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Written by: Jon Pemberton

Published: 30 June 2022

Hits: 2946

The day technically started the night before as we celebrated my birthday in fashion playing chess, drinking beer and being obnoxious! The company was grand but people soon started peeling off and we tucked into bed around 2:00 a.m. I was the first one up feeling a tad rough, I went downstairs to drink a gallon of water before breakfast which eventually sorted me out. After humming and aaring for seemed a good few hours, we eventually decided to descend Aygill Cavers which is located just a 10-minute walk from Bull Pot Farm.

Joe losing at chess, by JonP

We kitted up and left the farm at 11:00 a.m. armed with a vague description on how to find the entrance, we only managed to get lost once. Joe and I descended first remembering to climb a chimney to the left at the foot of the entrance climb… Luke, Rob and Victoria followed. (Team Fivesome!) The entrance series is small and scratty and reminded me a lot of Derbyshire. The first pitch came quite soon and we hastily rigged it with the longer rope intended for the second pitch, but rather than de-rig we decided we could work with what we had. At the base of the first pitch I climb through some rather nice ginging led to a tight rift which Hal would have hated! Luckily he was still tucked up in bed. This soon led to a steep descent leading to the second larger pitch. Here I only managed to find one P-bolt and after a confirmation from Joe of none further back, I rigged the pitch head via this bolt and a natural thread creating quite a convenient Y-hang albeit getting to the rope was slightly unnerving over the large drop below.

Luke enjoying the tight meanders, by RobE

Luke in the awesome stream, by JonP

The cave was beginning to feel a lot more like the Dale's now. Clean washed with a big streamway running along the bottom adorned with lovely scalloping all over the walls! I quickly dropped the pitch and waited for the rest of the party. It was here where I should have left my camera but instead managed to take it on a full tour of the cave without leaving its bag. Once everyone was down we headed a little upstream until the vadose passage began to peter out in crawls. We then headed downstream following the description and found ourselves overlooking a large cascade further downstream via an extremely exposed step into a passage which in reverse was terrifying for me at least. After negotiating the oxbows the cave transforms massively and follows a few muddy crawls passing under boulder chokes and up a climb eventually reaching a large chamber called New Year Cavern. On the opposite side, a continuation of the crawl soon leads to a large stomping passage which is dead straight and massive compared to the rest of the cave. This continues some way until you reach a large boulder choke at the end with an aven in the roof and a dig following the left wall through the choke. A small series heads off under the choke in the stream but not wanting to cause a call out we headed back at this point and I managed to snap a few photos at the base of the second pitch. 

Victoria in the fabulous New Year Passage, by RobE

We reached surface after 3 hours underground and was greeted back at the farm with some lovely sandwiches already made. After scoffing our faces and cleaning up we left for the drive back down south. A great easy Sunday trip and would thoroughly recommend.

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Written by: Jon Pemberton

Published: 26 June 2022

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Eldonians - Team Awesome, Joe, Hal, Victoria, Mark, Miriam, Dave G, Toogood.

Guides (People who knew what they were doing) - Toby Speight, Jess.

The morning started out with a little hesitation. Well from me at least as Rob had backed me into a corner on leading the trip through Ease Gill. Luckily I had done quite a few trips in this system, but unlucky for me that I couldn't remember hardly anything! Our latest trip with Jeff followed the high level traverse from County Pot to Lancaster Hole which was a brilliant trip but we would desperate to see the main drain!

A little fuzzy. We started on the coffee whilst Rob cooked up a fantastic feast whilst others started to sort gear. In my head I was thinking someone else could lead the trip and I could just take photos but knowing nobody else would take charge I was left with the shit end of the stick!

Enter Toby Speight*** 

Toby had been mulling around waiting for some other diggers to arrive and had said the previous night that if no one were to top up just before midday he would join us on the trip! And luckily for us he knows the system like the back of his hand - bonza!

It was a nervous wait for me. Hoping the other diggers wouldnt top up. A few more people started to show, but thankfully were not part of his team. Dave Gledhill managed to finally push Bob over the edge and get him to come underground too and with one more loose end (Jess - Suss) Toby finally succumbed to the pressure! We now had a team of 12 for this classic trip. 10 Eldonites and 2 guides! Things were starting to come together.

We kitted up rather sluggishly and started to walk over to Lancaster Hole. County pot is currently rigged because of the collapse in wretched rabbit, so this trip required little gear bar the Lancaster entrance rope. As you could tell, getting 10 people down Lancaster of varying abilities took quite a while and I had moderate sympathy for the three guys waiting behind us - oh well not my circus!

