Jugholes (or somewhere that isn't stoney!)

Had a 4 hour through trip down Jugholes the other day, which was extended with a trip down into the upper series, till we ran out of time. Due to things like physio appointments and the like we didn't manage to leave Stoke till 1300ish and then we encountered another problem. The day before I'd tidied my room (and I don't care how childish that sounds) and in doing so I found a map, and a 2011 road map at that. However we soon found out why said map wasn't in my car in the first place... the page for the peak district has been removed/lost. Our journey to Matlock relied on my sense of direction and this probably why we arrived a little late.

If lack of mapping was my first mistake, then not heeding the advice of the "Jugholes Interpretation Pack" was my second. I only brought a small spanner. Jugholes has a few access points, two of which (shaft and adit) allow you to do a through trip of the lower series rather than coming out the same hole. The original plan had been to gain access via the Shaft and therefore we'd get to do some more SRT (on account og being rope monkeys). There was Finney, Sammy and Me to get down, and Sammie was to be lowered so she'd get to join us. This wasn't to be though, because I'd not brought a "LARGE SPANNER" (other than myself!) with me, and yes it is in capitals in the pack. We wouldn't be going down the shaft today, but in a nice way it does mean we've got something to go back and do.

Instead we access via the old adit entrance. This was dug out a few years ago and would have been how they'd gotten the ore/minerals out of the cave/mine that is Jugholes. The lower series, or at least part of it was originally known as "Noon Nick Mine" (probably after the noon nick vein that runs through it). Now it's a tube, stablised by a corrogated tube of metal before you enter the mine/cave properly. From here the path carries on through a volcanic rock with evidence of pick marks on the wall before there's traces of small blasting holes and use of pneumatic equipement. Then the was a beautiful roof that has been created from stacked blocks into an arch. The sign use before it (which I regretfully did not take a picture of) tells you the "keep low" so you won't dislodge anything. It really is a beautiful contruction though.

(The stacked and balanced roof of the adit entrance)

The adit entrance soon followed through passing a wider section where the access shaft drops in. The lower series is actually a group of phreatic caverns which are connected by passages that have been mined out (it's the lower series that sits on the "noon nick vein"). There is evidence of mining throughout the chamber from the rails that are still on the floor to the mine cart thats passed on the way in. The first chamber we entered (the "fifth water cavern" on the survey) had a small shaft in the corner. Had we got the time I'm sure we'd have nipped down it to see what there, but just like the access shaft it's something we can come back and do. The next chamber is connected by a mined passage before you enter an much smaller chamber, again with plenty to explore. 

Access to the "4th water cavern" is a little harder to find that the last, but we found it. there are several small exits off this chamber and we didn't look in all of them, instead choosing to follow the survey and followed it round, back on ourselves, through a small squeeze, then up before the "4th water cavern" opened up in front of us. Sammy did really well considering she's never been caving before and helped out with the passing of the bags from one to each other... though she did end up standing on my shoulders to get up the short climb. We'd told her while we were down that "there are no heros in caving" and if she needs help with something, just ask. The "4th W/C" was the largest chamber so far with more to look around and explore. Finney went off to dive through some squeezes (only to return telling us they'd gone no where in particular), while I wandered around looking ar some amazing phreatic features and speolotherms. There was an amazing wall covered in flowstone that my camera just could do justice (mainly because I'd forgotten the tripod). There was also the whats left of a false flow here, that would have been held up by the rubble, sadly theres little left now.

Getting the then next (and largest cavern, the 3rd W/C) was up a slab and then along a very slanted chamber. In the ceiling there hve been P-bolts installed so you can protect it for outdoor groups, but we just ignored it all and carried on. No point getting the rope all muddy if we don't need it. We spent a while playing in this chamber (namely splashing in the puddles) and clambering around before I sent Finney off in the wrong direction and I had to check the survey. Finney was sent off in the right direction through an interesting passage that involved a lot of clambering and squeezing (and swearing at the bag) before the climb out was found. This I climb and rigged to bring Sammy up, Andy climbed out himself and this left us in the 2nd water cavern and what is the "main" entrance to Jugholes.

