ScaifeYou dealt with it so adeptly I had completely forgotten about that.
ScaifeSunday 17th April
Mistletoe Pot/Torca del Muérdago
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, Simon Cornhill
I had planned to leave Matienzo today but, what with all the tremendous ongoing passage, I was granted an extra day of exploration. Regrettably, James was not so lucky.
First of all, we went down the 42m Terrahawk Pitch and explored upstream. This started out wide open with several big avens – the bit we could see part way up the pitch almost certainly connects with one of these. The stream passage narrowed, with sharp edges, and we had to climb up slightly to a wider traverse above the floor. A calcite blockage stopped progress. It would probably have been possible to continue flat-out in the stream, but with limited time and open leads elsewhere in the cave it was time to move on.
Back up the pitch, Si derigged and then bolted a traverse across, past the initial Y-hang, over a rock bridge with a grand stalagmite, then down to a lower rock bridge and a scramble up to the far wall. If this cave was in Yorkshire it would be everyone’s favourite SRT trip. The 65m rope only just made it across the traverse.
Fittingly, the final destination of the expedition – for me anyway – was nirvana. We walked along pristine sandy-floored, meandering passage with sumptuous helictites and gypsum crystals jutting out of the walls. The ceiling lowered and a final short, blind pit brought the discovery to an end.
The total surveyed length of this cave currently stands at 1,937m. Best Matienzo ever!
ScaifeFriday 15th April
Mistletoe Pot/Torca del Muérdago
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, James Carlisle, Simon Cornhill
We headed straight for the pitch we had left undescended on our last visit. Fortunately, we took SRT kits and rigged it properly; it would have been a bold, loose and overhanging handline climb.
The streamway continued on a sandstone floor, endless fun with waterslides and log flumes. In places the ceiling was low enough that we were more or less flat out, but elsewhere we were in comfortable walking passage. At the end, there was a tight squeeze into a pool of water, with another stream entering. This looked promising, but the stream then disappeared into a long, wide section where the ceiling was too low. If you found something like this close to the road on Leck Fell you’d spend the next few weeks capping it, but it’s quite possible that no one will ever see this part of the cave again.
Our total length of explored passage for the day was 440m – a triumph – and we still made it back to Pablo’s in time for the best-attended expedition meal I’ve ever seen.
ScaifeWednesday 13th April
Mistletoe Pot/Torca del Muérdago
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, James Carlisle, Simon Cornhill
We dropped the short pitch at the end of Wildcat Passage and at the bottom it was a more complex place than expected, with several short leads into chambers. Only one way on kept going though, and this was quite small but with a strong draught. Hands and knees crawling led to flat-out crawling, led to squeezing, but then we were walking and we had rejoined the stream. Or at least, we were again in a stream passage.
There were more fantastic formations and the passage followed a pattern: the ceiling lowered gradually, whilst the sandstone floor mostly stayed horizontal – meaning that the walking passage would lower to crawling – before a drop in the floor led to more walking passage. After a bit of this, we entered an underground waterpark where the floor turned into a waterslide interspersed with deep pools. This cave has an incredible amount of variety. Eventually, at about 7pm again, we reached our limit for the day: a vertical drop of about 5m that will need a handline at the very least. It looks big beyond.
The total surveyed length of this cave is now about 1350m and I think we can all agree that exploring it has been one of the highlights of our caving careers. There are so many leads in there now that I can’t imagine we’ll have this one wrapped up in the next few days.
ScaifeTuesday 12th April
Mistletoe Pot/Torca del Muérdago
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, James Carlisle, Simon Cornhill
The big hole in the floor had a fair amount of loose rock around the top. Si bolted a traverse around to the right to reach a second, deeper, hole in the floor. We now descended this 42m pitch, via two rebelays. As Si hadn’t said anything at the bottom, other than the customary “Rope Free”, James wasn’t sure if he would bother to descend, thinking it probably led nowhere. I think he’s glad now that he did.
We were now in a streamway for the first time. We have still not been upstream (open lead), or swung into the wide passage about 20m up the pitch. As is customary, we followed the draughting downstream passage. There were crawls, some squeezes, narrow walking passage and a few bits where we had to climb above the stream on dubious holds. It often felt as though there might not be much more to it, then suddenly the stream disappeared down a crawling-sized tube and we were in an enormous sandy-floored passage, with stalactites hanging down from the ceiling like mistletoe and stalagmites jutting up from the floor like trees. Whenever I’ve been on a dig or pushing a cave, this sort of passage is exactly what I’ve been hoping to find.
