Doom
The EPC are involved with the discovery and exploration of a major new mine and cave system underneath the village of Eyam.
Due to potential access restrictions, information regarding the specifics of this site are required to be kept secret, however we will reveal as much as we can as it happens.
For a gallery of images of the Doom discoveries, see here.
Blog:
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- Written by: Ben Shannon, Rob Eavis, Jon Pemberton, Joe Buck
- Hits: 404
The cool hard embrace of rock surrounds me as I wedge myself as far left as possible to drop down the vertical squeeze. Ahhhh Shattered dreams, it has been a long time since I have been in this cave.
I feel like I know Cussey well and in what seems like no time at all, we are all dekitting our SRT kit at the base of inglorious bastards.
I was excited about the prospect of a free dive in loper lust and so we headed into the tube. One bit I absolutely love about loper is the head first drop into the main passage. Joe lead the way with Jon, me and Rob in a line. Given that its a tight tube, noise is excentuated and so listening to Joe kick through the sump sounded quite violent. Is he ok? There’s a lot of thrashing. But within seconds he is through. Jon slides forwards next, pushing himself up into the airbell to scope the dive out, some deep breathes follow and with a hard push off with his left leg he disappeared in a thrash of white water, but shortly he too was through.
A beautiful wall of stacked deads with a waterfall to the right
Me next, I slowly moved forwards and got as close to the ceiling of the sump as I could. Lights shining though from the other side was comforting. This felt incredibly committing, but I had a wetsuit hood on and felt warm and comfortable in the water. Breathing slowed I took a final breathe and pushed off hard pulling forwards on nothing it seemed but it didn’t take long to pop out of the water. That was exhilarating and not nearly as bad as it seemed. Hood stashed for later and we all dropped down the ladder to enter into Doom.
Ever the passionate tour guide, Rob would periodically point out discoveries, leads and various intricacies of the mine as we headed for elastic passage. Tonight’s mission was to dig and try to drop the sump to see if there was a way on.
After some time I heard the tell tale sound of a waterfall which signals the start of elastic passage. There is a beautiful wall of stacked deads with a waterfall to the right. Its a simple 1m climb up into crawling passage. The floor is beautiful with water erosion carving a smooth path onwards, and so we headed onwards. Elastic passage winds around with a mix of crawling, a weird constricted rift that requires a climb up and over before dropping into flat out crawl. Given it was a small group of the very best Team Awesome had to offer, we moved swiftly throughout the cave and it was not long until we hit the sump.
Que lots of excited noises from Rob. “There’s a waterfall, it might be open” I couldn’t heard the rest, but he clearly sounded excited. “I heard words, but I have no idea what that means” came Joe’s voice behind. The four of us set about digging out the gravel floor and lowering it, removing anything that could restrict water flow. Jon would kick piles back to me and I would stack it in the sides as I did the same for Joe. Time is a strange concept underground. I was not wearing a watch, but we could have been digging for 15 minutes or 30 minutes and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you which was correct.
I prayed that they had not had a piss
Eventually the worlds best caver announced an air gap and began to force his way through into what sounded like a chamber. We continued to dig for a bit longer to get as much water flowing as possible. Jon, the mother of the group was concerned about the sump backfilling as we went through, but was soon cohersed into passing through. Now I thought I was bad with the cold, but Jon, the worlds coldest caver had a wetsuit and an oversuit on. I watched him approach the sump. Initially he chose to go on his back to try and use the airspace, but realised there was not enough and didn’t like the water down the back of his neck.
I watched him squeeze through the constriction face first, head under the water. He got stuck! Momentary worry from me but I soon realised that his head was out of the water and his chest was trapped. Some wiggling eventually freed him and I made my way forwards. I could see the other side through the air gap, ok, as long as I get my head out of the water before my chest gets trapped I will be ok. Helmet off I reached it through and took a breath and pushed through, it was tight, but thankfully im not a complete pussy and so with only a wetsuit on I was a bit thinner and managed to get through fine. It was a flat out crawl with helmet out front in the water for a few metres. I could see the lights of Rob and Jon in the chamber, and as I approached the exit, Jon kicked up a wave and I swallowed a huge mouthful of cave water. I prayed that they had not had a piss. Joe popped through with ease and soon we huddle for a video to Jim underground for his birthday and naming this chamber Birthday chamber.
