Long Drop Cave
Sunday, 25 October 2009
With the weather as it was, saturday was spent at home trying to make sense of a book on seismology in prepartion for a course. However, some exercise was definitely needed at some point over the weekend and so I met John in Horton on sunday morning. John was after some rigging practice, and so we headed over to Long Drop Cave on Leck Fell which sounded like it might be okay in the wet. The river at Horton was certainly rather full!!!!
Arriving on a rather wind and rain lashed leck fell we quickly changed and dashed across to the entrance. The first pitch is only a few metres from the entrance – a pleasant and spacious little pitch. At the bottom, a scaffolded hole led to a short crawl and passage to the 2nd short pitch. A winding, clean washed crawl then led to the 3rd, 4th and 5th pitches in a large rift, and today, quite drippy near the bottom.
At the bottom, a streamway was joined and followed through one moderately wet bit to a stream passage to the sump. Water levels seemed low considering the levels on the surface, although this was the only streamway encountered up to now.
Back at the bottom of the 4th pitch, a short rope and then a climb on good holds led up to an obscure bit of passage – through a hole, then left, then sharply right and into a flat out bedding where a streamway could be heard. This slippy bedding soon ended at a pitch (Crutch Pot). This dropped into High Stream Passage. Upstream soon arrived at a couple of avens – one with a rope hanging down. Downstream led through a short narrow section to another very short pitch into High Stream Chamber where an impressive waterfall entered. The water was followed down a slope to a choke.
Then back out with myself de-rigging! Back on the surface, Leck Fell was still grim!
Good, interesting trip, and a good option for when the weathers poor!