A Carlswank Dynamite Evening

tdobson

Member
"Let's go and do some fun caving one evening, and use SRT to get there"

Hmmm. It had rained all week in the Peak and I wondered if P8 might be a P9 or a P-nope.

"Let's go to Carlswark" I said, uttering words many wish to unhear, "we can do Big Dig series this time".

Carlswark Cavern arguably has four sectors:
?? The Tourist Round trip including Gin Entrance
😜 Gimlis dream and connection to Merlin mine
🌠 The Big Dig series
🌌 Dynamite series

I've done the tourist trip many times. Recently a Caving Crew team pushed Dynamite Series.
I've been to Big Dig series twice: once with Alex when we got lost. Once with Judith when went to push it but for various reasons, turned around about the same place Alex and me did.

We rigged the Eyam Dale shaft for SRT and soon were down. After some entertaining discussions about route finding, we reached Dynamite passage and headed up the Big Dig.

"Tim, there's water flowing down here" said Judith as the water flowed round her wrists. Jon the Fireworks briefly fought with the water, walls and physics in an inevitably unsuccessful attempt to stay dry.

As we approached the stub Scrin, the water deepened and I knew the roof came down ahead for a short while. I made the decision to turn around. Even if it wasn't sumped, this wasn't what we'd come for. But what to do now?

Letting Jon the Twinkletoes take us to Dynamite series, we let Jon the Fireworks explore the way not to go on in Dynamite Chamber before heading on.
I'd never tried the next squeeze, and so with that in mind, I showed definitively how not to do it, with one of my wrists pinned again my side.
Superman. Always do superman!

On the other side, I helped bring Judith through, Monika and the Jons came on through.

The chamber on the other side lead to a short downward crawl with a small hole in it, leading up to a rifty chamber. Further along the rifty chamber we found
* A tight crawl that Jon the Fireworks pushed to a 10ft hole in the floor and some junctions
* A climb to a crawl in the ceiling.
Jon the Twinkletoes pushed the ceiling crawl and we sent the entire group along til a right angle bend to the left brought us into a larger passage with impressive stal.

I think this is Fall Chamber? Survey extracts attached.

It at at a possible junction up here that we all retreated based on time and went back the way we'd come to the Eyam Dale Shaft.

My highlight:
Judith whilst looking at the climb to the ceiling crawl:
"How can you be so confident we won't be calling out Alex (as in, the Alex called Alex on this forum)
to get me me down from here?"
Me: because he isn't on DCRO, he's on UWFRA 😂

No Cave Rescue was needed though and she down climbed it brilliantly.
 

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tdobson

Member
ChrisJC said:
Is there a reason this is Carlswank rather than Carlswark ?

It's an "affectionate" nickname.

Carlswark is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring caves in all of the UK. I'm surprised it's not more of an international exploration destination.
 

2xw

Active member
Yes, fall chamber. From the impressive stal continue leftwards til you climb up through a hole into a small chamber. From here I seem to recall a climb in the roof pops you into a middy crawl (with roots) that brings you to the base of flowerpot (the entrance)
 

benshannon

Active member
I love carlswank. I found flower pot entrance on Sunday which I'm stoked about. How far can you access down towards big dig? We were crawling in water and turned rounded after not too far from the junction.
 
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