Wed 15 Mar 2017
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Summit of Casterton Fell
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Although the forecast was for cloud, we decided to visit Brownthwaite Pike and Casterton Fell and then go on to Ease Gill. The sun appeared and although it wasn't as warm as Monday it shone for most of the day.
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The approach to Brownthwaite Pike
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After the two fells we drove on to park at Bull Pot Farm which is tenanted by Red Rose Pothole Club. We had a look at Bull Pot of the Witches, where some years ago a caver called Ian David Plant died in the underwater caverns.
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Bull Pot of the Witches
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By the side of the path I noticed a plant with blotched leaves and photographed it. I sent a copy to my friend Colin Wild, an expert amateur botonist now living in Cornwall. He immediately identified the plant as Orchis mascula, or Early Purple Orchid. Not rare, but whether this one will escape being trodden down before it flowers is doubtful.
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Orchis mascula
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We located Lancaster Hole, where there is now a new circular lid not fastened down. We looked down it and saw that the ladder that David MacIver and I with the Red Rose Pothole Club used in the seventies has been replaced by lugs in the walls.
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Lancaster Hole
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Narrow entrance!
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We then walked over to Ease Gill, and up the dry valley until we reached the large cave with the waterfall I mentioned in my notes to the last walk there on 5 Aug 2005. I didn't recognise the place!
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The start of the dry section of Ease Gill
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The subterranean section starts here
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It's in the cave here where the water from Ease Gill pours into a deep hollow, which overflows into unseen subterranean passages. After heavy or prolonged rain they cannot contain the volume and the water gushes out from the cave and the normally dry beck can become a raging torrent. Lower down it plunges into deep gullies where the water has carved out some huge and spectacular shapes in the bedrock.
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Balanced art
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There are some interesting balanced stones near the entrance. Andrew walked up to the valley above but I was really quite tired by this time so remained below.
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A walled-off cave lower down the gill
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I was keen to show Andrew the beautiful hollowed out rocks in the lower section of the gill, and we were lucky to meet there a caver who told us something of the large subterranean cave system. It can be extremely dangerous in flood, though today, with the sun low in the sky in the west, the rocks and the moss under the leafless trees were brightly lit and a beautiful sight.
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How many years to create this?
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It was turned
five when we reluctantly left the area, determined, after three days
of erroneous weather forecasts, to in future ignore them unless there was really heavy rain
forecast, and take our chances as we had done today and Monday, when we had a couple of excellent walks.
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