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.
https://youtube.com/shorts/yFkqgX8MguA?feature=share
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.