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Written by: Josh

Published: 10 June 2025

Hits: 969

The time had finally come for our long-awaited trip to Carlswalk Cavern. With sights like Gimli’s Dream, the Pearl Chamber, and the Dynamite Series on the cards, spirits were high. Our team of five: Josh G (myself), Josh K, Jack, Joe and Adam (the only non-J in the group), set off along the cliff edge toward the Gin Entrance.

The journey down Eyam Passage was going smoothly at first. That was until I found myself face-down in muddy water, squeezing through an uncomfortably tight, flat-out crawl. As I inched forward, the creeping thought of “I don’t remember it being this tight” began to grow stronger. It soon became clear that we’d inadvertently taken one of the so-called “shortcut” routes leading to Eyam Dale Shaft.

With muddy clothes and slightly bruised egos, we decided to backtrack to the main route. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we rejoined the correct passage and arrived at the boulder choke just beyond Eyam Dale Shaft, a little wiser and a lot damper.

From the boulder choke, there were a few routes to take, and as none of us had actually been to Gimli’s Dream before, we thought that a classic brute force trial and error would do the job. I soon found myself sliding down a makeshift cave chute, while Josh K, being the smallest in the group, volunteered to investigate a narrow passage near the bottom of the choke to see if it was passable for the rest of us. 

With admirable enthusiasm, Josh K scuffled head-first into the tight space and quickly vanished from view. We waited in silence until his scouse voice eventually echoed back, “It’s a dead end!”. It was at that point that the headfirst hindsight hit hard. The passage was too narrow for him to turn around, and what followed was a lengthy ordeal of us listening to his increasingly frustrated attempts to reverse out of the squeeze. Fortunately, after some undignified wriggling, he managed to extract himself, slightly exhausted but otherwise unharmed. 

With time slipping away and plenty more of the system left to explore, we made the call to leave Gimli’s Dream for another day. It was a tough decision, but one that leaves us with a good excuse to return, unfinished business. We made swift progress down the Northwest Passage and took a brief detour into the Pearl Chamber for the obligatory group photo. From there, we continued along Dynamite Passage toward the infamous Dynamite Series.

The first two squeezes were surprisingly straightforward, which brought us to a slightly more difficult obstacle: the one waterlogged with the wooden beam. As we are all dynamite virgins, it took some trial and error to figure out the best way through. With a bit of experimentation (and a good sense of humour), we all managed to squeeze through in decent time.

Soon after, we were climbing up into the hole in Midnight Chamber, having decided to exit via the Flowerpot entrance. As none of us had been through this route before, it took a fair bit of crawling, squeezing, climbing, and educated guessing to find the elusive blue tube. After a false start earlier in the day with our failed attempt to reach Gimli’s Dream, this second attempt at route-finding proved more successful (or so we thought…), and I soon found myself calling daylight.

Unfortunately, not only did this daylight illuminate the hordes of giant spiders on the walls, but it also allowed me to quickly realise that my fatigued muscles would not allow me to pull myself out of the ~6m flowerpot tube. Reluctantly, I turned back and broke the bad news to the others that we have to make our long way back to the Gin entrance. 

Jack, who had earlier confidently declared how “easy” the Flowerpot exit would be, was having none of it. Without hesitation, he pushed past the spiders and made his way up the tube. Moments later, his voice echoed faintly back to us from the surface: “I’m out!”

The sense of enthusiasm lightened our spirits, and soon Josh K was making his way to the tube. Despite him showing a lot of courage in the squeezes, there was an unjustified amount of moaning from him directed at the spiders. Joe, Adam and I then lay listening in a small chamber just before the spider chamber as Josh K made his way up the tube whilst being guided by Jack. 

What started for us three as a funny laugh about how he was scared of the spiders soon turned to silence as we heard Josh K’s echoes of him struggling to get up the tube become more and more strained. He had almost made it to the top when eventually he gave in as in his own words, “I started to lose my sense of hearing” and he slid back down the tube and crawled back to join us. 

After listening to Josh K’s struggles in the Flowerpot tube, and with our call-out time fast approaching (less than an hour to go, and Jack on the surface without a phone), we decided not to tempt fate any further. It was time to retreat and head out the way we came, via the Gin Entrance. This decision wasn’t met with universal agreement; Jack, now safely above ground, was still enthusiastically bellowing back down Flowerpot that we just needed to “give it another go!” as we crawled away. 

Off we went again, this time with a noticeably more serious tone. The race against our call-out time was on, and after nearly four hours underground, the cold and exhaustion were setting in. The laughter gave way to focused determination, punctuated by a few weary “Are we sure this is the right way?” and “Can you take the bag?”. Despite the fatigue, we retraced our steps efficiently and made it back to the Gin Entrance with just minutes to spare, surfacing at just under the hour mark.

Unbeknownst to us, during our trip back, chaos was unfolding above ground: Jack had found a phone… by flagging a car down at the side of the road. He then proceeded to do the sensible thing to let our call-outs (mine and Joe’s wives) know that we are safe. Unfortunately, he did this by sending a hasty, well-intentioned message stating "I am out, everything is fine, the rest of them will just be another couple of hours.". If the poor women were not already panicking due to us being way past our expected exit time, the ambiguity and radio silence left from Jack’s message ensured that they are now. 

As we left the cave, I hastily checked in with our other halves, only to be firmly told off for cutting it so close and for Jack sending them “weird messages”. The consensus from them was loud and clear: we won’t be caving again anytime soon, or at least, not without a bit of negotiation and some communication lessons for Jack. With that, we stripped off on the roadside, which earned us a few honks of approval from the passing cars, then headed off for some much-needed food and drink, muddy, tired, and absolutely buzzing.

