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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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Team TOJ; Rob, Jon & "Souless" Joe Buck.
We sat in the Miners and discussed plans for tonight. Due to only having 3 we were not venturing into our sloppy new dig now named "Vulgarious Bastard" or Vulgarious for short, tonight was to be a clean night, an easy night...
We were to check out the lead from last week - a continuation of the mine level above the Waterfall Pitch heading NW. The waterfall pitch was the original entry to this wet West series back in the late 80's but it appears as though the original explorers we're dead set on pushing the natural rather than mincing about in the old mine workings, that and the rather bold step to access it. A quick look at the survey revealed the mine workings to lay very close to the mine workings heading off in a similar direction in Inglorious. - could this be another route into the WW series if Loper Lust were to sump?
We wasted little time and made our way to Inglorious. Rob shot off front to grab some tools from Draught Black and Joe and I made our way and started to place some bolts for a handline traverse over the bold step atop the waterfall pitch. We were soon back together and Rob jumped across and finished bolting the other side. A short stooping level reaches a pitch down and a 2m x 1.5m rectangular shaft up, approx 5m high in poor rock and clay (some humongous bore holes remain at the bottom which were possibly used for a platform at some point). Rob and I climbed up and jointly rigged a handline for the climb which doubled up as a rope for the lower pitch too. Joe came up and Rob made his way up the corkscrew to dig the boulder blockage. Dithering around waiting made no sense so we jumped back down the pitch and started to explore below.
=EASY PICKINGS=
Joe traversed across the pitch first and I followed. It seemed a fairly bold move as we're all fairly short and the shaft below is in similar dimensions to the one above. From here we continued NW along an old level which gave an amazing echo. This continued for approx 20m to a forefield with more modern workings. A climb led off to the west but crapped out in solid. On the way back we noted that at a certain point the level almost resembled a coffin level and the miners old clog prints could still be seen in the mud floor which was pretty neat. We retreated back I inspected a short dodgy climb near the entrance, this crapped out to the NW but running back SE a crawl over boulders led to another corkscrew heading down and west but not pushed.
I climbed back down and traversed over the shaft back to the bottom of the pitch where Rob was. I could hear him capping above and Joe descended the pitch below first. Again a bold descent and even scrappier climb back up. SE this leads back to the bottom of the waterfall pitch, we followed this under the waterfall to reach a spectacular pitch looking down which we'll bolt down one day as an alternative route to the lower series. NW a short duck under led to a further corkscrew heading down and west. The whole place was dry as a bone and the air was pretty stagnant! Down and down we spiraled passing lovely picked out workings to a small climb down between stemples. This led to a further corkscrew passage comfortable in size (walking/stooping) to a large shaft approx. 2m in diameter and loads of large stemple's supporting it. The whole place looked like it was crumbling in on itself probably because of how dry it was. It kind of reminded me of a large sandstone choke we found in Matienzo which was terrifying and this place felt the same.
Joe peered over the edge of the shaft. It wasn't deep but you'd hurt yourself if you fell (about 6-8m) just beyond and underneath a stemple which appeared to be bearing one of the walls was a huge enticing black space! I edged around the shaft and reached a col between the shaft and a large chamber. Here a 2m iron ladder led down to the floor of the chamber. Joe traversed across and I asked him if he thought it was safe before kicking the top rung and climbing down. Joe quickly followed after taking a quick snap on Rob's phone which he had for some reason and we explored the large chamber finding only 2 leads to poke. One a climb up a mud wall to a small crawling sized black hole as seen in the photo. Two a hole (possible shaft) in the roof which I wouldn't even shake a stick at due to the nature of the place because bolts are definitely not going to hold you in here!
We made our way back to Rob after scrapping up the pitch on the hand-line. Rob sounded like he had a fun time by himself digging along side the large boulder blocking the way on. He managed to get through without capping but unfortunately the passage ended shortly after in boulders. He then removed said rocky ready for if/when it needs digging properly for the connection. We surveyed back to the main drag and made our way back through a rather aqueous Loper Lust which means we need an alternative connection for the winter months!
