Cussey Pot
During Lockdown 2020 a new hole was spotted to draught bigger and stronger than any cave in the Peak. We dug it open and this is what happened....
Full description of the trip can be viewed here.
The current survey can be downloaded from here.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Dave B, Jon P, Rob E.
We needed an easy trip this week after the gone midnight trip last week plus Rob was feeling a little soft and I wasn't much better. Groggy was the appropriate word we came up with. Long on the mind had we wanted to take another look at Pick Axe Rift which lies just in Shattered Dreams (a 10min trip). After a quick pint at the Miners We headed over and slowly kitted up clearly unmotivated.
In the roof of Pick Axe Rift, by JonP
Once at Pick Axe Rob installed a ladder for the climb down and after a quick photo for prosperity Rob made the first valiant attempt at digging the mud in the bottom (which was super filth). From our memory this looked alright but tonight it shone differently. The dig looked crap and although there was a slight inwards draught indicating the continuation is probably not the mine below - we rapidly came to the conclusion that this dig wasn't for us! We all had a little poke then slowly made our way to the surface, Rob even skipped the post beer - which says a lot!
Another question mark ticked and sacked off for someone with keener eyes.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Sooty proving tricky – 10/06/2021
JonP, DaveB, RobE
After the success of last week’s trip we were fully stoked for finding loads today. Quick pre-beers at the Miner’s and straight down to work.
Highlight of his trip
Loper Lust as crap as always and Sooty feels like quite far from home. Jon and Dave went in first to push the horizontal level whilst I spent a bit of time enlarging the entrance crawl and putting in the Y-hang. Unfortunately they had not progressed far, finding a partially natural bedding passage which ended quickly at a choke. Massive draught going in and a pitch could be seen and heard beyond, but hard work to enter. I left them trying whilst I had a look at the climber shaft.
The start looked like a pretty free climb and as I was already totally covered in crap I didn’t really fancy dragging full bolt climbing gear up there. After a little consideration I decided to freeclimb it and pull up the bolting gear after. Turns out this was an OK option, but probably a silly choice in hindsight as the top 4m of the 11m shaft was very slippy and wide. The level off the top was very small so made a really poor landing spot to get my harness on and to bolt a rope into place. Finally this was done and Dave came up to join me. A quick dig through a small collapse and we entered a small level heading both ways. We could see a long was left (south) but it was too full of sediment to make any progress. Either way north was more of interest to us and we crawled along this really old feeling level for a short way until we reached a small, drippy chamber we could stand up in. From here the passage only continued a few more metres before the fill got too high again. No draught in any of this extensions disheartened us and we didn’t bother push either of the ways on and simply surveyed our way back to Jon, leaving it rigged for now in case anything changes.
Looking down the climber
Meanwhile, Jon had done nothing without tools other than get cold, so we all started out. We surveyed on the way, tying into a prominent corner on the main 280 level which we can pick up from old maps. By the time we were all out it had been over 5 hours and well passed midnight. Getting a bit long for an evening trip now.
Results show we are about 50m away from Cussey and at a good elevation to connect with some draughting leads in Rocky Horror. However 50m seems like a long way unless it gets a bit easier going. Only one way to know…
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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3/6/21 – Jon, Jeff, Luke, MJ, Rob
The full team were introduced to a Swiss addition at the Miner’s then we headed straight to work. The plan was for me and Luke to go to the pointy end to bolt climb up Sooty and Sweep, found last week, whilst the others followed along behind taking photos and showing MJ about.
On the way I managed to nearly fall down Shattered Dreams pitch when a foothold broke. Then Luke nearly got shattered at the bottom of Inglorious as a football sized rock fell from the top and glanced off his shoulder, knocking him flying but still in one piece. These things happen in threes so we were really careful from there on. Arriving at the bolt climb your idiot author then realised that he’d not picked up the bolt climbing rope from the Cussey breakthrough ladder. To go back and get it is a good (rubbish) 40 minutes round trip so after a few minutes deliberating whether we should just head back to the pub or maybe continue without the rope(!) we decided to both go back and get it. All of the points that Team Awesome had already lost so far were then massively made up for and more when we realised that Jon had collected the rope and brought it with him, and they were only 5 minutes away! Reet happy. We left them taking photos and went back to the climbs.
MJ in the level heading towards Sooty and Sweep, by JonP
Both climbs looked quite short, maybe 6 or so bolts, but Sooty was my favourite due to the black walls suggesting the draught went that way. Unfortunately the first bolt proved that most of the rock was actually more like hard mud and we’d have been better off with ice axes. A few bolts up I was very glad we didn’t decide on doing the climb without the rope! Oh, and i'd forgotten etriers which made for some hilarious antics. Luck and light thoughts got me to the top and I finally installed a Y-hang in some good rock in the roof. From here I could see through a small gap over a pile of boulders into a dark level taking a huge draught!