(This little guys is about 40mm across, and he wasn't the largest)

The second water cavern, which is now an massive arch has chambers leading off it in quite a few directions, however the one we needed was hidden away under a small but spacious boulder ruckle. The other passages leading off head into the small mine system, which although I would have loved to explore (apparently it's got an lovely example of a stablised arch) wasn't really part of our plan for the day. I recognised the ginged shaft from the photos I'd seen (whilst researching the day before) but Finney decided that it was just too high to justify climbing down so we rigged an abseil. While finney was actually down the shaft assessing with gave me and Sammy a chance to have a good look at the cave spiders, which were clustered all over the walls (and to scare Finney, as they're not his favourite animal to say the least). Apparently shining a bright light on them causes them to get frustrated (or at least flail around) but blowing on them gently gets them to slink away and hide in a crack in the rock. Annoyingly on hissed at me, or it was whatever was in the crack the spider was trying to get into. I know last spiders can hiss, but I've never heard of cave spiders hissing, so I'm doubful but still... hissing spiders eek! 

With the rope rigged up, Finney was first down the shaft (after fumbling his 'biner and dropping it). Then Sammy followed and finally I descended. The shaft itself is a rather interesting feature. It is "ginged" which means that it's been stabalised with what looks like drystone walling. It's easy enough to climb out, using the solid back wall but on the whole it doesn't look the most stable. We'd have been better off if we had a ladder, but sadly we don't. The chamber immediatly below the shaft heads off through a area of collapse to some stacked deads, holding up a rather large slab. The whole of the upper series was much much more complicated to navigate around. I don't think it was helped by my "I'll just bumble around till this all makes sense" approach. We headed forward and ended up clambering over a mass of roof material (there has been a significant amount of roof collapse here, which has formed much of the cave). 

After much scrambling and clambering around we came to a couple of feature that I could recognise; one being green clay and the other being the streamway. It was rather erie listening to the streamway bubbling along in the dark, but at least it was something to handrail ourselves along. The green clay is actually significant as it's not a comment feature, and I was quite excited by this... Finney and Sammy didn't really have my enthusiasm for some "green clay". 

We followed the streamway down looking at the amazing speolotherms and flowstone covered clays and rocks all the way down. By this point my camera was pretty much sealed into it's case (as I'd managed to loose my useful camera case and was therefore using a zip closure one... zips do not work very well when all gummed up with mud) and so I didn't take as many photos as I should have done. I know this cavern has some cave pearls, that I really wanted to find but I'd no real idea where to look. We did find some lovely fossils on the mass of blocks that has fallen down from the ceiling though. Instead we carried on following the stream until we came to the "beehive slopes". 

This is a massive area of flowstone covered slopes interspersed by gour pools, which (when undisturbed) have some amazing cystal growth on thier sides, and are a green in colour. We clambered around the whole area, something that we probably were not supposed to do (and will not be doing next time). Finney planned out what he wasn't to bring next time to take some photographs of the cave and these slopes.  Sadly time was against us at this point and so we headed back. This wasn't the normal "crawl out the way we'd come" because we managed to miss the way we'd come in and thus found ourselves lost. For a moment I didn't actually know where we were and Finney clocked this as I spent 5 minutes trying to decided if we should go left or right when two passages presented themselves (I did try and blag an explanation for my pondering, but it didn't float). However I'll thank the MLTE for teaching how to navigate and we hand railed the stream up to the wall and followed the well worn slope uphill till we arrived back at the chamber with the stakced deads. In the process, we also have a much easier (though muddier) way back in next time we go. I climbed out, chimneying carefully up the ginging and brought Sammy up on a rope (though she hardly needed it). Finney decided to practise some SRT and fully kitted up and jugged himself out. I guess if you can do it up and clayed up rope whilst covered in mud... then you can do it anywhere!

 Jugholes was an excellent trip and considering it's only a grade 2 cavern there is so much to actually do there. I know we're be back to descend down the acess shaft into the lower series and there is plenty of little squeezes to push as far as they'll go but it's the upper series that I really want to get into. There are come cave pearls somewhere in there and Finney wants to lug all our camera equipement down for a series of photos of the beehive slopes. It'll be a lot of lugging but I think it'll be worth it. I just can't wait to head back there now.