Family is winched to safety from cave

[Cheryl Jones]

Family is winched to safety from cave
David Hogg
Yorkshire Post Today

A FAMILY of pothole enthusiasts had to be rescued from a Yorkshire cave system when they were unable to climb down a huge vertical waterfall.
The group of four, including two young boys, had been trying to navigate through the Yordas Cave system at Kingsdale, near Ingleton in North Yorkshire, when they came to a standstill at the nine-metre drop.

They decided it was impossible to go any further together and called for help because the way back was too steep for them to climb.

Tom Redfern, of the Cave Rescue Organisation, said the family had done "the sensible thing" in calling for assistance rather than trying to battle on.
"The two lads were 12 and nine years old, so, when they came to this drop, it was fairly obvious it was going to be a bit difficult to ensure they could get down safely," he said.

The boys' mother and her partner, who is not their father, had decided to enter the cave system with the children on Wednesday at 4pm after driving up from their home in Nottingham.

They descended down a number of sharp inclines but decided the final drop was too slippery and steep to risk the children's safety. The man climbed down himself and called for help from a nearby farm after leaving the cave system.

Within minutes, 24 rescuers had arrived and they winched the family to safety uninjured. The whole operation took just over an hour.

21 April 2006

[potholer]

Hmm.
The climb down after the middle entrances, which is presumably how they got in (the top entrance being decidedly vertical), would be enough to put most people off free-climbing down Yordas.
The final drop, where they sensibly stopped, is rather along the lines of a cascade - free-climbable by some, if not too wet, but not exactly for the faint-hearted, and with water covering most holds. There was a fair amount of water going down it when I was playing on ropes in there on Monday, and I doubt it had dried out hugely by Wednesday.

Given the lowest entrance is a walk-in cave where the bottom of the final drop is accessible after a few second's walk from daylight (popular with passing torch-carrying tourists), I wonder why someone thinking of free-climbing down didn't nip in on their way past to the middle entrances and check the climb out from below.

In my book, 'pothole enthusiast' would tend to imply someone likely to carry gear for vertical drops.

[Tim White]

potholer- Thanks for the first hand insight!