TheOriginalPiglet
Member
After hearing the raging success of the January JH trip (and not wanting to be outdone by a fresher), I called upon my flatmate and favourite caving partner, Sophie, to tackle the Leviathan. It turned out to be a bit of a comedy of errors, but a fun trip nonetheless. I have tried (in vain) to keep this trip report a little shorter than Dan’s. There may also be a vlog of it linked below if I can be bothered to edit it together.
Nottingham University Caving Club Presents:
“Just the two of us? Let’s do JH!” - James Hall (JH) In and Out - Thursday 05/03/2026
NUCC Members Present - Sophie and Harvey (me)
My alarm went off at 0600 and I ran down the hall to Sophie’s room to beat on her door. I am yet to be on time for a caving trip with her and we were on the clock today. I wanted to be out of JH in time for the TSG monthly meeting at 1930.
With surprisingly little faff, we were out of stores with kit packed and on route to Rowter Farm by 0730. We had everything we needed crammed into five quite heavy tackle sacks except for the all important ‘Derbyshire Key,’ which we were unable to locate in stores. I had a teeny weeny adjustable spanner in my car for emergencies but we were worried it would be too small, so stopped at the outdoor shop in Castleton to ask if they could help. They could not. We put our faith in the tiny spanner and continued to the farm.
After paying our dues and getting changed in some far nicer conditions than our predecessors, we slogged our five bags up to the hatch. Sophie rigged the Y-hang so we could safely open the trapdoor as I wrestled with the bolt. The tiny spanner fitted, but didn’t have enough leverage to turn. A stroke of genius came upon me and I wedged the spanner behind that little bar at the top of my Simple and used the extra length to pry. The bolt sprang loose to reveal the scaff bar. Sophie and I exchanged a look as we realised a carabiner would not fit around it and we wouldn’t have enough rope to tie a threaded figure 8 on a bight (we had only packed a 55m not a 60 as we were limited for choice). Instead we used one of the slings we had bought for the deviations, tying an overhand as one would in climbing to add a semblance of redundancy.
Sophie descended first, as is the etiquette when one has done the rigging, and I keenly watched the sling for signs of weakness, aware it was probably entering its adolescent years. Satisfied it looked super good enough, I followed Soph down, learning from Ben’s mistakes and closing the hatch behind me. I touched down at 1130 and with quick check of the map we headed east down Cartgate.
Here our experience differed dramatically from the lads who preceded us. Four tackle sacks between two people made this section a logistical nightmare. We dragged one bag behind us on the lanyard and hugged the other like a baby where we needed to stoop or rolled it along the floor ahead of us on crawls. For climbs and traverses, one of us would go first unburdened and then we played a game of pass the parcel with the bags. To add to this, when we reached the edge of the first water-filled void, Sophie deemed it an adequate time to announce was scared of deep water - proclaiming she would rather “traverse over a death defying height than these pools.”
The way down Bitch pitch was a breeze and we finally made it to the Workshop. After gawping at some relics, we took the traditional route to the top of Leviathan. I rigged the backup anchor and headed down to the Y-hang and deviation. Here I was perplexed by the meaning of the red zip tie on one of the Y-hang bolts (please do tell me what it means if you know) but with no other options, rigged off it anyway. Then came the deviation. I clipped in and descended from it before realising I had placed it about 6 inches too far to the left, leading to some unwanted rope rub.
There being nothing I could do about it now that I had weighted the deviation, I asked Soph to fix it on her way down and descended what was potentially the most amazing descent I’ve done. It was also probably one of the scariest. I’m not normally one to fear heights but hanging over the top of Leviathan looking down into a black void which my Fenix didn’t touch the bottom of was a gulp-in-the-throat moment. The sheer scale of the chamber was awe inspiring.
At the bottom, I searched around for some anchors but none appeared before me. I briefly poked my head in the Tea Room route before deciding to look more closely at the dam. Walking from the Tea Room to the dam, there was some stretch in the rope that caught me off guard as I tried to reweight my descender, causing me to slip and dislodge a large rock in the scree pile.
