Eldon

[Cave_Troll]

Quick trip today down Eldon East Wall.
Looked in the bucket in the big chamber near the dig shaft. Noticed that there is about 1mm layer of calcite formed in the bucket. Not sure when the bucket was last used and bashed around to dislodge any calcite, perhaps 10 years ? So that's your rate of deposition 1mm per 10 years. Quite quick
Removed some trash from the bottom of the entrance ropes out of the caves.
On the way back up thought there was a light falling mist. Around 1/2 way up it was definitely snow and every bit of rock that was not actually vertical had a beautiful coating of snow dust. It was very pretty, sorry didn't have a camera

 

[Cantclimbtom]

I've been down Eldon a while ago (Nov '23) and it snowed while I was down there. Heavy feathery snow. It was very lovely to see snow falling down the shaft, almost hypnotic watching it fall past. Then I got back to my car and saw it was quite a bit of snow. All happy and smiles, snowballs and. I cleared the car and drive a tiny distance to the farm, which is a gravel road. All smiles.

But... (and you know there was a "but" coming in this story) the tarmac road which is downhill from there to the T junction at the bottom of the hill is about 500m horizontal equivalent and about 50m vertical interval (1:10) pretty much a straight line.

I very very slowly started to drive on the fresh snow downhill and I started going too fast but as I braked the ABS kicked BUT it still wasn't stopping me and I was still accelerating . Luckily there was a grass verge on the right to drive into. While driving with 2 wheels on grass and 2 wheels on tarmac I could control the speed. All the way down apart from the very last bit near the junction I could drive on the grass verge on side or the other. For the last bit I unloaded the passengers and all kit to lighten the car and skidded and slithered almost into the wall at the bottom stopping short of it by about 1/2m.

I hope your Eldon hole snow experience was less pants fouling than mine

 

[Cave_Troll]

yes i had a very similar experience driving down the tarmac

 

[andrewmcleod]

I believe in snow ABS actually increases your braking distance slightly (since building up a wedge of snow in front of locked wheels is better than not) but it does have the distinct advantage that you are more likely to be able to control the direction you are stopping in...

 

[Cantclimbtom]

The issue I believe I had, which is probably digressing OP's thread -- sorry Cave_Troll, and maybe already a known hazard of this location (?) is that it is a smooth tarmac road of a pretty consistent 1:10 slope in a straight line for ~450m down from Sweetknoll farm to the T junction.

When there is freshly fallen snow, especially if you are 2nd or 3rd vehicle to drive down the road depending on your car you might not have enough grip to drive down the road without becoming an out of control toboggan/luge.

I have an old Zafira and it has 225 45 r17 which is a bit wider and "all season" tyres (not winter rubber compound) and they don't have much of a tread. The car couldn't stop and was actually speeding up, thank goodness for the grass verge so I could run it off the road. I bought a pair of snow chains as that was a "never again" experience!

If you have narrow wheels (old land rover defender, 2CV, etc) probably no problem. If yours is like my car.. ... it's going to be "interesting"