There was a step up and a way onwards. “Ben, lead the way” exclaimed Rob. This felt very special as I made my way up into virgin passage. I expected it to close off but instead it opened up to a rift similar to the crabwalk in Giants. Winding my way onwards with pure excitement I was taking it all in. Eventually I got to a turn and the ceiling dropped to a crawl, making my way in I found a sump. It was a gravel floor, but the ceiling dropped down into the water. Its flowing well here, but will be a difficult and awkward dig. The boys joined me and Joe began to climb up the muddy rift following a draft. 4 metres later he decided enough was enough as it was getting tighter and so dropped back down to us. We made a start on digging the sump to see what we could accomplish but some 20 minutes or so later (I guess? Could have been 5) we decided that would do for the night.
“What the hell did you do?
Content with our discovery of somewhere between 20 to 140 metres of passage we made our way out. Stopping for some pics in birthday chamber, before I went first towards the duck. Passing through was fine, but I noticed large chunks of mud had fallen away from the walls causing restrictions to the flow. Mother Jon was right to have been cautious and so I started trying to pack it back into the sides.
Making our way out of elastic passage we soon got to the waterfall and this absolutely stunning example of a stacked deads wall. I climbed down and stepped back to let Jon come down. As He stepped down onto a rock I noticed it and the one below move. “Whoa Jon, careful, that rock is really loose” I said. “wait there Joe” I pointed out the wobbly rock to Jon. “this one he said?” as he gently put his foot on it. Suddenly it dropped away, taking the one below it with it. “Whoa shit” we both shouted as suddenly the entire wall lurched forwards and came crashing down. We stood in stunned silence. “What the hell did you do?” asked Joe in shock. “Ben pointed out this reyt wobbly rock and I just touched it”
we had a poke around at some other leads before making our way back to Loper lust. I love the ladder that goes from doom to loper. Its the bendiest, rustiest death ladder but it signals adventure ahead. Rob lead the way with a plan to film me coming through the free dive. I put my hood back on and before I knew I Rob had gone through. Shit, I had not watched his tekkers. There was a voice connection and so He explained that I should keep left, right ear down and as I pass through the dive 1 body length I should pop up into the first air bell. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong?
“Fucking hell, So much went wrong there!”
Well, after passing through earlier I was very excited and I remembered Joe saying that you can use the mud slope as a slip and slide to help speed you through. That’s what I shall do then. Inched to the edge. Staring at the waterline on the ceiling. I felt relaxed and so took a deep breathe and did my best pingu impression as I scooted forwards and shot downhill into the water at full 500 speed.
Right, that must be about a body length, I try to lift my head but it hits the ceiling. What the hell? This should be an airbell, maybe I havent gone far enough. I kick trying to lift my head but still unable. Oh shit, ok, calm, I know there’s a second airbell, keep kicking, shit I cant get my face out of the water, ok I’ve fucked this up big time. Thankfully as panic was beginning to set in a had moved left slightly and my head arose out of the water ferociously as I gasped for air.
“Fucking hell! So much went wrong there!” laughed a manical Rob as we both shared a moment of shock.
Unbeknownst to me Jon and Joe were lying in wait for the free dive and after hearing my thrashing around, Joe uttered “that sounds violent” to Jon as they then heard Robs exclamation of everything going wrong.
In hindsight, I should have entered the water and stayed left and gone through slowly. The mud chute goes straight, but loper slightly curves left and so as I barreled down I was shot off to the right.
Understandably Jon was reluctant to come though and I was now getting very cold lying in the water to offer assistance with Rob if required. But we all made it through and got to out SRT kit in inglorious. Its an interesting prussick up this pitch as the higher you go the bigger the chamber feels and offers a nice level of exposure before passing through a keyhole slot at the pitch head.
