An unpublished story from a few years ago.....
It was controlled panic, but panic nevertheless. I could feel it welling up from some unknown organ deep in my gut and in no time it had infected my brain.
I was in a perilous position, in order to get through the squeeze I had dug out the gravel floor and pushed it up on the sides. I had to dig out the floor because the solid rock roof dipped down to just a few inches at this point. The stream had slowly filled up the hole I?d dug but I had been able to control this by splashing the water forward with the trowel so that it drained away in front, into the unknown, into the place where no man had gone before, into the place I wanted to be the first to explore. Soon it was big enough to squeeze through, and I mean squeeze, breath out - push, breath out ? push. Then I was through, into the bigger stuff, relatively speaking. I wallowed on in the cold mud and water. It must get bigger just like the passage before the blockage. There?s a lot of cave to be discovered here - somewhere. I crawled around several corners maybe fifty feet in all then it went low again and beyond it continued much the same as before. I thought of pushing on through this second squeeze before good sense prevailed, I really must see if I can get back through the other squeeze first.
I hadn?t found anywhere large enough to turn around so backed up the fifty feet to the squeeze. The water had filled the hole to within a few inches of the roof and it was impossible, being the wrong way round, to do anything with it. Still, a quick push keeping my nose above water would soon see me back with the others in the chamber. I could hear their banter and knew they weren?t far away. I wiggled my hips into the tightest bit and pushed hard. I soon ground to a halt with my face half in the water. The gravel had slumped in from the sides and further pushing only succeeded in forcing my face further into the mire. It wasn?t nice and that?s when the panic started.
?Lads?. LADS, need a bit of a help here.? My shaky voice must have given away my concern as there was none of the usual retorts just the hurried arrival of Mr Cool at the far side of the squeeze. His mere presence calmed me down and he went about the job of unblocking me with a quiet professionalism. He had to crawl up between my legs and clear the slumped gravel out with his hands. Normally blokes don?t like other blokes getting this intimate around their privates but I can tell you that there?s no place for homophobia during a near death experience! Five minutes work with his miracle hands and I spluttered through to safety with an overwhelming sense of relief.
Oddly enough no one else wanted a go, so we headed out of our newly discovered cave, thwarted once again.
It had all started the year before. Our group was looking for a new ?dig?, to find an unexplored cave. One location stood out, high above Braida Garth Farm, on the slopes of East Kingsdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park ? Lord?s Top Hole. It was located in a blank area between two known underground systems of great repute and there just had to be a third system in the middle. Some of us knew Lord?s Top well as we had rescued a number of sheep from its depths over the years. It was a collapsed shaft in the bottom of a shakehole, quite pretty on a summer?s day surrounded by juniper, hawthorn, fern and moorland flowers. An overhanging ladder descent of twenty five feet landed in a spacious boulder floored chamber with no obvious way on. A cavers dream would be to roll aside a few rocks to reveal a black space leading down into caverns measureless to man. The reality is nearly always different.
In Lord?s Top we dug down through boulders weekend after weekend for over one hundred feet. Club members came and went but we retained the interest of a hard core. A strong draught whipping into the cave was our siren signal that cavities existed beyond. One evening in the autumn we saw a grand display of the northern lights but as winter came conditions underground became very cold. The draught picked up as the temperature dropped and fair whistled down the back of your neck.
Maybe it was this or maybe just lady luck but shortly after that the cavers dream came true. The last few rocks were hauled away revealing an open passage in front. With incredible restraint we halted here and put the word out around the team. A few days later fifteen cavers were lined up down the dig waiting to explore the unknown, the fabled caverns measureless to man. Again, the dark lord of the underworld was against us and after only one hundred feet we entered a small chamber with the only way out, a low wet bedding plane. This was pushed over the next month in appalling conditions by an ever diminishing team. You had to lie flat out in the water scooping up gravel and moving it to the side, making just enough room to squirm along. All this in an icy draught that chilled to the bone, so cold that a maximum of one hour could be spent at the sharp end before hyperthermia became a real problem. I remember after one cold session I got out of the cave only to find my hands so frozen that I couldn?t get my dry gloves on, or my helmet strap undone, or open any of the gate latches on the walk back to the farm. Back in the farm shed that we used for changing my hands were still too frozen to get my wetsuit off. I had to crawl on the floor and hook the collar in the door handle to pull it off. It was then a full hour before the feeling came back and I could drive home to a hot bath.
Despite the misery progress was being made but the team was down to only four stalwarts. Suddenly the echo in front got louder and louder and we eventually popped through the last tight bit into a new streamway. In an excited frenzy we raced off into the unknown, the roof covered in pure white straws with multi coloured calcite flows on much of the walls. We followed this downstream for over a thousand feet to a junction with yet another stream. Now it became bigger again, ten feet wide by twenty feet high. The stream cut down into a pit in the floor but by traversing over the top we regained the passage. Just as we were thinking it would go on for ever we entered a chamber with no obvious way out.
It was on a later trip that we discovered a hidden route out of the chamber and into the too low bedding passage that takes us back to the start of this story. With the cave potential still only partly realised and another two hundred feet to drop vertically, it?s only a matter of time before we?re back.
