Small Mammal Pot#
** 6th December 2018**
It’s wet so a trip down some part of Bar Pot seemed a good idea with John Martin, plus John had never been to Main Chamber. I’d never done Small Mammal Pot before so this seemed a good choice. I packed the bags as per the CNCC rigging Topo but for some reason it doesn’t mention the traverse round South East Pot. Luckily I remembered.
There’s no CNCC description for SMP but I’d seen this at the excellent braemoor website. For some inexplicable reason I didn’t print it out.
John Martin was running a bit late plus he had to pick up my newly repaired cave suit from Pennine Outdoors (impressively cheap). We met Kevin Chadwick in Clapham and had a natter and then on the walk up we met John Cordingly and we again had a natter. Then we moved a dead tree from the entrance to Fox Holes and eventually we reached Bar Pot entrance where we sheltered from the wind and rain whilst we got into our SRT kit.
It was a bit later than I’d planned by now but not to worry, it’s not a long trip. Well it shouldn’t be a long trip, however, Small Mammal Pot has more about it than I realised. I originally dismissed the way on in Flowstone Chamber as I concentrated on the rift which is too narrow rather than the crawl above the rift. This resulted in a thorough exploration of nearly all of the rest of SMP, ending with John climbing, what I later worked out to be, the Molestrangler and seeing the exit of Stile Pot. At various points during this exploration I convinced myself we must be in the wrong cave.
After exhausting every possibility we went back to Flowstone Chamber and crawled through the bedding plane, stayed left away from the rift on the right (dropping down this rift leads to a 10m? pitch which brings you out at the Bar Pot big pitch) and eventually found the Greasy Slab. At the Bar Pot big pitch we traversed out right rather than through the hole and then onto Main Chamber; just follow the draught. (I later learnt that there’s another route from the top of the big pitch. As you look the drop there’s a route through a hidden rift that goes left. I’d seen a bolt in this vicinity and wondered what it was there for.)
Main Chamber had an impressive amount of water flowing into it and so much spray it was difficult to get a good view. The noise of the waterfall as we approached Main Chamber was also seriously impressive.
About 5 hours total time underground, mostly due to a lack of a printout. A lot of my most enjoyable trips are caused by not taking a description and this one didn’t disappoint.
River Ribble water levels at Settle before and after the trip - from the excellent Gauge Map and also on Twitter
Data also available at Gov.uk and at the Cave Diving Group visbot page.