Rob E, Jon P, Joe B, Ben S & Fabian E
I sit down for lunch at work to a message from Rob. “Bring everything and a wetsuit if you have one, I have some options”
I normally pack so that I can go straight from work; but as I hate being cold I raced home on the strike of 4.30 to grab my wetsuit and made my way to the usual watering hole, which happened to contain the entire population of Eyam. In a shock turn of events it was decided to forego the digging tonight and go for an explore around Doom.
Ben Wetsuited up ready for the trip, by RobE
We took the long walk to Cliffstile and as Jon was suffering from “neck arm” he declared that he was not going last as the hatch is heavy. This was an 80m descent with 2 re belays. Sounds simple right. Well, you would be correct, unless you are me. After Jon’s declaration of it being a fast rope was expecting a swift descent, however it was the complete opposite. I was using a simple and a braking krab as standard but I had to work hard to feed the rope through and was getting arm pump. I passed the first re belay with no issues. The second is a Y hang in the centre of the shaft. My first mistake was to clip one of my cowstails into the bolt rather than lower all the way to the Y hang itself. The second was not paying attention to the ropes as I clipped my simple on. I tested the simple, unclipped the cowstails, was ready to lower and then realised I had got the rope tangled with the re belay loop. Now, normal people would just clip their cowstails into the Y hang, redo the simple and go again. For some reason my brain thought I needed to get back up to the bolt and clip there so I faffed around do all sorts, standing in the rope loop. Using my hand jammer and foot loop. I was spending a lot of energy trying to get to this bolt. Conscious I had Joe above me at the first one waiting to come down and the 3 on the floor also waiting.
A moment of clarity made me realise what an idiot I was being and I knew what I needed to do, only, I couldn’t get the hand jammer off the rope despite trying to unweight it. I realised I could bridge in the shaft and eventually sorted my life out. I dropped to the floor of the shaft and made my apologises. “You got a bit of a sweat on there Ben” said Jon laughing. I couldn’t tell if it was sweat from embarrassment, the effort I had put in to sort things out, or the 5mm wetsuit I was wearing.
We slipped into chest deep water and followed a sough for around 15 minutes. This was a pretty little section with varying depths from shin deep to neck deep with beautiful brickwork archways. I was now very grateful for the wetsuit. Eventually we hit a ladder and climbed up to a step over to another ladder. “Don’t die” came a voice with a giggle as I was looking to step over to the other ladder. Good tip duly noted.
This took us into Glebe mine. Rob Jon and Joe have been here plenty, however, for Fabian and I, it was our first time. So there was a lot of (and for the whole trip) “WOW, this place is incredible” as we tried to keep up whilst also trying to look at everything.
At the end of this section we reached a chamber with some pools. On the right we passed a duck and followed the water to a climb back on ourselves and made our way crawling up some tubes. Rob and Jon pushed through a boulder choke to explore a draughting lead. I followed through the choke but had lost my sense of humour trying to manoeuvrer in tight spaces with an SRT kit and decided to make my way back to the other two who were playing around in another pool in a dead end. We followed the pool to the left which lead us to a dead end eventually. So we turned back, found a ladder and climbed on up and followed some passage.
Passing through one of the ducks, by RobE
Once again we reached a ladder, but this one I knew because at the base of this ladder you drop down into Doom. Here the world renowned Eavis Mine Tours began in earnest. We took a left and headed into a tight rift for Static Passage. This amazing passage gets better the further in you get. Jon, whilst not enthused by the start of the passage got excited as he slipped through the keyhole squeeze into a large walking rift that took us into a phreatic tube decorated in pristine stals.
Back to Doom and only a few steps further on “and on your left we have the unclimbed aven” we slid under a small gap to enter into a huge impressive dripping aven that went far higher than my fenix light could reach. This is still unclimbed and I could see on Rob's face how much he wants to get it done.
Back to the main passage again and as we ambled on Fabian asked where the waterfall was. Rob stated it was at Elastic Passage. “Oh cool, I love a waterfall” exclaimed Fabian. “not today you don’t” Rob retorted as we took a left turn just before Elastic Passage to head on deeper into Doom.
This section feels like stepping back into time. “Oh my god, look at all the hoof prints. Can you imagine what it was like for the donkeys” Gasped Fabian. After a moment of bemusement we all realised he was pointing out hob nail boot prints from t’owd man. Naturally we then mocked him about donkeys being sent down the shafts.
The hobnail boot prints were everywhere and led up a slope to a curved dry stone wall, this slope continues up to a windlass they had stone steps leading up to it and onwards. From here a manicured smooth slope winds upwards lined by dry stone walls. It feels like this area had a lot of care and attention given to it when being built. We poked left to look at a rotten stemple ladder and then pressed on to the T junction. Now my directions will get vague here because we went everywhere. We headed left at the junction which eventually lead to a dead end with a shaft that Rob had bolt climbed in the past. The impressive bit was looking up and seeing the stope rise up to darkness with stemples everywhere. On the way back to the junction we poked into other areas that were looser than a taco bell bowel movement which provided a bit of excitement to the trip.
Back at the T junction we headed over the wall and went to the Black Lagoon. This is as the name suggests, a dark black pool that we waded through with black stals and allsorts of yellows and oranges all over the far wall.
Once we had sufficiently poked in to most places we headed back to the entrance of Doom where we had stashed our SRT kits. Everyone opted to put their kit on, but having to crawl through Loper Lust I didn’t fancy it, so I chose to push my gear ahead of me. Loper lust in a wetsuit is a slip ‘N’ slide which is great on the flat and down, but to get out of Loper Lust it's mostly uphill. Once again I removed my helmet for the duck and dipped my head under to pass the low ceiling. Fabian however decided to dunk his face.
Fabian's mud facial, by RobE
So we are now in Inglorious Bastards of Cussey Pot. I wasn’t looking forward to prussicking in a wetsuit, however it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I adopted the strategy that I had used all trip in the dry areas, to unzip fully, much to the teams disgust.
This is my 3rd time in Cussey and I am starting to finesse the obstacles. It's a highly technical cave that can be insanely hard, or relatively easy depending upon whether you can find the subtle hand and foot holds. I climbed the second pitch with my chest jammer as back up. Its a lovely climb and far easier than prussicking due to the confines of the rift.
I removed my chest jammer for the vertical squeeze because that always becomes a pitch point and the gouges in the chest jammer make me wince. This did make the squeeze much easier. Although this time the tears were for the sounds of sharp rock scratching and catching on my wetsuit. The final feature that I find a challenge is the stemple climb in Coconut Airways. Today however my feet found the elusive footholds and it was almost easy, I popped up between the two stemples and knew that I was basically out now. Just a simple traverse over a drop and you are at the final pitch. Again much easier to free climb so I made my way out into the cold winter at midnight. Rob and Joe headed to secure Cliffstile's lid before we all piled into my van for warmth, snacks and the obligatory post session drink. Quite possibly the finest through trip I have ever done, Fabian agreed as he handed over an Eldon membership form.