CRO underground controller Paul Nicholls recovers a plastic high-energy drink bottle, near Pecca Falls. According to the CRO, it apparently didn’t provide enough energy for its owner to carry it to a bin!

Cave rescuers were kept busy this week with a tricky operation involving ropework to get to inaccessible areas of one of the Yorkshire Dales’ best known beauty spots.

Members of the Clapham-based Cave Rescue Organisation were out in force to undertake an ‘extreme litter pick’ around the Ingleton Falls walk. The team, which goes to the aid of both cavers and fellwalkers, put its skills to work on the clean-up on Sunday.

According to Rae Lonsdale, of the CRO, members of the organisation scavenge people’s litter from places routine litter-picking can’t reach.

Team members were also called to help two overdue Three Peaks walkers just before midnight the same day. The men, from West Yorkshire, were reported overdue on the 24-mile challenge, having been last seen at 5.30pm at the Hill Inn, Chapel-le-Dale. A search was mounted and they were found just before 1am on Monday, at the top of Sulber Nick, on the eastern side of Ingleborough.

Mr Lonsdale said they had taken the wrong route from the summit plateau and been re-directed from Gaping Gill. “Unfortunately they had left torches and mobile phone in their car,” he said, “So had no means of reading their map, once darkness had fallen.  They were guided to ‘Sulber crossroads’, then driven by 4×4, back to Horton in Ribblesdale.”

CRO members also went to the aid of a woman from Greater Manchester who fell near the outfall of Malham Tarn, suffering a suspected broken ankle. Yorkshire Air Ambulance crew members called for CRO backup when faced with a long cross-country trip to get to the woman. However, as rescue team members arrived, fellow walkers and the air ambulance staff had managed to rescue the walker.