The time had finally come for our long-awaited trip to Carlswalk Cavern. With sights like Gimli’s Dream, the Pearl Chamber, and the Dynamite Series on the cards, spirits were high. Our team of five: Josh G (myself), Josh K, Jack, Joe and Adam (the only non-J in the group), set off along the cliff edge toward the Gin Entrance.
The journey down Eyam Passage was going smoothly at first. That was until I found myself face-down in muddy water, squeezing through an uncomfortably tight, flat-out crawl. As I inched forward, the creeping thought of “I don’t remember it being this tight” began to grow stronger. It soon became clear that we’d inadvertently taken one of the so-called “shortcut” routes leading to Eyam Dale Shaft.
With muddy clothes and slightly bruised egos, we decided to backtrack to the main route. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we rejoined the correct passage and arrived at the boulder choke just beyond Eyam Dale Shaft, a little wiser and a lot damper.
From the boulder choke, there were a few routes to take, and as none of us had actually been to Gimli’s Dream before, we thought that a classic brute force trial and error would do the job. I soon found myself sliding down a makeshift cave chute, while Josh K, being the smallest in the group, volunteered to investigate a narrow passage near the bottom of the choke to see if it was passable for the rest of us.
With admirable enthusiasm, Josh K scuffled head-first into the tight space and quickly vanished from view. We waited in silence until his scouse voice eventually echoed back, “It’s a dead end!”. It was at that point that the headfirst hindsight hit hard. The passage was too narrow for him to turn around, and what followed was a lengthy ordeal of us listening to his increasingly frustrated attempts to reverse out of the squeeze. Fortunately, after some undignified wriggling, he managed to extract himself, slightly exhausted but otherwise unharmed.
With time slipping away and plenty more of the system left to explore, we made the call to leave Gimli’s Dream for another day. It was a tough decision, but one that leaves us with a good excuse to return, unfinished business. We made swift progress down the Northwest Passage and took a brief detour into the Pearl Chamber for the obligatory group photo. From there, we continued along Dynamite Passage toward the infamous Dynamite Series.
The first two squeezes were surprisingly straightforward, which brought us to a slightly more difficult obstacle: the one waterlogged with the wooden beam. As we are all dynamite virgins, it took some trial and error to figure out the best way through. With a bit of experimentation (and a good sense of humour), we all managed to squeeze through in decent time.
Soon after, we were climbing up into the hole in Midnight Chamber, having decided to exit via the Flowerpot entrance. As none of us had been through this route before, it took a fair bit of crawling, squeezing, climbing, and educated guessing to find the elusive blue tube. After a false start earlier in the day with our failed attempt to reach Gimli’s Dream, this second attempt at route-finding proved more successful (or so we thought…), and I soon found myself calling daylight.
Unfortunately, not only did this daylight illuminate the hordes of giant spiders on the walls, but it also allowed me to quickly realise that my fatigued muscles would not allow me to pull myself out of the ~6m flowerpot tube. Reluctantly, I turned back and broke the bad news to the others that we have to make our long way back to the Gin entrance.
Jack, who had earlier confidently declared how “easy” the Flowerpot exit would be, was having none of it. Without hesitation, he pushed past the spiders and made his way up the tube. Moments later, his voice echoed faintly back to us from the surface: “I’m out!”
The sense of enthusiasm lightened our spirits, and soon Josh K was making his way to the tube. Despite him showing a lot of courage in the squeezes, there was an unjustified amount of moaning from him directed at the spiders. Joe, Adam and I then lay listening in a small chamber just before the spider chamber as Josh K made his way up the tube whilst being guided by Jack.
What started for us three as a funny laugh about how he was scared of the spiders soon turned to silence as we heard Josh K’s echoes of him struggling to get up the tube become more and more strained. He had almost made it to the top when eventually he gave in as in his own words, “I started to lose my sense of hearing” and he slid back down the tube and crawled back to join us.
After listening to Josh K’s struggles in the Flowerpot tube, and with our call-out time fast approaching (less than an hour to go, and Jack on the surface without a phone), we decided not to tempt fate any further. It was time to retreat and head out the way we came, via the Gin Entrance. This decision wasn’t met with universal agreement; Jack, now safely above ground, was still enthusiastically bellowing back down Flowerpot that we just needed to “give it another go!” as we crawled away.
Off we went again, this time with a noticeably more serious tone. The race against our call-out time was on, and after nearly four hours underground, the cold and exhaustion were setting in. The laughter gave way to focused determination, punctuated by a few weary “Are we sure this is the right way?” and “Can you take the bag?”. Despite the fatigue, we retraced our steps efficiently and made it back to the Gin Entrance with just minutes to spare, surfacing at just under the hour mark.
Unbeknownst to us, during our trip back, chaos was unfolding above ground: Jack had found a phone… by flagging a car down at the side of the road. He then proceeded to do the sensible thing to let our call-outs (mine and Joe’s wives) know that we are safe. Unfortunately, he did this by sending a hasty, well-intentioned message stating "I am out, everything is fine, the rest of them will just be another couple of hours.". If the poor women were not already panicking due to us being way past our expected exit time, the ambiguity and radio silence left from Jack’s message ensured that they are now.
As we left the cave, I hastily checked in with our other halves, only to be firmly told off for cutting it so close and for Jack sending them “weird messages”. The consensus from them was loud and clear: we won’t be caving again anytime soon, or at least, not without a bit of negotiation and some communication lessons for Jack. With that, we stripped off on the roadside, which earned us a few honks of approval from the passing cars, then headed off for some much-needed food and drink, muddy, tired, and absolutely buzzing.
Despite a few wrong turns, sore bodies, and one or two moments of concern, the five of us had an unforgettable day underground. And let’s be honest, what would a proper caving trip be without a few setbacks? All of us, still relatively new to the world of caving, have well and truly caught the bug. We’ll be back in the peaks, more prepared, slightly wiser, and just as enthusiastic.