Bob Toogood at the bottom of Lancaster, by RobE

Once relevant people had been appointed happy helpers for the day we dropped the entrance and waited for all to catch up, then headed along the high level passages towards Wilf Taylor's Passage. This was my favourite part of the cave by a mile. We made the little trot upstream to the sump for people to relieve themselves and then once all the team had arrived we then started pootling along downstream. It's a marvellous passage. Clean washed, scalloped to death with some awesome free climbs which make you second guess when you're stood at the top. Again, varying abilities in our team meant this took a while to negotiate the climbs but it also meant that we had time to take in the view. A funny moment was when on one climb. I stopped to help Victoria and Mark decided to pass via a pool in the floor and ended up going chest deep! He was ok though… as most of us, he was melting from all the high level passage and the system being quite dry at the time.

Hal in Wilf Taylor's Passage, by RobE

At the end of Wilf Taylor's passage we finally hit the main drain. To our right, just downstream was the sump where a few people had a little dunk to cool down. Toby reminded us of how active the stream is and how it backs up to height of 30 m from the floor which is totally insane. Also noting that it's still a quick moving stream when backed up which makes the place pretty scary when wet. We started to head upstream and stopped for a couple of photos along the way at the lovely pool after Fall Pot. Rob took a proper dunk here to Luke's disarray! We negotiated our way through the Stake Pot boulder choke before finally reaching Oxbow Corner. After admiring the oxbow for a hot minute, it was here where we climbed out of the main drain and headed up towards the high level route. Jess did a top job up to this point of guiding us through the system but it was here where she started to second-guess and Toby assisted. After a trollop through the high level caverns, we reached main line terminus exiting via the correct crawl for Stop Pot. An awesomely old ladder drops you down Stop Pot and you regain the stream way for a short while. With a little hesitation, Toby eventually got us through the boulder choke via a bedding plane and we eventually hit Eureka junction. 

Miriam in Easegill, by JonP

Team Photo, by RobE

We swang left and eventually reached a point where we decided split into two teams. Team A were to head out of County via White Line Chamber whilst the B team were to head straight out via Poetic Justice. The plan was for the B team to beat us out and the A team would catch up near the entrance or the walk over to Bull Pot Farm. I can only account for my own trip which was obviously with the A team which traversed a lovely clean washed passage which eventually ended in White Line Chamber. A lovely pitch in dark limestone with a very thin band of white mineral stretching from the floor to the roof, on first inspection, this looked as though it was a rope hanging down. Once we had had enough we turned around and 30 m back marked a climb up which was quite awkward for some and could have easily been done as a dyno or better even a handline climb. Once up this climb a further climb/prusik lead to a chamber and further crawls which eventually dropped us in the main streamway before the short climb back up into County proper. Joyful of remembering where we were from the last trip we started the journey out and climbed the final pitch. When we reached the entrance we second guessed ourselves (again). We had been pretty quick on our extended route and the B team for sure had not being quicker than us. Luke and I turned around and headed back in hope of finding them, thinking they may have took a wrong turn. We eventually found them at the bottom of an awkward climb and by the sounds of it they were fine but just a bit steady. I waited for the whole party to pass me and we all made our way out to surface and to the glorious sunshine. I think a few were quite relieved to be out!

The walk over was pretty nice and we took an easy jaunt back over to Lancaster Hole to de-rig. Birthday celebrations then began, opening a keg of beer and started to drink in copious amounts - whilst Rob went hungry. Great trip and very grateful for Toby and Jess for all their help. Maybe we'll remember the way for next time.

Good old Bobby Toogood managed the trip fairly easy being the ripe young age of 80! With a few others not too far behind. It sure was a great way to spend my birthday with some people I actually get along with. Thanks.

Bob and Mark exiting County Pot, by RobE

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Written by: Jim Thompson

Published: 03 June 2022

Hits: 3118

Team: Jon P, Sam P, Ben S, Jim T

I’d been keeping my wetsuit fresh for this one. As Captain Rob was away and we’d been talking about it for a while, the target was a through-trip – down Cliffstile, up the sough into Glebe and via Doom for a Cussey exit.

Meeting up on a glorious evening, I arrived in plenty of time to observe the trough-newts in Eyam until it was confirmed I was in fact in the wrong place. Error rectified, and keen to crack on, I soon regretted getting into my wetsuit so early as I itched and sweated in the sun.

