Members of the Burnley Caving Club have spent some adventurous weekends recently exploring the caves and potholes in the Yorkshire Dales - including Penyghent Pot, the deepest in the country. On Sunday an advance party of the club members descended into Penyghent Pot taking with them equipment which was used by a group of eight expert potholers from the club when they explored the place the following Saturday. At the deepest point of the descent, the potholers were five hundred and twenty seven feet below ground.
Having made their way down a maze of passages, waded up to their waists through icy waters, clambered down a natural staircase, and descended thirteen pitches using more than three hundred feet of ladders and life lines until they were about a mile horizontal distance underground. Retracing their steps towards the surface, the explorers celebrated their successful descent with a party in one of the subterranean passages at two thirty a.m. food being heated in a make shift kitchen. Then at three a.m. the explorers moved off again, to the bottom of a one hundred and thirty foot pitch which took them two hours to ascend.
They came out of their wet and arduous trip twelve hours after they had descended down into the pothole. A week later a group of club members visited some of the small caves in Ribblesdale, the further reaches of Clapham cave, and Pikedaw caverns near Malham. Later fourteen members explored a section of the vast Easegill caverns on Casterton Fell. The trip underground lasted about five hours and included a visit to Easter Grotto. The following week a small party of members descended Bar Pot, on the slopes of Ingleborough.
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