link pot – the Grind Circle

Last October a trip lined up to check out an aven in Providence Pot had fallen through at the last minute, and I was casting about for something else to do instead. "You can come and help us do some surveying in Ease Gill", Becka helpfully suggested. She explained there were a few odds and sods still to be done before the Link / Pippikin sheet could be finished, including a few loose ends in the Grind. "Sounds interesting!", I said, "I've never been in the Grind before..."

In fact, I had been past the start of the Grind quite a few times. It's in the Lower Stream Passages in the EPC '71 series (aka Stake Pot Series, or Earby Series), and is an obvious inlet joining Wormway about 65m before Echo Aven. All I knew of the Grind at that point though was that it was quite extensive, and had recently been connected to Easy Street in Link Pot, providing a very esoteric alternative to the classic Ease Gill Traverse.

The Grind story starts in the 1970s, not long after the EPC Series had been found. Rob Shackleton, Julian Griffiths and Bob Mathews explored the inlet (The Dirty Passage) to where the main way on was choked, and then a clean-washed side passage (The Clean Passage) down to a static sump. The latter was later dived by the same party for a few metres to a tight bend, in what must have been a formidable trip at the time (the Northern Sump Index records the static sump as lying at the end of "approximately 300m of atrocious passage", which is probably a fair description by a party of three carrying diving gear). In 2009, James Carlisle and others would revisit this remote corner of the Ease Gill system, and dig open the end of the main passage to break into about 300m of new passage running in all different kinds of directions. As luck would have it, an initially neglected lead would later provide a startling breakthrough when in 2012 Emma Wilson and Tom Clayton pushed themselves around some desperate-sounding bends (Pickle Passage) to meet an enlargement (The Roof Tube), and find themselves looking down a 5m climb into Easy Street in Link Pot. Which just goes to show…it always pays to look in the roof! Thus was created the Grind Circle (see accompanying survey). All this new passage had been surveyed, as had the main Grind inlet (The Dirty Passage), so all that remained to (re)survey was The Clean Passage to the static sump (a 1973 CUCC survey exists, but no elevations were recorded due to instrument difficulties). In fact, the first half of this passage had been done by Emma and Tom a few weeks previously, and the trip Becka now offered a place on was to finish this off by surveying the second half.

Nose to the Grind Stone

I had turned up at the Farm late on Friday evening. There were only three of us there and warming myself by the fire I quizzed Emma and Becka:

"What's it like, this passage that we're going to survey?"

"Ah well, there's quite a bit of crawling, and some pools…", and then: "It's quite cold. We can lend you some neoprene...".

Methinks: I should have known something like that was coming! I huddled a little closer to the fire...

The next day, having entered by Link and Echo Aven, we headed up into the Grind which was new territory for me. The inlet starts off easily enough but very soon degenerates into sideways crawling in the bottom of a narrow rift, in the small inlet stream. Fortunately this is over quite quickly, and not long after Becka investigated a side passage on the right, thinking it should go to something called Zeppelin Aven. It didn't..., leaving Becka unimpressed at having to reverse a series of awkward bends at mid-height in the rift by thrutching horizontally, feet-first, backwards. It turned out the real Zeppelin Aven was further on (at Grot Junction) though we left this for another day. The main passage then becomes quite small and tortuous for a very long way, before relenting somewhat in the final stages. Eventually we arrived at the curious Letterbox Junction best described as a bedding plane crawl leading off a shelf on the right at shoulder height. From here the main passage continues to the Dark Side of the Grind, Pickle Passage, and the connection to Easy Street.

The bedding plane crawl (The Clean Passage) is very different to the main inlet. A short way in there is an oxbow, and then I had the distinct impression we had crossed into a separate development. This was strongly reinforced when the passage started to go downhill gently but perceptibly. We picked up the survey centreline from where Tom and Emma had left it on the previous trip, and soon worked out a system: Becka in front taking notes, me in the middle acting as a laser target, and Emma at the back wielding a disto. Pretty soon I found out the reason for the neoprene: surveying a flat out crawl containing 6" deep pools meant lying on my back in the water, finger pointing to some nondescript nodule in the roof, whilst the laser beam wobbled about trying to stay on target.

Fortunately the passage relented somewhat after this purgatory, though the continuing bends meant we could sometimes only take very short survey legs. Nevertheless, I was starting to get very cold, and the borrowed neoprene only delayed the onset of teeth chattering. After what seemed like endless survey legs I had to give up, and begged to be allowed to warm up by crawling forward to find out just how much further it was to the static sump. But it turned out we were almost there – only a couple more bends and a new pool appeared, became elbow deep around the next bend, and peering forward I could convince myself the roof dipped to water level. I shouted back the good news and as a reward was allowed to to retreat back to Letterbox Junction.

For some reason the passage seemed longer on the way out than the way in. Also, by the time I got near the oxbow near the start, I could hear an ominous deep rumbling noise. I told myself there was no rain forecast, and it could only be the sound of the other two making their way back, but still the clean-washed state of the passage preyed on my mind: I was glad to get past the oxbow and back into the main passage. The others did indeed arrive soon afterwards and we made our way out steadily, though again the passage somehow seemed much longer on the way out than the way in. Parts of it are very repetitive, and I could not always remember the order in which the obstacles came. It was a relief to get back to Grot Junction, then the section of sideways crawling, and to stand up finally in the relative roominess of Wormway once again. Back at Echo Aven, Emma introduced us to the alternative Ohce pitch which is now permanently rigged and avoids the strenuous narrow rift section above the original Echo Aven pitch. With that behind us, we were soon on the surface.

It was a job well done, we thought. Apart from the small side passage to Zeppelin Aven that had been left, the whole of the Grind has now been ticked off. On the way back I wondered just how many people have been to the static sump at the end of the Clean Passage. As far as we could figure, we might well be only the 3rd or 4th party since the original (two) trips in the 1970s. It's certainly a remote spot, and still off route even for the Grind – Easy street connection. It seems likely to remain as little visited in the future as it has been in the 45 years since the first exploration.

The accompanying survey is cobbled together from cave survey data taken from the Cave Data Repository at cave-registry.org.uk, and the original 1973 CUCC survey found on the CaveMaps website (since the three of us were ex-CUCC also, never let it be said that CUCC doesn't finish something that it starts). The static sump at the end of The Clean Passage seems to be close to the end of Cobble Crawl in Link Pot, and at the same level, though there is to my knowledge no obvious 'other end' of the static sump. The Grind Circle itself comprises the main passage (The Dirty Passage) in the Grind, Pickle Passage, and the Roof Tube into Easy Street. One can reach these from the Serendipity pitches in Link, and then return by Echo Aven. As many have pointed out, this trip is "not for the fainthearted" and would certainly be worthy of inclusion in the book of the same name.

click on the survey to get a pdf version

Original exploration reports

Lancaster Hole: Earby Extension: The Grind, Rob Shackleton, Cambridge Underground (CUCC) 1973, pp 8–11.

Odds and Ends in Lancaster Hole, Rob Shackleton, Cambridge Underground (CUCC) 1975, pp 11–12.

The Grind, Northern Sump Index 2015, p 218.

Lancaster Hole – The Dark Side of The Grind, James Carlisle, RRCPC J. 10, 2009, pp 146–150.

The Grind Circle, Tom Clayton, RRCPC J. 11, 2016, pp 69–72.

Adapted from CPC Record 133, 14-15 (Jan 2019).