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.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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02/07/2020 - Team Awesome & Dylan
After a quick pre-beer we were keen to get underground and attempt to reach the void we looked into on the previous trip. We we're all packed in at the sharp end some 2m apart and less than 1 minute from the entrance, stoked to crack on. Rob made a top job on capping the corner of a large boulder which was resting on the floor. Within 10 minutes we were through into a small ante-chamber perched underneath the really, really large roof collapse. I make it sound horrible but it's pretty bomber. Luke went through first and after removing a few boulders shouted back that there's a pitch down, maybe 6m, needs digging. Luke made it sound exciting and positive, Rob went through and spat in our faces and said it looked shit...
After chaining back some large boulders to the base of the entrance pitch Rob continued to cap but due to sheer stupidity within 10 more minutes we'd ran out of caps and could progress no more! Well done Rob... We left it looking pretty good and it the newly discovered pitch looked tight but seemed to open up less than a metre below us.
So it was still mega early and after questioning our sanity we took a trip over to the western limits to check out Rob's dig at the bottom of climb 2. Rob and Dylan had dug down through boulders for 1.5m but now it was my turn to spit in Rob's face in which I wasted no time once in the dig and told him it looked SHIT. After a brief mutter from his soul he agreed and we bailed for the night, Dylan did well and only almost nearly killed only two members of TA - Thanks Dylan.
09/07/2020 - Team Awesome & Dylan
Tonight was it, tonight was the big breakthrough night. Dylan treated us by bringing some mega shit Peroni knock-off lager from Aldi - Thanks, which we all promptly refused. He's never gonna become a member with these methods but he's young so we'll let him off this one time.
After quick pre-beers we we're soon all underground and ready for action. Two of us under the large roof collapse two at the base of the shaft so we could remove rocks efficiently. Rob made excellent work capping the bedrock and made even more excellent work in dropping a massive boulder 2m down the vertical rift and unreachable from our chamber - Idiot.
Now with enough space to get his small feeble body down rob started smashing away with his little hammer. He was soon down at the boulder and made top work of chucking it to the bottom of the pot. Now wide open he weaseled his way to the bottom and shouted us to come down. What we can all fit? - YUP.
We rapidly slithered down and it was fairly spacious down there. We were now stood at the bottom of a rift with a way heading back up to below our small squeeze. Here was super necky and had lots of signs from the tip which had been dumped from above - also a large cattle bone which Luke modelled fantastically for me. To our east the rift turned at a right angle into a nasty looked boulder choke - DANG.
We all had a quick fettle, and after a few spooky (brown pants) moments we gave the drill to Dylan and he made top work of capping the first boulder which none of us dare go near. Luke continued and removed a large proportion of the choke and we finally left it at a point where it started to look dead interesting again. Large voids and rocks falling down pitches. Excited but still scared we all agreed it was pub time and we definitely needed to return with scaffolding. We roughly measured up made our way up top.
Unlucky for us we missed the pub so ended up having a couple of tins and left Dylan to his terrible choice in post caving refreshments.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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11/06/2020 - Mark Noble, Team Awesome & Jeff
We arrived at the blow hole and after watching the video of how blowy it was we weren't upset, It was blowing like a hooker! Mark had arrived early and done a fantastic job of building the loose side up to floor level with deads - It looked well good. We wasted no time and descended the wafty hole, whilst Rob stayed up on surface as we kept getting a local crowd gathering to see what was going on.
On Rob's advice, Mark and Luke went down first taking a proper look around whilst Jeff and I followed afterward. It's tricky getting down the entrance without goggles as all the loose dust heads straight towards your eyes - its like a sandstorm in the Sahara. Mark and Luke had turned around at the current end, an easy dig down to a tight looking rift. Jeff and I took the second look and started to remove some loose boulders. Jeff managed to remove a large boulder which gained us human-size access to the rift which Jeff descended promptly. By this point Mark and Luke had gone back to surface and Rob had now joined us with some broken surveying gear.
Jeff now at the bottom of the rift pushed forward into a decent size chamber with some large straws but no obvious ways on. Back at the base of the rift Jeff pushed a squeeze in the boulders and gained access to a further climb down to a section of breakdown with a strong draught. Rob, Jeff and I all ended up in a fairly horrible flat out crawl terminating in a wall of boulders with the draught being emitted from a small crack in the floor.
We turned around at this point and headed back to surface not before checking a few other leads towards the entrance, three looked pretty promising and a return trip was planned for the following week.
18/06/2020 - Team Awesome & Jeff
As we stood in the car park huddled under a tree some 2 metres apart from one another we supped some mildly warm beers and waited for the torrential down pour to quit...
It didn't take too long and we all went underground this time knowing not many people would be about. Rob and Jeff surveyed the cave and had a further look at the end whilst Luke and I went to dig a death trap not far from the bottom of the entrance pitch.
Jeff had a good poke at the end but was turned away by the neckiness of the roof and rubble threatening to flatten him. On their return Rob had a poke around at the base of climb 2 where he managed to locate a good draught warranting a second trip.
Luke and I spent a good couple of hours digging at the base of a 50 degree slope which proved to be very problematic. It was quite relatable to the Death Series in Giants Hole with it's "Angle of Rest" - Luckily for us our slope was not liquid mud but dry gritty, spoil. Unluckily for us the angle never seemed to rest. We managed to reach far enough down for it to be deemed a massive job and decided to pie it off as a last remaining dig scenario.
We bimbled the 10m (2m apart) back to the entrance and had a quick fettle in the bedding. It didn't take us long to find a small hole in the floor draughting like mad! We dug a bit more and managed to look down into a sizable void, convinced we'd cracked it we sat back and waited for the others to arrive and show them how we'd reached the next level, then buggered off for some more beer.
25/06/2020 - Mark Noble, Team Awesome & Dylan
Joined this time by Young Dylan not to be confused with Young Luke...
Mark brought the goods with a concrete biscuit so we could have something which resembled more of a permanent entrance. It didn't take long (30mins) to have it cemented in place - Job done!
Mark left us at this point and we descended for another fun trip down what we now called "Cussey Pot". Rob and Young Dylan went to check out Rob's pointy end which proved to be going well, It requires more work but easy enough going and warrants a further return if it wasn't for Luke and mine's "Another Level find"!
Luke and I skimmed the floor back massively which enabled us to dig right to where the void had appeared last week. Its was graftingly quick work and we had soon dug far enough down to view into a handsome chamber which comprises of a roof collapse creating a fairly stable roof for us to crawl under. The left wall being out of sight but with a lucky stone one could throw over a shelf and back into the far corner only for it to rattle away down a pitch. Again feeling accomplished we sat back wishing we'd brought some beers along and waited for the others.
We all agreed we needed some rock removal tools for next week and headed back up to surface to munch on some flapjacks & beer.
