On the 24th of June 1967 ten young
people from an assortment of caving
clubs walked to the entrance of Mossdale
Caverns, a notoriously tricky and
underexplored system of limestone caves
in the Yorkshire Dales. They entered in
high spirits eager to break new ground
and test their caving mettle... but only
four of them would ever return from
beneath the ground. The events that
transpired that day would constitute one
of the worst caving disasters in UK
history. Mossdale Caverns were first
explored in 1941 by Bob Leakey of the
British Speleological Association. It was
an extremely challenging cave system
consisting of a series of brutally
narrow passageways half submerged
tunnels and sections which had to be
navigated while neck-deep in water.
Indeed Mossdale represented such a
fearsome challenge that Mr Leakey
conducted many of his expeditions solo
having been unable to find any other
caver willing to accompany him. This
changed in the 1960s when a new
generation of cavers emerged
equipped with neoprene wet suits and
other modern equipment. They were fit
smart and keen to explore. To cavers and
potholers an unexplored cave system
was like Everest: a dangerous but
alluring mountain that they longed to
conquer.
While Bob Leakey had created several
hand-drawn maps of the Mossdale Caverns
there were still areas that had not yet
been fully explored. As such these
dangerous caves drew potholers from
far and wide. These explorations were not
without incident. In 1953, for example, two
members of the Ilkley Pothole Club
became trapped in the caverns by rising
floodwaters. Thankfully they were well
supplied and were able to find a dry
spot near the entrance to shelter. They
kept themselves warm through bouts of
exercise and rationed their slender
supplies of food. Eventually, as the
waters receded, a rescue team were able
to reach them and guide them out of the
caverns. Following this incident the
rescue team approached the landowner to
ask if they might dig a channel to
divert water away from the entrance of
the caverns. They knew that cavers would
continue to come and explore Mossdale and
that the risk of more cavers becoming
trapped by rising waters was a real and
deadly one. Unfortunately the landowner
refused their request.
Despite the danger the interest in
Mossdale did not wane. David Adamson of
the Leeds University Union
Speleological Society made multiple
trips to the cave system over the course
of several years with the aim of mapping
it, understanding it, and perhaps even
conquering it - the expedition he led on
the 24th of June 1967 was in aid of this
goal. He planned to navigate the narrow
passages of Mossdale and blast open a
blocked passage to facilitate further
exploration in the future. Out of the
entire group only Adamson and his friend
Geoff Boireau had ever entered Mossdale
before. The rest of the group were mostly
experienced cavers who were well aware
of the fearsome reputation of Mossdale.
Also included in the party were two non-cavers: Collette Lord and Morag Forbes who
was in fact Adamson's fiance. The weather
was good when the group struck out on
foot from the nearby village of Grassington, but the forecast for the night
ahead was uncertain. Knowing that bad
weather would mean an infinitely more
dangerous trip through Mossdale Caverns, a few members of the group
became nervous. The two non-cavers in
particular weren't up for a difficult or
perilous trip underground.
After some discussion two experienced
cavers offered to chaperone the two non-cavers on a short easy circuit of some
of the upper caverns. This would allow
the six remaining experienced cavers to
forge ahead and complete their mission
of blasting through the blockage deep in
Mossdale. So it was that the group split.
Adamson and Boireau led four other men
into the bowels of the earth. Adamson bid
farewell to Forbes, his fiance, before
doing so, confident he would see her
again in a matter of hours. He was wrong,
of course. The six cavers would never
emerge from the mouth of Mossdale Caverns.
The group of four took a relatively
leisurely route through the upper
caverns of Mossdale and emerged just as
the light was beginning to fade. The two
experienced cavers took Colette Lord
back to civilization, while Morag Forbes
sheltered in a nearby barn to wait for
her husband-to-be and his intrepid band
of cavers to emerge. It would be a long
wait; they weren't due back until after
midnight.
While Morag waited a light drizzle
turned into torrential rain. Concerned, Morag returned to the cave entrance
and saw it completely submerged beneath
a pool of swirling muddy water. Frantic,
she ran two miles to a nearby farm in
order to phone the police. Just after
11:00pm that night one of the biggest
cave rescue operations in the history of
the UK began.
Cave rescue is a tricky business at the
best of times.
Affecting a rescue from the complex and
perilous Mossdale Caverns in the
torrential rain was all but impossible...
but that didn't stop rescuers from
trying. A team comprised of cavers from
all over Yorkshire and the UK, as well as
police and firemen, descended on the
entrance of Mossdale. Over the course of a
single night they dug a massive ditch
and dammed the stream where it fed the
pool around the entrance. JCB diggers
were brought in to help along with 19
fire engine pumps. 10,000 sandbags were
laid by hand to reinforce the dam. By
morning much of the water had been
diverted and a team of rescuers were
ready to enter the caverns. Inside
there was still a great deal of water.
Ceilings throughout were coated with
foam and the tunnels burped and sloshed
as water drained from them. Several times
rescuers thought they heard voices
crying for help but each time it turned
out to be nothing more than a trick of
the mind. The group reached Far Marathon,
a long tunnel just 10 inches high and 2
feet wide. It was here where they started
to encounter bodies. Two jammed the
passageway almost completely and a
rescue worker had to clamber over them
to find three more. Of
the sixth and final body there was no
sign. Traumatized and dispirited the
rescue team were told to retreat. The dam
outside was visibly trembling and had
broken several times. Their fellow cavers
had resorted to shoring up the breaks
with their own bodies, making hasty
repairs to keep the rescue party safe.
Five were dead - that much was certain, but
what of the sixth? Could one caver have
miraculously survived? Bob Leakey, the man
who originally surveyed Mossdale Caverns,
travelled to the site to lead another
rescue team into the depths. He went far
beyond the five bodies lodged in Far
Marathon, but found no sixth, and was
eventually forced to retreat by a change
in the weather.
It wasn't until late on Tuesday night
that the final body was found. The last
caver had climbed into a narrow vertical
defile in the rock. The space was barely
big enough to accommodate a human being,
and he was only discovered because one
boot was sticking out into the passage
below. It is thought that in desperation
he clambered into this narrow space to
try and find an air pocket and escape
the rising waters which eventually
claimed his life. There was some debate
about reclaiming the bodies, but it was
decided that it would be far too
dangerous.
It was a five-hour crawl to reach the
place where they was stuck, and with the
dam still unstable any retrieval
operation would be hazardous in the
extreme. After conferring with a coroner
and with the families of the dead it was
decided that the cave would be sealed
and thereafter treated as a grave.
Although officially the caverns are now
off-limits cavers still visit. In 1970 a
small group entered Mossdale and moved the
bodies of the six dead cavers to one of
the dry upper caves known as The
Sanctuary. Others visit on a semi-regular
basis, surveying the caverns, drawing up
maps, and conquering Mossdale little by
little. Even death, it seems, cannot daunt
the adventurous spirit of cavers.
Many who were present at Mossdale during
the frantic rescue efforts still
remember it vividly.
They gave their all to do something that
seemed utterly impossible.
The report of the rescue concludes with
such a sentiment. Never, it reads,
has so much been done by so many people,
for such a small reward.
