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: Jon Pemberton
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Just Rob and I tonight (TAP) and you know what that means? – Cool shit normally happens.
Well tonight was cursed!
We met early (6pm) expecting the sump to be open and a good stomp around the Master Cave. The first problem was warm beers, closely followed by problem 2 – unable to get wetsuits on! This was really problematic and I managed to nearly de-glove my fingers trying to stretch the neoprene over my sweaty carcass. Temperatures eased once we made our descent, almost a little too cold. We dumped SRT gear at Inglorious and headed for Vulgarious. The pool enroute in The Wet West felt ice cold and it made me wonder how cool the duck would be. We progressed along Vulgarious and popped out in RAT. When I hit the T-junction I felt no extreme draught which seemed a worrying sign and Rob soon hollered up that it was definitely still sumped – Joy! For whatever reason the tube heading over the sump which creates a vocal connection to the airbell upstream was pissing out water! This has never really flown before so quite why it has decided to start in the middle of an extremely dry period is baffling. The only other thing that seems to flow at the moment is For Buck’s Sake and this never seems to change. (Note The Master Cave was barely flowing!)
So with that dampening our horizons we started off drilling the large 16m x 500mm hole for Rob’s tablet. Rob was excited (literally) and with only 30mm to go he had a quick breather to note how hot the drill had got. He continued with his hole and in seconds pulled the drill back out with half the drill bit missing – bugger! He hastily slammed the drill down in front of me and threatened to drown himself in Sump 2. After talking him down off the ledge we didn’t have many more options left for this evening’s trips and it was only 8:15pm. Rob, now angry with the world decided he was going to free dive through sump 2a and rig a hard line for the free dive. He made it look easy, tied to a rope with the drill halfway along said rope – I worried for what seemed like a few minutes but in hindsight was probably 10 seconds. We made vocal contact through the pissing inlet tube but could audibly hear nowt! Next I heard drilling and all seemed ok. Rob soon arrived back with me in RAT declaring it was the best free-dive in Derbyshire. I asked how sump 2b was and he declared that he’d forgotten to look so off he went back through the sump. He ran all the way along Winking Passage to the Junction with the Master Cave just to check it was still there (hence noting the flow in there).
Once Rob was safely on my side of the sump we headed back along Vulgarious and Rob managed to twist my arm and drag me up the Wet West Caverns for a look at the sump at the end and the Ireby Sump Buster. The sump was pretty low but not open. After inspecting the equipment and declaring it doomed I had a quick look at the cross rift which spent a few trips on way back when and noted it looked a lot more enticing than from our previous trip at the back end of last year. Rob noted a draught going up it which he said changes everything (read that as you may).
The return trip was rancid and definitely warranted miner’s knee pads. We retreated for a well deserved pint in The Moon – early night for us, wasn’t the planned trip but could’ve been worse!
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Just Rob, Sam and I this evening for a potential SMMC trip. Pre beers were essential with the weather and the entrance was blowing a hooley! We quickly made our way down Cussey and along Vulgarious. I was at the sharp end and raced to the upstream sump anticipating it to be draughting with a little bit of airspace but as always this wasn’t meant to be and was greeted with a definite sump! The tiny hole at head height at the entrance to sump was draughting inwards massively which was nice to see as it means the sump's open beyond the airbell.
Plan B – Sam and Rob headed off to survey Rat Roof whilst I made a valiant attempt to remove the dam wall creating the sump. Before Sam and Rob returned I had capped 5-6 times and made very little progress due to the exceptionally hard bedrock which forms the floor of the passage. Rob arrived back and had a go for himself and made a smidge more damage – Ho Hum!
We retreated as we were due an early night (monthly meet). On the way out Rob surveyed Black Draught so we could tie in the BD – Rat Roof debate and headed to The Mechanic’s for refreshments and the Eldon's monthly meet..
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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With the recent realisation of The Doom discovery being nigh on 10 years old followed by a meagre two Pemberton brother riding solo, rather than do anything productive Sammy P and I went for a tour of Doom to mark this awesome milestone!
Armed with only wetsuits (due to the change of plan, Sam didn’t even have Wellingtons or knee pads!) we headed straight for top level Doom. This is found at the end of Loper Lust and is the original entry point to the discovery. I told Sam the fantastic tales of how we thought we were just going to drop in this top level when we found (but not dropped) Inglorious Bastards pitch – oh how we laughed!
