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Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

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Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Jules Barrett (EPC), Ann Soulsby (TSG), Alan Brentnall

I'd been wanting to do this trip for a while and so when I got a free Sunday it seemed like the perfect opportunity (especially as we knew that JH was rigged). Some of the SUSS cavers and some blokes from Yorkshire had done it recently and that reminded me about it. Ann has done the Ride of the Valkyries and knows this part of the Peak/Speedwell system well so was great to have her along. I'd like to do it as a pull-through (you can cave back from Salmon's Cavern to the bottom of Calcite Aven) but wanted to rig and de-rig it first to figure out what's what. A team of four dwindled to two (me and Ann) on the Sunday morning and the trip looked in doubt until Alan Brentnall arrived at the TSG with no firm plans. Was excellent that Alan decided to join us as neither of us fancied de-rigging JH whilst also transporting the 90m of rope needed for the Ride of the Valkyries. We arrived at Rowter Farm at about 10:30 am and packed the 20m and 70m(ish) ropes that we needed. Headed underground and soon found ourselves at the bottom of Leviathan. From here went through into the Far Sump Extension and turned left to arrive at the bottom of the fixed ropes that lead upwards in Calcite Aven. A nice series of pitches with rebelays, deviations and traverses lead up to the top of Calcite Aven and then into Fingernail Chamber. A hole in the floor is the short Fingernail Chamber Pitch which leads to Balcombe's Way. We walked along Balcombe's Way until the first bolts appeared. Here you're in a rift passage and there's a narrow (around half a metre) slot in the floor that you can easily straddle. I started rigging along a great airy traverse and the slot in the floor gradually gets wider as you go further along the traverse. Soon, you're rigging along just the right-hand wall and you start to become aware that the rift is opening out into something huge. It really does feel like one of those big continental caves! Reached the pitch-head and abseiled down to a hanging rebelay just over the lip. Rigged that and then a brilliant free-hanging descent down the huge rift. There's another rebelay further down with bolts on opposite walls and then you land on a ledge with routes on down both sides. We followed the bolts down past another rebelay to the bottom. Stuck our heads into Salmon's Cavern and then returned back up the ropes, Ann and Alan de-rigging. From here we retraced our steps back down Calcite Aven to the bottom of JH. We were de-rigging JH and Ann battled heroically all the way up the cave with the biggest (fattest) tackle bag that I've ever seen. It dwarfed my 'big bag' and I reckon it would hold about 200m of rope. Amazing effort to drag it up the Bitch Pitch and along the Cartgate. I picked up a couple of bags at the Workshop and headed out leaving Ann and Alan to de-rig. Me and my two bags were out by 4 pm with Ann and Alan taking a bit longer de-rigging.

A superb SRT trip with some amazing situations. The traverse into the pitch head is great fun to rig and then the pitches are also brilliant.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

Hits: 4320

Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Jules Barrett (EPC), Toni Murphy (non-EPC), Richard Tooley (TSG)

We wanted a short Friday evening trip with some rebelays so that Toni could practice and P8 seemed like a good idea. There's an alternative first pitch that comes down out of the roof and it has a couple of rebelays on it. I quite enjoy the traverse over the old iron ladder pitch so we went for that as well. Very nice, warm evening as we made our way across the fields to the cave. SRT kits on and into the cave. Down the handline at Idiot's Leap and to the top of the first pitch. From here a climb vertically up in the rift leads to a slightly awkward squeeze and up again into a nice little chamber with a backup Spit and Y-hang from P-bolts. Rigged the pitch head and abseiled down to rig the next couple of rebelays and then drop down to the bottom of the pitch. Toni followed and finally Richard. Then climbed up to take the high route towards the top of the old iron ladder pitch. Since Toni hasn't done a lot of climbing around on slippery limestone I rigged the whole of the traverse to the top of the iron ladder pitch on a mixture of naturals and Spits. All very enjoyable! At the head of the old iron ladder pitch used one of the P-bolts as an anchor for the traverse line and kept going towards the passage on the far side that leads to Mud Hall. Once at the other side we made our way to Mud Hall and down to the downstream sump. The journey back was uneventful with Richard helping with the de-rigging and Toni doing a good job on the rebelays.

Details

Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 12 April 2013

Hits: 5171

Report by Jules Barrett
Cavers: Sam Townsend (EPC), Jules Barrett (EPC)

We arrived at the P8 parking with a load of kit including ladder, rope, slings, bolt hangers, and other weirdness. Didn't really know what to expect so had brought a bit of everything. This got put into a couple of bags (in fairly unscientific quantities) and we walked over to Torr Top Farm at Perryfoot to ask permission. The bloke there was very amenable to us going down his cave and we walked over to the entrance in an adjoining field.

Dr Jackson's begins with a 6m entrance climb to a small stream passage. Right through a squeeze (with a weird pyramid-shaped piece of rock) eventually leads to the Yoga Hole. At the Yoga Hole, a short uphill crawl leads to a small chamber. At the end of the chamber is a bar of limestone and the passage descends sharply on the other side of this bar. We'd heard a fair bit about this and it definitely takes some thinking about; being what you might describe as "technical". After the Yoga Hole a couple of short silted up crawls lead to a decent-sized sloping rift passage and we reached the head of the first (8m) pitch. Here there's one rusty bolt and hanger which didn't inspire confidence. We hung our ladder off this and arranged a separate double-lifeline off some natural nearby. This for me was the nicest part of the cave (if you ignore the fixed gear!). After the second pitch a greasy traverse leads to the head of the second pitch. From here we could see the rock bridge in the bottom. There are three options from here <see the guidebook> and we traversed directly from the head of the second pitch to the continuation passage on the far side with some great (and slippery!) back-and-footing. There's a traverse line in place which we were careful not to load as it's not in the best condition. On the other side we crossed the "very greasy and dangerous traverse" (again not weighting the in-situ rope) across the Chasm to the other side to end in a series of tight, silty, muddy crawls on the other side. Having reached the end we made our way back across the traverses, up the first pitch, through the Yoga Hole and out.

Dr Jackson's is a very interesting cave which doesn't feel well-traveled. The trip to the end is a varied collection of squeezes, climbs, traverses and pitches and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It certainly maintains interest throughout!. There's a lot of flood debris in the roof and you wouldn't want to be down there in wet weather. We were underground for about two hours.