Pen-Y-Ghent Pot, 1964
by T. W. Salmon
For some time John Middleton and I had planned to bottom Britain’s deepest pot-hole, Pen-y-Ghent. This we intended to do in one day with a minimum and, I might say maximum, party of five. Our plan was to take all the tackle in with us, get the whole party to the final sump and dismantle on the way out. The expedition was finally arranged for the week end of October 3rd and 4th and the party consisted of John Middle-ton with two friends, Foster and Nathan, David Smith and myself.
John and I arrived at Lowstern early on Saturday evening and retired to bed soon after ten, having arranged to meet Foster and Nathan at the pot on Sunday morning at 7.30. David arrived during the night, creating the usual disturbance. At 5 a.m. on Sunday there were rather bleary second thoughts about the feasibility of the enterprise and it was a good thing that flagging enthusiasm was boosted by the necessity of being at the pot by 7.30. However, by the time we had breakfasted, dressed, girded ourselves with Nife cells and left Lowstern in John’s big seed van we were full of anticipation for the coming assault. The other two were waiting at the Hull Pot shooting hut and we were able to start for our pot straight away with our loads of lightweight tackle, electron ladders, nylon ropes and alloy pulley blocks.
The entrance to Pen-y-Ghent Pot is down a very tight 6 ft. hole of jammed boulders, followed immediately by a rough crawl, also very tight, but after about 12 ft. there is a 6ft. drop into the stream of Pilgrim’s Way. At this point I found John sitting happily up to his knees in extremely cold water muttering something about putting on weight; he had put his light out so that 1, following him, could curse and groan not knowing that he was there listening.
When the party had reassembled we started out on the Marathon, a 1,000 yard crawl. At first the passage was just high enough for us to crawl on hands and knees with shoulders scraping the walls; the floor was a stream about 12 inches deep and in places the roof dropped so that progress could only be made by submerging up to the nose in the water. Time seemed to stand still in this section and we became semi-automatons, throwing the tackle forward, crawling to it, throwing it forward again; our knees got very sore with the constant wetting and the stony floor. Quite suddenly the roof came down and the passage widened to about 8 ft.; we were now in a flat out crawl but the walls and roof were well lubricated with water so we made good progress, this section is about 60 yards long and ends at the first pitch. This pitch has two streams running down it, the one we had been crawling in and another coming from a slightly higher level 5 ft. to the left. At the bottom of this 20 ft. pitch we entered ‘Easy Passage’ which doubles back under the crawl and goes on at the most awkward height of 4 to 5 ft. for 1,000 ft. with some rather sporting cascades and deep pools a couple of hundred feet from the end.
The very welcome end to this section is a 15 ft. pitch which can only be laddered in one place, right in the centre of the waterfall. A tight fissure leads off at the bottom, followed quickly by a short crawl leading to the top of the main pitch, a drop of 130 ft., divided into two by a large ledge at 60 ft. The top half is in a fissure about 2 ft. wide and once started is easy to climb; at the ledge the pitch splits into two, on one route the ladder hangs free and gets buffeted by a large waterfall, the other is reached by crawling under a shelf directly below the first part of the pitch, is quite dry and the ladder, which hangs close to the wall, gives a fine climb. The chamber at the bottom was a most unpleasant place full of spray, very cold and draughty. We quickly left this forbidding place and headed into the high rift passage, here the stream goes down into a narrow boulder choked fissure; this we traversed until we reached the next pitch of 15 ft. which we laddered, although it is quite an easy straight climb. The pitch was fluted and very cleanly washed, at the bottom was a ledge from which there was a further 15 ft. pitch, again an easy climb which did not really need laddering. A 10 ft. climb followed dropping us once again into1 a bedding plane crawl in water; but luckily it was not very far before we again reverted to the higher rift passage. We slithered and splashed down several cascades before reaching the 40 ft. pitch into Pool Chamber; the take-off to this pitch is rather awkward and great care must be taken. Pool Chamber is very close to Boulder Chamber, which, as its name suggests, is strewn with fair sized boulders, these reach the roof at the side opposite to the entry; the stream vanishes into the floor and the way ahead is behind a large flat boulder.
Once past Boulder Chamber we soon found ourselves at the head of the next pitch which is very wet, the water feeding the waterfall gushes out from a narrow fissure and crashes into a deep pool 25 ft. below. We were all wet before we reached this pitch so when we arrived at the bottom and found ourselves up to our waists in water we did not even notice it. From here onwards the character of the passage changes completely from a rift passage to one of a roundish Master Cave type. After a few feet the stream from Hunt Pot enters on the right, considerably augmenting the already large Pen-y-Ghent stream. We waded along in water in places up to 4 ft. deep, neglecting some dry passages in our enthusiasm to get to the bottom. The next pitch is called Niagara Falls and is one of the most impressive I have ever seen. It is really in two halves; in the upper one we managed to avoid the water which comes roaring and foaming out of a four foot wide passage down several steps and then plunges 30 ft. to a ledge; the lower half, although only consisting of a ten foot drop, is the more impressive. We landed on the ledge, right in the corner of a fault, with the water spreading out on the wall to our right; as the fault was only three feet wide we could not avoid the water. We descended through it and then had to wade right along the base of the waterfall, in it up to our waists; it now felt ice cold and its force on our heads was stunning.
Once out from under this stupendous fall we made quick progress into the Lower Main Stream Passage which is about 7 ft. wide and 5 ft. high. We found this a most awkward passage because the floor, which we could not see owing to the depth of water, was deeply ribbed and we had to be very careful to avoid broken legs or at least twisted ankles. The walls and roof were very black, the water ran along with quite a roar, rushing round many twists and bends until suddenly it dropped into the final sump. Here, 527 feet below ground and a mile in, we had our first rest, the journey had taken exactly four hours. We feasted on self-heating cans of soup and soggy sandwiches and with no effort at all managed to lose two Tupperware sandwich boxes in the sump.
Our rest was very short, perhaps 15 minutes and then we started on the long trek out. Generally speaking the pitches are quite short and we made fair speed until we arrived at the big pitch where our enthusiasm was cooled and our wet bodies frozen by the inevitable wait in that damp and dismal spot. Once up with our increasing loads of tackle we soon warmed to the chase again, creating small whirlwinds as we negotiated the twists and turns of Easy Way. At last we were up the final pitch where we had our second rest of the day and ate some mashed chocolate before diving into the long last crawl, Pilgrims’ Way. After the efforts of the day this crawl really is the limit, one just feels that there will never be an end or that perhaps one has taken the wrong turning, but suddenly there is the sweet smell of fresh air and one is there. By the time we were all out and standing on the moor some eight and a half hours after going in, we were all feeling that satisfying exhaustion which comes after a sporting trip, for that is undoubtedly what Pen-y-Ghent Pot is. It tries the pot-holer in every aspect of his chosen sport; it is no pot for beginners, but with five or six good experienced men, such as was our party, nowhere else provides quite the same sense of achievement.