Exploring the Mines of Nenthead not far from Penrith

On a wet and horrible day last Saturday we decided the best place to go to have an exploring adventure with our neice and nephew were the mines of Nenthead nr Alston.  These old lead mines are looked after by a charity and access is open to the public...very much at your own risk!  Which is great to see a tiny part of country still allowing people to use their own common sense rather than just banning it.

With a bit of local info from a guide and a survey we headed into Smallcleugh Mine, with the kids leading the way!

It was pretty wet in places, with deep puddles and mud...perfect for family fun!

The Family posing in one of the larger caverns.  It was cold and wet outside, hence all the clobber.

Auntie Ali and Hannah.  Hannah said it was one of the best adventures ever!

Because its limestone you get cave like features such as these stalgtites

Auntie Laura having fun

Thomas with the map leading the way, although we were just following our noses until it looked unsafe.

This is part of a Horse Gin, which was used to winch water up a shaft and pour it back down again to circulate air in the mine.

We were probably in there for an hour before tea and cake beckoned, but will definitely be back with more info.

Pot Holing on the Nateby Fells near Kirkby Stephen

I'd long assumed that all the limestone caves nearer to Penrith were just grotty horizontal crawls, with some interest and adventure about them, but nothing special.

So it was with some intrigue that i started to discover the vertical 'Pots' that exist up on the stunning fells SE of Kirkby Stephen.  These hills are lovely and the road to the caves goes over a high pass right through them. 

The caves include Fells End Pot, Hollows Mill Pot, Jingling Pot and more besides.  To get there take the B6270 out of Nateby and head right up onto the fell  to it's highest point and park up by a footpath sign. The caves a just a 5 min stroll either side of the road, but take care, some are pretty well hidden by the landscape and you really don't realise their depth til you're in them.

All the following information i found out through going and looking and reading on-line (although there is very little) and generally sniffing around.  Don't take any of it as gospel, and don't assume any of the anchors are there or any good when you visit...a sense of adventure and self-reliance are key!

Hollows Mill Pot Grid ref: NY 810045

This pot is amongst a series of 4 or five shakeholes, all with limestone pavement and all with some reasonable holes in them.  What makes it unique is the small stream running into it's right side as you have your back to the road.

You tie off around a natural boulder and head across a rift to sit on it's far side.from where you can reach a bolt and a spit (cavers bolt).  This produces a bottom clenching (because of rusty bolts not the height) y-hang abseil 6m into the Pot which is pretty confused and open air at this point.  Just when i thought we'd hit a dead end, i found another bolt and a chute leading down into the dark.  I quickly fixed a handline and headed down and around a tight corner to be faced by a deep (24m) vertical shaft, not what i had expected in Cumbria.

This is great pitch and full of fossilised Crinoids and Braichiapods.  It's also pretty black from the peat staining which is weird.   Off to the right about 4m in there's a tunnel leading off which apparently connects with the Alt.entrance.  This was a bit full-on with the current anchors, so we will return with the bolt kit and go and explore.  Unfortunately i forgot the camera for all this so no pics!

Coming back up the pitch, getting off the pitch head is probably one of the hardest i've had to do!  Bloody awkward and on anchors that you don't want to bounce around on...hmm?  Of course, this doesn't make it hard, just me rubbish!

Hollows Mill Pot Alt. Entrance

So we think we found this 4.5m west of the last pot, with a traverse on a ledge leading to a y-hang and quick deviation to try and stop rope rub.  

Mark rigged and then cursed me 5m from the bottom when he ran out of rope and was forced to tie the next one on and pass the knot.  All good practice, but you do feel silly doing it 5m off the deck!

The cave is actually a bell shape, being much bigger and wider at the bottom and makes you realise what you were wandering around on at the top...yikes!  

                           

It's an impressive chamber and you pass 2 pretty birds nests on the way down.   However the farmer has chucked no end of plastic, metal and dead sheep into it so it's a bit minging to say the least.

                                               

Bolting in Jingling Pot

No, not the one in Yorkshire.  This is the little brother and it is pretty little and just 9m deep.  But it's kinda cool and didn't have any reliable bolts to SRT in, so we jumped at the chance to do a bit of self-learning at placing caving bolts or Spits as they are known.

Without getting too complicated, you attach the self-drilling anchor onto the driver, hit it with your hammer and turn it, hit it and turn it and hit it and turn it.  Now repeat for about 10min (15min if you are me!) and be dangling awkwardly over the drop, paranoid you are going to drop everything.

 Helmets off to those who explore proper caves for the first time and place these as they go!

After much hitting, swearing and laughter we had two spit anchors in place

You then attach your hangers with bolts, tie in your ropes and off you go...

...probably pretty gently cos you've just placed them and they can't possibly work...can they?!  

Well they did and very happy we were too.

We still have to visit Fells End Pot where a dig is going on and will be back to explore some more.  A great little place place for some adventure and only 30min from penrith.

