Ribblehead wanderings
Sunday, 29 October 2017
After a disappointingly tame night at the NPC we got up in good time with the intention to go down Ireby. We packed the ropes and breakfasted fairly efficiently and set off to Masongill lane to discover it was packed with cars. Spying a group walking up the hill we ran up after them to discover Alistair Gott and hassorted Derbyshire cavers after a short interrogation we discovered that half of Derbyshire’s cavers were down Ireby so an alternative plan was formulated.
We would go to Trapdoor (despite not having enough rope), rig only what we couldn’t freeclimb and turn around if we got to something that we couldn’t freeclimb and had run out of rope. Perhaps fortunately, we couldn’t find anywhere to park so we ended up at Ribblehead. With vague plans of bimbiling up Whernside we took a copy of Northern caves, headlights and some snacks from Alice’s bag of earthly delights and bimbled on.
Intially sticking our heads in various heads entrances we decided to step up the game and undertake not one but two through trips, Runscar & Thistle (or ~6 if you count daylight to daylight; more trips than most people do in a month). Mike managed to keep his feet dry but unfortunately I was not able to which detracted slightly from the experience.
Following our intense caving we set off for a walk; went and looked at a waterfall and admired the railway/engineered river that passes by the bottom. Once we’d done enough to justify the pub we turned around and headed to Station Inn. Whilst debating whether to get chips or not Mike came out with ‘It was my turn to cook tea tonight but I’m sure Alice will work out that I’m not doing that anymore’, Mike instead bought himself a portion of chips. Back at the car Mike assisted an elderly lady who wanted to go the cinema (not with him) and we were on our way back to Leeds.