Rob, Jon and Joe
Between holidays and Rob being away with work, we had had a bit of a quiet period on the digging front. To rectify this and to capitalise on the recent dry weather Rob, Jon and I intended to make a trip into Lathkill Head Resurgence and have a look at Dawke's Crawl. This heads in the direction of Lower Cales Dale Cave and is thought to connect on the far side of the sump, which rarely dries up, and would allow exploration beyond. We’d received previous reports of it being ‘claustrophobic’ and ‘demoralising’, which sounded right up our street.
The crawl is relatively low – not quite tall enough for hand and knees crawling, and is mostly around 1.5m wide for its entire length. The water flows inwards towards Cales Dale, and the reasonably featureless nature of the passage means it has a consistent level of gravel along its length, with the floor of the passage only occasionally being stripped bear. Jon wasn’t enticed however, and decided to call it a day shortly after entering, opting instead to go and meet Jim and Sam in the pub as agreed.
Dream Team forged onwards heading for a choke which had had been the previous breakthrough point. An abandoned tackle bag and the end of some wire indicated we must be getting close. The choke turned out to be a few boulders which had blocked the way and was now just a pile of rubble which is easily bypassed. Beyond this however, the passage completely changed, splitting off into two ways on. The current passage lowered to a 10cm high bedding, and a small tube headed off left, potentially a small oxbow reconnecting further ahead. The bedding was obviously too small, but I tried to wriggle my way into the tube with my helmet off and with as much conviction as I could muster.
I could just about view 3m into the space beyond, however there didn’t seem to be any significant opening out ahead. There was more gravel beyond, which may indicate some widening of the passage, but a lot of rock removal would be required in far from ideal conditions. We decided this probably required more commitment than we are typically capable of, and so elected to make out way out.
After an extended period with craned necks in the crawl, entering into the standing room chambers in the main passage was delightful, followed quickly by brutal headaches as the blood re-entered our brains. Presumably this is why we’re all a bit stoopid… As we were wending our way back up the dale Jon jumped out on us from the bushes halfway down after he’d come back down for some photos, causing Rob to jump out his skin. He might have even let out a ‘Gosh’, which is peak Rob swearing.
