Paul Stockall

ChCC Yorkshire trip report. 17th-19th May 2026. Seán Tidey & Paul Stockall. Friday 17th On arriving at the Red Rose Pothole Club hut we did what everyone does and had an explore. I know the club has been there before but the place is pretty well equipped. Nice big changing room, kit washing out side, dining room, two kitchens and a lounge with a fire. Upstairs there are two guests rooms and a well equipped washroom. There was no drying room available to us but a small one was being built just outside the changing room and looked like it should be in use soon. After unloading the van Paul and I had a wonder down to see Bull Pot and Lancaster hole. When we got back we had dinner and started planning for Saturdays trip to Lost Johns’ Cave. So spent half an hour or so going through which ropes we needed, how many crabs we needed and in what order we needed to pack it all. Saturday 18th We set of early and got to Lost John’s for about 9am. We found we had the cave to ourselves to start with which was good as I was thinking the place could very complicated with multiple ropes on some of the pitches. We had four bags, three of rope and crabs and one with food, extra layers in etc. With all the kit dry at this point progress was pretty quick and just got faster and faster as bags got lighter and lighter. Paul had already been to the bottom of Centipede previously so we decided to do as many pitches as possible and chose to go via Cathedral, Dome, Dome Junction then Candel and Shistol, the whole Battle-axe Travers to Valhalla and Final. According to the topo we needed at least 243m of rope for 10 pitches and in the region of 55 crabs / mallions. We didn’t have the exact rope lengths so actually had more than 243m. We took it in turns rigging a couple of pitches each and then swapping. Like a lot of the Yorkshire caves the bolts were really well placed and the topo details very up to date so rigging was pretty quick and easy. We left an empty bag at the bottom of Dome Junction and headed of to have a ganders at the bottom of Centipede then went back and carried on down two more fantastic pitches until we reached the Battle-axe travers. Down to just two bags, one with rope the other with supplies I loaded myself up with crabs and started rigging the travers, which was absolutely amazing and unlike anything else I had ever done. It was above my head in a narrow, DEEP rift and was gently rising. Due not never having any hands free we unfortunately did not get any pics of this. After 16 bolts and a few meters of height gain I set up the rope for Valhalla, the longest vertical pitch we did. This was an amazing decent with a waterfall behind you (that you can go down if conditions allow). The chamber was loud, big and full of mist. I got down to a ledge about 5ft from the stream and shouted up to Paul then got out of the way. After taking some photos and videos here we walked down the stream, down the final pitch to the bottom of cave and into the Lek Fell master cave. We spent a couple of minutes looking upstream and a couple downstream. We could have gone much further but were concuss of our call out and the expectation that heading out was going to take longer than coming in. We had lunch, some Haribo and a rice crispy bar each at the bottom of Final and started heading up. When we got to the bottom of Valhalla we saw light up in roof at the top of the pitch but no additional rope hanging down. Paul started heading up, both of us glad that we had bought our pantins and that the longest pitch didn’t need much kit hauling up it. We found a team of four wedged into the Battle-axe travers. With a bit of difficulty and many tangled cows tails we made our way past the other party, getting very “friendly” with them at points. Having a second rope in place did help and this helped all the way out (they took the same route as us). It meant that the first person up, rather than just stand around and wait for the second could derig our kit while the second ascended the other parties line. They seemed very surprised that a group of two had carried all the rope in to get the bottom. Once the 105+m of rope was in the bag and we were heading to Shistol we realised how heavy the now wet rope was going to be. For most of the pitches we both ascended, tying the full bags to the bottom of the rope and then used the mini traxion we had bought to haul the bags up together. Other than the weight of the bags and the occasional tangle with the other parties rope there were no drams on the way up. We exited the cave into a beautiful northern evening at about 4:30pm having spent almost exactly 7 hours underground! Which to me at least felt more like 3 hours. We dekitted and had a very civilised debrief in Kirby Lonsdale. A fantastic trip!!

Sunday 19th Our plan for Sunday, as long as the weather was good was to do the famous Swinsto pull though. After all the ropes of the Saturday we wanted something with less rope! We arrived in the Kingsdale Valley in more perfect, dry weather with the river more or less empty. Parked opposite Valley Entrance, not a sole to be seen anywhere, which surprised us. We pondered whether to rig Valley Entrance, all the route descriptions say you MUST but we were certain that it would already be rigged with permeant / in-situ ropes, but like the good aspirant CICs we are we went and rigged it with our own rope. This was also a good chance to check the river level in the master cave. This only took about 30mins, after which we grabbed two bags from the van and started the slog up hill to Swinsto. Using the topo as a guide, as it is written / drawn from hard rigging and does not show the pull through bolts we headed in with our 35m rope, along the stream to find the first pitch. To our relief it was straight away obvious which were the pull through bolts and which we could ignore. We got a bit wet on this very first pitch but were not bothered as we knew we had the infamous Swinsto long crawl ahead. At the bottom of the pitch we pulled the knotted side of the rope and it perfectly slid out of the bolts dropped to the floor and we were committed to carrying on! The crawl which is 300m and lasted about 20 minutes is not as bad as it sounds as the vast majority is hands and knees crawling, in water that goes up to your wrists. It was easy to see in this section why this cave can be so dangerous if the water levels were to rise. The crawl took us to Curtain and Pool pitch. No drams but some excellent caving, especially as we knew we just had to keep going down. We stopped somewhere to have some sweets and put some more layers on as we were both now pretty wet and my fancy new noeflece was not as warm as I was expecting. Next we reached Split Pitch, which was more like two large pitches with a big ledge in the middle. Getting onto the second pitch required a bit of a swing round a corner but all pretty easy. From the bottom of Split pitch we followed the stream for a little until it disappeared and then continued, through some dry passage to the head of Spout pitch. Here you could see the water reappearing on the far side of the pitch through a perfect spout, it almost looked like a pipe ran from Split pitch to here. We carried on along the stream through some cascades to the final pitch which took us to the final down pitch and Swinsto Great Aven, a massive, high chamber where the route from Simpson joins. All the way through there were signs of were the water had been, foam and grass etc on the walls. A really good reminder of how much water flows through the cave in wet conditions and how hazardous it could be. We followed the water down through some boulders in the floor did some more crawling and with great satisfaction emerged in to the master cave. Turned right and followed the amazing river passage to the sump and our rope we had rigged earlier on. 15 minutes later we were out of Valley Entrance and back at the van! An absolutely amazing trip and defiantly one to do again. About three hours underground.

After refuelling with wraps and tea we jumped, still wet, into the van and carried on up the valley to Yordas. We had been in the main chamber on our previous trip but deemed it too wet to do the pull though. This time though we grabbed a rope, climbed up the gorge past some bemused looking tourists and did the two small pitches to the top of the waterfall and then on the last pitch of the trip got the wettest we had been all weekend, abseiling down the waterfall with a couple of hikers spectating. 30mins van to van! With this we got changed, did a 10 point turn in the middle of the road and headed south. An amazing tip, three great caves and perfect conditions. Didn’t even have any kit that needed washing, just drying.

— Seán Tidey 27/04/2026