Club Meets

1934.—The Hill Inn Meet, Chapel-le-Dale, was as well attended as ever. The weather was brilliant and frosty. After dinner on Saturday night it was announced that Douk Cave was flood-lit for the occasion, so the diners straggled out to see the show. Comparing notes afterwards, everyone seemed to have been told by someone else near the Cave that the show was over, but had struggled on to see the flooded beck lit by a candle. The returning crowd then tuned in to some remarkable broadcasting, not to be found in the published programmes.

Sunday was a glorious day for the walkers, but the misguided party which visited Alum and Diccan Pots got extremely wet and cold.

The following months gave us many sunny and mild days but the Easter weekend (April ist), though dry, was hazy and decidedly cold. Only six met at the Crown Hotel, Coniston, but they had some very pleasant climbing on Dow Crags. Four men drove all the way to Kingshouse, on the Moor of Rannoch near Glencoe, had two climbs on Buchaille Etive, and did Bidean ram Bian in good weather with plenty of snow and ice.

Some work was done at Long Kin West on the 21st April in the hope of a descent next day. Sixteen mustered at the Bridge Hotel, Ingleton, but there was so much rain with mist and cold- wind that the idea had to be given up. Pillar Pot and Boggart’s Roaring Hole II were done instead. The experiment was twice made of sending two men roped together down the hundred foot ladder of Cross Pot !

Although there was an extraordinary burst of heat on the 12th May, the week-ends were very poor, and the week before Whitsun, 20th May, wet and cold. Friday was a dreadful day, followed by a bad morning. The afternoon was better, and Gowing and Watts went down to survey from T Junction to Main Chamber. It had been intended to do Juniper Gulf, but two men reported the first belfry and its troublesome descent streaming with water. Sunday was very misty. Hilton and Roberts surveyed to the T Junction and a party visited the East Passage. Heavy rain fell in the night and the camp was in thick mist till 2 p.m. on Monday. In the afternoon there was a crowd in the East Passage, and the survey was carried to the Flood Exit Pot by the twisting route and the next length measured, despite a painful and piercing draught. On Tuesday morning the tents just had to be taken down in the rain and packed wet. Fortunately the weather relented at two, for the carting arrangements went wrong. The number in camp was the smallest for many years, only eighteen.

Seven men spent an enjoyable week-end at the Robertson Lamb Hut of the Wayfarers’ Club, in Great Langdale, i6-iyth June, and had a good day on Bowfell Buttress.

The following week-end eight of the Derbyshire Pennine Club met us at Chapel-le-Dale, the total attendance being twenty-four. Alum

Pot via Long Churn was descended on Saturday, and Sunset Hole done on Sunday.

Since Whitsun the weather had settled down to be continuously dry, hot, and glorious, and it was in scorching sunlight that the Rosedale Meet of 15th July tramped through the heather from the lonehy Hamer Hotel to Julian Park and Egton and back along the road to Rosedale.

Only three found their way for August Bank Holiday to the Rucksackers’ hut at Tal-y-Braich, Capel Curig, and they were simply washed off Lliwedd.

The Meet at High Dungeon Gill Hotel, 22nd-23rd September, was also unlucky in having wild and wet weather, which did not stop climbing on Gimmer and Pavey Ark.

The autumn colouring in Swaledale was glorious when we met at Keld, 2oth-2ist October. East Gill, Rogan’s Seat, and the Gunnerside Beck were visited. Hammering open the Rosebush Pot in East Gill had a disappointing result.

The rainfall of the year had been rapidly making itself up to the average when we visited the Crown Hotel, Middlesmoor, 8th-9th December. Chidley drove up all the way from Rugeley, and being sent by Yorke’s Folly, took three hours in the dark from Leeds. Hard luck I The flooded becks were exceptionally high, and Goyden Pot entrance was completely under water.

Two parties went up Eglin’s Hole and penetrated some way into the low bedding plane at the end. Another party went up Blayshaw Gill into the Meugher (Mewpha) region and came down Bakstone Gill. We were glad to meet our old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Carling, who so many times have entertained us at the Crown.

1935.—The Saturday of the Chapel-le-Dale Meet, 26th January, was noteworthy for an exceptionally bitter east wind. The motorists ran into snow covered uplands above Ingleton and found three inches of snow from Ilkley to Leeds returning on Sunday night. Forty-two sat down to dinner, and rescue work with the breeches buoy from ” H.M.S. Cowbyre ” in the snow occupied a lot of them afterwards.

Most people found themselves on Ingleborough on Sunday in brilliant weather, a more reasonable wind, and capricious depths of snow. The two who had been beaten off Nick Pot II in December by a record rainstorm, completed the short descent in spite of the snow.

From the Bull Hotel, Sedbergh, 24th February, there was a splendid walk over the Calf and down Cautiey Beck to the old road home. From the Falcon Hotel, Arncliffe, 24th March, a brilliant day, the walk was over Fountains Fell and Penygent.

