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Short Drop Cave and Gavel Pot are different entrances into the same cave system on Leck Fell, in Lancashire, England. The main top entrance, Short Drop Cave, is a small hole in a fenced off shake-hole near the main stream sink; Gavel Pot, a window into the system, is a large fenced shakehole some deep requiring tackle to descend. There are two other smaller entrances into Short Drop Cave. At it base the system links via a sump with Lost Johns' Cave, and is part of the Three Counties System, an cave system which spans the borders of Cumbria, Lancashire, and North Yorkshire. ==Description== The main entrance into Short Cave is at the end of a a shallow valley where a small hole drops into a stream passage. Upstream leads to a canal passage which becomes too tight, although a low passage on the right before the end leads to the Coal Hole entrance. Downstream, of mainly low passage leads to a oxbow with a larger passage arriving from Rift Entrance. A long low inlet passage called Masochist Passage can be followed to the north-east for some almost up to the Rumbling Hole stream sinks, and an old high level route named Ancient Highway loops back to the main route. Downstream continues as a canyon passage which steadily enlarges, passing an inlet passage on the left where the main water enters which can be followed up to where it becomes choked with boulders underneath the stream sink. The main passage continues for about up to high and wide, under a boulder bridge wedged across the passage, to finish in a choke in a roof chamber. The water then follows a narrow meandering canyon to the first waterfall pitch of , and continues to a second pitch of at the base of which the water disappears into a choked sump pool. A traverse can be followed over the top of the pitch round to where a pitch enters from the Gavel Pot doline. Rift Entrance () is a currently blocked entrance just over the wall from the main sink. A climb down enters a rift chamber, where a passage enters the First Oxbow in Short Drop Cave. Coal Hole Entrance () is located in a small shakehole SE of Rumbling Hole. A long crawl eventuallly reaches a bedding chamber with a coal seam exposed in the walls. Here, an excavated squeeze drops into Canals Inlet in Short Drop Cave. Gavel Pot () consists of a steep-sided shakehole some deep, and in circumference - reputedly the largest shakehole in England. Scrambling down the eastern side, a ledge is reached where an pitch lands at the end of the traverse from Short Drop Cave. In the other direction a high canyon passage soon enters the bottom of the Gavel Pot shakehole, overlooked by rocky ramparts. In the corner a further pitch over a chockstone lands in a chamber where an excavated drop lands in the main passage. The water from Short Drop soon enters from the right, and a large collapse from Ash Tree Hole on the surface is passed on the left. The passage develops into a canyon, and drops down two well-watered shafts of and . The final one lands in a chamber with a sump pool, which is a window into the underwater passages carrying water from Notts Pot to the resurgence at Leck Beck Head. Upstream has been dived for to a shaft deep. At the bottom a descending passage chokes at a depth of , the deepest point in the Three Counties System. The main downstream has been dived past a junction at . Upstream here emerges at the downstream sump of Lost Johns' Cave after . Downstream has been dived for some to the resurgence, much of it at depth. A window in the upper part of the main passage leads through a series of well decorated chambers called Glasfurd's Chamber.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Short Drop Cave - Gavel Pot System」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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