Snurds Hole, Penyghent Gill, Easter 1972.
Photograph by Bob Greenwood.
Bernie Bond could probably (!) give you the exact date for this photo as it was taken the
day after his wedding. Graham Sumner on the first descent of the pitch, lined by John Gregory. The entrance
to Snurds Hole was excavated in winter 1972 by various clubs including MUSS, BPC and BCC. The BPC
were not happy that we beat them to the first exploration, hence the name of the cave.
The pitch drops into a small chamber that leads to an intimidating duck into the main
drainage for Penyghent Gill. The passage is small with a lot of water and (thankfully) it soon
sumps. The water resurges two hundred and fifty feet lower and three and a half miles away at Litton Main Rising.
The discovery of Snurds Hole indicated the vast potential of Penyghent Gill and Upper
Littondale, still not realised. A couple of years later we had our best find in the area,
Spittle Croft Cave. This was opened by myself, John Gregory, Bob Greenwood and Colin Ottaway of
ULSA and about four thousand feet of passage explored. The CDG dived the upstream sump to a large chamber
and major stream. No further exploration has taken place. Downstream the cave takes a massive
draft, the strongest I have ever felt in an UK cave. We didn't get round to digging the
downstream choke and I gave up active caving shortly after the discovery. It would be great to
see the rest of the Upper Littondale system explored, preferably by BCC. There are a number of
promising leads in addition to downstream Spittle Croft.
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