Cussey Pot
During Lockdown 2020 a new hole was spotted to draught bigger and stronger than any cave in the Peak. We dug it open and this is what happened....
Full description of the trip can be viewed here.
The current survey can be downloaded from here.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Following a spell of surface digs and easy trips, me and Joe were keen for something a bit more involved. Looking through the TA list of objectives, a tasty option was to survey the discovery at the end of Elastic Passage in Doom which we forged back in March. Easy decision made.
Pre-beers in the sunny Cussey carpark set the beautifully familiar scene. Donned once again in our tatty wetsuits we raced off. The 3 months since our last trip had not impacted our muscle memory and we arrived in Inglorious in under 7 minutes.
We packed my SRT kit only into the rope bag and headed off along Loper Lust, which was not quite as dry as I expected, making it a gloopy, mud-fest. Wetsuits definitely a good choice here as an oversuit would have picked up twice as much filth.
A few minutes later we were in Doom at the entrance to Elastic Passage and we stash our gear and setup the survey instruments. Joe is always keen to do “book” but I felt I had to vetoed him this time, only because it was on my (only) phone and we were going to a pretty wet place. We then discuss logistics a bit to try get into the right order, then climb up the waterfall and head in.
We start surveying about 3 legs back from the sump/breakthrough-point so that we could tie the new data onto the existing map. Thankfully the water levels were even lower than March so only a bit of re-digging got Joe through the duck quickly and we were even able to send the disto shot through surprisingly easily. He managed to turn around for this next bit so we could fire face to face for a few legs until we got back to the larger passages again. 13 legs in total got us to the upstream “sump” [more a pool full of pebbles and mud] giving us a total of 31.4m of new passage (survey available here). I’m hopeful that we’ll win the DCA Exploration Award again this year, but I really hope it’s not for this measly portion! Come on all you diggers!
Joe by the final sump in Elastic Passage
Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpWcJ3X8w58
We got back to our gear in Doom and set off to take a look at the next project. Back in 2012 when Doom was found the water from Elastic Passage cascaded down a 20m pitch at the southern side of the main passage. We repaired an old launder channel in the floor which redirected the water further along the main passage and into a natural choke, never to be seen again (yes, that’s another project on the list!). This allowed us then to descend the pitch, albeit on some of the poorest rigging I’ve ever seen (and that’s saying a lot as I’ve seen all of my own!). At the bottom of the pitch a partially flooded level heading east and west. Here some leads were marked which were never returned to.
Tonight we planned to go take a look. However, the old throughbolts were unfortunately heavily corroded and we struggled to remove the nuts. We managed to get one off but decided it was probably a poor idea to descend off one, old bolt. How boring we have become! We agree to return with drill and bolts soon.
Dave Harley looking down the pitch in 2012
Plan C for tonight’s entertainment was to search for a long lost level from a flooded chamber at the end of the Wet West Level in Glebe. We’ve visited this area a few times in the last few years, especially since forming the Rat Hole connection through to SMMC from here, but I’ve never really stopped for a good look about. Doug Nash’s old notes include a letter from a Roger Ridgeway dated 1992, which describes a trip he had back in 1964 whilst he was doing some work for Glebe. He describes stumbling into a pair of old man levels heading off from this chamber which loop around to meet each other after roughly 200m! He included a sketch which John Beck subsequently added to his main catchment survey, even though nobody else is known to have entered these passages. Maybe they don’t even exist?!
I was hoping that the lower water levels might allow us to finally end this elusive period so we left our gear at Loper Lust and headed lightweight to the chamber. Indeed the normally waist deep chamber was almost totally dry, although the floor in the middle was now a dangerous muddy pool that I nearly got stuck in. Skirting around the edge I got excited to see a small channel in the mud leading towards a low arch in the north-westerly edge of the chamber, exactly where the passages are suggested to head off from. My excitement spreads to Joe and together we crawl through into a walking sized passage heading off! This is it, we’re off.
