# Gavel Pot 12th March 2013
Me and Olly Rees
I wasn’t expecting much from Gavel Pot. The description said it was an underrated trip but it didn’t exactly sound great. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable trips I’ve been on, helped by not taking a survey and by following our noses and some enticing passage.
Once again we were armed with a permit and looking forward to waving it around. Once again there was no one there until a car pulled up. Unfortunately they were only walkers who were bemused by our requirement to have a permit to walk over the same bit of land as us.
Gavel Pot has a large, impressive entrance shakehole / shaft. There’s a steep path down, which we put a rope on due to snow and ice, which leads to numerous options. On the left is the route to Short Drop and on the right is the p bolted route to Gavel. There’s also another route somewhere which is for oddballs with ladders. The first pitch has an alarming amount of rope rub, slightly lessened by attaching a deviation to the worlds largest peg. It could be almost eliminated by a rebelay, don’t know why there isn’t one. There’s an oxbow at the base of this pitch which leads round to the Short Drop route.
The way on to the straight forward second pitch is to walk down slope. It can be free climbed by the looks of it although it is loose. The third pitch is a climb down some impressive dry stone walling, especially when you consider the amount of work that has gone into digging all the rocks out. Apparently this has collapsed in the past so hanging a rope down it is probably a good idea.
From the base there’s passage of various height with inviting looking passages heading off and some nice formations. Eventually you come to a trickyish climb down and then the head of the fourth pitch. A footless traverse out away from the stream in a narrow rift leads to the y hang in a great position, followed by 2 rebelays so that you can stay away from the water in the impressive shaft. Not a place to be in wet weather. Above the head of this pitch is an even more impressive looking traverse right in the roof which leads to a dig.
At the fifth pitch there is a traverse about 2 metres above the stream, this time with footholds and a handy piece of scaffolding. Another abseil in an impressive shaft with some deviations that are a long way away helps you to stay dry. At the bottom you land on a large ledge next to the nicest looking sump pool I’ve seen, almost nice enough to make you want to go for a dip.
If that had been the end of the trip I would have been happy; I was warm, dry, not covered in mud, sat next to a lovely pool having abseiled down some impressive shafts.
I derigged the last two pitches and at the top of the 4th pitch Olly kindly mentioned that I hadn’t clipped my cowstail into my foot jammer, meaning that I had only been attached by one jammer on my ascent. I retained control of my sphincter.
On the way out we explored up a side passage. A small inocuous looking passage with hard, smooth mud on the floor led to a low squeeze. Lying on my back, head first I pushed through into a surprise. A largish chamber covered in pure white calcite with some great formations. At the end of the chamber was another squeeze and another chamber full of calcite and formations, at the end of which was another squeeze through to a chamber full of calcite and formations. I can’t remember how many there were but it just seemed to go on forever. One chamber in particular had one of the most fantastic curtains I’ve ever seen, absolutely stunning. Turns out this was Glasfurd’s chamber and the initial diggers must have been ecstatic to dig through to each of these chambers.
At the end was a choke so we got to turn round and go through them all again. After repeatedly telling each other how great it was we finally got back to the main passage and then went to explore another passage we’d seen, this one turned out to be October Series. A low crawl turned into a low aqueous crawl, followed by a narrow rift. This eventually unexpectedly popped out into a larger passage floored with sharp rocks. Left lead along an ever tighter rift and right led to a crawl under a low arch to a sump. Looking at the survey later it appears that this links up to a wet section that I spotted on the way in.
A really good trip. Don’t expect much, crawl down every side passage you see and you’ll have an enjoyable trip.