Present: Jakub Dominikowski, Toby Graham, Tom Green-Plumb, Joe Cullumbine, Jamie Gorton
Duration: 5 hours
Pippikin Pot is a cave that lies close to my heart and the moment I got invited to go to it, my weekend plans were settled. This was my 4th trip to Pippikin and by far the most interesting one.
Arriving at Ribblehead, I was quite pleased to find out that I was not the only one who had terrible sleep. Across the 5 of us we accumulated about 8 hours, that is one way to line up your lemons. The plan was to go down and up Pippikin, with some of us potentially leaving via Mistral, depending on how we feel at the bottom.
Despite the lack of sleep everyone’s spirits were quite high (perhaps due to the large amount of caffeine being consumed). At first we started driving towards Bull Pot Farm. Given the cold weather outside, having access to the changing room was very appealing. However, not wanting to do a longer walk we instead opted to park on Leck Fell (BPF would add at least 40 minutes of walking). Getting changed was a big faff, I think this was my first time being the last to get the oversuit on (in my defence I was sorting out the callout). Tom found a mouldy orange and James’ old sausage in his oversuit pocket. It looked quite grim, pleased that it was not a fresher who discovered it. Also, this was the first trip for Jamie’s oversuit, it would be hard to lose him on the way to the cave. He was quite literally like a knight in shining armor.
Weirdly, I never had to find Pippikin without some kind of fog or low visibility. There appeared to be a tree quite far downhill from what we were aiming for, which added to the confusion. Thankfully we managed to intercept the entrance perfectly. The first pitch rope was in good order and after a short look down Pippikin Sink Tom and Toby led the way, followed by Joe, Jamie and myself. I had the joy and honour of carrying the tackle (I did volunteer before any judgement is directed towards others) and being quite lazy, I decided to keep my SRT on for the whole trip.
The first major obstacle of this pothole was a short squeeze in a rift. Not super tight but awkward enough to pose some problems. On a previous trip, this was the point where Joe turned around after trying to squeeze through for a while. Seeing him slide straight through it made me question if we were in the right cave. Everyone got through without any problems. Putting SRT back on after the squeeze is quite fun, there is not much space and you are basically standing above the drop. The 3 meter pitch leads around 2 bends to the next squeeze. I recall this one being quite a lot narrower than the previous one. Being slightly concerned, Joe took his oversuit off to minimise faff inside the narrow bit (I enjoyed the private show 😉). Again, everyone got through quite easily with a large margin. I think we need to find a narrower pothole next time.
Following this is another pitch and a short sideways crawl to a stemple wedged above a 3-4m drop. I think this is a lot easier than it looks, the crawl is not really tight and I guess the awkward bit is getting established above the drop. Despite these difficulties everyone got through without any trouble. Once we reached Hall of The Ten we decided to split up. Jamie did not wish to go back out via Pippikin and I was curious about some side passages in the Mistral. Everyone else went back out via Pippikin.
Expecting our side of the trip to be much shorter, a grand tour of le Mistral was due. First we visited the beautiful sculptures of the Hall Of The Mountain King (they are kind of disturbing 🙁). It’s very sticky and muddy and I somehow got convinced to go to the other side which involves crossing something resembling a mud lake. I wonder how many brave souls are buried under there. Next on our stop was Gour Hall, whilst exploring some interesting digs on the way. In one of the chambers there is a scaffold down climb, which eventually reaches a stooping height stream way. This is a nice bit of passage that looks like it could flood to the roof ending in the stream flowing down a too tight crack. Upstream of this is another little dig, which involves crawling in glutenous mud. For some reason we decided to follow this and get absolutely coated in crap (I don’t know how I manage to get a shitcoating every time).
Coming out of the dig we met some nice folk from Glasgow who were also having a bimble. Anyway, continuing on you pass several small chambers connected by a few short flat out crawls. This eventually opens up to a walking sized passage and you start to hear ominous sounds. At first I thought this was someone capping but then my brain started to think it’s like the ticking of a timer on a bomb. As you pass the upward slope the source of the noise is apparent- water dripping on an old pot. Honestly, walking up to it we were kind of scared.
It opens up into possibly one of the nicest chambers I have been in. The formations are quite nice, but I think what makes it stand out is the shape of the chamber. It definitely had the wow factor on me. At the end of this chamber is yet another dig, which we again decided to have a poke about- It’s always good fun. This one was not as muddy but eventually reached a rift with scaffold poles (as belays I presume) and something that looked like it could be a pitch. Wanting to visit the link crawl we did not linger for too long and decided to turn around.
The way back to Dusty junction was uneventful, although carrying a rope and SRT kits without a bag was kind of annoying. We did have a look at the remains of a bolt climb in one of the chambers, it must have taken quite a lot of effort to get up there. At Dusty Junction we decided to have a poke into the Red Wall Chamber which we did not reach due to lack of description and starting to feel a bit sick of crawling. Our last stop was the Link Crawl. This was very confusing. The Muddy Wallows had just over a helmet of airspace. With this in mind, I expected the Wet Wallows to be sumped. I recall the Wet Wallows being a proper duck but this time it was bone dry (there is non-zero chance that I might be thinking of the wrong place but it seems to match the CNCC description).
Anyway, confused, tired and hungry we decided to call it a day and left via Mistral. We somehow ended up getting out 45 minutes later than the Pippikin lot. Jamie’s new oversuit was absolutely caked in mud (I’m sorry). This trip has definitely changed my opinion of Mistral. I was always under the impression that this muddy hole has not much to offer. Still, I hope I don’t have to go back for a while.
Jakub Dominikowski