Not so Doomed after all - 09/12/2021

 

We agreed to meet in the Miners for pre-beer and mainly to decide what the plan was. The drive over was horrific! Pooled and flowing water on most roads with a river flowing down Eyam Dale. We both laughed in the pub at how easy it would be to just stay there for another one but going underground got the better of us. We had an inclination after last week that Loper Lust could well be sumped especially after the last few days worth of rain. Luke had bailed (typical) so Black Draught was out of the equation as it's a one person dig and would be even more minging on a day like today. We concocted a plan to check LL to see how full it was and if passable we'd go for it, if not then we'd re-inspect the mine in Inglorious. 

 

Luckily for us the rain eased slightly whilst we were kitting up. The Saltpan was booming which'd mean easy washing afterward if not getting swept off our feet! We wasted little time and bombed it down into the warmth of the cave. Rob did some gardening at the top of inglorious and once down I started to make my way to the pitch head, not long after he shouted up, "It's open!" - Brilliant. On descending I swung into a rift which was completely choked but needed ticking off. We had a quick look at a couple of places in the floor before dumping kit and only taking essential gear (distox). I made my way in first completely expecting to push through the crawl with one ear and eye above the water scraping the roof with my helmet but to my surprise water levels in LL were exactly the same as last week if not a bit lower. Now I was happy - Always a good trip with TAP.

 

We crawled through and made our way to the start of the Wet West Caverns to survey the mine level and chamber from last week. It wasn't long after stepping off the ladder that the walls started to reverberate! We edged closer and closer to the 12ft/waterfall pitch which was shouting out a deafening rumble! We turned the corner to find a brown, swollen, raging torrent thundering down the pitch no doubt coming from The Wet West sump. We bounced around buzzing at seeing the place like this whilst documenting it on Rob's phone (which he'd took through the LL crawl in a plastic bag which was already piss wet through) before stepping across the pitch and beginning the survey to the chamber. It didn't take long to reach the chamber which Rob was impressed with. After completing the survey we carried the old iron entrance ladder over to one of the leads in the roof. It only just reached and Rob kicked in a few good foot holes and crawled away for a few body lengths before reaching it was blocked to the roof. We both inspected the shaft above and agreed it'd require some pretty bomber bolts to get you across before ascending the shaft as the rock in the chamber is poor.

 

 

We returned to the bottom of the riser with it's awkward back and foot but just before ascending we had to check out the bottom of the pitch with it's thundering torrent. Rob started videoing and I shot off not wanting to remain in the waterfall for too long. He quickly followed completely saturating his phone in the process before we had a gawp down the pitch (we really need to rig this as an alternative descent). We made our way back and after surveying the blind level heading north we went for a quick look at how full the small connecting tube was, there was a small airspace but it wasn't worth getting wet for. 

 

 

We retraced our steps and our second objective for the night was to check out top level Doom and the possible LL continuation dig. Entered from the original breakthrough point (which I'd not done) we made our way back to LL and a crawled through the breakthrough constriction. It still baffles me how close the original exploration team were to accessing this stuff via multiple easy digs. A short crawl leads to a large airbell where Doom enters via a boulder shute from the left. Straight on the floor dropped away to a small airspace which is similar to the previous digs we've completed in LL and draughting outwards. We climbed up the boulder shute and Rob noticed a crawl heading right which he couldn't remember at all (10+ years ago). We followed said crawl which was caked in mud to a short muddy climb down. Luckily for us we could see the arse end of the LL continuation dig which concludes that one and was met with a body sized hole at the back end of the chamber to what looked like a ledge at the top of a pitch. I dropped down to the ledge and was amazed at how big this place was and it was mostly natural mined out. Rob joined me and recognised this section. Looking down the pitch we could see a Launder and stacking, a small iron track led across a big drop which was where Rob finally joined the dots. Turns out we were in the roof of the pipe caverns not far away from the climb up to Doom. We'd read about this recently in JSB's diaries and the whole place made sense. It was good to connect the two if not remember it from 10 years ago. Rob quoted a funny anecdote of him and Mark traversing over the iron beam to gain access to this ledge - must've been bonkers, I wouldn't have done it!

 

We made our way back to the Doom breakthrough point and clambered up over the boulders. I checked out a natural rift to the right which probably drops down to where we just were whilst Rob checked out a small crawl to investigate on the way out. I was utterly impressed by the dimensions of the place - ITS MASSIVE! A huge mine level stretching left and right with shit going off everywhere! and this was the top smallest section. We headed left towards where we originally thought we'd drop into via Cussey. We went right to the end collapse for a quick look which looked terminal. A small crawl along the left wall led to a stack of miners deads and after a short dig seemed voidy downwards to the left. This almost certainly links with where Rob was capping last week above the riser.

JonP climbing up into Pole Vault Level 

 

 

We stomped back and Rob showed me a level heading off North which they'd not climbed into. We jokingly grabbed three pieces of miners track in the shape of a banana and placed them up the climb. I started to climb up towards the level which was about 6m from the floor. I reached a point where I felt in a rather exposed position. Rob said it right, might as well carry on up than fall to my death so I continued up the climb and worried about getting down until after. Once up I shouted down to Rob that the level continued. He quickly followed me up using the iron as a sort of pole vault stick! We walked up the level passing amazing flowstone and cave pearls before coming to a forefield after 20m where some candles were left on the wall. We made our way back to the climb and looked at the exposed traverse up to a rock bridge, we decided against this and Rob made the climb down look easy. I however fecked it up royally! I ended up using the pole vault method and then used the fireman's pole method until I was safely on the ground. Once both safely on the floor we chuckled to ourselves over the stupidity/severity of the situation we could've been in!

 

Rob showed me another lead of similar nature heading back towards Cussey which we left for a another trip. We stomped back towards our entry point and continued towards the Temple of Doom. We reached a large whole in the floor which requires a bold traverse around the left wall with no hand holds which reminds me of the front cover of Alex Honnold's book - Alone on the wall! Once over the other side we entered a large chamber with 3 connecting holes on the left wall, the last one is rigged which is the original way to the rest of Doom. We then retraced our steps and a climb down in the large hole with the traverse leads to an exposed climb down and a short traverse to Cherticle Aven which was howling down with rain, again another trip for another day.

 

Once back up the exposed climb we made our way back to the Doom entry point/boulder shute. Rob checked out his bouldery crawl which turned out to be just a large airbell filled with deads. Content with tonights trip we headed out and without hiccups made our way to surface. Washing off in the Saltpan was amazing and all we had to do was clip our SRT kits to the grille and leave them for a minute or so. We sat in my van drinking our celebratory Hobgoblins, elated after another TAP trip in the books. 

 

Gotta be up there as a solid contender for the top 5 trips of the year!