I made my way along to the shattered dreams pitch, which I normally free climb, but today for some reason I clipped on and prussiced up. Stupid idea, its a tight and awkward pitch in a rift with good holds. Note to self, free climb it next time. I then have to remove my chest jammer to be able to get through the vertical squeeze. I find the best tekkers here is to squeeze myself as hard left as I can to pop upwards and hope I can find that foothold. Carrying on I get to the final obstacle, Coconut airways, its always tricky getting up through the stemples and eventually I found the footholds and made my way up. One final pitch, which again I free climb normally but I chose to prussic on seemingly the worlds thickest stiffest rope which was hard work.
Emerging into the night sky, I lined up for Jon’s photoshoot – MILFs of the peak district 2025 calendar? Piling into the van for cake and beers (cider for the real men) we were all buzzing about how good the trip had been.
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- Written by: Luke Cafferty
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Team: Rob, Dave and Luke.
After a quick catch up and now suitably dressed for the long slog up the sough we headed up to cliff stille. After the 80m abseil we set off for a nice cold walk along the sough. Within no time we were climbing up the ladder to the best lead in Derbyshire. Rob hadn't shut up about how easy digging it was so Dave and I set about digging. Dave took the pointy end and I set about making the entrance crawl hands and knees size. This is where it all started going wrong.
Luke hauling unusually fast
The passage seems to have the most sticky mud ever! Dave was even struggling to pull the empty tub back to the dig face. It took two of us to pull the full tub back along the passage! After a few hours we had only moved 6 full tubs from the end and with the long trip back out in the forefront of our minds we decided it was time to leave. Quick stop to have a nice cold beverage before heading out. Talking on the way out we have decided that we need to dig from the entrance all the way to end. It's not going to be a quick breakthrough...
Enjoying ourselves before the cold wet slog out
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- Written by: Tommy
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Spending the working week and Eldon pub socials together not being enough, Devious Reavis set out the enticing bait of a plan to assess "the best lead in Derbyshire" for its digabilty and measure it's psyche-generation capability for the wider Eldonship. This Saturday gone we strode under the sleepy and unsuspecting excursion of Eyam village to begin work.
A prompt meeting at 6 (pm that is, a slightly earlier than usual but not before breakfast) had us changed and ready in no time, I'd scored a free neofleece that had been passed around the generations in SUSS, Rob opted for no neoprene again, and bouncing up the track we were.
Cliff Stile shaft exhaled a beautiful draft, this tested the fortitude of one enterprising but foolish spider's web as we lifted the lid. Pre-rigged rope made for a simplified start, except that I hadn't used a rack to descend for a couple of years so spent time fannying about when I should have been (c)racking on. I kicked some loose stuff down onto Rob below at one of the rebelays to really hammer the point home of how unenthusiastic I currently felt (whinging about being cold to start with, and mocking the size of the crow bar we were equipped with were other such contributions to the cause).
But that all changed once we hit the sough, what a great bit of the underground to explore, the sense of history, the neat construction craft dished out in yards along it's length. There are a few sections of roof that appear to not take advantage of the natural strength of the arch geometry, opting instead for absolute brick on brick shear friction. Never mind; the rest was perfection to behold.
A score of minutes slipped by as the water enriched our evening via the mechanism of rapid cooling from the waist down, we now found ourselves in more modern developments. Two unconvincing and vitiated ladders later and we were prospecting the natural.
Rob set about totally removing the final ladder from the support of it's accompanying wall to instead suspend it from some 6mm tat tied straight round a hanger plate, he said it wasn't wobbly enough before or something. While he was doing this, I was shuffling my way down to look at the dig face with a drag tray and the aforementioned crowbar. The most notable point of this moment in time was the fragrance of hammer-action pulverised limestone screaming its way into and past my nostrils; the draft in this flat-out tube was phenomenal! We later learned that this is is likely caused by or contributed to by forced ventilation some distance away.
