*Foreshadowing* It took longer to wash my wetsuit than I spent underground! And I have elbow bursitis!
I’m in a layby putting on tight neoprene with other men…must be time for an underground adventure of the wet variety. The three of us were very excited as the worlds greatest glory grabber had sent enticing pictures of sections of this cave that are normally off limits due to being sumped. In a rare state of Dryness, Rob had explored the far reaches of lower Cales dale cave and set us a task of digging in the fume room.
The walk in is nothing short of absolutely stunning as we wound down the high sided valley for 20 minutes. After some time and a jaunt over a small footbridge we climbed down into a dry stream bed to the entrance. Joe who had been here before seemed happy about the dryness which was a promising sign.
Normally im super organised with my caving gear, but having not been underground for far too long and just being so excited to get out, I didn’t check my bag properly and was missing my elbow and knee pads and gloves. Not to worry, it’s not like I was going to be crawling over sharp rocks…….
We slid into the cave and began the arduous crawl on, after some time we came to the dog house junction. All seemed good, so we pressed on, some puddles began to appear but we thought nothing of it. Gradually we made our way to the figure of 8 chamber junction. We continued on left and came to a fantastic vertical squeeze. Feet first, arms in the air and just post your self down the slot.
I enjoyed that squeeze so much and did not appreciate how soon I would be doing it again. After a few minutes came the sad sounds of a Joe realising the way on is sumped. Chris and I joined to lie down next to Joe, sure enough the water came up to the ceiling just ahead. There was a small stream of water coming in from high up on the left of this chamber. I lay there, 10 or 15 minutes into the cave after a 2.5 hour drive feeling very deflated.
We all decided to have a poke around in everywhere that we could, so we made our way back up the vertical squeeze which is a smidge harder going up as there are few foot holds, but a fantastic feature for sure.
At figure of 8 Chamber we had a poke in every crevice. At the far end Joe and I took helmets off and squeezed our heads in as far as we could so see a big crack in the rock. At the far end of this crack was a huge boulder covering where the water sounds were sinking. Chris, Joe and I took turns digging out the thick mud with the crowbs (northern word for crowbar) I managed to get the boulder moving but couldn’t quite remove it. Chris stepped in and gave it a huge tug and before we knew it there was a huge bit of space to get our heads in to hear distant water sinking away. Certainly a promising prospect to bypass the sumped passage.
We did as much as we could without caps and so headed to the doghouse for a poke around. There is a technical vertical squeeze to get into the chamber with a distinct lack of foot holds. (im sure there’s some sneaky beta) Joe went through first, taking a little longer than I would expect of him. I followed suit and then it made sense, I had slotted my upper body into the squeeze, im off the floor now, but nothing to push off. Add to the fact that you are staring at some timber supports and stacked deads infront of you; it’s a careful decision on what to pull on. I opted for a muscle up in the end and just pressed upwards. Chris came next, he had no issues with upper body strength, but required a few rests as he fought to get through. We deduced that his wetsuit was slightly thicker than ours (wink wink). This is quite a spectacular chamber with stacked deads high up into the aven. At the back of the aven is a knotted rope leaded up maybe 4m or so. I was incredibly tempted, but as neither Joe nor Chris were keen I chose not to go alone. Instead Joe explained about an old dig that had been blasted out and pointed to a slot at ground level “it only goes a short distance “ he said as he slipped inside. Chris peered in and decided that he had zero enthusiasm for it. Waited for a while before shouting down “is there room for me?”
A muffled “yes come down, its further than I remembered” I crawled flat out for a decent distance before turning a sharp left onto rubber matting, this then turned into a tight rift where I could stand and slide through. The rock was fractured throughout where the explosives had been. Really quite impressive. We got to the end and Joe explained that this was the way on……..potentially. Apparently it drafts, but its blasting purely into rock so would be some work; but if it goes somewhere it would be a fantastic bit of passage.
We turned back and began making our way out. I was now aware that my wetsuit had a hole in the elbow and I was digging into sharp rock as I crawled along. We joined Chris and headed into the main passage of LCDC and began the crawl out. This was beginning to be agony on my knees and elbows and I had to stop a couple of times to swear and give myself a talking to. *note to self – never ever forget knee and elbow pads again*
As we had been underground such a short time we decided to look in lathkill dale resurgence on the way back. The stream being bone dry as we headed to the entrance. Oh this is gorgeous, a big opening similar to giants I thought to myself. I love crawling in caves, but I was done with it tonight due to the pain and was looking forward to some walking passage.
*more foreshadowing* lying on the floor almost reduced to tears as my right elbow got spiked by a sharp rock
We climbed over a boulder into a low crawling passage. “fuck sake” I said internally. I dropped my tackle sack at the entrance as I couldn’t be bothered to drag that again. We made our way on with no knowledge of this cave. We crawled for some time until we reached a crossrift, a quick poke around showed us that we needed to drop down through a boulder choke. This was cool as the entrance to the choke required a bit of a yoga move to get in.
“I’m nervous about being in a boulder choke when no one knows where we are” uttered Joe as he entered.
“People passing by will see Bens bag if it goes tits up” said Chris cheerily. (I was unaware of this comment, and thus didn’t explain the significance of it) we all met up in a low chamber, lying on boulders. We could hear strong and loud rushing water. As neither of us knew this cave, and had not told anyone of our whereabouts in this one we decided this was far enough.#
The retreat back out was seriously painful and I was actually for once very happy to have finished a trip. "oh jesus Ben, i didnt realise you had hidden your bag" Joe said as he saw a formerly yellow, but now very brown bag hidden behind a boulder. There was no way a passerby would have seen this.
The long walk out was nice as it was a still and warm evening. Quick change and we headed to the pub. It was not the trip I had hoped for, but nothing beats getting underground and having a good time with your mates, even if it’s just for a short time.