Birks Fell Trip Report - 12th. May 2018
10 people
With fantastic weather arranged for
the weekend, the only option was to hide away underground. Birks Fell had been
arranged a while ago, and we were lucky that the weather was perfect, with not
much rain beforehand, and none forecast for the day.
A large group of us, including people
from the YSS and CRO who were around for the CRO cavers’ list training weekend,
met up in Buckden and got underground at roughly
11:00, after a sweaty walk up the hill in neoprene (7 layers, for some people)
and a bit of a scout around to find the entrance.
The entrance series dragged on a bit.
With a large group, the crawling sections in Bradford Crawl and Connection
Crawl spread people out quite well, and we naturally separated into two groups
of 5 at an obvious left-hand turn in Connection Crawl — Tom, Emma, Dinny, Dave and Pete H sped off ahead, and the rest of us
shuffled along a bit behind.
After the crawls is the first pitch
(there are three in total, all short), and then some mixed stooping and walking
in interesting washed passage following the streamway. Down several short, fun
cascades we got to Shooting Box Aven. No idea why it’s called that, but it’s a
nice aven nonetheless.
A short canal passage leads to Aven
2, which is much moodier, darker and slimier. The way on is down a dry slot on
the far side, back to stream level. At 40 Years’ Corner there are some
fantastic formations, including some eroded curtains which could have come
straight out of a dinosaur exhibit (complaints about biological and geological
correctness aside).
We’d made reasonable speed up to that
point, so it was about time to get lost in a boulder choke, which we did with
some enthusiasm. Having tried the obvious right-hand wall path, and found it
too small for most of the party, we tried the obvious middle climb up through
the boulders, which crapped out. Backing up quite a way, it turns out that the
bypass is up on the left before the choke begins, and we really should have
noticed it as we walked past it before.
Free of the boulder choke, we passed
through some more boulder-strewn large passage and into Moon Milk Cave. This
led on to The Block, a large block which people are supposed to squeeze under
and then straight down a 2m drop on the other side (handline
provided). This provided quite some entertainment.
The second pitch comes up soon
afterwards, and the cave changes character. There is more rift passage, more
canals, and deeper water. Our group were almost 3 hours into the cave now, and
met Emma and Tom on their way out. They suggested we carry on another 5 or 10
minutes to see the formations in the Grand Gallery and Whitehall, and that we
should turn around at the funny Elbow Junction just beyond that.
It was good advice. The formations in
the following rift passage were well worth seeing, and the Elbow Junction
provided a good place to all come to the conclusion that we’d had enough, time
was pressing on, and it was best to turn around.
The return journey took about 3 hours
as well. While we didn’t get lost in any boulder chokes, we did spend some time
levitating back up into the slot beneath The Block (hampered by the fact that
Tom and Emma left the handline on the wrong side of
the block). Going back through the crawls above the first pitch took some time
too, due to tiredness and some SRT gear which perhaps should have been in a bag
and not around someone’s waist. At some point, we were overtaken by Dinny, who had decided he was too cold near pitch 3 and
sped out of the cave like a bullet. We surfaced at around 17:00 to be greeted
by sunshine. Tom, Emma and Dinny were sitting with
Helen and baby Alasdair on the village green, watching for emergent cavers.
Pete H and Dave surfaced some time later, having bottomed the cave like we all
probably should have.
Philip Withnall