Line Art

The line-art section of this gallery has been embryonic for several years, but a bout of scanning means there are at last a few more drawings here. There are just thumbnails on this page, but all the drawings are scanned at 600 dpi so the resolutions on my own server are 10-12 times greater than these. I'm reluctant to add links, though, as my own server has very limited bandwidth and I don't want my phone line clogged up by search engines... email to photos on site pennine.demon.co.uk if you want printable versions or resolutions suitable for desktop backdrops.

This is a view down the (then recently discovered) Notts Pot II streamway. The drawing was based on a photograph by Chris Danilewicz, taken on one of the early exploration trips. The model was Mike Thomas.

In the decade after its discovery, perhaps only a couple of dozen people visited this section of the cave, which is beyond a 200+m sump, itself at the bottom of a pothole quite deep by Yorkshire standards. For the full story of its discovery and exploration, see the Northern Pennine Club's 1987 Journal.

Recently, an impressive piece of digging has yielded a remarkable entrance for non-divers, which will no doubt result in many more visitors to this really rather fine streamway. Indeed, although at one time during the surveying of this series, I was one of the dozen or so people with the most detailed knowledge of its layout and more obscure passages, it is only since this feat of excavation that I have been able to visit it in person.

This shows Andy climbing one of many active cascades in the Rio Verde streamway in Cueva del Brinco, the upper part of the extensive Sistema Purificación in Northern Mexico. The drawing is based on a photo by Peter Sprouse, leader of the 1981 expedition to the cave on which I was fortunate enough to be invited.

Rick Stanton (sitting) and John 'Chalkie' White at the entrance to the Cueva Culiembro in the Cares Gorge of the Picos de Europa in Northern Spain. Drawn from my own photograph taken during one of the Northern Pennine Club's expeditions to dive the sumps at the end of this very well-decorated cave in the late 1980's.

Gaping Gill main chamber, with daylight entering from the GG main shaft, a waterfall pitch of some 110m, which is one of the finest ladder climbs in British caving. Like the other cave-related drawings on this page, this was done for a cover picture on one issue of the Northern Pennine Club Newsletter in the late 1980's.

The Minarets on the high level route from Lancaster Hole to Easegill Caverns are a series of parallel passages formed on joints roughly perpendicular to the main direction taken by this fine cave, whose main route is determined by a gently plunging syncline. The cross section of this passage is determined by the vertical joint and a horizontal bedding plane and is one of the most distinctive and easily recognised passages in the UK, clearly picked out by the headlamp of a caver.

Although used for the NPC's newsletter cover, this pic is clearly not underground. A number of our members were into ski touring at the time, and this shows a skier skirting a crevasse on the Tiefmattengletscher, heading towards the Matterhorn. The drawing was based on a photo in a library book, I think, and I no longer have any records to give the photographer credit.