As we eagerly walk down the passage I explain the importance of this passage, its proximity to SMMC and the Wet West Caverns above, and the hydrological connection to Little Waterfall. Just as I’d finished talking shit the passage ended at a huge choke after only 50m! No ways off, no old man, no loops, no natural, nothing. This is obviously not it, the elusivity continues….
Through this disappointment the first pangs of thirst kick in and we decide to head to the surface and the awaiting Mechanics. Coming out of Cussey to the welcoming warm air was soon made unpleasant by the swarms of flies attracted to our wet, muddy bodies! Hilariously a couple local girls passed asking if we’d been down “that sewer”. I start correcting them about the impressive nature of the cave system and they quickly interrupt me, giggling that they called it “Randy’s Hole” after their mate who lives next door! Amazing, is it too late to change Cussey Pot’s name?
Awesome team, awesome beer
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- Written by: Ben Shannon
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The cool hard embrace of rock surrounds me as I wedge myself as far left as possible to drop down the vertical squeeze. Ahhhh Shattered dreams, it has been a long time since I have been in this cave.
I feel like I know Cussey well and in what seems like no time at all, we are all dekitting our SRT kit at the base of inglorious bastards.
I was excited about the prospect of a free dive in loper lust and so we headed into the tube. One bit I absolutely love about loper is the head first drop into the main passage. Joe lead the way with Jon, me and Rob in a line. Given that its a tight tube, noise is excentuated and so listening to Joe kick through the sump sounded quite violent. Is he ok? There’s a lot of thrashing. But within seconds he is through. Jon slides forwards next, pushing himself up into the airbell to scope the dive out, some deep breathes follow and with a hard push off with his left leg he disappeared in a thrash of white water, but shortly he too was through.
A beautiful wall of stacked deads with a waterfall to the right
Me next, I slowly moved forwards and got as close to the ceiling of the sump as I could. Lights shining though from the other side was comforting. This felt incredibly committing, but I had a wetsuit hood on and felt warm and comfortable in the water. Breathing slowed I took a final breathe and pushed off hard pulling forwards on nothing it seemed but it didn’t take long to pop out of the water. That was exhilarating and not nearly as bad as it seemed. Hood stashed for later and we all dropped down the ladder to enter into Doom.
Ever the passionate tour guide, Rob would periodically point out discoveries, leads and various intricacies of the mine as we headed for elastic passage. Tonight’s mission was to dig and try to drop the sump to see if there was a way on.
After some time I heard the tell tale sound of a waterfall which signals the start of elastic passage. There is a beautiful wall of stacked deads with a waterfall to the right. Its a simple 1m climb up into crawling passage. The floor is beautiful with water erosion carving a smooth path onwards, and so we headed onwards. Elastic passage winds around with a mix of crawling, a weird constricted rift that requires a climb up and over before dropping into flat out crawl. Given it was a small group of the very best Team Awesome had to offer, we moved swiftly throughout the cave and it was not long until we hit the sump.
Que lots of excited noises from Rob. “There’s a waterfall, it might be open” I couldn’t heard the rest, but he clearly sounded excited. “I heard words, but I have no idea what that means” came Joe’s voice behind. The four of us set about digging out the gravel floor and lowering it, removing anything that could restrict water flow. Jon would kick piles back to me and I would stack it in the sides as I did the same for Joe. Time is a strange concept underground. I was not wearing a watch, but we could have been digging for 15 minutes or 30 minutes and I wouldn’t have been able to tell you which was correct.
I prayed that they had not had a piss
Eventually the worlds best caver announced an air gap and began to force his way through into what sounded like a chamber. We continued to dig for a bit longer to get as much water flowing as possible. Jon, the mother of the group was concerned about the sump backfilling as we went through, but was soon cohersed into passing through. Now I thought I was bad with the cold, but Jon, the worlds coldest caver had a wetsuit and an oversuit on. I watched him approach the sump. Initially he chose to go on his back to try and use the airspace, but realised there was not enough and didn’t like the water down the back of his neck.
