Jingling Pot, lateral shafts route#
Thursday 19th January 2012 Grade III Depth 67m Length 61m
Jonathan Tompkins
My plan was to go for a short rigging practice trip in the morning but this failed straight away when I couldn’t open the back door of my van to get my kit out. I had to go caving inside my van, weaving through the shelving to fiddle with the locking mechanism before I could kit up.
Kingsdale Beck was flowing which usually indicates that the valley is in flood but as far as I knew Jingling Pot didn’t take a lot of water and when it did, it was possible to rig away from it. I chose to do the lateral shafts route, as did the only other cavers in the valley that morning! They set off first, rigging from the north end via the tree and I used the gulley and traversed around the pot.
The gulley is very easy rigging and the first drop requires a sling round a jammed boulder to make a Y hang. From there it’s a short walk to the traverse around the main shaft which can be awkward depending on how you tackle it. A one point you either crawl along a ledge under an overhang, rigging from bolts in the overhang, or tip toe on a lower ledge and stretch for the bolts. The traverse leads to a window and an easy pitch, if a bit narrow. At the bottom there’s a short easy traverse followed by an awkward takeoff above a constricted pitch head. Getting out of here is easier if you put a loop in the rope before the Y hang. After the pitch opens out there’s a deviation and then you land on a ledge. A natural deviation requiring a sling then gets you down to a large ledge partway down the main shaft. The final section to the bottom of the main shaft is rigged from a promontory. Following this is a short traverse and the final pitch but I didn’t bother with it.
A good cave and route for rigging practice with traverses, narrow rifts and some pitch heads which aren’t straight forward. It was dry despite the sodden ground and downpour last night and with careful rigging a 50 and 40 metre rope, 18 krabs, 2 slings and a deviation reaches the bottom.