benshannon
Active member
"We are doing Dynamite series in Carlswalk, you said you like tight caves didn't you?!"
I have recently joined my university caving club (Nottingham) and had wanted to organise a trip to get to know people, get caving and try out my new gear that I got for Christmas. One of the guys who is very experienced uttered the starting sentence of this post.
indeed I do like tight caves, so naturally I did some googling and searching on here. it appeared that it isn't an overly loved series of caves and had been writing about on here since 2008. a youtube video of the trip only made me want to explore even more rather than putting me off.
so, sunday 20th, I am stood in a roadside car park with 4 new friends in the worlds newest, shiniest, more "all the gear no idea" kit. everyone else had oversuits that had holes in, or were just stitched back together with hope (Direct quote) hmmmm, I need to get mucky quickly I hide my newbie status.
We walk up to the crag, and at the base there was a beautiful descending rift with tree roots surrounding the top. dropping quickly into the gin entrance we are met with a crouched T junction and take a left along the eyam passage. This is a long straight section of crouched walking and crawling through puddles, we move pretty quickly through here until a junction where we head left and explore upto the eyam dale shaft.
back tracking slightly and then taking a junction to the left we enter the north west passage, a long crawl with a small section you could stand up in halfwaly along which was called cockle passage due to the strage shapes in the rock. all going well it seemed. we crawled out of a tube to a T junction. Here some survey checking began as we werent entirely sure where we were because there didnt seem like anything that was T junctiony enough on the survey. some of the group explored on passage, whilst another explored the other passage. after much discussing which went "yeah this looks like that bit" *pointing vaguely within a 300m area* we decided to follow the route that had a trowel and a bucket on the floor, which we decided was the big dig area.
i round a corner "this looks like some acme wiley coyote stuff" i state as im greeted with a small wooden braced tunnel. it didnt look especially safe and i am sure elma fudd was waiting with dynamite or something, so i slide carefully through. we are still none the wiser on our route until i notice a small squeeze up and left past a boulder. i recognised this from the youtube video. sure enough, a squeeze later and we entered the dynamite chamber.
even now, i look at the survey and im not entirely sure which bit was which, but we can to a squeeze at floor level with some wooden running boards on the floor. there was so much water that i couldnt go through with my helmet on as my face was being pushed into it. i took my helmet off, turned my head side ways to try and avoid drowning and slide in and around a corner to a really tight side ways squeeze. sliding my helmet out in front of me, 1 arm out in front and one down by my side i slide like a worm to get through.
this is where the trip got interesting and would love readers input as to where we went. we got to a chamber where the dynamite series route is actually a climb up into a very smooth floored wall. we however, didnt spot that at first and took the small right slot at floor level at the end of the chamber. we went through feet first, which was awkward and uncomfortable with a rock pressing into my back, shortly my feet dropped over the edge to a small pot about 6ft deep. this had 2 small openings at floor level that you could crawl into, but not far. it was just big enough to fit 3 people as long as one was lying in the crawl. now was a good time for a mars bar as 2 of the group ad taken the slot above the pot that takes a 90 degree left into a sideways squeeze rift.
i could hear lots of shouting and panicked voices. they were stuck. bloody hell, if these experienced guys were getting stuck, how would i cope? I was also suddenly unsure how i felt about being in something that tight that i could get stuck. it all sudden felt serious.
eventually they freed themselves and made progress, another had gotten stuck but eventually got through. It was my turn, i climbed out of the pot and slid sideways, helmet off and out in front as there was no way it would have fit whilst on my head. i went bottom arm out in front pushing the helmet and top arm down my side. as i commited i realised i was loving it and totally happy in the confines. i got momentarily stuck, but i just took a breathe, then exhaled fully and slid through like a slippery eel. we probed a tight chimney climb, but after discovering the survey had gone missing and not entirely sure this was correct we reversed the squeeze of doom. personally one of my fave bits. the same cant be said for the others.
"F*&K, I threw me helmet and me lights gone out" came the voice as one of the group resumed his role of getting stuck.
back into the chamber I discovered the higher route whilst just having a nosey waiting for the others, luckily I recognised it from youtube and so we pushed one. the route to the end of the dynamite series was obvious from there.
fuelling up with mars bars and jelly, we made a retreat back to the depths of Nottingham. happy tired, and for one member of the group, wet, as he hadn't brought spare trousers, much to our delight.
for me, a brill cave, I will be back for sure, cant say the same for the others, but I definitely made some good friends underground that evening.
