Written by: Joe Buck
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Joe Buck, Rob Eavis, Jon Pemberton

Having attended an Eldon trip to Yorkshire the previous weekend, I had obviously been a little too vocal about how much fun I had had. In an attempt to restore the balance of the caving universe, I now found myself in a gloomy lay-by with Rob and Jon promising me a truly miserable thrutching experience. We got changed quickly, carefully dodging an abandoned pair of pants on the floor in the lay-by (presumably from some other poor sucker who had been roped in to joining TA) and romped across the field to the engine shaft.

The intention for the evening was to continue exploration beyond Rate Angle and into the natural looking section of passage heading east. Having traversed over the top of the Rate Angle pitch, I followed Rob (at ones peril, I’m beginning to learn) as he began to squeeze up into a tight rift. After an extended period of thrutching and sweating onto the inside of my glasses, Jon announced that this was definitely the wrong way and proceeded to waltz round the staircase the other side… Starting to realise their promises were not made in jest, we soldiered on regardless to reach the previous far point just beyond the natural section. This high level section of the mine was first entered last trip and has been named Upinruf. I carried on exploring ahead whilst Jon and Rob surveyed the previous section. Faced with a relatively large rift and with the floor dropping away to what looked like a small hole into workings below, I elected to bridge across at a higher level. This off width section was very difficult to wedge yourself in and was coated in a slick mud that made any sort of reassuring traction somewhat hard to come by. Various techniques were deployed to try and cross this, some of which resembled a Dutch canal pole vault, or is it Danish…? “We’ll stick with Dutch Traverse”.

JonP attempting the Dutch Traverse

We pressed further on as the passage began to widen and a number of large shot-holes lined the walls, coming from the other direction. This, and a collection of bones on the floor, indicated a possible shaft somewhere near. It appeared a few metres further on, but was blocked with timber near the base and looked unlikely to relent. Looking for potential leads on, we climbed up to the bedding at the ceiling to what appeared to be a small gap. Sure enough, this dog legged in to a parallel rift 4 metres high and around 15m long, confusingly named 8 Angle. Whilst this was being surveyed, I was persuaded to have a look in the hole beneath Dutch Traverse and see if I could see anything enticing. Slipping down into the rift was effortless as it belled out towards the bottom. Once I’d confirmed there was nothing to be seen down there (as I write this, I’m beginning to suspect they knew that all along), I attempted to climb back up to the traverse and head back. Unfortunately the slimy coating on the walls meant it took all of around 10 minutes to climb around 3m - all the while I can hear the others chirping away whilst surveying 8 Angle.

JonP climbing up into 8 Angle

We headed back towards Rate Angle, stopping to inspect an awkward rift heading back west which involved some gymnastic moves above a pretty unenticing drop. This closed down and became very tight and with no appreciable draft. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valour, we headed back, surveying as we went.

We made it back to the engine shaft in good time and with body and mind slightly worse for wear. Body broken, mind in the gutter, and spurred on only by the thought of one of Jon’s beers in the back of his van. As I began to ascend the shaft, Jon attempted to bargain my foot jammer for one of the three beers - I called his bluff and carried on regardless. We trudged back to the lay-by, stripped off our wet and muddy gear and threw our pants on the floor in disgust, Hobgoblin in hand. “Normal people probably think this is a pretty strange way to spend a Thursday night” - hard to argue with that…

Joe after completing his TA application