Ireby Fell Cavern

Location
Grid Reference: |stile;54.189769;-2.496911|stile;54.184820;-2.492766|Car%20parking;54.181376;-2.498161|Rift%20Pot;54.186832;-2.493055&scale=15&centre=54.186241;-2.498613 SD 673 773

Altitude: 396m

Parking is at Masongill. See grid reference map for the route.

Large steep-sided shakehole, where stream sinks.

Description
A superb cave, suitable for SRT training.

Once down through the pipe a choice of routes present themselves:
 * Bubbles - a hole in the floor of the entrance passage. (No longer a dry choice due to change in surface stream flow).
 * Ding Dong Bell - the classic route.
 * Shadow - alternative to DDB that lands next to Bell pitch.

Once all routes have reunited a fine meandering streamway leads to Well Pitch, a short distance further on is Rope Pitch. A short distance from here is SE Inlet, this provides a tight and muddy connection through to The Temple of Doom in New Rift Pot. Continuing in the main passage more walking eventually arrives in the sizable Duke Street, pleasant strolling brings you to a sump and is usually the end for most trips.

The short (18m) sump at the end of Duke Street emerges in Duke Street II, branching off this is a canal passage to a sump, which emerges in Notts Pot

In the roof of Duke Street in Whirlpool Chamber, via a pitch up, is Skylight Passage. This is a sandy crawl of about 170m and emerges at a climb down into the canal passage, heading upstream through a short section of waist deep water brings you to Duke Street II.

The other connection to Ireby II, which breaks off from The Glory Holes, is known as Cripple Creek and is the harder alternative. This starts via a climb up from the streamway where Bubbles (and Overshadow) routes join the streamway. The route consists of lots of crawling, a reasonable portion of which is flat-out. A number of climbs/pitches up and down, minor squeezes and a traverse. The route finally emerges in the large Jupiter Cavern, exiting this down into Escalator Rift soon brings you into the very large tunnel of Duke Street II.

The two combined make for a fine and challenging round trip. Easiest and best done by using Skylight as the exit route, although this requires Well Pitch being rigged in advance or the use (and assumption) of in-situ gear for a loose traverse over Rope and Well Pitches.

Access
No permit required. See the CNCC web site.

History
Discovered in 1949.

The entrance was blocked between 1954 and 1961 when it was reopened by the Northern Pennine Club.1 It became blocked again for six months in late 1967, and was reopened by ULSA.2 During 2005 the entrance boulder slope became increasingly unstable, and early in 2006 Jack Pickup and company put in a considerable amount of work to consolidate the area.4 During this activity, the Bubbles Route was opened up and explored.5

In February 2001 Julian Corry and Ray Lea were both found dead on the same rope on Bell Pitch in flood conditions.3

In 2008 a breakthrough was made in Cripple Creek and a challenging route was forged to Ireby II from the Glory Holes. In late 2008 after a large number of cavers had spent time digging sand out of Skylight Passage (including pumping the Duke St. sump to dig from the Ireby II side, known as 'Grand Days Out') an easier route was opened up.

In 2010, after a concerted digging effort, the Misty Mountain Mud Miners succeeded in linking South East Inlet below Rope Pitch, with the extensions on the Far Side of Temple of Doom in Rift Pot, forming a system that stretches from Large Pot to the south to Iron Kiln Hole to the north, totalling some 23 km long.6

Additional Reading

 * 1) Heap D. (1964) Potholing: Beneath the Northern Pennines. London. Routledge and Kegan Paul. pp. 59-63
 * 2) MMMMC, Glory Holes / Cripple Creek, RRCPC Journal 10, pp.71-75