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Kingsdale Valley Entrance
19 September 2010 - Nigel Dibben
This trip to White Scar started well with everyone meeting in Inglesport at 8.30 am (yes, that's before midday!). However, it had been raining all night and all the morning and on the way up to White Scar the amount of water emerging from the hillsides and resurgences showed that a trip into the cave was becoming unlikely. They wouldn't let us into White Scar so we decided to give up and go to Kingsdale instead. One group went straight there and others went round via Dent to have a look at the rivers feeding Kingsdale. Some spectacular photos were taken of rivers in flood.
Nigel and Tom looked into Yordas on the way but it was full to the brim with foamy water and you couldn't even get into the main chamber.
At Kingsdale Valley Entrance, it was still raining so we reckoned it had to be drier underground than on the surface - how wrong we were! Inside, the ducks were still just a wet crawl but from there to the end of the Valley Entrance series, there was deep water and a strong current. At the Master Cave, the water was about 2 m below the passage exit.
Tony, Pete, Neil, Allan, Richard and John went up Toyland to pop some rocks but when the water had been seen to rise two inches in half an hour, they made a strategic retreat.
It was cold and wet but interesting nevertheless to see just how aqueous the Valley Entrance can be in bad weather. We all decided to continue the discussion about the cave in the Marton Arms.
It was good to see two old friends on the trip, Chris Gilley and Paul Dyson. Maybe they'll rejoin the DCC now they know that we still exist and still go caving.