We reached a pitch at the end of this cavers’ paradise, and could see a continuing passage down there. It was about 7pm by this point, so it seemed like a good time to turn around. On the way back out we had a quick look at the stream. It was in a crawling passage, which soon led to a pitch of about 5m. There seems to be a soggy continuation at the bottom and a dry continuation on the other side at the top, but we have not yet investigated either.
As if probably the best day’s caving of my life wasn’t enough, we then saw a wildcat on our way back to the village. The big stuff we had found needed a name befitting a grand place, so Wildcat Passage it is. In other wildlife news, I also saw a booted eagle and spring gentian on the walk to the cave, shrimps and centipedes underground, and a badger and midwife toad on the way to Pablo’s afterwards.
ScaifeSunday 10th April
Mistletoe Pot aka Torca del Muérdago
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, James Carlisle, Simon Cornhill
There were a few odds and ends still left in this cave, none of which seemed like good leads, but it all needs looking at. First we descended a hole in the floor, after the two squeezes at the end of the long traverse. This was just a short distance from another pitch – Audrey 2, which led nowhere -and the hole had no real draught, so expectations were low. I dropped down onto what looked from above like the floor of the pitch, but turned out to be a ledge with a big drop below it. It still seemed prudent not to be overly excited by this, as the most likely outcome was another pitch with no way on at the bottom.
Au contraire. This 34m pitch, with enjoyable hanging rebelay, opened out lower down into a capacious chamber. At floor level there was nothing continuing, but once all four of us were down, Si climbed up a slope and into more ongoing passage. Surveying this, at first I went around a corner and it seemed hopeless, with just a small hole leading into a loose slope that had a buried alive feel to it. Pushing on, there was then a low phreatic tube, and now we could feel a draught so our enthusiometers were back on. There was a short pitch at the end and this dropped into big walking passage, the walls and ceiling adorned with helictites and several metres away from us, but even in a passage of this size we could feel a strong draught.
Fighting the urge to run into the unknown, we surveyed as we went along and soon reached a big hole in the floor. Time to turn around and return with bolts and rope. This cave just keeps going, even when it seems all is lost. In much the same way that when most of the other plants in the forest lose their leaves in the autumn, the mistletoe persists.
Monday 11th April
Unnamed shaft
Carolina Smith, Pete Smith, with Chris Scaife and Oscar Scaife as surface support
Pete had found, but not descended, this hole when he had been looking for a different cave. We went there with a ladder and Carol explored. It was 7.5m deep with no way on at the bottom. Nearby, we also found a short unrecorded cave – just 4m long – with an entrance that was about 2m across. It just goes to show how much could still be found out here, when even big obvious entrances like this, not far from a track, have been overlooked.
ScaifeExcellent – always good to go caving in the esoteric areas. Sounds wet.
ScaifeMistletoe Pot, 29/12/21
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Diane Arthurs, Simon Cornhill
Si and Di had spent the previous day looking at other nearby holes and had then put some scaffolding inside the entrance to stabilise things, so the first pitch felt safe this time. We shot down and went straight to the good lead that needed bolting upwards. Nada.
Next we returned to the big open pitch we had left undescended. This one was wide all the way down, but not as deep as it had looked – only about 12m. We found another pitch immediately below it though, which was fairly narrow at the top, then had a good ledge for a rebelay and dropped into spacious walking passage. This really felt like something special, but soon choked.
On the way out, we looked at a squeeze directly under the tight pitch. Di had already looked in and said it went for a few metres, so needed surveying. I went in front through the squeeze, soon entering a standing height rift. The rock was totally different in here, more like Weardale limestone than typical Matienzo stuff. There were some rocks at the end that were easy enough to move, and this opened up a letterbox squeeze into big walking passage, which led to a well-decorated chamber and another pitch. It was quite loose at the top, so we descended one at a time. There was no way on at the bottom – we had explored the whole cave. A total length of 275m – much more new stuff than I was expecting from my two days of caving.
As if to emphasise that mobile network providers are evil and don’t care if we live or die, on exiting I sent Carol a text to say we were still alive. That message didn’t go through for ages, but while I was waiting for it to send, I received one from Don saying that a few years ago I had spoken to him about the episode of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee in which Jerry Seinfeld speaks to Michael Richards, and Don wanted to know what I had particularly enjoyed about it. Priorities innit.
ScaifeJivero, 28/12/21
Cavers: Chris Scaife, Carolina Smith de la Fuente, Oscar Scaife
We walked over the old bridge, past the Bakers Bar and up the TV mast road to this easy, child-friendly cave. It’s a few hundred metres of walking passage with the typical big stals you find in Matienzo caves. A lovely day out, and Oscar’s first proper caving trip.
