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Written by: Jon Pemberton

Published: 24 July 2017

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After Luke and I had our previous encounter up EG&PL (01/06) Team Awesome had another trip to start a dig in the bedding passage off Father Time, unfortunately on this trip Pool Chamber turned out to be sumped so we had a gander at The Real Thing and beyond the Muddy Duck where Rob was inserted into a freshly discovered crawl heading North where he (WE) discovered 10m of new passage!

We returned on this date minus young Luke and replaced by French Jeff (Wade). We made quick progress to the dig face a bit worried about the impending thunder storms above surface but I reassured them both that Pool Chamber doesn't act on food water. The dig appears to have only been fettled with and not properly dug probably with the Hollywood Bowl going at the same time. We all took 30min shifts at the dig face, pulling kibbles back and stacking further back in the passage. One Person digging whilst the other two had some serious bants! After we had gone full circle we made the decision to call it a day and left for The Anchor. We had progressed enough to reach what you could only just see before and with one more session we should be able to decide if its a short or long term project and what the passage looks to be doing/heading following the constriction we have reached.

We raced out to continue our awesome bants in the pub. 

Rob Eavis putting in a shift at the dig face 

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Written by: Jon Pemberton

Published: 24 July 2017

Hits: 3326

Ok where to start...

We (Luke, Rob & I) met at The Quiet Women in Earl Sterndale at the later start time of 7:30pm with a planned trip of Bottle Pot organised by Luke. After jumping in Luke's pimped up van we cruised up to Stoop Farm to be denied access to said pothole. Rob and I both think it was probably Luke's rubbish organisation skills and the inability to use 'The five P's' he learnt whilst in the army. Anyhoo we decided to rethink our Friday evening over a swift one in The local village watering hole.

Being the only ones in the establishment. Rob did his usual party trick of showing of his serious attitude problem whilst ordering our drinks which resorted to the Landlord inadvertently calling him a C**T! (which is also what old folk back in the day called a scythe blade holder/protection sheaf...

After a couple of games of bar skittles with said Landlord and countless stories of Dearman and how he had barred himself from The Quiet Women we eventually decided upon Boulder Pot in Monyash as it was the closest sounding hole to our plan A. After arriving at the correct parking it now being 9:30pm we quickly kitted up in the rain and headed off down dale to find Boulder Pot. I had a rough idea where the hole was from before it was rediscovered but having not been there for 6 years and it being dark it took us 30mins before Rob eventually found the entrance which was exactly where I thought it was; in a patch of 6ft high nettles under a tree right at top o' Dale.

We descended at 10pm and quickly dropped some tight squeezes to a horizontal section which Luke took lead. The passage split here and we found ourselves at the top of the pitch which was an easy climb down to another pitch (again free-climbable) to where the water obviously backed up as it became rather muddy at this point. Rob headed off down a muddy crawl to a dig whilst I climbed through a rift to where a draught was coming from. I can only assume that this is the limit reached by Bentham and Co. in 1993 but from what I gather Orpheous have got deeper than this but we must have missed a turning.

Anyway coming out was a lot more fun as we were constantly being pulled back by a thing called gravity! We surfaced at 11.15pm, it wasn't until 12.20am when I eventually reached Dore. Not your average Friday night but a very memorable one for sure.

Rob negotiating one of the squeezes on the way out

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Written by: Jon Pemberton

Published: 02 June 2017

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Luke Cafferty and I had a quick blast in Bagshawe pre-meet to check out Pool chamber sump (and if it was down). We had a back up plan of heading up Paternity's but luckily for us we didn't have to get wet as the sump was down. We headed up Englands Green & Pleasant Land enjoying a stable calcited boulder choke for a change which contains zero shoring and soon found ourselves in Father Time (a sizeable chamber on the joint with a large boulder choke running in from one side). Luke headed off over the sketchy traverse for a quick mooch whilst I made my way to the bedding passage winding off (the dig).

The crawl goes for approx. 30m (5m wide & 0.5m high) to a fork; Left soon ends at a boulder and sediment choke which is completely different to the rest of the passage and feels larger than the true end. Right heads for a further 10m to an enticing looking dig face emitting an outward draught - meaning air space! The dig looks pretty easy and I'd be happy to give it a crack if anyone would care to join me? It'd mean dragging spoil a short way back and stacking on the right hand wall. If going at a decent lick it takes approx. 20min to reach the dig face from the coe.

After taking a couple of photos we headed back and made a quick trip to the end of The Aven Series showing Luke the important things like Namraed Aven, The Great Aven & Return Of The Cosmic Juice Extractor (original entry point to The Full Moon Series).

We made it back to surface within a couple of hours and retreated to The Anchor.

Luke climbing through the choke

Luke on the 'bomber' traverse up in Father Time