Pitlamp
Well-known member
Here's a little tale which I was asked to write down recently. It wasn't put in any mainstream caving publication so, prompted by the Peak Cavern nostalgia elsewhere, I thought the conservation area on this forum would be a good pace to share it with fellow cavers. (The mention of stalactite repair in the Dales refers to a similar exercise I'd been involved with in the "China Dog Chamber" in Link Pot.) I'm sorry I don't have any photographs of the Victoria Aven stalactite. Peak District cavers in particular may find what follows of interest.
THE STORY OF A STALACTITE
The 1980s was a fantastic period for the TSG. It marked the start of an explosion of interest in finding new parts of the Peak Cavern system, which is still going on today. Most prominent at the time were the cave divers but there were many other projects going on around then which didn't involve getting wet. The system still had many unexplored avens and the person who emerged as the grand master with the bolting tool was Ian (?Buster?) Wright. Two of his climbs stand out as particularly fine achievements; the Victoria Aven saga and the great aid climb out along the roof of the entrance Vestibule. Both of these were being pursued concurrently and led to an interesting little digression which fooled all the local ?experts?.
It was during the first half of that decade when the well decorated ?Elephant's Head Chamber? was entered at the top of the left hand series of Victoria Aven. One of the team accidentally brushed against a large stalactite with a narrow top section, which became detached and broke into several pieces. When Buster mentioned this in one of the long boozy Peak Hotel evenings which were common at the time, I offered to have a go at repairing it. (Not long before we'd done something similar with a damaged stalactite in the Dales using epoxy resin and it'd worked a treat.) So on the next trip Buster collected all the pieces of the Victoria Aven stalactite, wrapped them up separately and brought them out of the cave.
I spent several evenings lovingly piecing the stalactite back together, carefully drilling a small hole in the top and cementing in a tiny cup hook. Next weekend the Chapel crowd all seemed impressed but Buster sat there with a wry smile and said: ?Tell you what, let's hang it off one of the bolts in the roof of the Vestibule for a while and see if anyone notices?. So he did ? and the big stalactite was up there in full view for months. All the cavers who know Peak Cavern well were walking past it and no-one made a single comment. So eventually Buster got bored, took the stalactite down and returned it to its rightful place in Elephant's Head chamber.
The following weekend a certain well known caver (who I'd better not name here) burst into the TSG hostel, absolutely incensed about someone having broken off the stalactite in the Vestibule roof! We let him rant and rave for ages before anyone let on. He still doesn't like to be reminded of this incident! Anyway, that was about thirty years ago and the repaired stalactite will already have grown a thin coating of new calcite to cover up the joins. I bet most folk wouldn't notice any difference now. We did our bit for cave conservation and had a laugh at a certain person's expense in the process so, all in all, it was a good do!
THE STORY OF A STALACTITE
The 1980s was a fantastic period for the TSG. It marked the start of an explosion of interest in finding new parts of the Peak Cavern system, which is still going on today. Most prominent at the time were the cave divers but there were many other projects going on around then which didn't involve getting wet. The system still had many unexplored avens and the person who emerged as the grand master with the bolting tool was Ian (?Buster?) Wright. Two of his climbs stand out as particularly fine achievements; the Victoria Aven saga and the great aid climb out along the roof of the entrance Vestibule. Both of these were being pursued concurrently and led to an interesting little digression which fooled all the local ?experts?.
It was during the first half of that decade when the well decorated ?Elephant's Head Chamber? was entered at the top of the left hand series of Victoria Aven. One of the team accidentally brushed against a large stalactite with a narrow top section, which became detached and broke into several pieces. When Buster mentioned this in one of the long boozy Peak Hotel evenings which were common at the time, I offered to have a go at repairing it. (Not long before we'd done something similar with a damaged stalactite in the Dales using epoxy resin and it'd worked a treat.) So on the next trip Buster collected all the pieces of the Victoria Aven stalactite, wrapped them up separately and brought them out of the cave.
I spent several evenings lovingly piecing the stalactite back together, carefully drilling a small hole in the top and cementing in a tiny cup hook. Next weekend the Chapel crowd all seemed impressed but Buster sat there with a wry smile and said: ?Tell you what, let's hang it off one of the bolts in the roof of the Vestibule for a while and see if anyone notices?. So he did ? and the big stalactite was up there in full view for months. All the cavers who know Peak Cavern well were walking past it and no-one made a single comment. So eventually Buster got bored, took the stalactite down and returned it to its rightful place in Elephant's Head chamber.
The following weekend a certain well known caver (who I'd better not name here) burst into the TSG hostel, absolutely incensed about someone having broken off the stalactite in the Vestibule roof! We let him rant and rave for ages before anyone let on. He still doesn't like to be reminded of this incident! Anyway, that was about thirty years ago and the repaired stalactite will already have grown a thin coating of new calcite to cover up the joins. I bet most folk wouldn't notice any difference now. We did our bit for cave conservation and had a laugh at a certain person's expense in the process so, all in all, it was a good do!
