Beautiful little start to the caving year, with a pre-term trip to the wonders of the Yorkshire Dales. Nice solid trips down King Pot and Marble Steps, and a bit of double-cave rig and derig practice for some of the 2nd years in Bullpot + Jingling, via the really quite nice new P-bolt lateral route. Appalling weather, play was rained off on Sunday.

The sun was shining, term was ending... time to get back down the Pilgrim's Way and taste Penyghent pot's veritable delights!

"Where do we even start..." - JKP, walking back from Car Pot

Sunny, summery weekend in Yorkshire. Brown Hill, Swinsto / Simpson Pot exchange, Brown Hill + Somewhere East (Bullpot?) on the Sunday. A few photos from Brown Hill and an extremely pleasant weekend out of London.

Another year, another set of 1st years to introduce to the vertiable delights of the king of Kingsdale. For some peculiar reason (claiming work, illness, home renovations & etc.), most experienced cavers dropped out leaving a hardcore of bright eyed bushy tails and the very dregs of 'too far gone' leadership from the dusty bottom of stores to power their way down to Kokemono and back in a relaxing 10hr trip. Stunning stars and meteorites when we got out to the frozen yet crystal clear moor.

A long overdue return to Bullpot Farm. Weather was fantastic, deep freeze during the night, blue skies and beating sun during the day. The building works at the farm are all complete (underfloor heating in the changing room! working showers!), there's a new working oven in the kitchen & the wood stock is full!
Great trips down Easegill, Top-Lancs, and a Lancs-County via Manchester Bypass. Sunday saw a gentle bimble on the warm hills, and brief forays into Lanc and Top to derig.

Out & around Penyghent

Lovely little trip to the 'Dip. Two short round trips, a trip to Sump 4, two counter flow round trips, a full sniffing out of every last bit of GB and a little jolly to the Swildons upper series. Lovely roast at the Belfry, crumble is good!

White out! Yorkshire absolutely stunning looking with a good metre of snow up on the Dales. Beautiful caving once underground, but getting the transit up the snowed out roads was impossible.
Still, had a great day on Leck fell (walking from Leck) bottoming Notts I and getting some Lost Johns' action in. Monday expedition to Gaping saw a brilliant Bar-Stream-Dis meta exchange; a great day of caving for all involved, no matter what experience.
Greenclose was an absolute delight; warm fires, comfy beds, & ace showers.

Derbyshire! And naturally, it was rather chilly. As we approached Castleton we could see the snow up on the peaks. Winnats pass was open, and we abandoned the bus on the sodden verge as there were dozen cars festooning the road. We assumed it meant millions of maillons down the entrance pitch - but was actually just one exchange trip, with each person in a separate car! Storming trip down and out, shot home to the Orpheus as the snow closed in to the roaring coal fires and a truly stuffing curry. Sunday saw us investigate the legends of Derbyshire caves worth doing which were not in Castleton...