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.
- Details
- Written by: Jon Pemberton
- Hits: 2229
Team Awesome (Luke Cafferty, Rob Eavis, Jon Pemberton) with a Hal.
After 3 long weeks tonight was finally the night to descend NCA pitch with the C. In the meantime Hal had been busy installing a mint lid on the cave entrance.
A bit later start we met at the cave and after a quick pre-beer armed with a couple of lengths of rope and bolts we hastily made our way to the NCA pitch. Plan was for Luke and I to rig the pitch and for Rob and Hal to enlarge the NCA squeeze. I down climbed the pitch and found a suitable place for a Y-hang and wasted little time rigging with the bolting lump hammer. I started to descend as Luke shouted up to Rob the situation. After a few metres I could see clearly over the top of a large poised boulder that the route forward (East) was clearly wide, wide open and BIG! I Shouted up to Luke who then relayed the message to Rob who quickly dropped everything and left Hal to enlarge the squeeze by himself…
Once on the floor I shouted up to Luke who quickly followed me down. I was now stood at the western end of a large boulder floored rift passage stretching out into blackness, things started to get really exciting really fast. Luke joined me then we agreed to wait for Rob and explore with all TA members present. We moved forward with Rob filming on his phone, the rift was some 1-1.5m wide and probably 8m high, after 15 or so metres we entered a large collapsed area with holes going off in the floor everywhere. A climb over some car sized boulders gained us access to great views of the chamber above where we stood and admired the amazing typical Stoney shell beds lining the walls of the chamber.
The excited Team at the bottom of NCA Pitch
Looking east long the rift - Photo by JonP
We first looked at the eastern end of the chamber and a squeeze through some poised boulders gained us access to the base of The Black Aven which at this level the walls were completely black, and the floor choked with boulders. The roof being approx. 20m above which we later accessed higher up in the choke. We then noted a few more holes in the floor which’d warrant further inspection. A climb over boulders at the southern end we reached a complex area of the choke and after a good fettle which involved poking your nose in every hole we found a solid wall and a funnel of boulders leading to a pitch. Rob chucked down a few rocks and it sounded epic! Boulders would crash down for a few seconds. Having left all our gear back at the bottom of the pitch we decided to call it a night here having to hold ourselves not to spend all night here. We headed back to the main chamber and took a few photos before heading back to surface for a not too late night and agreed to return on Friday to descend the new pitch.
The main chamber - Photo by JonP
We made contact with Hal at the bottom of NCA pitch who had fallen asleep after some fantastic efforts enlarging the squeeze - Thanks Hal.
- Details
- Written by: Jon Pemberton
- Hits: 2074
Team Awesome minus a Rob.
After a hasty pre beer in’t Miners we dashed over to Cussey and quickly kitted up ready to descend. We paused at the bottom of Nomenca Choke so I could take a quick picture whilst climbed down. I told Luke what I thought in regards to digging the tight rift at the bottom of the choke, he dug the floor and we stacked in the choke taking extra care not to touch much, Luke reassured me it looked pretty tight and there was one head sized boulder blocking the hole at floor level. We loosely agreed to start removing the solid walls. Instead of going hell for leather with the drill I picked up the lump hammer and started to hit the walls where it pinched up. To our delight the walls crumbled away with ease and I was soon far enough in the squeeze to kick the boulder blocking the route further forward into the unknown. I pulled back and removed a small flake which pointed straight into the squeeze, once this was removed I removed my big bulky miners kneepads (classic Jon trait) and started to push through. It was snug for sure but not desperate and after some awkward movements for someone who doesn’t bend very easy I was through – Mission accomplished.
I was now through into a continuation of the cross rift beyond the pinch point, about 1m wide, 5m high and 3m long. The draught was howling through a small void between boulders at the far end where I could briefly see through to a floor 3m or so down. I told Luke about the chamber and we stood in silence whilst I chucked a rock through the void – here’s where it got real exciting. The rock boomed and banged followed by a large hollow thud, a brief pause then a further bang! – Bloody hell, We’d only gone a proper broke through without the EAVIS!!
We giggled a little and threw some more rocks into the void, I turned back around and dug the floor out from the squeeze so Luke could now easily pass through. After chucking yet more rocks down the pitch we then made a conscious effort to gain access to the pitch head. The problem was two massive boulders pinched in the rift above the pitch head, we removed some smaller rocks from around them thus blocking ourselves in and started about an hour’s worth of capping resulting in a clear’ish pitch head. I took lead and squeezed through into the head of the pitch, luckily it was plentiful with ledges and with Luke’s blessing of “don’t die!” I traversed over to get a clear glance of the blackness below. At the far end the rift widened and met a cross joint, here the whole place gets wider and I could see it bells out below to a boulder floor some 10m below my feet. Luke followed me through and we both perched and passed one another comfortably above the pitch.