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Rob, Jon, Ben, Fabian
A Friday evening jaunt allowing us to team up with a couple newcomers who fancied a taste of Cussey mixed with a splashing of Awesome. Pre-beers in the miners to get to know one-another and let them know what they were in for - the Vulgarious Bastard dig.
I was disappointed to see the fans were off, as the entrance was much less impressive for them. We took it steady down Cussey, showing them the way and how to handle a few of the trickier bits, but in general they seemed sound. And keen! I was wearing a 20m coil of rope as I figured that was easier than a tackle bag, although it made bits of Loper Lust very tight on the chest. Of course I didn’t let Ben who was behind me see my error and pushed on through. We picked up the spare digging tray from the entrance to Doom to supplement the dig.
To be fair, I didn’t have an exact plan of how we’d haul with 4 of us, but we somehow ended up with a very efficient setup. We had two haul & return lines, with a person (Ben) staged halfway switching the buckets between them. I was at the front digging, although spent the whole session clearing wall collapses that had happened since our push last week. This isn’t an issue as it’s basically digging itself. At the back Jon and Fabian we hauling and stacking the spoil. Everyone was kept busy and after an hour we’d shifted 40 something buckets and all felt pretty content. Fabian was up silly early on Saturday morning so we called it a short trip and started heading out. I hadn’t quite reached the dig face that me and Joe got to last week, and as the others were having a look at the passage more walls were collapsing in, so it’ll be a while before actual forward progress is made, but it’s all good stuff in the right direction.
On the way out me n Jon had a quick look at the mine passage across a traverse over the Waterfall Pitch (which the original explorers had accessed the Wet West from). Indeed many ways on here warrant a further look. With time short we chose to climb up a rectangular rise and got into a corkscrew passage, mined through natural, to reach a single boulder blocking the way on. This might be heading up towards Cussey, so worth a better look sometime. We downclimbed and caught up with the others in Inglorious Bastards and made a nice steady way out, so much easier with no bags.
On the surface the first snowflakes of the impending Storm Arwen were falling and after a quick wash off in the Salt Pan Fabian legged it home. Us three remaining and enjoyed the best post-beers ever inside Ben’s fancy campervan, equipped with heater, comfy chairs and a brew station! He’s definitely welcome again. Turns out Fabian might not have been accustomed to the strenuous nature of Cussey as he describe himself the next day as "Feeling like I've been gangbanged by a herd of elephants". I think we'll take that.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Joe Buck, Rob Eavis
Work and last minute dropouts left just the two of us, so plans of a big hauling effort were out the window. That at least may allow us to just go for glory and not worry too much about moving spoil, and to be honest after last week I was pretty excited. Pre-beers in carpark to keep things quick and straight down to Inglorious where we derigged the old 9mm that’s been on there since we broke through and swapped it out for some new (old) 10.5mm. Loper Lust was a pleasure as always without a bag and we got to Wet West passage pretty quick. Joe then had a crash course in how to use a DistoX and we surveyed from the previous extent of our modern survey (where Draft Black turns off) all the way to the dig. Once done we couldn't hold off the urge any longer and dived head first into the slop.
Joe went first with me closely behind. We joked about how silly it was us trying to stay clean and dry. It’s now a good 30m or so to the face, all of which is either crawling or flatout. In places the slop was over 30cm deep, the trickle of water that flows out of the dig really hasn’t done much to clean it out! A few fresh wall collapses greeted us which Joe just broke up and crawled (slid) straight over. We were keen to push the end. Joe spent a while making the bit I reached last week a wide enough trench to get into and after a few metres reached a left hand corner. Behind him all I could do was jeer him on and occasionally sweep away a wave of slop that he managed to extrude from around him. Soon we were both half buried and pretty cold so we decided to try drag our respective pools of slop back out with us. This was a surprisingly tiring task, especially for the arms, and once back in the main passage we were both pretty knackered.
