Dihedral – Bar Pot
Saturday, 17 November 2012
The day began by getting up far too early for the familiar long walk to Salfords. As the bloke there put it, “today I give you nice nine seater”. After sorting gear and gathering everyone at the chapel, we headed to Ingleton.
After breakfast we collected Sophie from Clapham station and headed to Clapham. On the way, the van got sprayed with slurry which was pleasant. We got changed and began the long walk to Gaping Gill.
Once there, most people got to work strengthening the dam in Fell Beck to divert most of the water into Rat Hole Sink in order to reduce the amount in the Main Shaft and Lateral Shaft. Meanwhile Sophie, Shezi and I went over to Bar Pot and rigged both the pitches. When that was done, Sophie and I exited and walked across to Gaping Gill while everybody else descended Bar.
It had pissed it down all of the night before and there had been some rain that morning but Fell Beck didn’t seem too high. We briefly chatted to a couple of walkers next to the beck then we walked and slipped our way over to Jib Tunnel. The traverse line was soon set up and I rigged the Y-hang. This provides a good deal of entertainment as you have to step right across the top of the 104m drop, with one foot on either side of the shaft.
Conditions on the abseil were damp but the four deviations keep the hang out of the worst of the water. Unfortunately, rigging these entails swinging about right under the waterfall and I was completely drenched. Soon I was at the ledge and Sophie made her way down.
She joined me at the ledge and I headed down on the next section. There is a deviation here which is fine for tall people to rig. Unfortunately I am a short arse and found the deviation fairly annoying. Once that was over there were two rebelays and then an enjoyable abseil from the roof of the main chamber (Hall of the Winds). It lived up to its name and I was glad to get to the warmth of South Passage.
None of the Bar Pot group had been to Gaping Gill before so Sophie and I set off to show them the way on. The timing was perfect as we reached Southeast Pot just as they did. We took them over to the main chamber and Aleš set up his camera. He directed where we should stand and face and then took a stunning photograph.
Here we parted company with Aleš and Tom who were exiting via Dihedral, which saved me the hassle of derigging it.
The journey out of Bar was fairly uneventful and we reached Clapham by about 10pm. We dropped Sophie off at Ribblehead then went back to Leeds.
All in all, a good trip 🙂