I have recently joined my university caving club (Nottingham) and had wanted to organise a trip to get to know people, get caving and try out my new gear that I got for Christmas. One of the guys who is very experienced uttered the starting sentence of this post.
indeed I do like tight caves, so naturally I did some googling and searching on here. it appeared that it isn't an overly loved series of caves and had been writing about on here since 2008. a youtube video of the trip only made me want to explore even more rather than putting me off.
so, sunday 20th, I am stood in a roadside car park with 4 new friends in the worlds newest, shiniest, more "all the gear no idea" kit. everyone else had oversuits that had holes in, or were just stitched back together with hope (Direct quote) hmmmm, I need to get mucky quickly I hide my newbie status.
We walk up to the crag, and at the base there was a beautiful descending rift with tree roots surrounding the top. dropping quickly into the gin entrance we are met with a crouched T junction and take a left along the eyam passage. This is a long straight section of crouched walking and crawling through puddles, we move pretty quickly through here until a junction where we head left and explore upto the eyam dale shaft.
back tracking slightly and then taking a junction to the left we enter the north west passage, a long crawl with a small section you could stand up in halfwaly along which was called cockle passage due to the strage shapes in the rock. all going well it seemed. we crawled out of a tube to a T junction. Here some survey checking began as we werent entirely sure where we were because there didnt seem like anything that was T junctiony enough on the survey. some of the group explored on passage, whilst another explored the other passage. after much discussing which went "yeah this looks like that bit" *pointing vaguely within a 300m area* we decided to follow the route that had a trowel and a bucket on the floor, which we decided was the big dig area.
i round a corner "this looks like some acme wiley coyote stuff" i state as im greeted with a small wooden braced tunnel. it didnt look especially safe and i am sure elma fudd was waiting with dynamite or something, so i slide carefully through. we are still none the wiser on our route until i notice a small squeeze up and left past a boulder. i recognised this from the youtube video. sure enough, a squeeze later and we entered the dynamite chamber.
even now, i look at the survey and im not entirely sure which bit was which, but we can to a squeeze at floor level with some wooden running boards on the floor. there was so much water that i couldnt go through with my helmet on as my face was being pushed into it. i took my helmet off, turned my head side ways to try and avoid drowning and slide in and around a corner to a really tight side ways squeeze. sliding my helmet out in front of me, 1 arm out in front and one down by my side i slide like a worm to get through.
this is where the trip got interesting and would love readers input as to where we went. we got to a chamber where the dynamite series route is actually a climb up into a very smooth floored wall. we however, didnt spot that at first and took the small right slot at floor level at the end of the chamber. we went through feet first, which was awkward and uncomfortable with a rock pressing into my back, shortly my feet dropped over the edge to a small pot about 6ft deep. this had 2 small openings at floor level that you could crawl into, but not far. it was just big enough to fit 3 people as long as one was lying in the crawl. now was a good time for a mars bar as 2 of the group ad taken the slot above the pot that takes a 90 degree left into a sideways squeeze rift.
i could hear lots of shouting and panicked voices. they were stuck. bloody hell, if these experienced guys were getting stuck, how would i cope? I was also suddenly unsure how i felt about being in something that tight that i could get stuck. it all sudden felt serious.
eventually they freed themselves and made progress, another had gotten stuck but eventually got through. It was my turn, i climbed out of the pot and slid sideways, helmet off and out in front as there was no way it would have fit whilst on my head. i went bottom arm out in front pushing the helmet and top arm down my side. as i commited i realised i was loving it and totally happy in the confines. i got momentarily stuck, but i just took a breathe, then exhaled fully and slid through like a slippery eel. we probed a tight chimney climb, but after discovering the survey had gone missing and not entirely sure this was correct we reversed the squeeze of doom. personally one of my fave bits. the same cant be said for the others.
"F*&K, I threw me helmet and me lights gone out" came the voice as one of the group resumed his role of getting stuck.
back into the chamber I discovered the higher route whilst just having a nosey waiting for the others, luckily I recognised it from youtube and so we pushed one. the route to the end of the dynamite series was obvious from there.
fuelling up with mars bars and jelly, we made a retreat back to the depths of Nottingham. happy tired, and for one member of the group, wet, as he hadn't brought spare trousers, much to our delight.
for me, a brill cave, I will be back for sure, cant say the same for the others, but I definitely made some good friends underground that evening.
.
