17th July 2014 – Rob Eavis, Simon Gant, Dave Harley
Had the trip last week really happened? The fact we’d got home so late after spending so long in such a great bit of Peak district cave that neither of us ever seen before, added to the fact we’d just squirmed into ~70m of new, spacious passage without digging, all made it hard to believe. We needed to return to convince ourselves, and ideally with the other core squalor digger, Simon. However he has an unflawless history with pushing tight caves, so we entered the cave this evening with a somewhat hesitantly ambitious plan for yet another long evening trip.
The main aim was to survey all the new find, a task that would help us priorities the 4 leads, both amongst themselves but also against other commitments outside Oxlow. The unfortunate aspect was that none of the Mainstream Inlet series is electronic yet, and what data we have for the rest of the New Oxlow series has been supplied as purely a set of line surveys from many moons ago. Therefore finding a tie-in point with which to start from anywhere near our new stuff would be difficult. The decision was to start from the turnoff to the Chamber of Horrors, and dutifully we set off.
One advantage to resurveying a lovely bit of passage like this is that the pace you move allows you all to really take it in. After 20 legs we’d reached North Chamber in relatively good time. However things rarely go perfectly to plan and today was not going to be an exception. Attempting the 21st leg and the DistoX keeps turning off. Oh dear. We try heating it and then hitting it, but it’ll do no more. Oh no, what a disappointment, a basically wasted trip and I quietly spit my dummy out.
After a few deep breaths we decide to head on to the end and see if we can get Simon through the squeeze. A blast up the Mainstream Inlet series gets my anger out and we arrive at today’s main challenge. I head through the first squeeze and wait in the small aven beyond, making sure I’m sufficiently out of the way for Simon to head through. Blindly I talk him through the manouvers, and Dave from behind offers some verbal assistance also. Simon sets off, climbs out into the small aven and head first into the hole. I hear him struggling sufficiently and we both repeat that two arms in front will be best. After a while and few hard attempts he’s starting saying things like “this is impossible, but I’ll try again” and I get worried. I turn around so I can see him properly and realise right there that we’ve been directing him through the wrong hole! Instead of the moderately small tube he’d only noticed the absolutely tiny hole which indeed was impossible to pass, and it was only his trust and determination that meant he tried it for so long! After a quick change of attack he pops through the proper squeeze in a matter of seconds. Ooops, sorry Simon! Next was the harder squeeze but Simon smashed through it with great ease, presumably after the wicked warm up he’d had!
Once all through we head off to investigate all the new stuff and show Simon around. Dave gets stuck into the first lefthand muddy dig whilst me n Simon head down to the bottom tubes. His watch compass showed this passage as heading E to NE, a very promising direction, and the spray can of smoke we took down indicated a steady draft at the end heading in (although the others were not drafting as well as the week before, despite it being super-hot on the surface). On returning to Dave he’d made good progress reaching a small cross rift, but the way on continues needing more digging. A time check of just after 10:30pm meant we should head and within 2 hours we were all on the surface in the still of the warm summers evening.
So overall a very enjoyable trip, if not a little disappointing and frustrating at times. We’ll be back soon, this time with spare DistoX batteries…