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Written by: Victoria Kocher

Published: 31 August 2026

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Tuesday Nighters 24.8.26

Team: John, Katie, Jess, Christine and Victoria

With England having experienced an exceptionally dry summer, we had the opportunity this week to make a trip into Garden Path to check water levels, take some photographs and have a look at the general condition of the cave.

July had been the driest on record for England, with just 10% of the long-term average rainfall. River flows were exceptionally low, groundwater levels were falling and soil moisture deficits were approaching historic highs. So, if ever there was a good time to see what was happening to the water underground, this was it.

We set out as a small group and, as we made our way down towards the dale, my phone pinged with the news that Dolly Parton had reportedly died. A real icon gone — and, rather unexpectedly, we had acquired our theme music for the evening. There are probably worse soundtracks for a caving trip.

On opening the lid, however, our attention was immediately diverted by Katie finding a slow worm at the entrance. Many of us have only encountered a handful of these lovely creatures in our lifetimes, so it was quite a treat. Our resident veterinarian and all-round stellar caver, Jess, gave our unexpected visitor a quick health check before relocating it to a rather more suitable environment than the top of a cave pitch.

The old ladders have now gone, but the pitch itself is excellent. Katie rigged and, with a few well-placed deviations, we made our way down and through into a glorious chamber.

The photographs I have really don't do it justice. 

We took our time here, looking closely at the speleothems and the composition and structure of the surrounding rock. One of the pleasures of a trip like this, when you're not trying to race towards a particular destination, is actually having the time to stop and look properly at what is around you.

From there we continued over a couple of the remaining ladders and down towards the section where we would normally expect to encounter flowing water.

There wasn't any. 
Not a trickle.

Given the extraordinary lack of rainfall, this wasn't exactly a surprise, but it was still quite striking to see somewhere normally associated with water completely dry.

Katie and Jess squeezed onwards to investigate the continuation. This apparently becomes a very flat crawl which ultimately connects into the rest of the Lathkill Dale system. Having established that it was still there, still flat and still requiring considerably more crawling, we collectively decided that could be an adventure for another day.

Sometimes good cave exploration is knowing when to leave something for next time.

We spent a little longer having a look around and taking photographs before beginning the journey back out. Then came the inevitable prusiking — that magical part of a caving trip where gravity, having assisted you so generously on the way in, suddenly demands repayment with interest.

With the nights beginning to draw in, we eventually emerged into a beautiful evening sky. There are few things quite as satisfying as coming out of a cave as daylight is fading, particularly when you know there is a pub waiting.

So it was off to the Bull's Head for a very well-earned pint, where the unanimous verdict was that Garden Path had delivered a fine trip.

Most importantly from the conservation point of view, the formations we observed appeared to be in good condition and the protected areas were being respected. The exceptionally dry conditions also gave us a useful opportunity to photograph and record parts of the cave under unusually low-water conditions, which should provide an interesting comparison when normal rainfall eventually returns.

A note on access 

Garden Path is not an open recreational caving site. The entrance is kept locked and access is permitted for scientific purposes under the conditions of DCA's licence from Chatsworth. 
This can include legitimate one-off photographic or monitoring visits such as this one, as well as longer-term research and exploration projects.

Cavers with a valid reason for wishing to visit should contact the DCA Access Officer, complete the required access form and provide evidence of current liability insurance. Once permission has been granted, key collection and the designated surface access route will be explained.

Please remember that access arrangements such as these depend upon cavers respecting both the cave and the conditions agreed with the landowner.

A beautiful cave, some fascinating observations, a surprise slow worm, absolutely no water and a pint at the end.

I'd call that a successful evening. 

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Written by: Victoria Kocher

Published: 19 August 2026

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Dylan, Lexie and Victoria

It was what appears to have been our last sunny Sunday of the year, so naturally, with my son Dylan and his partner Lexie visiting, we decided the best way to enjoy it was to go underground.

Lexie had never done Winnats Head Cave before, so we thought it would make a good family outing. The last time I was in Winnats Head, my trip ended with a visit to A&E — but when has something like that ever stopped any of us going back?

First things first, we checked that nobody had recently used the entrance as a toilet. All clear. A promising start.

I’ve said before that Winnats Head is one of my favourite trips. I also somehow manage to forget between visits just how tight bits of it are. And at this point I wasn’t even thinking about the Slot. F

In we went.

One of the more legitimate reasons for our excursion was for Dylan to do some work calibrating his Disto. Any excuse for a caving trip is a good excuse, but “scientific instrument calibration” sounds particularly respectable.

Once we reached the first chamber, we spent about 20 minutes helping Dylan. By “helping”, I mean standing very still with a finger pressed against a rock.

Not difficult.

I feel our contribution to cave surveying should be recognised.

Dylan eventually announced that he had everything he needed, so we pressed on. Although “pressed” is perhaps an unfortunate choice of word when describing progress through the boulder chokes at Winnats Head. Squeezed, wriggled, shuffled and occasionally wondered about our life choices might be more accurate.

Along the way I spotted a few areas of formations I hadn’t noticed before, which was really lovely. We also came across some rather humorous little sculptures made from the natural materials available underground. A nice artistic touch in an otherwise muddy environment.

