This trip was on our meets list as an “open meet”. Andy put a call out to the club for interest & suggestions for a cave. Pete, Roger & I was available and Aquamole was proposed.
We met (as usual for Dales trips) in Inglesport for breakfast before heading to Kingsdale. After a quick change and rope packing we were heading up the hill in lovely sunshine (we go caving a lot when it’s lovely above ground!), arriving at the entrance about 11am.
Andy had the duties for rigging the entrance
…and Pete found a nice spot to wait and practice his pose for the 2026 MPC calendar
The entrance series is quite tight, and a good SRT challenge making sure you (and a dangling tackle bag) don’t get wrapped up the wrong side of a rebelay. On this trip there was also another rope rigged all the way down (we assumed it was for the cave divers) so a double-y good challenge
We squeezed and crawled through the “gloomy crawl” (as the CNCC describes) with Roger making his usual ”caves are getting smaller“ grunts and groans.
Soon enough we were at the second pitch, which Roger rigged.
I passed Roger at the bottom of the pitch and crawled to the final pitch, rigged, and re-rigged twice as for reasons I can’t explain the pitch head knot didn’t sit right. Better be safe than sorry when a massive (or any sized) hole is underneath you.
While waiting at the bottom for the others to arrive I found 2 fish in the sump pool! What do they eat?!?
Once everyone had joined me we had a quick picture…
…before we headed back up and out
Pete coming up the final pitch
We got back to the surface around 4pm, where it was windy and raining! A quick dash back down the hill to the vehicles to end a great days caving