Entrance crawl after digging it wider, rope just visible at the end
Just as the photo team arrived I dived into this crawl head first, realising only then that it was actually very small and so took 5 inelegant minutes to get my fat arse through. What lay beyond looks like very old mine workings. I followed the level for maybe 20m, mostly stooping height with the occasional stemple in place still. I stopped where a nice looking climber shaft drops in from above which looked about 7m high. A good echo from above and some of the draught going that way make that a good lead for next week. Straight ahead the level continues and takes most of the draught. Game on! With two leads to go at and nobody else seemingly keen to come up tonight I turned around, took some video, and headed back to the rope, digging out the entrance crawl a bit bigger whilst passing.
Looking up the climber
The plod out was nicely uneventful but proved to us all that actually pushing Sooty is starting to get a bit demanding for an evening trip. Let’s hope we can quickly smash through into Rocky Horror and get the round trip completed.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Dave B, Jon P & Rob E.
Quick "easy" trip tonight to fix the bendy ladder which connects Cussey to Doom/WW. Rob took the heavy bag whilst Dave and I opted for the scaffold poles. Dave got the better deal and had a shorter pole which made for easy haulage through the chokes but the longer bar which I had proved to slide much easier through Loper Lust where as Dave's lil' bar filled with mud.
Once at the ladder rob had intended to cut the old rusty bolts off and replace with shiny new ones with the aid of his grinder but en route to this section the cutting disc had snapped leaving it useless! Instead Rob placed some pins and we guided the scaff up and pinned this into place. Once the scaff was fixed the ladder was fastened to the scaff making it feel much safer although the movement off the ladder now creates a comedy squeeze at the top and the crawl off into Loper Lust.
Whilst Rob was faffing with this Dave and I pushed one of his many great Doom leads. This one was a small roof cavity which was just out of reach. Dave and I decided to build a mound so that we could dig the cavity using an ancient artifact from the floor (currently left in situ) - unfortunately this lead didn't go as it was just a solution cavity but another one ticked off the list.
Steady trip out and Rob almost killed me at the ladder when he dropped the drill bag within a metre of my head down a 10m pitch! I think he was a little tired bless him so I offered to take the bag halfway up and managed to a get a photo of Dave in Coconut Airways.
Half a job - done.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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We started the evening as we meant to go on with pre-beers inside The Miners, sat at John & Doug's table. We debated on what would be best to do with our time, lack of a team meant we were flying TAP (Team Awesome Proper) tonight so we decided that rather than take a drill and camera gear the term "fast & light" would be our motto for the evening and we'd be leaving all of our gear at the base of Inglorious Bastards.
We had not coordinated in advance and forgot post beers but luckily I managed to pick a couple of Black Sheep up from the Spar which picked us up for the trip we were about to embark on. We wasted little time and got to the bottom ladder in 25 minutes, we now sauntered off down the level with no gear to carry and made our way up to the 73m level. Rob explained where he had poked before some years ago and I followed along until we hit the junction towards the boil up. The water was much lower than last week and we swung a right here to where Katie and Rob had reached a hole in the floor passing a big natural/mined out shaft en route. Here we gingerly traversed over a rock bridge to confirm the accuracy of the survey as the passage terminated in a small chamber down to the left with no way on. We took another look around the below the rock bridge but couldn't find a safe route down so sacked this off.
Once back at the stair case we descended back to the 85m level and passing G Shaft headed straight towards the right swing below the boil up junction. Here we counted the paces and confirmed the shaft above met a hole we could see in the roof. A short distance further we came to a climb up into the uncertain area below the rock bridge which we could now tick off. We double checked the survey and headed for the section presumed to be below Rocky Horror in Cussey. The level swings left passing a few low points and reaches a large natural choke with water flowing from cracks in the roof, a delicate squeeze through some old timber shoring leads to a stooping section which then reaches a collapse. Here the draught was mega and flowing up into the chamber beyond which meant it was heading towards something higher. We went up and through to reach a large chamber consisting of a huge steep ramp leading to a few potential climbs but no immediate way forward - Below Eyam Hall. We checked all possible leads we could reach and noted the places we'd need bolting gear for. The main prospects being Sooty & Sweep because of how black and used one lead looked, like the miners had used it for an entrance at some point. A further lead which needed collapsing was my Death Dig of Choice, a small hole up a tiny level blocked with deads propped up by three tiny rotten timbers. We chased the draught and came to the conclusion it was heading up into the roof of the chamber which made a connection to Rocky Horror seem very realistic.
Elated we started to make our way out ticking off a few side passages en route. We made surface by just gone 10pm which was super early for us and the black sheep went down a treat. Another Awesome trip in the bank for TAP.