After a very pleasant walk through the village, past the odd bemused smirk, we were lifting the heavy lid on Cliffstile. What a shaft! Plumb vertical, 80m straight down and nicely ginged.

Ben headed down first whilst ever supportive, Jon asked me if I still knew how to pass a rebelay….

It was amazing to look down the shaft once Sam had headed down and see his and Ben’s lights way down at the bottom, clear and bright in spite of the distance. I got on the rope, unlocked my Stop and enjoyed the ginging as it rolled past and soon reached the first rebelay, where the craftsmanship transitioned to mining and the shaft became solid limestone. Soon enough I was clipping my super short cowstail into the second anchors. Stop off, reinstalled and then…. Everything I tried just made me pivot on the cowstail. I might as well have clipped my D straight onto the hanger. It seemed I hadn’t forgotten how to pass a rebelay, but nevertheless we were in for a bit of faff. Jammers on, climbing the rope above, the short cowstail was definitely too short for this one. Jon appeared above me and after a minute of kicking and pushing me in the back, I was released and got down to rejoin Sam and Ben through the small hole access to the sough.

The cold water of the sough was welcome after that, and we started upstream, stooping at first and with some resistance from the water, such was the level of flow even in summer. Stooping deepened to wading, semi floating in a seemingly endless perfect arch of perfectly cut thin gritstone blocks atop the underlying limestone. Seriously impressive engineering.

Eventually we reached a sharp turn in the sough, to be greeted by an old ladder heading a fair distance above. A bold step off it halfway  up it onto a ledge took us into Glebe, and had a look about the various levels and rooms in there. All quite urbex-y being relatively modern, with rails and metalwork, hose, cables and concrete steps.

Knowing nothing of the place, I followed along and at some point we headed into middle-level Doom. This was more like it. Lots of natural and Jon pointed out a number of leads waiting to be pushed or continued. Signs of t’owd man were everywhere, including a complete clay pipe looking like it’d been left there yesterday. All over the walls were small pockets of clay with fingerprints in them and some impressive dry stone walling protecting the walkway from a deep hole on the edge.

Keen to press on we climbed up a wall, handily equipped with rebar staples, and entered the – to me notorious - Loperamide Lust, a key feature of Cussey Pot for so long and yet this was to be my maiden grovel. Unlike the various videos and stories I’d heard, it was not the soaking wet slop-fest I expected. The mud had dried out to an almost plasticene consistency and I found myself wishing it was a bit wetter. Nevertheless, with hands out in front and toes doing most of the pushing I made decent progress and eventually found myself at a fairly significant change in angle. This up-slope was an absolute bastard. Already feeling it by this point, I struggled to make any upward progress. I felt hands at my feet – Ben to the rescue – and apologised in advance as I started to kick and push, and in no time I was turning onto my back looking up into the relative vastness of Inglorious Bastard… I knew where I was now and was ready for the familiar climb out of Cussey. As my last trip down and back out from here had felt easy, I looked forward to the technicalities of the Shattered Dreams squeeze and Coconut Airways, and set off up the rope…. Listening to the others chatting at the bottom, I was a bit too keen to hang on the rope at the top and join in the conversation….but resting doesn’t equal moving so off I went again to get off the pitch and make my way over the hole to the next rope. By now nothing felt easy, so I reminded myself to take it steady… something I’d heard about most accidents happening after a long drive occur a mile away from home, now wouldn’t be a good time to do something daft. The shattered dreams pitch felt awkward and horrible, but I was nearly there. A couple of months ago, the sight of the vertical squeeze up would have been met with anything but relief but here I was, I knew how to do it just right and just slid up and through it, and like every other time, it felt amazing. On to Coconut, my new route up it making it feel like a normal climb rather than the living end that my first journey up had been, albeit one where the pull on the stemple took a concerted effort to engage with.

All that remained was to make the entrance pitch feel and operate like I really had never done SRT before, and I hauled myself out into the balmy Eyam dusk. The walk through the village really did feel like a trek so I was very grateful to Sam as he’d already got changed, closed the Cliffstile lid and retrieved my spanner.

Back at the vans, it felt amazing to be chatting and laughing with such a fantastic bunch, and as I have done a lot recently, I felt elated at the trip we’d just had and moreso at the team I had to do it with. Particularly as at this point I discovered that I literally couldn’t get my wetsuit off so one of them had to draw the short straw and peel me out of it.

Ben treated us all to cake and the beer went down as the dusk turned to darkness.