August Bank Holiday – P8, Bagshawe and Ireby Fell 

Three days of caving… what to do with all that time!! Predictably the weather wasn’t the best and With my various caving friends occupied in other placed I had a bit of a mixed weekend. 

 On Saturday I dived in P8 assisted by Mandy Fu. The water level was very high but as I’d never dived there before I didn’t have anything to compare it to. After the first three sumps I walked along the passage to sump 4 and was surprised to find no line in the water. Fortunately there was an old line reel back in the preceeding passage. After clearing the mud off this I decided that it wasn’t in too bad condition (although it wouldn’t spin). I lined into the sump but.....

....there wasn’t more that 30m of line on the reel and I soon came to the end. Whilst I was looking for somewhere to tie the line off my foot struck something – which when investigated turned out to be a ladder!! I tied off to this and we exited the cave in time for a beer and nice dinner in Castleton.

It was only later when I read the sump index that things became clear – in “high water conditions the sump can back up to 8m” whilst in normal conditions a “ladder assists entry to the sump”. So I’d essentially laid line from half way up the passage to the beginning of the sump! 

On Sunday with JT, SamT, Katie Dent, Rob Eavis and several others we went to Bagshawe, hoping to get into the new bit they’d found recently. Unfortunately the sump was up so instead JT and I started sorting out a new line incase anyone gets trapped in here.  

Monday was up in the Dales with Simon Cornhill. We went down Ireby so that he could have a look at the sump in Duke Street 2. We learnt an important lesson – always reccy the sump first! Simon was just about able to get in upto his waist but the passage was completely silted up. We then spent a couple of hours digging this out.