Return to Aquamole

[Caver Keith]

This is a 10 minute edit of my film Return to Aquamole. The complete film was premiered in the Underground Session at the Kendal Mountain Festival on Friday 22nd November 2024.

In 1974 legendary cave diver Geoff Yeadon was the first to pass the 168 metre sump upstream from Rowten Pot in Kingsdale Valley. He discovered the impressive 40 metre high Aquamole Aven.

Geoff retired from cave diving in 1997.

In the winter 2000 Rupe Skorupka and Martin Holroyd scaled Aquamole Aven to a height of 50 metres. It pinched out, but they were able to gain access to a second series of inlet passages, the top of which was radio-located to a point 10 metres below the surface.
Rupe was joined by Bob Jacklin and members of the Northern Speleological Group and work started in January 2002 to dig out a surface shaft. Aquamole Aven was finally connected to the surface in June 2002.

A trip beginning by descending Aquamole Pot, as it is now named, to exit at Valley Entrance is now a classic through trip for cave divers and is considered to be a somewhat of a right of passage for the new generation of underwater cave explorers. In spite of his underground discoveries in Kingsdale Valley it was a trip that Geoff Yeadon had never done.

However, on Sunday the 6th August 2023, Geoff supported by a team of over 20 cavers and cave divers, was persuaded out of retirement to complete for the first time this classic descent and cave dive.