Trip Reports

Here is a very incomplete list of some of the trips the Eldon have been up to recently.

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Details: Written by: Super User; Published: 04 September 2022; Hits: 3866

Katie, Victoria, Hal and Fabian

On tonight's agenda was the Cliffstile shaft which would drop us into Moorwood Sough. I remember Moorwood Sough from one of the Cussey Pot Trips with Rob. But tonight Katie would take us into the opposite direction and explore an incredibly engineered Sough level with some amazing cartgate sections.

Meet up was near to Stoney Middleton Church where kit up occured. This is the point where Hal noticed that he had forgotten half his SRT gear and quick thinking was required to improvise. The idea was to piggy back down the pitch with Hal in tow and feed a Stop up to him by the means of a spare rope.

After a steep walk up the hillside inclusive of a little history tour about Eyam by Katie, we reached Cliffstile shaft. "I forgot to bring my helmet!"... A sentence you don't really want to hear just as you are about to enter the depths of the local hillside. I gave Hal my spare headlamp and started to descend down the shaft. The piggy back idea was quickly out the window as the spare rope reached only 10m into the 30m first pitch. I shouted up that it'll be problematic but needed to continue downwards as Victoria was hot on my heels.

Victoria and myself reached the bottom shortly followed by Katie and Hal who did the whole 80m pitch on an Italian Hitch! Can we claim this as a Derbyshire record? We quickly took off the SRT kit, stowed it in our bags and headed into the sough level. This was certainly lower than I remembered.

Katie in Moorwood Sough

Progress was easy enough in ankle deep water but up ahead you could already hear a couple of giggles followed by high pitched moans - water levels must have reached sensitive parts. And yes. Sure enough we'd find ourselves in waist deep water now.

Katie showed us the ladders up towards Rock Cottage but we continue onwards into the further extents of Moorwood Sough. This would be Katie's first explore as well so she exclaimed that she cannot be held responsible.

After various S-bends, roof levels which made awkward progress for Hal and myself and roots pertruding through the walls creating some very big bulges in the pack walls we reached crawling levels now. Everyone anticipated coming across a couple of Rats but rather we saw a lot of their 8 legged colleagues.

After one last right bend we ended up crawling out of the sough level and into Dale Brook we retraced our steps to the cars where we changed into warm clothes. Refreshments were enjoyed with a lovely chat at the Moon Inn. Another lovely trip in Derbyshire ticked off!

Fabian

Details: Written by: Victoria Kocher; Published: 22 July 2022; Hits: 3377

Tuesday Nighters out on a Thursday July 21st

We met up with another group at the Substation at seven. It was decided to go in two groups due to the numbers. I also heard a vague mention that another two Eldon members might be in Carlswark somewhere . Our group was led by Katie and included myself, Hal and Julian. Bernie joined the second group and they descended down Flower Pot Entrance while we took the Eyam Dale Shaft. It was nice to descend down the rope and trustingly leave our gear as we planned to take the route out the Gin entrance. It made the difference in the tight squeezes along the way. I was excited to see more of Carlswark than I have previously as it had been a particularly dry month allowing us to get down to the Big Dig easily. The formations down along John Smith’s Passage were impressive-like giant dragons’ teeth and into Shag’s sump. I heard that sump didn’t work out so well for Shag, but it was definitely worth seeing. Popping up from a crawl into a few strangely placed gnomes was a surprise. I in no way condone anything to do with garden gnomes in any way. We met up with Jim and Sam who had been plotting a jump scare on us but thankfully we averted that .I am sure if I had made their acquaintance in the dark the lack of moisture wouldn’t have been an issue for me. After a brief chat we all followed out to the Gin Entrance and our gear was still able to be collected. We met the other group along the road and headed to the Anchor. It was great to sit with ten other cavers who had another great night out caving ..again.

Details: Written by: Victoria Kocher; Published: 10 July 2022; Hits: 3297

July 9th 2022

At our last AGM Hal volunteered his Victorian Steam Plough named The Chief for the Buxton Carnival. It was to celebrate the Eldon Pothole club after the video footage of the 1962 carnival was circulated. We decided to loosely stick with the theme of cross dressing or washer women as I deemed it. We had the engine out for a steam up on Friday so we parked right outside of the town centre ready to go. On the Saturday morning we arrived ready with a trailer with hay bales and not one but two engines. The steam plough and an agricultural engine owned by Jonathan. Julian got there first raring to get his dress on and he looked pretty good as a beardy blonde. Rob and Katie arrived with their minions who took to dressing as a gang of chimney sweeps. The engines burn quite a bit of coal so it was most welcome. Dave came with his minions and his wife all dressed appropriately. Luke made it after his 10k run with his wife and daughter. Jon and Miriam showed up as well as Soulless Joe and Hattie. Wendy and Mark arrived to join in on the fun. With music on the wagon, water and beer at the ready and a fair amount of sweets to toss we were at the front of the Carnival Parade. I heard it was because we were the slowest entries but I would prefer to believe the Eldon Pothole Club was the best. Buxton was bustling with the superb weather and packed crowds. We picked up Helen and Allan along the way. It was a great day to be together and have some fun as a club! Can’t wait for next year!