Birks Fell Cave
Present: Anthony, Al, Gwyn, Julia
We left Durham later than usual; since we weren’t going anywhere near Bernies (shock, horror) the idea was to eat before we left. However, this plan was soon quashed as half the meet decided that eating in a Richmond café was preferable to bacon butties in the car, leaving Al to gaze enviously at our breakfasts… [Not me – I’d had top class warm sarnies so ner – Al]
Arrived in Buckden and parked in the village car park, as specified on the permit. Since it was packed with cars and Sunday walkers we decided that stripping off there wouldn’t be a good idea, so we walked up to the farm to give them the permit, with the vague hope that there might be somewhere more secluded to park/change. No such luck, so for once we were modest and changed in the public bogs. Walked up onto the moor and then carried out a classic piece of DUSA pathfinding. The cave was described as being “100 metres west of wall corner.” Said corner was found, then we spent about 40 minutes searching for the cave, ending up wandering round in a huge circle and finishing up at the cave entrance, two minutes from the wall corner where we began!
The narrow entrance soon became a twisting rift passage which we followed for some way before reaching a particularly flat bedding plane crawl, noting with interest as we crawled the dead grass on the roof. Another rift, a canal where Al moaned about his lack of pants (and socks?!) and a crawl led to the pitch. At some point before the pitch we noticed tiny helictites on the walls, later there were straws and flowstone, the first of many gorgeous formations to come.
Al and Anthony both inspected the pitch bypass and decided it looked a bit scary, so we rigged the ladder and line off naturals as we had no bolts with us. I belayed everyone down the ladder having brought my string gear solely for that purpose, honest, but was spared the joys of climbing down the ladder in the waterfall: Abseiling with a stitch plate I had no great desire to leap off the pitch head onto such a small piece of metal (Ok, so I had cowstails as well) but managed eventually.
We reached a large chamber with a massive waterfall thundering down one side then noticed a rope hanging in it… Apparently there are some passages above the aven but we weren’t about to follow whichever fuckwits had been up there! After sliding down some exceptionally ‘sporting’ cascades, the way on alternated between clambering over boulders and crawling in the streamway. At one point we reached a low wet crawl which Anthony set off along. Al decided it looked too miserable and disappeared off into the boulders to look for another route. A few minutes later he reached the stream again, then heard the shout “You bastard!” He looked down to see Anthony lying in quite alot of water as he emerged from the end of the crawl!
Found some dodgy loose rocks and a tightish squeeze down to the stream, and got wet again before we reached 40 Years’ Corner. This was a passage full of superb formations; stals, helictites, calcite curtains (I think) and other weird geological features. Everybody ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ alot at this point, and Al vowed to take plenty of photos on the way back. We got to Moon Milk Cave, a very muddy chamber decorated with loads of straws before turning back. Gwyn and Al headed back more slowly with the intention of taking photographs, but they caught Anthony and I up a few times, such as when one of the cascades proved a bit too sporting for my short legs…
When we arrived at the pitch, Anthony had another look at the bypass (a narrow rift) and decided that it appeared ok to climb. He called down that it was ‘a bit hairy in places,’ so I had a look, then opted for the ladder. Self-lined (sort of..) up the pitch and then derigged as Al and Gwyn had also chosen to climb the rift.
Emerged from the cave and a few minutes later heard loud cursing as Al struggled with the heavy tackle sack. Then we headed back to the farm to tell them we were out. A different woman answered the door, and looked utterly baffled by the four of us stood on her doorstep saying “We’re out!” She eventually got the message: “Four of you went in and four of you came out” so we neglected to tell her about the 3 others we’d left down there for a joke and wandered back to the car park. All semblances of modesty vanished as we changed in the now empty car park. Laughed at Gwyn for wearing shorts and dashed to the pub just as it began to rain properly, then we sat around and discussed a DUSA expo to Turkey. At least it would be a bit warmer there…
A thoroughly excellent cave with loads of variety. It was one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve done – recommended to everybody (except the hydrophobic!)
Julia Bradshaw