Caving in Bull Pot Kingsdale

Summer has temporarily left us, so me and  mate Lee decided to head underground for the day, although with most Yorkshire caves having rivers in them, we were kinda limited, so we settled on the brilliant Bull Pot.

It's pretty much just vertical caving, with fairly tight traverses above big drops leading to freehanging abseils down to the bottom. The pics are a bit rubbish, but it does give you a sense of the size of things down there.

With us doing 4 pitches in total, it took surprisingly little time to get to the bottom.  There isn't a huge amount to see as there is another pitch below us that we didn't do as it was forecast heavy rain and all the water goes essentially down it...not a place to be in the wet!

So back up we went, me finally getting the hang of rope walking after watching Lee shoot up the rope like a rat up a drainpipe.

Now i say there's no wriggling in this cave, but there is a bit of vertical wriggling.  The 'Slot' isn't actually too bad for racing snakes like us and it's hard to picture that there's 50ft of air beneath my feet in this pic!

We then did a whole heap of rescue practice and rope wrestling that i won't bore you with here, needless to say i was knackered by the top!

All in all a brilliant trip, where next...

MTE workshop in Tebay

Had a great day today at the mountain training england update workshop at lyon equipment yesterday. Spent the morning getting up to speed with all the new developments in the industry and then breaking climbing equipment in the afternoon with mark from lyon.  Its pretty amazing just how strong it all is as long as you use it as the manufacturers say!

Keswick mountain festival

Thats the first 2 days of the this years festival done and its been a great start.  We took the events photographer up blencathra and moonlit canoeing today so hopefully we'll have some stunning photos soon. In the mean time here's some of ny rubbish ones!

2 Day ski touring adventure in the Cairngorms

I've realised a dream i've had for nearly 5 years this weekend of doing a multi-day ski touring trip in the Cairngorms and using a Mountain Bothy (Hut) to stay in overnight.

The Plan!

We started off at the Cairngorm ski carpark and managed to ski right from there and across to Lurchers burn, a fantastic, if long, easy angled gully which keeps its snow and even had 2 inches of fresh from the previous nights storm.

Lurchers Burn in the sunshine

From the top of that, we turned left and headed up onto Cairn Lochan to be met with stunning views of the Plateau in all its glory.

Looking towards Braeriach

The top of Coire an Lochan

Heading across the Plateau

On and on we pushed, eventually summiting on top of Ben Macdui 4 hrs after leaving the car and 700m vertical metres later.  On a normal walking day this would be brilliant, but on skis the best was to come!  A quick bearing check and off we careered on every sort of snow imaginable from Ice to windslab, breakable crust to sticky wet porridge, we had it and that's touring.  No lifts, no piste bashers, just you and your mates and a world of adventure to explore, proper sking.

What had taken 4 hrs to climb took about 30min to descend and we arrived very happy and tired at the brilliant Hutchinson Bothy.  A small but lovely Hut complete with stove and 3 lovely lads up for a social evening who'd brought peat for the stove!  Soo nice and warm.  We proceeded to shatter their peace and quiet, but that's bothies, nice folk, beautiful places all thrown together sharing a unique thing.

Sharing brews and banter in the Hut

Now our friend Cathy (left) is a Pilates Instructor, and her and Ali felt a little stretching session was just the ticket after a days skiing, so they commandeered the floor and treated everyone to a little demo of how to look after your body...us boys just ate biscuits and drank tea!

And bend and stretch...

The next day (after little sleep!) we left the pretty little Hut and headed up the valley behind it to Coire Etchachan.  A really amazing remote and stunning high valley with a loch in it, which was frozen and covered in snow though we didn't dare ski on it.

The Hutchinson Bothy

From there it was as straight a route as possible back to the cars as the wind and weather had gotten a bit Scottish, those of you who've been will know what i mean.

Loch Avon basin

Ali putting in difficult turns in heavy snow with a heavier rucsac!

Sue with the Shelter Stone Crag behind

Its the Beatles gone sking!

Poor Andy!

The edge of a frozen-ish Loch Avon

After a challenging ski into Loch Avon via a gully we rucsac'd skis and followed the Loch around to the bottom of the burn coming out of Coire Raibert.  This was in with snow, but pretty steep...of course the girls styled it, using our skis with skins on to climb the 30' slopes, zig zagging as we went.  I slipped tripped stumbled and cursed my way up... so no photo's!

Andy cruising after the joys/horrors of the steep climb  up

The coire cas headwall

From there it was a beautiful skin up to the top of the Cas headwall and then whooping turns back to the cars.  Ali and Sue, not content with that, turned right near the top and headed down coire ciste and i drove round and got them...apparently the snow was the best of the trip.  That serves me right for being lazy!

There are so many things that have to come together.  Weather, snow cover and condition, time off, friends to drag me up up the hills and burn me off sking down (and pick up the pieces!). And they all did this weekend and how.  It was a trip i'll never forget and i'm itching to get out with everyone for the next one!