25th July 2006
People present - Duncan Jones, Rob Santus

Weather: Hot and sunny
Cave: Cool with some warm water

With a recommendation from Mike about this trip, who said he wouldn't go back there, we opted to have a look on one of our midweek trips.

We wandered up to Long Churn Cave as this was the closest cave where we could get underground into the cool and out of the hot blazing sun! Once in we soon heard the usual noises you expect with Long Churn - kids and novice parties, we soon caught them up and followed them to Dr Bannisters Handbasin whereupon we backtracked slightly to locate the bedding plane that marks the start of November Hole.

After a brief flat-out bit we entered some shuffling through a duck, which I had fun sampling some of it when my helmet jammed in a small part of the passage, after a bit of sloshing around I was on my way again.

The way on is generally crawling or sideways shuffling, around some sharp bends, all enjoyable and clean washed. We did reach one point where Rob said it was too tight, tight? I would have had trouble getting my leg through it! but Rob had a couple of attempts before giving it up as a bad job and a way over the top was found and provided much easier progress.

More shuffling and crawling reaches a duck, although with hardly any rainfall over recent weeks we figured it must have dried up a little as we didn't even get our chins wet passing through it. Only a short distance from here daylight is spotted and our way out.

Just before we made the climb up the very pleasant looking entrance Rob took one look at the muddy continuation but quickly turned round saying it was foul, so we headed out into the heat.

Only a short walk away was Borrins Moor Cave resurgence so we headed in and to our surprise and relief the water was warm! We proceeded to follow the water as far as possible and after following a few dead end passages we found the one to take us out. Rob then nipped back in via Tiny Entrance and after only a short time popped out Razor Entrance.

With Upper Borrins Moor Cave being only a short stroll away we thought whilst we're here.... A short crawl lead to the streamway which choked quickly downstream but upstream provided pleasant going, passing an exit which we used after a brief upstream push to where it became too low.

With the fun caving and unusually warm water we couldn't resist another trip through Borrins Moor, so we located the Main Entrance and followed the obvious passage down to the stream and the resurgence crawl. Just before we exited Rob drifted left and found a short section of deep water to wallow in before we emerged into the heat once more.

We then finished by following the water into Upper Long Churn for a quick jolly and to make the walk on the surface back to the cars shorter!

All in all a fine days pottering and some short but very entertaining caves, go do them! The day was rounded off perfectly with a well earned pint enjoyed in the beer garden of The Station at Ribblehead.