24th August 2008
People present - Duncan Jones, Rob Santus

Weather - Cloudy but dry, some sun later

A permit for Penyghent Pot had been obtained and we eagerly awaited our trip to this fine classic pothole, the weather however, had other plans. A look at the CDGs visibility index and rainfall graph showed about three dry days in the past three weeks. Things were not looking to promising for our planned trip. Even before the day arrived we had decided on a backup plan, Boggarts and its 2001 extensions.

After meeting Rob we flew up the motorway to meet Pete to obtain some ropes off him, thanks for undoing the knots! Once the exchange had taken place we nipped into Ingleton for a quick brew before we headed off to the usual Newby/Dowlass parking spot. After consulting the NFTFH (Not For The Faint Hearted - for the uninitiated) info we quickly got all the tackle packed into three respectable tackle sacks.

The one thing I love about caving in this area is the walk, uphill right from the start - this path does not mess about and sets about its business of wearing you down before you even get underground. After some heavy breathing we broke off the path and trudged over the fell straight to the entrance(s). A quick nosey around and I was off rigging, pushing the prickly bush out of the way as I went. The fine entrance pitch lands on a ledge, the big obvious way on at the bottom is, as you would guess, not our way on. We slipped through a loose floored slot to the next short pitch, with a short thrutchy crawl that deposits you at the top of the Lost Persons Pitch, although perhaps Lost Sheep may be more appropriate. I noticed a wiff and as Rob emerged from the crawl he commented on it too - the smell of death! As I neared the bottom of the pitch I scanned around for the offending article, luckily (if you can call it that) it was to one side of where I was landing. Fortunately it wasn't too hard to climb up, shuffle along and climb down to avoid the rotting carcass. Unfortunately you can't avoid the stench, hmmmm, delightful.

Once this obstacle was passed the passage descends to a blasted crawl and soon arrives at Fever Pitch, which I was rigging and somehow managed to tackle it the wrong way. After some shuffling around I found a suitable position and got it rigged. Once down the blind holes in the floor were passed and we descended the next pitch into Penguin Hall. From here a crawl reaches a short climb and yet more crawling, part of which is particularly straight. After a brief flat out section the next pitch, Blind Mans Bluff, is reached. The awkward manoeuvres described in NFTFH didn't really materialise as the pitch was rigged and descended without issue (Franks and Fever pitch heads are probably more faffy than this one). At the bottom we abandoned our water/food and set about the short squeeze. We both negotiated this with SRT kits on, although on the way out my Croll was being stubborn and kept catching and snagging on everything so I took my kit off and slid through like a greased eel.

Rob took over the rigging for the rest of the pot and was soon on his way down Loose Tooth pitch. At the bottom a descending crawl arrives at Franks Pitch - the biggest in the pot, which is a little awkward at the top but nothing too bad. This pitch descend via a long deviation and two rebelays to land on a mountain of blasted rock. Another blasted crawl and the final pitch, The Terminator, is quickly reached. At the bottom there is a 4m deep blind hole and a crawl which soon closes down - we took the books word on that and didn't bother exploring either! A rather disappointing end but some pleasant pitches (9 in total) had provided us with a respectable descent.

On the way out when we arrived at the bottom of Blind Mans Bluff we noticed that water levels had increased in the short time we had been away - although nothing serious it just made the way out marginally damper than the way in. It is still a reasonable choice for wet weather when other places may be suspect.

I emerged into a fine afternoon and set about utilising one of the rather small streams to give my gear a quick wash as Boggarts is a tad grubby in parts. Rob was also keen to wash his gear and ropes (he was off on holiday the day after) but with the area being rather devoid of any significant streams he gave up on the idea of washing ropes and we set off back to the car.

The trip was completed in about 4 hours and as we had time to spare we set off for a pub. Todays choice was the Punch Bowl in Low Bentham, which turned out to be a very good choice as the car park is right next to the River Wenning - just right for washing ropes in!
We would probably rate the trip as Grade 4 as there is some faffy/awkward sections but nothing overly challenging or difficult.
And despite its disappointing end it was still an enjoyable days potholing and makes for a respectable backup option should the usually fine and dry Dales weather take a turn for the worse.

Duncan Jones