The rope for the drag tray was too short to reach the full length of the tube so Rob cleared what he could halfway down while I made the ladder head more suitable for sitting and towing the drag tray out. Digging here is relatively straightforward, given that the mud delaminates very willingly...too willingly in fact, makes me think that whatever is beyond the dry sump wants to be found. Somewhere between lifting up turf rolls and skinning an animal it makes for a novel experience and should be sampled by all who proclaim their dislike for digging. That's the top two inches anyway and is certainly the name of the game for progress in the dig tube and at the face. However, at the ladder head, it was possible to efficiently cut away large bricks which made a very satisfying thudding sound when tossed down the ladder hole - stacking space is the last thing to worry about on this one.
Deciding we'd had enough and deeming the dig "a goer" (quick access, drafty-drafty, unique digability characteristics, decent sized natural passage, and no need to hire a skip) we set off to quench our thirst.
The trip out isn't bad at all, Rob complained for not donning any neoprene, I have to say my comfort level could only be described as "sublime", we flew up the shaft, I was grateful for post-exped fitness...
As we'd parked outside the Miners' it was probably quite a sensible choice for a debrief over beer and scratchings. The timing works out for a decent digging trip and still making the pub, no excuses.
Who's coming next time?
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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LukeC, RobE
To ascertain whether a Stoney Dale entrance to Victory Level could provide a convenient and efficient entrance into Main Sough and Doom, we needed to get eyes on Victory Level itself. Previously I'd only ever been ~50m up it from the branch off the sough, up to a point where the roof reached the water level. I'd heard that in low water it continues for a couple hundred metres heading straight for the Dale, and even have some line data for this from an Eldon trip in 2011.
Taking advantage of the current low water conditions we thought we'd go for a look. Rather than going up from the sough tail (~45 min crawling, stooping and wading through water) we instead rigged Cliffstile Mine Shaft. This is an 80m engine shaft situated at the top of the hill with a metal lid and a strong draft out. Down the shaft are a number of quite extensive levels heading off, although all seem to peter out to nothing (see Descent 231). It lands on a blockage but in the 80's whilst a mechanical winch was installed on the shaft a small route was dug through to join the sough below.
A bit of questionable rigging off my dodgy old bolts got us both safely down to the sough and heading off up Victory Level in no time. Sure enough where I had previously stopped a small gap had appeared between the roof and water. A quick spray of disco smoke confirmed that the draft was going strongly through this gap and we followed it in. It's neck deep with one ear in the water to get through this arch (not pleasant in a furry suit) but soon it gets a bit more air space so you can wade mostly waist-nipple deep with your head out of the water. Unfortunately there seems to be no restbite. It continued like this for maybe 7 minutes at which point the skin was beginning to burn. Looking ahead here we could see for a good 40m and the roof was getting increasingly low, so we made the executive decision to retreat, with the firm plan to return in lots of neoprene.
By the time we got back to the pitch we were actually grateful that we could start prussiking to warm up. It's not that bad an accent, taking only 20 minutes for us both to be out. At that point we realised we had probably completed our task of finding a good entrance into the sough, Doom and beyond...
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
- Hits: 3432
LukeC, RobE
A long term project in Doom requires access to be a bit easier. Going from the sough tail is over 1 hour of sough wading in each direction, which is far from ideal for a evening trip!
Victory Level is an inlet just passed half way up. On the last trip it was draughting strongly, suggesting an alternative entrance might exist in Stoney Dale. Others had mentioned this as a possibility before, so I dug out an old survey of Victory Level.
When overlaid with the main Stoney survey one of the shafts lined up with the area around Ivy Green Cave, and another on the other side of the road.
Armed with this we went for a look around. Unfortunately it was the wettest day of the year, not ideal conditions for a surface bash!
Indeed the mine entrance below Ivy Green (Mine Level 10) ends in a tantalising boulder choke with a strong outwards draft. I wanted to check Ivy Green cave above as this also breaks into the vein here, to see if the draft might just be a small through draft. However due to the very heavy rain it was impossible for us to safely get across to the entrance.
We then headed down along the vein and across the road to the other feature on the old map. Indeed there is a level there exactly as expected, however it was a horizontal level, full of rubbish and with no drafts at all, so not really an interesting lead. We finished the day with the Windy Ledge through trip and went straight to the Anchor :-)