Caving in the Peak District (part 1)

I've been wanting to go caving for a long time, years in fact. However there have been several things holding my back. Apart from having no gear and no idea how to go about caving (without hiring a caving instructor for the day, something I didn't want to resort to) I also had no one to go with. Add to that a fear of the dark and small spaces (probably why I like climbing) and there's been enough there to stop any underground explorations.

This all changed this weekend. I've been exploring small easy caves on wet days in the peak with friends, and this was helping be get over my fear of the dark and get more comfortable with being underground. I'd been given a book for my birthday called “caves of the peak district” which I'd read over and over so I had a reasonable theoretical knowledge of how to go about caving and I happened to find 2 friends, who'd never been before as madly psyched as I was about the idea of actually going underground. As for gear, well we just made do with what we'd brought already... and made a small purchase along the way.

Originally I'd not intended to explore a cave that required any ropework, but when Finney and Ronnie both offer to use their rope our options opened up a little bit more. We settled in the end for Owl Hole in the Peak, billed as one of the largest natural open pots in the country. To be perfectly honest I don't know what I was expecting when we got there. We parked the car up at the side of the road, which mean that we reversed at high speed getting it stuck in the mud, but off the road at least and geared up with what we thought we would need.

What we thought we would need was a bit of an odd thing to consider as none of us had actually been properly caving before. I had a theoretical knowledge of caving rope ropework and a lot of it doesn't differ much from rock climbing. Even though it uses the same and similar equipment there is still a a big difference between the two. To the harnesses, jumars and 'biners we added helmets, headtorches, some food and water, cameras, first aid kit and our guidebook. All of this got crammed into an old caving sack that Staffs Uni MC uses to hold their spare helmets... not today though.

I said I didn't know what to expect and this was true. I didn't think Owl Hole would be so small or so vegetated. I assumed that “one of the Derbyshires largest natural open potholes” would be much larger than it actually was. The guidebook describes how it used to be a filled with rubbish until 1993 when the National Park Authority cleaned it out. There's still evidence of rubbish everywhere, but it's subtly being covered by overgrowth. There are several different rifts and passages heading off from the base of the pothole and after some deliberating and checking the guidebook, we just dived into a tunnel heading towards the Chamber's Chamber.

Being rather gung-ho about the whole caving thing I volunteered to go first. This of course is a slight downside when your not comfortable with the idea of being alone in a cave but never the less I dived in anyway. There's clearly been some kind of dig going on, evidenced by the piles of rocks just outside the entrance and the planks of wood, buckets and clay everywhere. I'm not going to lie, but at first I struggled to try and stay clean. This of course was a pointless exercise and had you seen the inside of the cave you would have agreed with me. At the first junction I stopped (missing the Chamber's Chamber) and Ronnie took the lead following the Nomis Chambers until for some reason, we just turned round and went back.

Going back was a good idea because we actually found and had a decent look around the Chamber's Chamber this time. Not that there was much moving around but the chamber was composed of a hole in the the “ceiling” which you could get you head and shoulders through. The “ceiling” was actually a thin ceiling which was the base of a small pool (a puddle really) of clear water in a small cavern with flowstone covering the walls. It was a real delight to see such a beautiful place at the end of such a dirty tunnel.

Outside in thence back outside we didn't really waist any time descending into another pot, this time one that was grated with a metal cover (several pieces of metal actually) and lead into a chamber called Owl's bottom. Just after the entrance to Owl's Bottom there was a steeply downward angled passage which was covering in scaffolding. Any thought of going down there we put off because we thought it was unstable. It wasn't until we actually read up in the guidebook that the passage is safe and leads to some beautiful rock formations (a cascade of flowstone) and the deepest point in the caves. In Owl's Bottom we had a look around, but it was hardly impressive. There was old initials scratched into the ceiling, probably from miner's but there was no evidence of what they mined.

Our next challenge lay in the form of exploring the Crystal Pallas Chamber. This challenge started with a 7 metre bolt ladder which needed to be climbed before entering the tunnel. As the group “rope technician” (a position I was appointed, not asked for) I went up first in the finest display on climbing that a man can muster on slippy polished limestone in wellies. All I can say is thank god there where bolts to pull on as I wasn't getting up otherwise! With both Ronnie and Finney belayed up to me we set about looking for the Crystal Pallas Chamber.