It was controlled panic, but panic nevertheless. I could feel it welling up from some unknown organ deep in my gut and in no time it had infected my brain.
I was in a perilous position, in order to get through the squeeze I had dug out the gravel floor and pushed it up on the sides. I had to dig out the floor because the solid rock roof dipped down to just a few inches at this point. The stream had slowly filled up the hole I?d dug but I had been able to control this by splashing the water forward with the trowel so that it drained away in front, into the unknown, into the place where no man had gone before, into the place I wanted to be the first to explore. Soon it was big enough to squeeze through, and I mean squeeze, breath out - push, breath out ? push. Then I was through, into the bigger stuff, relatively speaking. I wallowed on in the cold mud and water. It must get bigger just like the passage before the blockage. There?s a lot of cave to be discovered here - somewhere. I crawled around several corners maybe fifty feet in all then it went low again and beyond it continued much the same as before. I thought of pushing on through this second squeeze before good sense prevailed, I really must see if I can get back through the other squeeze first.
I hadn?t found anywhere large enough to turn around so backed up the fifty feet to the squeeze. The water had filled the hole to within a few inches of the roof and it was impossible, being the wrong way round, to do anything with it. Still, a quick push keeping my nose above water would soon see me back with the others in the chamber. I could hear their banter and knew they weren?t far away. I wiggled my hips into the tightest bit and pushed hard. I soon ground to a halt with my face half in the water. The gravel had slumped in from the sides and further pushing only succeeded in forcing my face further into the mire. It wasn?t nice and that?s when the panic started.
?Lads?. LADS, need a bit of a help here.? My shaky voice must have given away my concern as there was none of the usual retorts just the hurried arrival of Mr Cool at the far side of the squeeze. His mere presence calmed me down and he went about the job of unblocking me with a quiet professionalism. He had to crawl up between my legs and clear the slumped gravel out with his hands. Normally blokes don?t like other blokes getting this intimate around their privates but I can tell you that there?s no place for homophobia during a near death experience! Five minutes work with his miracle hands and I spluttered through to safety with an overwhelming sense of relief.
Oddly enough no one else wanted a go, so we headed out of our newly discovered cave, thwarted once again.
It had all started the year before. Our group was looking for a new ?dig?, to find an unexplored cave. One location stood out, high above Braida Garth Farm, on the slopes of East Kingsdale in the Yorkshire Dales National Park ? Lord?s Top Hole. It was located in a blank area between two known underground systems of great repute and there just had to be a third system in the middle. Some of us knew Lord?s Top well as we had rescued a number of sheep from its depths over the years. It was a collapsed shaft in the bottom of a shakehole, quite pretty on a summer?s day surrounded by juniper, hawthorn, fern and moorland flowers. An overhanging ladder descent of twenty five feet landed in a spacious boulder floored chamber with no obvious way on. A cavers dream would be to roll aside a few rocks to reveal a black space leading down into caverns measureless to man. The reality is nearly always different.
In Lord?s Top we dug down through boulders weekend after weekend for over one hundred feet. Club members came and went but we retained the interest of a hard core. A strong draught whipping into the cave was our siren signal that cavities existed beyond. One evening in the autumn we saw a grand display of the northern lights but as winter came conditions underground became very cold. The draught picked up as the temperature dropped and fair whistled down the back of your neck.
Maybe it was this or maybe just lady luck but shortly after that the cavers dream came true. The last few rocks were hauled away revealing an open passage in front. With incredible restraint we halted here and put the word out around the team. A few days later fifteen cavers were lined up down the dig waiting to explore the unknown, the fabled caverns measureless to man. Again, the dark lord of the underworld was against us and after only one hundred feet we entered a small chamber with the only way out, a low wet bedding plane. This was pushed over the next month in appalling conditions by an ever diminishing team. You had to lie flat out in the water scooping up gravel and moving it to the side, making just enough room to squirm along. All this in an icy draught that chilled to the bone, so cold that a maximum of one hour could be spent at the sharp end before hyperthermia became a real problem. I remember after one cold session I got out of the cave only to find my hands so frozen that I couldn?t get my dry gloves on, or my helmet strap undone, or open any of the gate latches on the walk back to the farm. Back in the farm shed that we used for changing my hands were still too frozen to get my wetsuit off. I had to crawl on the floor and hook the collar in the door handle to pull it off. It was then a full hour before the feeling came back and I could drive home to a hot bath.
Despite the misery progress was being made but the team was down to only four stalwarts. Suddenly the echo in front got louder and louder and we eventually popped through the last tight bit into a new streamway. In an excited frenzy we raced off into the unknown, the roof covered in pure white straws with multi coloured calcite flows on much of the walls. We followed this downstream for over a thousand feet to a junction with yet another stream. Now it became bigger again, ten feet wide by twenty feet high. The stream cut down into a pit in the floor but by traversing over the top we regained the passage. Just as we were thinking it would go on for ever we entered a chamber with no obvious way out.
It was on a later trip that we discovered a hidden route out of the chamber and into the too low bedding passage that takes us back to the start of this story. With the cave potential still only partly realised and another two hundred feet to drop vertically, it?s only a matter of time before we?re back.
