Topic

Meeting Ian for a bimble through the Alum Pot Churns later in the day, gave me the chance to pick a morning trip that was more vertical and still get back in time for the AGM. Taking advantage of the Ingleborough Estate area CNCC booking system and the low water level, I set off for Jib Tunnel at Gaping Gill. I've not been down this route before, the off limits nature of the winch meets and risky in wet weather has always kept me away.

An early start was rather picturesque, the sun lighting me from the rear as I walked through the snow covered nature trail. Getting my camera out to take a few photos I was disappointed to see my batteries were flat, must have left my camera on over night. On the way I was passed by a fell runner whose distinctive footprints I would follow all the way to the fork in the paths by Diss whilst she headed up to the top, I was heading down.

Jib Tunnel is a remarkably short piece of passage, a metre of easy crawling and you meet a small stream going across you towards a pitch head all of two metres away. I started rigging but took a while to find the bolts for a y-hang out over the pitch but once I was off, deviations followed and although I couldn't decide if it was wetter dangling around dealing with a deviation or just speed on by but I put in all 4 deviations, thinking at least then I wouldn't have to carry the krabs from the floor on the way out

After a knot pass, annoyingly in sight of Wingfield's Ledge, I was again confused by the rigging guide and reality. I was looking for a single bolt rebelay which I could see but it led over the edge of the ledge and I didn't fancy dragging a rope over there, but after a moment I spotted a large rope deviation dangling from the behind wall that was long enough to reach and allowed to deviate the rope enough to get it away from the ledge before a couple rebelay bolts further down the ledge allow for a free hanging decent of some 38m to the floor of the main chamber - nice.

There was still decent spray in the main chamber and so I headed for West Chamber to drink a coffee in the quiet and dry. I checked the watch there and was sad to see I was well behind schedule so instead of the planned trip through to Pool Chamber and Booth-Parson's Crawl, I just set off for the surface.

With a rebelay after 40 odd meters I decided to leave my tackle sack on the floor and pull it up over a pulley when at the top so I was pruissiking with no extra weight and it worked well. On the second pitch though it was less successful, I think the difference between a 10 kilo weight in the bag and a Type A rope I was pulling over the pulley to a Type B, meant that it was really hard work, wish I'd just pruissiked up with the bag, hauling that bag up made for sore arms Sunday. Didn't take away from the great view of the main shaft on the way up though, Jib Tunnel (Dihedral) in low water, a fabulous way to get into Gaping Gill main chamber.

Nice one Ian, be Rat Hole next

Nice report Ian, I cannot open the attachments.

How are you viewing the forum Nigel? I think on pc it should be fine, maybe not on a phone or tablet? One for Andy. the jpg is just a rigging guid, all deviation cords in place, on e a very nice eye splice.

on Flickr

I can’t view on mobile. Ian can you delete the attachment and re load as the icon is blank making me wonder if the attachment became corrupted

Hello, I've replaced the .jpg with a .png?

Nice one!