I watched him squeeze through the constriction face first, head under the water. He got stuck! Momentary worry from me but I soon realised that his head was out of the water and his chest was trapped. Some wiggling eventually freed him and I made my way forwards. I could see the other side through the air gap, ok, as long as I get my head out of the water before my chest gets trapped I will be ok. Helmet off I reached it through and took a breath and pushed through, it was tight, but thankfully im not a complete pussy and so with only a wetsuit on I was a bit thinner and managed to get through fine. It was a flat out crawl with helmet out front in the water for a few metres. I could see the lights of Rob and Jon in the chamber, and as I approached the exit, Jon kicked up a wave and I swallowed a huge mouthful of cave water. I prayed that they had not had a piss. Joe popped through with ease and soon we huddle for a video to Jim underground for his birthday and naming this chamber Birthday chamber.
There was a step up and a way onwards. “Ben, lead the way” exclaimed Rob. This felt very special as I made my way up into virgin passage. I expected it to close off but instead it opened up to a rift similar to the crabwalk in Giants. Winding my way onwards with pure excitement I was taking it all in. Eventually I got to a turn and the ceiling dropped to a crawl, making my way in I found a sump. It was a gravel floor, but the ceiling dropped down into the water. Its flowing well here, but will be a difficult and awkward dig. The boys joined me and Joe began to climb up the muddy rift following a draft. 4 metres later he decided enough was enough as it was getting tighter and so dropped back down to us. We made a start on digging the sump to see what we could accomplish but some 20 minutes or so later (I guess? Could have been 5) we decided that would do for the night.
“What the hell did you do?
Content with our discovery of somewhere between 20 to 140 metres of passage we made our way out. Stopping for some pics in birthday chamber, before I went first towards the duck. Passing through was fine, but I noticed large chunks of mud had fallen away from the walls causing restrictions to the flow. Mother Jon was right to have been cautious and so I started trying to pack it back into the sides.
https://youtube.com/shorts/yFkqgX8MguA?feature=share
Making our way out of elastic passage we soon got to the waterfall and this absolutely stunning example of a stacked deads wall. I climbed down and stepped back to let Jon come down. As He stepped down onto a rock I noticed it and the one below move. “Whoa Jon, careful, that rock is really loose” I said. “wait there Joe” I pointed out the wobbly rock to Jon. “this one he said?” as he gently put his foot on it. Suddenly it dropped away, taking the one below it with it. “Whoa shit” we both shouted as suddenly the entire wall lurched forwards and came crashing down. We stood in stunned silence. “What the hell did you do?” asked Joe in shock. “Ben pointed out this reyt wobbly rock and I just touched it”
we had a poke around at some other leads before making our way back to Loper lust. I love the ladder that goes from doom to loper. Its the bendiest, rustiest death ladder but it signals adventure ahead. Rob lead the way with a plan to film me coming through the free dive. I put my hood back on and before I knew I Rob had gone through. Shit, I had not watched his tekkers. There was a voice connection and so He explained that I should keep left, right ear down and as I pass through the dive 1 body length I should pop up into the first air bell. Perfect. What could possibly go wrong?
“Fucking hell, So much went wrong there!”
Well, after passing through earlier I was very excited and I remembered Joe saying that you can use the mud slope as a slip and slide to help speed you through. That’s what I shall do then. Inched to the edge. Staring at the waterline on the ceiling. I felt relaxed and so took a deep breathe and did my best pingu impression as I scooted forwards and shot downhill into the water at full 500 speed.
Right, that must be about a body length, I try to lift my head but it hits the ceiling. What the hell? This should be an airbell, maybe I havent gone far enough. I kick trying to lift my head but still unable. Oh shit, ok, calm, I know there’s a second airbell, keep kicking, shit I cant get my face out of the water, ok I’ve fucked this up big time. Thankfully as panic was beginning to set in a had moved left slightly and my head arose out of the water ferociously as I gasped for air.
“Fucking hell! So much went wrong there!” laughed a manical Rob as we both shared a moment of shock.
Unbeknownst to me Jon and Joe were lying in wait for the free dive and after hearing my thrashing around, Joe uttered “that sounds violent” to Jon as they then heard Robs exclamation of everything going wrong.
