each other to get up the climb. A crawl then brought us to the first pitch, short and awkward and benefiting from a handline. This is P bolted, as is the rest of the cave downstream from here.
From the entrance to this point the passages are never big and the contrast with Cascade Pot is impressive. A climb up into the roof allows a dry descent to the shallow pool below with a bolt on the wall a third of the way down allowing a further deviation away from the water if required. From the bottom there is a low crawl over pebbles. There was froth in the crawl and it wouldn’t take much of an increase in water levels for the crawl to become sumped and as we were not totally sure of the weather we decided not to rig the final pitch. Instead we went and looked at Deluge Pot, negotiating the low, wet crawls on the way and admired the formations before the pitch. After we found the bolts for Deluge Pot (they are in the roof and require a climb up) we exited the cave, saving Mark from the the horror of the duck.
Throughout the cave we were looking for flood debris, as you would in a cave where the entrance is below the level of the stream which runs right past it. Apart from some froth in various places and the low crawls, it was hard to determine where was safe in a flood. I didn’t see any grass or twigs in the rifts from the entrance to Deluge Pot. It’s possible that the higher parts of the rift stay dry and I suspect that the top of Cascade Pot would stay dry, although it would be incredibly windy and noisy in flood.
We will be returning during some more settled weather. A good trip, worth visiting and somehow I managed not to do any rigging (Henry did it all) or carry any bags in the cave. Success.
As with every caving trip a visit to the pub is essential. We went to the Buck Inn at Malham, chiefly because I have a beer tab (they pay a pint a rabbit) so Henry and Mark could have a free beer. I had my usual pint of Theakstons Old Peculier, a fantastic stout with a very unusual taste. It’s a bit strong at 5.6% but there’s nothing else like it.