Grey Wife Hole – 23rd. October
2012
Participants: Richard Timms,
Mick
Well it was half past 9 in the evening
before I found someone to cave with for the following day. I first caved with
Mick in 1988 indeed he was the one that introduced me to the ‘pleasures’.
So every couple of years we still manage to
meet up. Meeting up outside the Station Inn we had the usual conversation, How
fit are you? How much have you done lately? Have you got any neoprene? Not,
Nothing and No.
Oh,
How about err … you know how it is. In the
end we made it to Inglesport café for a brew a chat and to see Lyndon who we
also used to cave with at the time. Dave Ramsey passed on some recommendations
but in the end we went for Grey Wife Hole. I had walked up there last year only
to spend an hour in someone’s dig by mistake.
It’s a twisty short cave with the canyons
best done without a harness on in which case you can sideways step through all
but one section of the first canyon, that is if you are my size as of today.
Ladder or Rope will do for the pitch.
The ‘sump’ / pool had about 30 cm of space
and we didn’t find The underwater ledges but were able to
chimney and bridge around the corner with knees on a sloping ramp line so only
got wet up to our chests.
This is actually the bottom of the cave and
the NFTFH trip takes you upstream from here which really is a different cave
inlet.
Tip
for next bit, if you don’t want to read this then don’t….. climb up to
the roof and then an easy traverse misses out more up and between crawling and
stepping and back to crawling in water.
Next interesting part is Jim’s Traverse. If
you climb or climb in caves confidently then I would downgrade Mike Coopers
guide in that I thought the rock pretty solid with abundant sling protection
available. I can’t see most of my caving friends needing a climbing rope to
complete it. The hardest bit is the initial climb up to the very good thread
runner.
The
best straws are definitely along Surveyors Series, its only 4 minutes from the
top of the waterfall but then so is the duck. This was a proper duck. Mick had
had enough and stayed at the top of the 7m high waterfall. So I looked at the
duck, lay down and let the water chill me, shuffled forwards reluctantly got
the back of my head wet and then decided to put a neoprene hood on. You’ve got
to go headfirst but not having the description with me and not having any moral
support it was easy to bottle the duck with only 4cm airspace. This was even
more so as the caving is going upwards.
I went with neoprene shorts and a rash vest
but would need a wetsuit top to enjoy the duck on another occasion.
Weather – dry for a few days but ground
really sodden in that the duckboards on northside of
Ingleborough were apparently under 10cm of water 4 days previously.
Take a camera / video for the duck laughs.
A GPS would help locate the cave or a good
grid ref and using it.
The lid is a tight fit and if you are going
when its icy then you may benefit from a screwdriver or small chisel to help
open it.
?? - Does the rift on the far side of the
‘sump’ go anywhere?
Richard
Timms