.Dan & me
I owed this one a return trip after bottling in Fossil passage last year.
We weren’t sure how far we’d get, having only 3 hangers (7 required by the book). I did try to scrounge some off Alex, but he wasn’t home. We packed the ropes (skipped the 2nd, since it’s supposed to be free climbable and we didn’t have hangers for it anyway), and headed up the hill. We found the cave without any trouble, and I set about rigging the entrance, eschewing the nicely placed bolt to hang off a slightly dodgy tree instead. Down at the bottom I kicked the mud out of the way and crawled through to the 2nd pitch.
Normally I’m happy climbing most things that are supposed to be free climbable, but this was quite challenging. The direct route was probably only a 2m drop, but nothing much to hold onto. I made the mistake of trying to chimney it, but it’s a little bit wide. Dan came down the alternate chimney route – better control, but again, nothing much on the bottom 2m. Never mind – on to the 3rd – figure out how to get back up later.
The 3rd pitch is short and uneventful, noteworthy only for the fact that we actually put a hanger on it.
The 4th pitch was more interesting, so I thought it was only fair to let Dan do some rigging too. He liked this bit of passage a lot: he went down it head first, and back; then feet first, and found the bolts, and came back, turned round, and went back in head first, and rigged two bolts; then came out again, and went in feet first, came out again to put his descender on the rope, then finally went down the pitch. It looks horrible, but it’s really not that bad.
A few metres down we landed on the ledge, and rigged the Dry Pitch on a natural thread. The standard length sling didn’t really fit too well – it left the krab flexing over the edge. We abseiled down carefully, then checked the description for what came next. We noticed that you could bypass the Dry Pitch through a crawl/squeeze or an exposed traverse.
Dan led up the climb and into Fossil passage. We went straight through, head first, no problems 
. The passage beyond is crawling, traversing, more of the same – nothing quite as strenuous as Fossil passage, but reasonably long and sustained. Even longer if you explore it to the end, as we did, before returning to the main route. We reached the end (apart from the short thin people’s section), turned around and headed back out. No real difficulties on the way back – got to the bottom of the Dry pitch, climbed up the bypass, exiting by the exposed traverse – you could dispense with the rope for the Dry pitch, and have just one rope for 3rd & 4th.
Getting up the 4th was ok, but I struggled to get my ascenders off in the narrow tube. There were a couple of cavers waiting there for us to clear the pitch. The 3rd was no problem.
The 2nd – was the chimney free climbable? Probably, if you were desperate, but neither of us were tempted to try it.
Back to the surface, and down the hill to change and enjoy “Providence Pot” (Yorkshire Dales Brewery) at the George in Hubberholme.
In conclusion, it probably does need 7 hangers – the missing one were all missed.
No photos I’m afraid.