In hindsight, I should have entered the water and stayed left and gone through slowly. The mud chute goes straight, but loper slightly curves left and so as I barreled down I was shot off to the right.
Understandably Jon was reluctant to come though and I was now getting very cold lying in the water to offer assistance with Rob if required. But we all made it through and got to out SRT kit in inglorious. Its an interesting prussick up this pitch as the higher you go the bigger the chamber feels and offers a nice level of exposure before passing through a keyhole slot at the pitch head.
I made my way along to the shattered dreams pitch, which I normally free climb, but today for some reason I clipped on and prussiced up. Stupid idea, its a tight and awkward pitch in a rift with good holds. Note to self, free climb it next time. I then have to remove my chest jammer to be able to get through the vertical squeeze. I find the best tekkers here is to squeeze myself as hard left as I can to pop upwards and hope I can find that foothold. Carrying on I get to the final obstacle, Coconut airways, its always tricky getting up through the stemples and eventually I found the footholds and made my way up. One final pitch, which again I free climb normally but I chose to prussic on seemingly the worlds thickest stiffest rope which was hard work.
Emerging into the night sky, I lined up for Jon’s photoshoot – MILFs of the peak district 2025 calendar? Piling into the van for cake and beers (cider for the real men) we were all buzzing about how good the trip had been.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Following on with our newly found selflessness, we spent much of this evening helping out the landowner at Cussey by cutting back the overgrown trees at the site, after a complaint from the Council. Our Awesome team obviously made light work of this, filling the road with vegetation and not even hitting one passing vehicle. All until I got a chainsaw stuck up a tree and needed another one sent up to free it. Luckily I’d learnt from the first one so didn’t get the second stuck too.
With our beer-fuel shenanigans completed we’d planned a quick trip down the other side of Cussey before making the Eldon pub meet. It was therefore with horror and disdain that I looked upon half the team donning not their furry suits but their jogging attire. It seems their Albania training is more targeting aerobic fitness than strength and fortitude. Through gritted teeth we bid them well and me, Chris, Joe and Hal headed down.
This was Hal’s second time down Cussey, since the initial breakthrough east, the first being actually on the day we broke through! However that night his size and our self-serving wankerness meant he remained the wrong side of the last squeeze as he listened to our hollers getting further away. I was keen therefore to see him through the constriction tonight (which has now been widened) and to enjoy the delights of Timewarp and beyond.
I rigged using the newish p-bolts and I realised this was the first cave I’d help found that has actually been p-bolted, which gave a weird, certain stamp of officialness to our discovery. Once down NCA pitch I followed by Chris but then was saddened to see Joe come next, rather than Hal. Turns out he wasn’t going to give it a proper second try and had returned to the surface. Maybe third time’s a charm.
Now with no other agenda we decided on a tick-box tourist trip for me to take these two to locations they’d not been before, and hopefully they’d think that was a worthwhile exercise, for more than just the exercise. First Walzernice seemed to impress them very slightly, so that was a good start. Second was the bitter end of Rocky Horror choke, heading towards Diceman which Joe was bolt climbing only last month. We got down the vertical squeeze dug back in 2021 but were stopped at a new mud collapse, preventing us from reaching the bitter end. This’ll take 30 mins to clear, but not today so we headed back out.
So not a very productive or satisfying evening, just box ticking and caressing landowner relationships, but at least the beer tasted good in the Mechanics.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Finally a return to Diceman was on our agenda for this evening. Joe and I now feeling Cliffestile fit with Sam tagging along, kitted up in Eyam on this sweltering hot afternoon. It wasn’t fun putting wetsuits on but in hindsight this was a much better option than Cussey.
