Gaping Gill SRT trip.

Visited with Buddah (UCET) and AndyJ (CPC)

First off, i need to say a HUGE thanks to Andy for acting as guide, and as CPC had no plans to rig any of the routes this year, for making sure our route was pre-rigged, so there was no hanging about at the pitchs waiting for them to be done. Also the CPC lads and ladies had done a great job of setting up up there, and had a very simple signing in and out system.

My day should of started at 7.30 am with a short drive accross Manchester to my mums house where i was been picked up off Buddah at 8, But it actually started at 8.15 meaning we were running 45 mins late before we even started, buddah as allways turned up late too, so with this on top of my 45 mins, we were an hour behind from the off, this was ok though as we now expect it. We loaded up his car and off up the M61 we headed, after a few miles Buddah informed me that he had broken his head lamp, and that we would have to call at inglesport on the way while he picked a new one up, the drive up was slow due to flooded roads where rivers had burst their banks and flooded areas of fields and roads

fast-forward to 10.10am and we arived in ingleton, Buddah nipped into inglesport to get a new lamp while i nipped to bernies for some breakfast. 20 mins later we were back in the car and heading to clapham.

arriving at clapham, we parked up and bungled our gear into some bags for the hour and a half walk up the ingleton estates nature walk, past the show cave, through trow gill and up onto the moor. The walk started off well, it was warm with a little cloud cover to help keep us cool. By the time we had made it to trow gill it was raining, and raining hard, this put some doubts in our mind as to weather they would let us in. by the time we got up to gaping gill, not only was it raining, you couldnt see your hand in front of your face for the fog, it was dier.

due to the crappy weather, the de-tour and been late to start with, it was now 11.45, we were an hour and 45 mins late to meet up with Andy, after a quick search of the site we found him in the club tent. He wasn't happy. lol.

After a quick chat with Andy and a couple of the CPC lads to see what had been rigged and what was still doable in the poor weather, we decided the best and safest plan would be to just do the trade route down bar pot, if the weather had improved on the way out, we could have a look at doing flood.

all sorted we got kitted up and headed over to the signing in tent, we got sorted there and started walking back over the fell to bar pot. the fog had lifted but it was still raining, we headed down to the entrance which is a 20m crawl down a 45 degree slope to the first pitch.

the first pitch is 15m or so drop, with the first 3m not big enouth to fit a normal sized person through it, it is stupidly tight, to get on the rope you have to lie on the floor, attach to the rope and slide through a slot into the hole, then try to reach up to unclip your cows tails. it is stupid stupid stupid...

once down we headed off down to the slab and the bridge haven, on the way Andy decided to have a look at Whitehall which is part of the small mammal series, this involved him getting stuck in a squeeze with his hand jammer wedged in some rocks, off Buddah goes to the rescue, well we all know where this was heading, yep thats right, Andy is now unstuck, but cant get out cos Buddah is just wedged in the squeeze in front of him, I hear Buddah shout me asking for me to go and help, i reply by asking "Are you taking the piss" if them 2 manage to get stuck, there wasnt much chance of me getting down there, he tells me that there is plenty of room in front of him and i'll be fine, so with great apprehension i reluctantly head down towards them, i find Buddah sticking out of a hole unable to move, so i grab his arms and drag him out, it looked like the cave was giving birth! With Buddah out of the way, Andy slid out behind him.

After a short rest, we headed off to the second pitch, a simple 35m (ish) free hanging for most of the way drop, we were all down here in no time, so off we headed towards the main chamber, passing the bottom of the last pitch in flood entrance, i was glad we hadn't attempted it, it involves a free hanging rebelay and 2 deveations, all of which were getting blasted with water.

We traveled a little further and then came to the crawel, it was maybe 150-200m of passage ranging from near flat out, to stooping, by this time i was wet and starting to feel cold, so the crawl was quite welcoming knowing i would soon warm up.

A short while later, we could hear it, the raging noise from the waterfall in the main chamber, we kept going and 2 mins later we were there! What a sight, i've been in here a few times now, I've never seen the water comming down like it was today, i dont like the word "epic" but it is the only way to describe what we could see, it was EPIC.

we hung around in the main chamber for a while as it felt quite warm after the rest of the system we had been in, then we headed back, the return route was the same as the route we had taken to get in, we stopped for a look at flood, but it was still very wet, and we were tired, so opted to just go back out via bar.

the return was quite uneventfull, the 2nd pitch which we now had to ascend, it was only 35m ish, but it may as well of been 350m, we were tired, wet, cold and hungry, one by one we made our way up, and i'll be honest, about 10m from the top i started to question if i would make it, i pushed on and i was up. then there was the comerdy moment when i was trying to climb back of the greasy slab, no matter what i did, i just slid off to the side which Buddah found very funny.

The last ascent was only short, and we could see daylight, but we knew it had a silly squeeze at the top, Andy been the bravest went first (plus hes done it like 40 times) he was up quickly, next was me, i got up no problem, but what a meal i made out of trying to get through the tight bit and the slot off to the side, in the end i had to remove my helmet, which made life a bit easier, i then headed back up the slope to the daylight, while Andy waited for Buddah, again he was up the rope quickly, but took a while to get through the squeeze, and that was it, we had done it. A quick check of the time told us it was 7pm, we then had to go and sign out and spend an hour walking back to the car, 10.15pm i got home, tired and hungry, but very pleased with my self, both in AND out without the aid of the winch (or cave rescue).

not many pictures, it was very wet, i was cold and tired and in short, couldnt be arsed.

thanks for reading, some pics.

Looks like a Good trip... I had to show my face at a wedding, or I would have come...

Shots of the Abseil in and the main chamber are very nice, as always.

Excellent report and 00ber photos. Fanks

Love it,

Excellent pictures there, along with a great report

Gutted I couldn't make this trip Ace pics tho