Venture the Secret Passage – 3 County Traverse

On Sunday 26^th September at 4.30am I climbed out of a cave on Casterton fell in Cumbria to a round of applause. Along with Jason Mallinson, 17.5 hours earlier I had entered Large Pot in Yorkshire and travelled underground through Lancashire. After 6 months of preparation, many setup trips and with a support team of more than 40 cavers we were the first people to traverse the length of the Three Counties cave system.

In 1968 writing in the ULSA review Dave Brook first described the theory of a mega cave system called the ‘Three Counties System’. It was considered that if it was possible to connect the caves on Ireby Fell in Yorkshire with the caves on Leck fell in Lancashire and then connect these to the Easegill system on Casterton Fell in Cumbria then a cave system spanning three counties could exist. Over the following decades cave exploration continued and slowly but surely various links were put in place and the Three Counties system began to look like it could really exist.

The final missing pieces of this caving puzzle were found in 2010 and 2011 when an extensive digging campaign by the ‘Misty Mountain Mud miners’ led to a dry route from Rift pot to Ireby Fell Cavern and then a further dry connection from Notts 2 to the Lost John’s cave system. The final route through the Three Counties traverse would involve over 8km of caving and 2km of diving.

Despite these connections it wasn’t until much more recently that the prospect of attempting a trip from one end of the system to the other was even contemplated. Due to the nature of some of the connections many of these places had been rarely visited and the 900m+ through dive from Lost Johns Cave to Pippikin Pot had never been attempted. Before anyone could carry out a trip from one end of the system to the other, a lot of work re-lining sumps, route finding underwater, rigging caves, and checking connections would be required.

The most significant dive would be the long dive from Lost Johns Cave to Pippikin Pot. The original underwater connection was made in 1989 by Geoff Yeadon after many dives in the system by Ian ‘Watto’ Watson. The conditions of the connection are described as atrocious with exploration focus elsewhere it was never repeated. In 1997 Rick Stanton and Jason Mallinson discovered Witches 2 cave (Shuttleworth pot) and connected this into the Three Counties system. Although it was a longer and deeper dive (maximum depth 32m) the route via Shuttleworth was preferred over the direct route as it avoided the nasty direct connection. Although these underwater caves were well documented no one had dived this route for a very long time. Early in the summer of 2020 a team of divers came together to work on the re-lining project. Taking advantage of the dry weather slowly but surely the passages were checked, and new lines installed where the old ones had been washed out.

At the same time the various caves on the route of the trip had to be rigged with rope and equipment staged. The most technical section of ‘dry’ caving was the route from Rift Pot to Ireby Fell Caverns through the ominously named ‘Temple of Doom’. Significant sections of this cave had been excavated by hand and the resulting passages contained some extremely small and tight sections and a lot of arduous crawling. Before we could consider attempting the full through trip, we had to ensure the connection was passable and that we would even fit!

Finally, after many months of work by lots of people the route was ready, and Jason and I were the lucky ones able to attempt the traverse. Thanks to the co-ordination of Kevin Gannon a large support team was assembled to support the event. Different teams were dispatched to the various caves enroute, each team carrying the equipment we would need to complete the trip. Over the 17.5 hours the trip took we used three different sets of caving kit and two different sets of diving gear. Only my helmet and light made the traverse with me, everything else had to be carried in and out of the various caves and put on underground. We wore wetsuits and side mounted cylinders for the two, sumps which connect Ireby to Notts 2 (450m of shallow diving) and then later drysuits and rebreathers for the 1.4km swim from Lost Johns to Pippikin Pot via Shuttleworth Pot (max depth 32m).

In total we dived seven different sumps totalling over 2.2km of underwater passage and walked and crawled over 8.6km. Re-fuelled by the food and enthusiasm of our friends when we changed equipment our spirits remained high as we approached our goal. It was only in the final few hours as we neared the end of the trip that fatigue really hit me but then, knowing the team would be waiting at the exit I was able to dig deep and push on. Surfacing finally at 4.30am I was elated that we’d completed the trip, relived that nothing had gone wrong and exhausted from the journey. Above all however I felt extremely privileged that I’d been able to take part in this trip. The Three Counties traverse is the culmination of many decades of cave exploration by generations of cavers and divers and was only possible thanks to their work as well as to all of those who supported us during the weekend.