Mossdale Caverns. Wed 18th July 1990.
Pete Hall, Neil Pacey, Andy
Hommonai.
After a
disturbed night’s sleep at the farm, we woke to bright sunshine and settled
weather. It was decided the previous weekend to take advantage of the dry spell
.and to explore the infamous Mossdale Caverns. So with a huge amount of grip we
made an early start and drove over to Conistone in Wharfedale.
The
entrance to the cavern lies high up on the desolate slopes of Great Whernside
and has a huge catchment area which responds very quickly to a heavy dew
forming a beck of equivalent size to Fell Beck at Gaping Gill. The stream sinks
at the foot of the impressive Mossdale Scar and does not see daylight until it
resurges at Black Keld near Kettlewell (miles and miles away). The present
extent of the system (10 km. long 200ft deep), all lies in the Yoredale series
of limestone beds but somehow finds it’s way into the Great Scar limestone (it
says Middle Limst. in the guidebook. Ed.) leaving potential for 700ft depth an many more miles of
passage. It is also extremely flood prone, flooding the entire system to the
roof after only moderate rain.. Along with the total lack of legitimate access
this has stopped exploration since the mid-sixties when the worst disaster in
the history of British caving occurred.
So as not
to get caught by the farmer, who shoots cavers on sight, all the gear was
packed into rucksacs at the car in Conistone and the four mile walk was done in
shorts and T-shirts. After getting changed at t’entrance and hiding t’sacs
down’t hole we set off into t’unknown with our only guide being a survey drawn
by Neil on several Bernies Cafe meal tickets. After passing the complex
entrance boulder choke we reached the Assembly Hall and soon after the main
streamway at Blackpool Sands. The water was warm enough to swim in comfortably
which was fortunate as no bugger was wearing a wetsuit. The stream continued as
crawling through low, wide, wet bedding chambers with ducks or “drown-or-glories”
in between. Fortunately it was not too oppressive as all the flood debris had
been washed away by the force of water. Presently, Boulder Hall was reached ,
the largest chamber in the system but still not immune from total flooding. The
way on led through some rare walking sized passages following a telephone wire
to Rough Chamber, here the route starts to get complex because the phone wire
ends and the remainder is nearly all crawling.
Rough
Crawl leads on for 500ft of tedious hands and crawling with fast flowing water
to Kneewrecker Junction where the water flows off dawn the Kneewrecker Series
on the left. This was a taste of things to come, a short smaller passage lead
to another sandstone floored crawl and several confusing passages leading off.
Naturally enough we got the wrong one and crawled for about half an hour
through a passage half full of freezing cold water through several ducks before
reaching a boulder choke. Eventually we found the right passage and crawled
down the Near Marathon Series, more hands and knees crawling leading to the Far
Marathon Series which is flat out crawling and even further!
Leakey’s
After several
hundred foot of very miserable potholing a small waterlogged chamber was
reached (well it was a chamber to us) and Neil saw a ghost down the passage so
Pete had to take the lead and gerrit exorcised. The ghost turned out to be of
the rock variety. The mood of the trip changed as we passed some old abandoned
Nife cells and other assorted items of caving gear jammed in the passage in
front. A greasy climb led up into the blackness of Mud Caverns and the only
formation in the system was seen: a blood red calcite flow running down the
wall. The whole area showed no sign of previous visits with loose boulders
abounding and bits of digging required to find the way on. We were a bit
gripped by the thought of corpses buried in the Mud Caverns so we didn’t explore
them too thoroughly.
The way on
was a tight climb down and presently the passage opened up leading to the major
inlet of the Minicow series entering as a low duck on the left. Stream End cave
continued as alternate walking and crawling in a fine stream passage with
occasional ducks until we reached an unexpected 50ft high rift chamber with the
water sinking in a shingle choke shortly before. It was the end. Thank god for
that.
Before
returning we set the clock and got the hell out as quickly as possible, we
reached Rough Chamber in two and a half hours, all of which was crawling, and
after a choccy break continued to the entrance in about another hour. The sun
was just setting as we got changed as quickly as possible to avoid getting
bitten to death by the midges then we steamed off back to the car and Andy got
the privilege of a sixty mile round trip to take Neil back to the farm.
Even with
the severe nature of flooding and the 10km of cave being mostly crawling it is
still a very enjoyable and sporting pothole trip, well worth another visit on a
very, very, dry day, preferably a drought.
Pete
Hall.
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