ScaifeSorry, Alex. I hate it when we fight.
Scaife“a very tight squeeze that end’s at a calcite choke that only Scaife bothered with and almost got stuck in”
I’m going to rewrite that bit in the style of Alex writing about a squeeze if he had been the only one to manage it.
“I was ahead at this point and saw a very tight squeeze in front of me at head height, with a skydive on both sides. Fearlessly, I used my skills (and the fact that I’m slim and fit) to pass this extremely difficult obstacle. Needless to say, the others were unable (or shall I be kind and say unwilling?) to follow me. I was thus alone in this extremity of the system, where few have ever dared to tread. So difficult was the squeeze that it was impossible to retreat headfirst, meaning I had to do an acrobatic manoeuvre and return feet first. I am the greatest caver who has ever lived.”
ScaifeI’m surprised Don was frightened when he thought he’d seen a snake. I was in Northumberland with him once and we saw an adder disappear into some heather. Rather than jump into the air screaming, as he does whenever he sees even the tiniest spider, he started rummaging around in the heather trying to find it.
ScaifeFriday 13/8/21
Toad in the Hole
Chris Scaife, Alex Ritchie, James Carlisle, Juan Corrin
Juan had found a cave entrance by drone a few days earlier. It appeared in the drone footage as a black void, several metres across, with no sign of the bottom. We walked across to inspect, with a bolting kit and 45m rope.
On the way, we found another small, unrecorded shaft, 5m deep and 3m long. We also walked between sites 1066 and 1067, hoping to find a cave there so we could call it ‘A Period of Great Unrest in England’, but either we were hasting to reach the pot or we all had something in our eyes, because we found nothing there.
The pot Juan had found looked good, 2m by 4m wide at the top and the bottom couldn’t be seen from the edge, not that anyone felt like going right up to the edge without a rope. The bolter from Bolton went down first and I followed. It was 12m deep with no continuation, but a lovely shape. The dimensions at the floor were 7m by 5m. We found a large toad at the bottom and took it out to safety (and the gene pool), hence the name.
ScaifeWednesday 11/8/21
Mostajo
Chris Scaife, Alex Ritchie, James Carlisle
Three of us returned to look at Monday’s promising lead, surveying as we went. Shortly after leaving the main passage, our new find branched into two. We went right first, following a fairly strong draught, but this way soon closed down.
The left branch led to an ominous-looking pitch. We rigged this off some flakes and reached a ledge. There was now a clear hang of 11m into a small streamway, using a rebelay from a rock projection. I was first down and, for the second time this expedition, had a real sense that we were on the brink of a big discovery, with a comfortable walking passage heading off upstream as far as the eye could see.
I waited for the others (I ain’t no scamperer) and we followed the passage around a corner to a dead end. In the opposite direction, a climb up led into a big chamber, which we reconnected with the main passage.
Our biggest find of the summer, we surveyed 200m of unexplored cave.
In homage to Alex’s bizarre comments made during Donkey Night at Pablo’s – in which he, entirely out of the blue, asked Lloyd if he was a donkey from the future who had been reincarnated and was now eating himself – we named the new find the Time Travelling Donkey Series. The bit where the passage branched is called Donkey Three Ways, in tribute to Pablo’s three different donkey dishes on Donkey Night; and the pitch is called Pin the Tail on the Donkey, as it felt very much like blindly trying to attach the rope to something and hope we were right.
ScaifeMonday 9/8/21
Mostajo
Chris Scaife, Lloyd Cawthorne, James Carlisle, Alex Ritchie, Mike Topsom, Fran McDonald
A team of six was definitely too many for this trip. We went down Shunt Pitch – which had been described as nightmarish, but was just a straightforward ladder pitch – and then to the far end of the MUSC extensions. Here, we separated into two teams – I was with Lloyd and Fran.
We crossed the Bridge and looked at various leads en route to Hoodoo Haven. We found a few small unexplored chambers and rifty things, but nothing that WENT. Near Hoodoo Haven, Lloyd looked ahead of a flat-out crawl – marked on the survey as “Tight” and a dead end – and said he could see space beyond. Being a Black Rose caver, I naturally pushed through the tight squeeze into the great beyond.
It looked promising at first – a hading rift heading away from all known cave passage. Unfortunately, it choked after about 20m, in a manner that reminded me of the extremities of a phreatic maze cave – narrowing and filled in.
On the way out, we found the other chaps, who had slithered down elsewhere and found something that looked quite promising. It was late though, so we had to leave the cave, with something to look forward to for another day.