After a quick selfie we started to retreat to the heat on surface clearing the pitch head one last time and pausing to take a few snaps.
Lessons learned… NCA = big breaktrough (huh Rob?)
- Details
- Written by: Jon Pemberton
- Hits: 2339
Cue Black Sabbath...
Team Awesome armed with a Hal.
After a quick pre-beer at our favourite local we headed over to Cussey and hastily got kitted up. Not much to take tonight just a bag full of scaff clips which Rob wouldn't let us chuck down the shaft.
Luke and I dropped down to the choke and started to remove some rocks from the floor. Some rocks which we'd previously thought were massive turned out to be mediocre and we managed to remove them by hand but it didn't give us much hope for what we'd been standing on all last trip. Rob and Hal cut a made to measure bar up below the entrance which once down Rob clipped into place and started to stack rocks from the floor behind it eliminating the need to pass back. After a final cap of a too large boulder in the floor we now had a human size hole to the void below, cue Black Sabbath...
Rob asked for the ladder which meant business. We bolted just above the void as close to the wall as possible to cause less disruption to the hanging death. Rob started to descend and it wasn't until he was neck deep that he started shouting back up, "NO, NO, NO!" turns out he didn't remove all the loose stuff. Once corrected he jumped from the bottom of the ladder, found safety in solidness and shouted back up that he was alright. He was now in a fairly solid rift which pinched up behind him, clean washed and looking exactly like the rift down in Cherticle Aven in Doom. In front of him and where the ladder hung down was a mass boulder ruckle with some rather large bonnet sized boulders all seemed to be held up by a key stone the size of a shoe box. Rob really didn't like it down in the void but was keen to dig down with a strong draught coming from the rift and floor.
After making a quick video of the neckiness he returned through the hole and after a quick look of how we are to progress we started to ascend to daylight.
Lots of scaff and capping in store ahead, watch this space.
- Details
- Written by: Jon Pemberton
- Hits: 2377
Team Awesome & Team Crumpet (Jeff & Dylan)
After socially distanced pre-beers in The Miners we headed over to Cussey armed with many bars of scaffolding thanks to Hal, the biggest being 3m which Rob deemed perfect for an idea which he had in his head regarding Nomenca Choke. We gently lowered each bar of scaffolding down the entrance pitch with a rope which we left in the car and once all below formed a chain to lower the bars down to the choke. The big boy (3m bar) was slightly too large to take up caving so Jeff armed with trusty scaff cutter removed approx. 10mm (right Luke?) and after some slight modification to the walls the bar was safely down the Nomenca Rift to it's final resting place in Hell (literally)...
Rob made a top job on wanging bits of scaff together to resemble something which looked moderately safe to be under. We removed some more rocks from the floor which started to become very voidy very rapidly and thus became more unstable very quickly. It was now Team Crumpets turn to take over and Jeff made a fantastic job wanging in a few more scaff bars and also pinned one to a possible solid wall.
Lukey Boy now took the sharp end whilst Rob sat and got cold but it wasn't long until the whole place became unstable to the point of no return. We left it here for tonight and vowed to return with some more Kerplunk straws.
Game on hold for now.
- Details
- Written by: Luke Cafferty
- Hits: 2072
After last weeks discovery of Nomenca rift we had a plan of attack, but first a quick trip to the pub for proper pre beers and it was very much enjoyed. After a quick change we headed over to cussey pot armed with some scaff bars and big ideas of breaking through.
Rob jumped straight into fixing up some scaffolding to give us the impression that it was safe, as long as you don't touch too much it is safe. I was up next, I quickly got to work capping some of the bigger rocks and lifting them up to Jon to move them back, unfortunately he's more interested in taking photos now so kind of left it to me to lift them out and make sure they didn't fall back in on my head.
With most of the bigger boulders removed I could hear some rocks falling a bit of distance below me, very promising! Jon and I talked through a bit of plan of the best rocks to remove. I set off drilling a big one in the floor and as I was getting ready to hit the caps I felt a tap at my hip turned to look and saw a big fuck off rock had moved and was on a path to slide down right on me. Now I'm usually quite calm but I'll admit this scared the shit out of me I basically threw the tools at Jon and jumped out much to the amusement of my friends. We decided to send the only member with more children than me down to have a look. Rob jumped in and had a quick look and we came up with a plan for next week, chuck in much more scaff!!
Scared Luke