For Easter, 21st April, the enthusiasts who proposed to resume the work of Rule, Brodrick and Hill at the Marble Arch twenty-seven years ago received much support. Nine men went, the sea was like a mill pond both ways, it rained without stopping from Friday very

early till 2 p.m. Monday when the world’s workers left for Enniskillen and home. After that the weather was more and more gorgeous and quite dry. A tour to Noon’s Hole and Boho was made on Tuesday, and the two left went on to the Mourne Mountains for the rest of the week.

A second Meet had been arranged at the Victoria Hotel, Buttermere, and eight beds engaged months before Easter. Mr. Nicholas Size coolly informed the Secretary he had let the rooms to others, and in spite of threats of legal action, and to the inconvenience of the men attending, the Meet had to be transferred to Coniston where the proprietor of the Crown Hotel was good enough to put himself out to find beds in the village.

One has hitherto regarded the constant complaints in the motor papers about English hotels as those of cranks, but there is evidently something in them.

The miracle of the Jubilee Meet, May 4th-6th, at the Hill Inn and in camp at Mere Gill with the descent of the great cavern are described elsewhere. All but two veterans had enough energy to climb Ingleborough to the bonfire, drive home in the early hours, and get to business.

May was an amazing month, dry, record-breaking sunshine, colder and colder, and an amazing snowfall on the 17th. June was an unsatisfactory month, cool and often wet, until on the 22nd a solid nine weeks of really warm weather set in, to be followed by the wettest late summer, autumn, and winter for many years.

“Whitsunday was the only fine day at the Gaping Gill Camp, little being done on Saturday. Two parties went to the end of the East Passage ; the swallet there was attacked and its appearance completely changed. One can now crawl 14 ft. into a rock passage which becomes far too small. The head of the Boulder Chamber Pot was also visited. The second part of the route does not agree well with the Editor’s notes. No one seems to have repeated the 1927 descent.

At about 1.30 p.m. the chair carrying Mr. William Stembridge most unfortunately hung up on the guide-line near the bottom, the hauling cable over-ran it, and the chair brought up with a violent jerk at the bottom, so violent that the tongue of the belt tore along it and out, Mr. Stembridge’s head striking the stones and receiving severe cuts. He was placed on an air bed with blankets and extemporised hot water bottles. Chubb and Leach went for Dr. Lovett and luckily found him in. Dr. Lovett reached the bottom at about 4.30 p.m., and at once called for the Neil-Robertson stretcher. All the men who knew well the details of the new organization were somewhere inside the cavern, but Chubb ran all the way to Clapham, collected a good fellow from Colne with a motor, and after finding the police strangely hazy about the stretcher, ran it down at the

Settle Drill Hall (one must remember S.J.A.B. men were out on the roads), and carried it up through Trow Gill where he was overtaken by two St. John’s men from via Clapdale, reaching camp about 7.30 p.m., a great effort. All parties had come up. Brown, Davidson, Fred Booth, H. Stembridge, Lovett and one S.J.A.B. man were below and slung Mr. Stembridge under the chair. The surface work was in charge of Harold Armstrong. Wound up by hand, the chair appeared at 9 p.m. and was landed at 9.25 p.m. Immediately, Mr. Stembridge was borne up the bank under the leadership of a St. John’s man, and carried on the other stretcher by a party of twelve by a circuitous but easy route to Leach’s car at the bottom of Trow Gill.

It is good to know that he has made a complete and rapid recovery. The Committee has studied the lessons of the accident, and the routine of descents will be stiffened up to meet such mischances as can be foreseen.

In July the Wayfarers’ Club again extended to us the hospitality of the Robertson Lamb Hut, and in August a few men enjoyed the same courtesy from the Rucksack Club at their Capel Curig hut, Craig yr Usfa Great Gully being climbed.

The attempt on Rowten Pot from Braida Garth, 8th September, had decidedly better luck than is traditional, even a fine day, but the water was far too high, the weather cool, and I very much doubt if the Rucksackers in the party enjoyed it. Only one man actually reached the bottom, and I am glad I stayed on top.

For 22nd September, the Derbyshire Pennine Club had prepared us a picnic in a perfectly dry cave, Nettle Pot, Castleton, where they had been digging in a narrow fissure and bringing up rubble a pocketful at a time for years and years, but had recently broken through into big caverns. It was a dreadlul week-end, on top of a bad week of storm, the effects of drought were overcome, and the cavern was muddy and dripping wet. The 168 ft. descent by winch was out of the question. With the Wessex Cave Club there as well, the D.P.C. had about 25 people down, and withdrawal was difficult up the excessively narrow upper shaft. Consequently the first pair reached the Church Inn, Edale, at 2.30 p.m., the last car at 9.30 p.m.

A gale of exceptional force met the men who drove to Brough in Edendale on the Friday night, but had settled to a cold strong breeze on Sunday, 20th October, a most brilliant day. Twelve men drove to Grains o’ Beck, and two cars on to High Force, nine climbing Mickle Fell by various routes.

Another wild but enjoyable week-end was the fate of the Buckden Meet, 1st December. Fierce rain and wind came from the south the first night and hail and wind from the west the second, but in between a delightful walk up Raydale from SemmerWater, and a “three peak walk ” had been got in.