Cote Gill Pot & Dowkabottom Cave – 5/10/26

[Dunc]

We had a Monday evening trip lined up with a couple ideas in mind. However, after visiting Hidden Earth and chatting with one of the diggers of Scanty, they said we could use their ropes. It would be a case of see how far we get and turn around. Good stuff.
The day arrived, the rainfall radar suggested rain over the Dales – which somehow lingered all day! Given previous days which suggested reasonable rain, doubts crept in about this trip.
We arrived with only limited tackle and the skies were dark and moody, the rain still falling. Not knowing Scanty we employed caution and conjured up a new plan. Which wasn’t easy given limited tackle. This involved many back roads from Settle to Malham to Arncliffe!
We got changed in the warm rain and trudged up the slog to Cote Gill Pot, which we found relatively swiftly, near the not dry waterfalls..hmm..
Wow, the engineering and pipe work in this pot is something else. Quite surprising also, is the size of the passage (what there is of it). It’s easy to see why people have expended lots of effort, there must be something good hiding somewhere!
That quick trip over with we traversed round the fell to Dowkabottom Cave. Having been nearly 20 years since our last visit it was good to revisit this easy but impressive cave. I’m surprised more work has not gone into pushing this place. With that done, it was late, we headed down swiftly then along the road to the vehicle. All told, above ground, we covered 5miles!!

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