GREY WIFE HOLE

A short, clean, well-decorated trip with a couple of stings in the tail.


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From Mike Bottomley (ULSA/CPC) - 8/11/07
On a recent trip into Grey Wife Hole, Sam Allshorn and I crossed Jim’s Traverse to gain access to the far reaches of the cave. The traverse is certainly exposed but actually proved to be easier than expected. The trickiest section is probably the start which is slightly overhanging. As water levels were fairly low, there was a good airspace in the Surveyor’s Series duck. From the final tiny chamber (as recorded in existing guide books and surveys) we unexpectedly made a small new extension to the cave. The extension involves a short, vertical squeeze between blocks leading to a small chamber (roughly 4m x 3m x 2m high). At the far end of this chamber, a short, flat-out crawl at floor level leads to a route through boulders for several metres to a new final chamber (roughly 2m x 1m x 1.5m high). Beyond is a complete boulder blockage. The new extension has been surveyed and further details will be published in Descent magazine and a forthcoming ULSA Review.

From Sam Allshorn (ULSA) - 25/8/08
Somewhat belatedly, we have now drawn up a centre line survey for our small extension in Grey Wife Hole. Comparing our survey with the original survey, it is apparent that our 'extension' is not actually a new discovery! It would seem that all existing (published) descriptions for this part of the cave (including that in NFTFH) are incomplete or are too generalised to be of any use. On the other hand, the "… roomy, irregular chamber with decorations" (through a squeeze on the right, just after the 3m duck in Surveyor's Series) mentioned in NFTFH, is not recorded on the original KCC survey or on the YRC re-survey (or in any associated literature).