We checked out one lead which does indeed require bolting up to but doesn’t look good, then shot off down the ladder to the main line. After a brief pause and photo stop at Static Passage we headed to the end of the pipe caverns to where Rob nearly jumped to his death then retraced our steps for a look at The Black Lagoon. A brief visit to the lower passage with small trickle of water emitting from Elastic Passage we turned around at 10pm and was back to the car for 10:40pm ready for some post cave beverages.
Crazy place! These workings are so extensive its hard to get your head around on a trip like this with many side leads. Needs a good survey really – Rob?
Above and below: Sam in the upper level of Doom
Sam in the Static Passage Squeeze
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- Written by: Joe Buck
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Team: Rob, Jon and Joe
Rob and I had spent the whole week with bated breath patiently waiting to see the destruction from last trips efforts. The possibility of Sump 2 being open again, and therefore allowing non-diver access into SMMC, had also coerced Jon and Luke into joining us so they can have a wonder round the new streamway. I had arrived a little late and so Jon and Rob were pre-beered by the time I arrived, and with no sign of Luke we quickly changed and headed in.
We slithered along the passage approaching RAT excited to see what levels of devastation we’d created. Rob approached first in stunned silence. My hopes began to rise. As it transpired, he was stunned because everything looked exactly as we’d left it - failure. To add insult to injury there was no draft through the sump into SMMC, and further investigation confirmed the water had risen a few more inches and sumped the duck into the airbell. Jon set about starting the siphon back up so potentially it would be lower for the following week. Meanwhile, not wishing to let it get us down too much, Rob and I began to form a better strategy and see if we could be a little less greedy. We formed a plan and set about the lengthy task of drilling. Being already laden with gear, Rob had only packed one battery which promptly ran out just as the last hole was drilled.
Jon had managed to get the siphon trickling and had then set about breaking the wall holding the perched pool in place and had made some progress. It felt a bit ridiculous that so far the most progress had been made by chipping away at it with a crowbar!
With our very short and easy digging trip complete, we made a hasty retreat, all the while Jon was singing Venga Boys “Boom, boom, boom, boom!” with alarming lyrical accuracy, and recalling Eldon stomps of times gone by. We capitalised on an early finish and headed to the Mechanics again to top up our electrolytes and discuss tactics.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Team: Dream (Rob and Joe)
Just the two of us tonight, after a late farming related excuse from Sam, and we formally renamed our duo the Dream Team. After giving up on Black Draught in an immature spat of frustration last week, I was now totally psyched to be donning my wetsuit and heading for Vulgarious. Water levels in the crawl were at their normal low, but we were both surprised to see that Sump 2 was actually open (just) and pulling a draught!
We ditched out gear and excitedly went to inspect. The first section of the sump had maybe 50mm of airspace so we each navigated through on our backs, helmets off. The lowest bit was only 1-2m long and pretty easy going. We stood up in the middle airbell, reminiscing of being here all those months before on our short diving foray. Joe then went ahead for the second section of the sump on the basis that he hadn’t ever seen it before (he’d been behind me on the diving day and vis had reduced to zero once I’d inelegantly dragged myself through it). This section had much more airspace, maybe 300mm, and was very easy to navigate through. Joe pointed out the tiny squeeze he’d managed to accidentally navigate through by accident, oops! We crawled up the mud bank on the upstream side and basked in the glory of being the first non-diving trip here. Rather than be tempted to go off for a gander we decided to turn around, this time simply freediving the downstream section as it was so short and easy.
Now nice and cool we started the slow job of drilling. Today’s job was to start the lowering of Sump 2, or at least have a go. After a bit of discussions we agreed on a plan and set to work. This started with emptying a perched pool of water with our helmets and wellies, an age-old solution we’d both never tried before and were impressed with the effectiveness! This then allowed holes to be drilled lower down, hoping to get more depth.
Once all 3 holes drills and the gear was installed, we packed up and retreated up Vulgarious to a safe distance. It’s proper filthy in this section and I nearly managed to keep everything clean, apart from the one expensive bit of electronics I had with me, oops! The gear went off with a very satisfying triple boom and we turned tails and fled. Back at Inglorious Joe stepped up and took the tacklebag off me (he’s a star) and after only 2.5 hours the Dream Team emerged into the glorious sunshine. Refreshments purchased in the Mechanics whilst we discussed all the possibilities of how successful the operation may have been. Too much anticipation for my liking…