My turn now which was good as I was keen to see the end. Getting there was definitely easier now we’d each been up and down it a few times. I think each trip the passage will just get a bit bigger, which is a positive feature for the future. This is a really interesting dig, especially done “on the cheap” like this without hauling. After a while I got a method going. It was a case of grabbing a handful of mud from the front and somehow chucking it behind me, although it tended to land on my legs and back. Once it was a slightly scary load on top of me I’d then try to wiggle my body up so it dropped below me. I would then do a sort of reverse worm dance to try to push the fluid backwards and then kick it a bit more. Lush.
Whilst I was doing this Joe had come up with his own method of clearing slop involving filling a drag tray with ideally solid chunks of wall. He’d then drag the tray backwards whilst laying down. This actually gave two additional slop removal mechanisms; that of the wave pushed by the tray, but more impressively the wave in front of his body. This actually extended a good few metres ahead of him if done at the right speed. Note to self, bring GoPro next trip.
After over an hour of digging we got to a point where we had made maybe 4m and could now see a further 2m where the passage runs right and the roof steps up, at least a little. Next trip we’ll make it there, probably, but there’s a lot of mud to shift if we’re going to make it a comfortable size. At this point the slop had successfully entered my oversuit and furry and I was getting pretty cold. I tried out Joe’s sliding/dragging technique to great effect and was soon back in the main passage and glad to be sat up. Joe was loving it and headed back in for another flush. Meanwhile I risked getting my DistoX out and took a few survey legs into the passage to at least give us a direction to be thinking about.
We headed out, taking any opportunity to roll around in a clean puddle on the way. Loper Lust was pretty knackering and I was glad to be in Inglorious. I was grateful of Joe taking the rope bag out and we on surface soon after 10pm for a quick bathe in the Saltpan.
This dig shouldn't be enjoyable and to be honest it isn't. But by the time we were back at the cars, changed and supping our post-beers, we were both ready to go again. It felt strange, like we must be messed up in the head. But then we both agreed that it’s more acceptable to enjoy doing this than it is to hate it and do it anyway. Bring on next week…
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Joe Buck, Jon Pemberton, Rob Eavis
The first time a team hit a dig is always fun. However it’s normally downhill from then on. This dig promises to be different. Firstly, we’re heading uphill. Secondly it’s a long way to dig so we arrived aware that this could indeed be the start of a long, sloppy slog. And finally we left the dig looking much much better than how we arrived.
Pre-beers in the Miners where we had hoped to meet with Mark to discuss important things but he got held up with other important things. None of us had a bag so we made easy work of Cussey, especially as Loper Lust was still dry and getting easier with each trip. On the way we collected drag buckets and hauling ropes ready for their repurposing.
Without much of a plan Joe went digging whilst me and Jon developed a hauling system that kinda worked. A few tight corners made it hard work and digging the face was the quickest bit. After 30 mins or so I swapped with Joe and very quickly he changed our setup and the hauling efficiency increased dramatically to everyone’s benefit. However we were digging a square trench through a round passage and hilariously the side walls kept falling in on us, one time Joe needing Jon to help dig him out. Nevertheless progress was good and we’d progressed maybe 4m after another 30 mins.
By this point Jon was moaning about the cold and his tired back (to be fair he’d done a lot of hauling) and it turned out Joe had an early start for work, so we all headed back to the now filthy mainstream passage. Before we left I quickly got on with shooting a little video tour of our new dig as a record for our day one of many. Once I got to the end of the dig I pointed the phone around the sharp corner we’d just reached and saw on the screen an open passage. Then commences 4 minutes of video of me squirming my way forwards along a further 10m of passage whilst desperately trying not to drop my phone in the slop below. It seems that in this section the trickle of water than emanates from the passage has cut a channel in the mud mostly wide enough to pass. I realise now in hindsight that my enthusiastic hollers back to the others that’s we’d broken through were maybe a little hasty, but at least it got Jon to have a look at the end. I stopped shortly after at a bit where it narrowed slightly too much, but it looks like it wont take much to enlarge the trench and carry on into the draughting blackness beyond.
Back out Cussey was tiring but again glad of now bag. Washing off in the Saltpan afterwards, post-beers in the carpark under a starlit sky and chatting shit about what lies ahead. The Game is on.