Cave : Heron Pot
Date : 26 December 2000
Speleologists : Martin Beale (HPCC) and Tom Brunt
Style : through trip with 2 rappels
Grade : 3
Equipment : 50m rope (less would do)
Cave time : 1h30m
Approach time : 40m + 20m
Quality : **

We’d had a fine day’s climbing at Twistleton Scars. It had been quite warm on the south facing crag. The views to a snow covered Ingleborough were magnificent. It was a perfect day to be above ground and turned into a perfect evening below ground.

We seemed to time our arrival in Kingsdale perfectly. The light was certainly failing as we walked up the tributary towards Heron Pot lower entrance. It seemed like a good idea to ensure that the water was low enough to effect an egress from the cave. All indications suggested this : the ground was hard frozen and there was little water in the streams.

The lower entrance to Heron Pot is in the second tributary of the small stream feeding Kingsdale Beck. It is in an area of limestome boulders. The entrace is actually pretty small, though not that tight. It looked flooded when I looked down at it. I squirmed down into the entrance and I could then see that there was a pretty reasonable air gap through the exit series. I went through the exit. It clearly went, but was very cold and very wet. My wetness ensured that we didn’t dally on our approach to the upper entrance.

The upper entranace to Heron Pot is above the wall in the first tributary of the small stream. It is a hole in the right (true left) bank of the stream. There is an initial shaft about 3m deep that drops to a bouldery passage / chamber. From underneath the shaft, a passage heads back towards the lower entrance.

The start of the passage seemed like a rerun of the easier parts of Ireby Fell NE Inlet - squeezing in rifts and crawling along the floor. I thought this was meant to be an easy cave! Things eased after about 50m. We reached a fine stream passage. The crawling was over thankfully (for the time being!). The stream passage meandered around. We kept up a good speed as we udged between the walls. The stream became more impressive as we progressed - well sculpted walls, a high ceiling and some good speleoforms (we even had to crawl underneath a couple of them!).

The first pitch stopped us dead in our tracks. We kitted up in the narrow passage. Tom belayed me into an alcove. I squirmed in at a lower level (the speleologists’ way), Tom came in at a higher level (the climbers’ way). Two well placed bolts near the alcove allowed a simple drop into the small chamber below. The second pitch followed immediately.

There was a little traversing climb to a couple more bolts that allowed a descent into a larger chamber. There was a waterfall close by, but it never posed a problem. It seemed to me that the water threat to this cave is more the exit series than the pitches. The pitches are short and seem dry enough to me.

After a sharp right angle bend, we climbed up 3m into a side phreatic inlet. We were promised some fine formations at the end of this. The chamber at the end was OK, but not really anything to write home about (maybe we have been spoilt by Ireby Fell NE Inlet).

The main passage soon lowered. At first I fought and tried to stoop along. Eventually I had to admit defeat and resorted to crawling in the wet passage (the stream flows down it). At times this passage has a nice smooth limestone floor, at other times you have to deal with the cobbles. It seemed like a long crawl, but eventually the stream got a bit deeper, the air got colder and my hands were pulling on ice. I was out - and thankful (wet crawls can go on a bit!).

Needless to say, the walk back to the car was cold and invigorating. There was an amazingly starry sky. The ground was frozen solid.