Despite a few wrong turns, sore bodies, and one or two moments of concern, the five of us had an unforgettable day underground. And let’s be honest, what would a proper caving trip be without a few setbacks? All of us, still relatively new to the world of caving, have well and truly caught the bug. We’ll be back in the peaks, more prepared, slightly wiser, and just as enthusiastic.

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Written by: Rob Eavis

Published: 30 May 2025

Hits: 369

Team: Luke, Joe, Rob

This trip was an urgent pop to the bottom sump in Winnats to remove a depth logger for Prof John Gunn. It took priority over our Slack Hole dig as the logger had to be removed and put into East Canal before Tuesday (that’s Monday’s trip sorted!). Although I think the main driver was it was a bit wet n windy and someone didn’t fancy a surface dig….

Pre-beers whilst sheltered inside the cars followed by a quick scratch of heads about how much rope was probably needed, and we were off. Two bags between 3 we were pretty efficient and were soon enjoying how big Fox Chamber is. Joe picked a random route of the many into the choke below and it seemed to work ok. We arrived at the infamous bent wood (ooo err) just as Joe asks us to be quiet as it seems to be cracking. TBH it is pretty bent and could do with replacing, although I can’t understand why after being flagged up 15 months ago it still hasn’t been done. Seems like it’d be an easy fix, maybe needs an Awesome team on it?

Anyways, straight on down to enjoy how clear the big sump pool is, even with Jack stirring it up last week. The sewer seemed a little tighter than normal, especially for Luke who needed a little emotional support. Once through I enjoy the pitches up, feels like some good, solid, Peak Cavern caving.

Through to the pitches down I quickly deliberate with Joe about who’s going to rig. I figure mine would be shitter and slower than his so I get on with it, placing a pre-emptive “I don’t care” to the others about how bad my rigging is. They seemed to take my pre-emption correctly and didn’t moan much, apart from on the last pitch when I used Joe’s tackle bag as a deviation.

Down the last pitch I shuffle out over the sump to find it 10m lower than last time i was there! I derig the depth logger and take some disto measurements whilst desperately trying not to fall down, then head back. Luke had already left us for dead so I follow him up leaving Joe to try to derig my crap rigging. All actually went uneventfully and we caught up with Luke once back through the sewer. Our route up into Fox Chamber was marginally improved and we dragged our sweaty arses to the surface after just over 2 hours underground.

Tea and medals in the Anchor to celebrate a very enjoyable evening.

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Written by: Chris Hibberts

Published: 16 May 2025

Hits: 493

15/05/2025

Team: Joe, Jon & Chris

Following a trip into the Merlins 2 days prior Katie Eavis had reported that...

"On the way out whilst crawling past the connection crawl to Gimli's dream/ through to Carlswark a microwaved sized boulder fell out of the roof and landed on one of our group. With some wriggling and assistance from the person behind we managed to get the rock off the caver.

However it was now blocking the crawl for the 4 people behind!

The only way to get past it was to drop the offending rock into the low crawl through to Gimli's dream, and it is still there.

It may be possible to wriggle it out of the hole, and back to the base of the climb or a couple of caps would make the problem more manageable.

So for now the way to the Merlins streamway is passable (keep an eye on the roof though!) however the way to Gimli's dream/ the Carlswark connection is blocked.
After getting passed the fallen boulder I had a reasonable look at the remaining roof, and in my opinion, it looks ok - this rock moving doesn't seem to have de-stabilised the surrounding rocks - however keep a close eye on if passing that way!"

Enter Team Awesome!!

Jon, Joe and I met in the Flower Pot layby at 6:15 with the plan to rectify the boulder issue then explore the upstream sumps at the end of Merlins. A quick fashion parade from Joe showing off his new furry suit and pre beers had us right in the mood and after kitting up and sorting the capping gear we were off.

Joe's new duck furry - Photo by Jon P

The route down to the connection was straight forward with Joe leading the way, he was soon into the thick of it trying to kick the large boulder out of the roof with great determination. After a couple of minutes and with some convincing from Jon and myself Joe admitted defeat and decided it needed capping. It really was a stubborn boulder taking 5-6 double caps to obliterate it into manageable chunks. Some of these were still rather sizeable and the electron ladder we bought had to be used to haul them out.

Now with only 4 caps left Joe had to take care of the rock that had previously fallen into the Crawl to Gimli’s Dream.  Fingers crossed he could break it up enough to get it out as TA don’t do failure and a return trip would defo get some criticism from the rest of the gang. Joe drilled the hole set the caps and with a couple of whacks of the capping bar….. ‘one bombed it’!! “It was a good Job I put 3 caps in” Joe chirped up.

With the way on clear and impending doom removed from the roof we could now go and have some fun. The period of dry weather allowed us to pass sumps 1 – 4 and allowed us to explore some incredible passage in between, if felt very much like Carlswark in places and the shell-bed and formations were fantastic. We had a mooch up some small side passages which lead to nowhere, Joe tried to post himself up an extremely tight rift off to the left after sump 3, which looked to open up above, this turned out to be too tight and he retreated. Maybe a return with some caps could allow him to get through. We finally reached Sump 5 which Jon informed us was quite low but was not free diveable, so we turned back and took the opportunity to get some photos of the passage in between the Sumps (photo’s to follow).

Merlins Streamway, photos by Jon P

Photogay done, if was time for the pub and with the route clear it didn’t take long to get out, even though I did have a bit of a wobble at the top of the climb up on the way out and had to be coaxed over the rift by Joe.

It’s always nice exiting in the warmer months and makes getting changed much more pleasant. Post beers and snacks (including the last bag of out of date display pork scratchings) were enjoyed by all in the Moon Inn.