Navigating in caves so far that day had been reasonably easy. They'd all be straight tubes and you had no choice of where to go. This was a little different as the passage we wanted was off to the left (or more accurately the east) of the main passage. We overshot this completely and ended up in Hoggmorton Aven. This Aven was quite beautifel inside, being reasonably high and having some amazing stalagtites, mites and columns. We'd have got more pictures inside but there was so much moisture in the air that it made flash photography almost worthless. While we were viewing the walls suddenly a bat made it's presence known to use and started flying round the cave. This freaked me out a little. We tried to find the passage we needed and not realising we were further than we should by I volunteered to push further on into the cave. This involved a tight squeeze.

I'm not going to lie, but I came very close to panicing. I'll got back and squeeze though that little section but this time it got me. We searched the whole of the Aven and then carried on moving back down the main passage looking for the exit, slowly convincing ourself it was blocked up... then we found it! A short passage with ended in a sudden drop. It was quite creepy to actually look at, but we'd found it and set about rigging things up. Rigging in caving follows the same principals are climbing, but it's more akin to access work or what we do when I'm route setting. I only know how to rig things because I've spent years reading up on caving to make up for the fact that I wasn't actually going underground. This rig was very simple and soon I've abseiled off into the chamber, leaving another device pre-rigged up for Andy to clip into and join me.

For a while I had the whole chamber to myself. It didn't feel horrible and scary but instead it felt thrilling. I'd managed to actually go caving, properly. This was massive as far as I was concerned! A real milestone in my life. Soon Finney and Ronnie joined me and we explore the chamber in it's entirety. There seems to be a lot of dig's going on in Owl Hole and this was evidenced by the buckets and mud everywhere. I guess the main feature of the chamber was the ceiling with it's massive columns hanging down and which had lead to some amazing formations on the cave floor. There was quite a lot of tape around as well. They tape off areas of the cave into walk ways to stop formations being damaged or even touched. Your skin is acidic and therefore the oils can damaged delicate formations, but other than that people are heavy handed and things break or get covered in mud. It's not like it rains down here to wash things off. The back of the chamber was a mass of loose material that had clearly fallen in at some point. We actually found roots (from the trees above?) which had forced their way through the weaknesses in the rock and now dangled in the cave. In our explorations I climbed half way down towards the Gour Chamber, but this proved very muddy and something we would have liked a rope for. We decided to save it for next time. 

(Some long shutter photography using a petzl duo 14 as a light source)

(beaturfiul crystals and rock formations growing in a small pool)

(The hanging ceiling)

(an attempt at long shutter team pic, sadly we all moved)

(A bat, we were careful not to disturb)

It probably sounds like the whole thing was plain sailing but we did have a few hiccups along the way. Ronnie took ages getting down to join us in the Chamber and we soon found out the reason why. His gri-gri was stuck covering the nose of a 'biner. It was wedged in place and took me ages to actually release it. Finney had never ascended a single rope before and both Ronnie and Finney had a real fight to actually get over the lip of the cave. The clay covering on the rope caused us to be rather slow as ascending and meant that my gri-gri 2 wasn't the best piece of kit for the job. It's too small to handle clayed up rope apparently. Instead Ronnie was sending the old style gri-gri and the shunt back down for us to use. On the final throw down, this mass of metal hit me in the arm.

Once we'd all topped out, I set about stowing the gear while Ronnie and Finney tried to cram themselves in a small hole they'd found (sadly it went no where) and tired hungry and bruised we headed out of the cave. Instead of the warm sunlight glow that had come down the main passage before there was an eerie cold light at the end of the tunnel. Darkness had fallen and it was close to pitch black outside. Undeterred (or more like with no choice) we abseiled off. Coiled the ropes and took the customary team photo and headed home.

I guess you could say our adventure wasn't over. To celebrate we planned to have some decent food and while Finney cooked me and Ronnie washed all the gear. And by all I mean all. I scrubbed out the gri-gri's and all the headwear in the kitchen sink which Ronnie washed all the clothes in the bath. Needless to say the house was a mess and while I stuck everything in the drier Ronnie had to mop and try and unblock the bath tub (which I think is still blocked). It was a damp end to a good day.

I got so much out of this day underground. What was really nice was the team work that went on, throughout the day with each of us fetching and carrying the bags of kit and ropes throughout the cave. Even though some of us had more defined roles (I was left to deal with ropework and rigging) we all pulled together really well. This carried on all evening while we all piled in to clean all the kit up. To be honest I don't think we'd have got it all done if not. It also made me realise how little I know about caves, caving, and how caves are formed. The guide book keeps mentioning things like phreatic tubes and I've no idea what they are. It was nice to look up and see rock formations on the ceiling that I'd no idea how they formed.

I basically couldn't wait to go again.