Eventually we reached the Slot.

The new scaffolding there is excellent and we squeezed our way through. Going down is considerably easier than coming back up for me, but I was absolutely determined not to think about that yet.

We carried on down to the sump. After such a dry summer, I’d expected the water level to be noticeably lower, but to me it looked much the same as usual.

I’d never been through the Sewer before and, with a little encouragement — and the promise of a helping hand waiting on the other side — I decided to give it a go.

And I’m glad I did.

Having explored enough and, more importantly, taken note of the time, we began the journey back out.

Winnats Head really is an excellent whole-body workout. Arms, legs, core, shoulders, knees, elbows and several muscle groups you didn't know existed all get involved. I have had to explain my bruises to everyone I have seen after so they don’t assume the worst in my personal life.

Then came the Slot.

On my usual trips I have the benefit of a conveniently positioned knee from one of my regular crew to help get me started. Lexie tried her best -thank you again.

Lexie patiently listened while I whined, complained, swore and generally expressed my feelings about the situation. Then, inch by inch, I started making progress.

A little more.

And eventually — victory! — I emerged.

Lexie then came through and made it look ridiculously easy, which was frankly unnecessary.

From there we wriggled, squeezed and clambered our way back towards daylight until eventually we popped out of the entrance and into the sunshine: covered in claggy Winnats mud, slightly battered and all smiling.

There was only one sensible thing left to do.

Food and grog in Castleton.

A brilliant trip, a successful bit of Disto calibration, a first Winnats Head for Lexie, a first trip through the Sewer for me and, most importantly, no visit to A&E this time.

All in all, a great family day out. Though possibly not the sort of family day out they advertise in the Peak District tourist brochures.

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Written by: Victoria Kocher

Published: 12 August 2026

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Tuesday nighters

Edvin, Katie, Jess, Julian, Chris and Victoria

Edvin suggested a trip to Merlins in Stoney to check on the streamway. Always a good suggestion — unless you’re John, who I suspect has now had quite enough of Merlins. Fortunately for him, he was unavailable anyway, being off in bonny Scotland.

It had not rained for 40 days and 40 nights, so this seemed like an excellent opportunity to see just how far into the sumps we could get without actually having to get into any sumps. It had also been unusually hot in the UK, so some time underground in the cool, refreshing embrace of a cave seemed like exactly what was required. Natural air conditioning, basically.

It was therefore a trip that definitely called for knee and elbow pads.

I had downloaded the conservation survey for the DCA Cave Conservation Scheme, so we had a look at this before heading in. The areas of conservation interest included the streamway, which contains numerous speleothems in permanently flooded passage. We were also looking for a particularly heavily contaminated stalagmite from the streamway, and planned to take photographs of various formations and interesting speleothems along the way for the conservation form.

As it turned out, the conditions were so dry that we found absolutely nothing that wanted to be flooded. We did, however, take plenty of photos.

The walk to the pitch was short, and Katie had sensibly brought a rope. When we arrived, there was already a rather good-looking rope in situ, we decided a rather fun freeclimb was in order.

So we did, a little traversing and some helpful vertical assistance from the rope. Julian had also brought his SRT kit, which turned out to be another very good decision.

Once down, we carefully watched the roof as we descended one at a time into the streamway. Many of us had been on the previous trip, which had resulted in a large boulder falling onto someone’s head — generally considered poor form in a cave. Thankfully, the offending boulder has since been blown to smithereens, and the roof all seemed considerably more cooperative this time.

We followed the dive lines, with plenty of crawling along the streamway. At one point Edvin commented that it was the easiest cave diving he had ever done.

Katie helpfully pointed out that if he was cave diving, he should probably be blowing bubbles rather than talking.

Progress continued through a series of dry sumps, each followed by a large chamber where we could stand up, have a rest, admire the surroundings and briefly remember what it was like to be a person who could walk upright. Then it was back down for more crawling.

We stopped at Sump 5, which was where we had reached last year and felt suitably accomplished. This time, however, there was a growing realisation that we could actually keep going.

So we did.

More dive lines. More crawling. More formations. More photographs. And, increasingly, a suspicion that the cave was going to carry on for considerably longer.

Eventually, we believed we had made it all the way to Sump 8. The passage finally ended at a low roof with a small pool of water. We could see what appeared to be a board under a ledge, but there was nowhere obvious to go beyond it.

This was finally the end.

Or at least, we assumed it was.

I checked the survey we had downloaded for the conservation work — only to discover that it stopped at Sump 5.

We were officially off the survey.

There was something particularly satisfying about this. Last year, Sump 5 had felt like the impressive end point. This year, with exceptionally low water levels, we had crawled our way beyond it and apparently wandered off the edge of our paperwork.

A very satisfying Tuesday night.

We emerged very muddy and extremely pleased with ourselves — having confirmed that Merlins was indeed very dry, the streamway was very crawlable, and our survey was considerably less ambitious than we were.

A great trip, with plenty of photos for the conservation work and, most importantly, another reminder that sometimes the best way to deal with a heatwave is to spend an evening underground crawling through a streamway.