The walk over was bleak, we stashed away a couple of post beers at the lid, ready for post 80m prussik. A wade up the sough and a quick march through Glebe got us to Sooty which we had left a ladder on from our previous trip. The ladder was not in great condition but with a rope still in situ it was safe to use. We all squirmed our way through the first choke and Joe bravely knocked a rock out of the way in the second choke which had decided to collapse in on itself. Now we we’re finally in Diceman again. Previously we’d only made two trips to this place to gain access and survey. The large natural rift lies at a very exciting place under Rocky Horror in Cussey Pot and could provide the elusive ‘Artistic Connection’ into this side of the system. Our mission for this evening was to climb the rift. We checked out the far side first to where the smoke grenade we used on the final trip followed the draught upward. The climb here looked abysmal and choked. We then backtracked to the main chamber just above the breakthrough window, here the walls looked much more solid and the view above looked enticing. I told Joe to crack on and he quickly kitted up for his third bolt climb in three weeks!
Joe quickly progressed up whilst Sam and I got cold in the draught. About 10m up he gained a ledge formed by a large ruck of boulders. From here a delicate traverse over holes led to a further rift which climbed out of sight. We called it quits here as it was getting late and we had a trek back out. The upward spiral choke was awkward with bags but what was more terrifying was the glutenous mud which nearly killed Sam and I, luckily for us Joe was on hand and keen to rid his ‘Soulless’ nickname and jumped in to save the day and retrieve our wellies! Ideally this requires some stepping stones.
We hit the sough and washed off (main reason we chose the sough rather than Cussey)!! The trip out was uneventful until we hit the shaft where near the top Joe decided to kill us both by lobbing summat down the shaft. Scary place to be with nowhere to hide. Beers on surface were a reyt treat!
A return trip is planned.
[Below] Sam getting cold in The Diceman (JRP)
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Dylan Kocher , Cameron Macdonald
With SMMC open again and LL breathable I wanted to get into the master cave properly since only popped in last Thursday to change the dye detectors with Rob and Chris. I love bringing new people into caving as seeing the glares and awes of an exciting new experience is great and reminds me of why I love it so much throughout my experiences today. So, in the spirit of both, I called Cam. Why Cam because he is nuts like me and willing to do anything. I have previously taken Cam to Giants a very beginner cave and this is a pretty big difference. Of course, this is not a very “smart” decision to make as Cussey holds very tight and wet caving that even most cavers find unpleasant and somewhat daunting. There are a select few that absolutely thrive and love this environment who are comfortable with being uncomfortable. Cam is one of these people at heart and is the reason we get on so well. Arriving at the car park to gear up cam shows me his foot. A broken toe. But there are more also massive scrapes up his arms both sustained in a tree-climbing accident due to “letting go”(arm scrapes). But retaining the can-do attitude we laughed and carried on.
A broken toe, perfect way to start a caving trip
At the lid, Cam lowers himself down onto the first entrance pitch. Oh, and have I mentioned that this is his first-ever pitch albeit some light practice in a tree? Once down we had a gander at Nomenca rift then through coconut cavern arriving at the second pitch. Once talked through the second pitch we arrive at the fun stuff. LL is nice and open and although Cam went head under anyway, knew that my judgement of character was spot on and we would have a fun trip. Talking all the way about the area and surrounding sections of passage we make our way to race against time. I had been avoiding the conversation of the free dive as you never know how someone will react until under the gun but with boil up ahead I give Cam the lowdown and the kid doesn’t blink an eye. In I go surfacing and give three tugs. A minute passes while I analyze the movement of water, the sound of the splashing against the roof with the movement of the rope. I gathered he put himself in the water and positioned himself at the dive. Just like fishing the instant hit of the line signals the beginning of an experience that will always be remembered. Bursting out of the sump I ask how it was and the reply was “extremely committing”. Spot on. In the master cave, we take an intimate look throughout and discuss the features of the walls and boulders and make our way to sphincter aven. Once in we made our way out but I thought it was good to state out loud that any injuries sustained at this point if rendering any of us immovable (broken leg ect..). You would probably die of hyperthermia before help arrived and with this, we kept a lid on some of our more light-hearted free-climbing tendencies continuing back. To keep this s, it was a great trip and some of the most fun caving I have done, offering a lot of experience in one go and how Awesome it is that an absolute novice got to see what others may never, even in this great circle of cavers. I’m sure Cam will be back and right with me when I come up with some more on-the-day ideas.
