12th August 2014 – Rob Eavis, Luke Cafferty
I know PB Smith is coined with saying “Caves are where you find ‘em”, but this project seems to be an exception, as so far it’s gone surprisingly to plan. To the extent that on the walk up the hill I was describing to Luke, probably in my typically over-enthusiastic manner, what we would find this evening, including a large cross rift with a pitch down. Little did either of us realise how right I was going to be!
Armed with a small drag tray, courtesy of Simon, and a lightweight set of bolting gear, we rigged our way down and up into Pilgrims Way, the most eventfully part being how excited I was already to be leaving my Lucozade cache here for later. Once Luke was down, I rerigged the North Pitch with some 6mm dyneema and chucked the main rope down. We then climbed up and around to the top of the new soon-to-be shortcut. My new little Bosch Uneo was put to test with 3 80mm x 8mm drill holes and it faired brilliantly, allowing for a fully stainless SRT pitch down into North Chamber.
We headed to the end with Luke occasionally running his GoPro, including through the Crusader Squeeze which should be interesting viewing for some! The dig looked better than I remembered, with a definite rise of the roof where the big boulder sits. Luke and I took it in turns digging for ~2 hours in total. Hauling spoil with the small drag tray back to a small chamber worked brilliantly. From there we simply threw it up the passage, making a right mess but fast progress, and I’m sure the winter will wash most of it clean again anyway. We reached the boulder but realised it was going to be too big to move in one, so I set to it with my specially purchased 1.5kg lump hammer. Luckily it was quite a thin boulder and after what my shoulders are still stating as too long it was in two large chunks and two full drag tray’s worth of shavings. We’re through!
A quick squirm up on my back got me stood in a small cross rift, maybe 6-8m high. The only way on was to the left, with a ramp up and few blind holes in the floor. Not looking great.
Luke came through to join me and got his GoPro going again whilst I thrutched up the slippery ramp. As expected we were in a phreatic solution pocket formed on a small joint and at the top it simply closed up to nothing. At the top I turn to Luke and notice at the opposite end a small pocket right at the top of the rift. I ponder the worth of investigating it, as it didn't look great, but figure this could be the last time I come here (as the holes in the floor really weren't appealing) so might as well. It really would be a shame to be caught out by future visitors, as has happened up here recently!
I carefully climb/slide across, trying not to slip down onto Luke, and slowly start to get more positive. “Actually Luke, I think we might have something here”. A final manoeuvre and I was in a hands and knees crawl that went all of 2m before popping out in the side of a large rift cavern. “Oh yes Luke, we’ve only gone and done it!”.
Feeling slightly unnerved by my perched position I have a look around, while Luke comes up to join me. The chamber is 2-3m to the opposite wall, maybe 15m to the left and 12 to the right. The lowest point is directly below us, ~8-9m lower, and the floor slopes up either way to higher than we are. The roof above is at our head height, but that also steps up dramatically both to the right and left with maybe a total vertical range visible of +15m. Making the classic whooping noises also indicated that there’s more to this place than can be seen, with a big reverberating echo seemingly coming down from the right.
The two of us sat in this window for a good while literally just taking it in. After having being digging down in that flatout crawl for the last few hours, what a view this is! And in fact, it’s worked out perfectly. Although the pitch down stopped us from running around exploring it all, it was exactly what we needed to ensure that Dave and Simon could have the opportunity to explore it with us. Because as nice as I’d like to be, I don’t think I would have stopped on my own accord.
I’m sure that this rift is in line with the Filthy Five pitches in Giants, and also Boulder Chamber and PB Chamber at the end of New Oxlow, and it’s so obvious that we were about to hit it when looking at the survey that made me confident in the prediction. However, what happens beyond here is anyone’s guess! And if it’s up, then let the hard work begin, as bringing bolting gear through Crusader is going to be a challenge....!
EDIT: Here's a rough sketch of that found to date, prior to the survey being done.