I verbalised my distress with an “Oh shit!” as I watched the small boulder pick up speed and start to bounce down the slope, off the dam grate, and down the final pitch of Leviathan. There was silence for what felt like an eternity before a loud crash filled the cave - signalling that the rock had reached the bottom of the 50m pitch. Apparently after hearing all this, Sophie’s first thought was that I had died.
I cracked on rigging, but after failing to find any bolts, I used another sling to tie a rebelay off the angle iron holding up the dam since it was the only thing I could find solidly stuck to the wall. I dropped down to the lower level of the dam, tied off the 80m rope, and started to rig the final pitch with the 60m. Sophie joined me at the pitch, head pale as a sheet after witnessing my apparent death. She had been unable to move the deviation so we would just have to ascend with minimal bouncing.
We bottomed cave at about 1600 and had a little poke around Cows Arse Worms and the trap door to Speedwell before starting the ascent. I was excited to try out my new Pantin, but Soph scoffed at the idea of making things easier. I bet her a pint that I would have three of the four tackle sacks by the end of the ascent (whether I won this was dubious as we ended up hauling one together).
As I was derigging, Soph went first and we made good progress up the first pitch before starting the second. The waterfall pitch was less beautiful on the way up as the water (thankfully the flow was not too heavy) splatted into my eyes whenever I tried to look up, and froze me to the core the rest of the time. It was also not fun to imagine the rope grating on the rock with every movement I made.
An inspection of the rope showed our worries were unwarranted as, thankfully, we had just fluffed up the sheath a little. We then ate a Darren drum picnic in the workshop and, inspired by my perceived death, discussed what the other would do if one of us were to become horribly injured down here (I would love to hear people’s safety tips for two person caving teams).
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, Bitch Pitch was overhyped - even with two tackle sacks each it was not that hard to do. I did pause half way to admire the chunks of pure lead in walls that had been polished shiny by the parties that had been down before us. Cartgate was also far easier the second time round and we barely stopped for breath as we were now pushing the clock to get back for the TSG meeting. We arrived at the bottom of the first pitch at about 1925.
Sophie was getting tired and so I ascended first with two of the rope bags and she tied the third to the bottom of the rope and just hauled the emergency kit up below her. When we both reached the top, I set up a Z-haul to get the last rope bag up. We hauled on the rope for far longer than we thought it should have taken (I know you have to pull 3x as far with a Z-haul but this felt like it was taking the piss). Finally, we finished and sprinted back to the car.
We stripped off our oversuits and saved the rest of getting changed for back at the TSG Chapel as it was now pushing 2030. Bursting in the door of the Chapel hoping to make maybe the last 5 minutes of the meeting, we found it dark and desolate. I checked my phone to ensure I wasn’t going crazy and found an email informing me the meeting was actually on Friday. Somewhat relieved, we washed ropes and headed back to Nottingham for a well earned sleep.
Nottingham University Caving Club Presents:
“Just the two of us? Let’s do JH!” - James Hall (JH) In and Out - Thursday 05/03/2026
NUCC Members Present - Sophie and Harvey (me)
My alarm went off at 0600 and I ran down the hall to Sophie’s room to beat on her door. I am yet to be on time for a caving trip with her and we were on the clock today. I wanted to be out of JH in time for the TSG monthly meeting at 1930.
With surprisingly little faff, we were out of stores with kit packed and on route to Rowter Farm by 0730. We had everything we needed crammed into five quite heavy tackle sacks except for the all important ‘Derbyshire Key,’ which we were unable to locate in stores. I had a teeny weeny adjustable spanner in my car for emergencies but we were worried it would be too small, so stopped at the outdoor shop in Castleton to ask if they could help. They could not. We put our faith in the tiny spanner and continued to the farm.
After paying our dues and getting changed in some far nicer conditions than our predecessors, we slogged our five bags up to the hatch. Sophie rigged the Y-hang so we could safely open the trapdoor as I wrestled with the bolt. The tiny spanner fitted, but didn’t have enough leverage to turn. A stroke of genius came upon me and I wedged the spanner behind that little bar at the top of my Simple and used the extra length to pry. The bolt sprang loose to reveal the scaff bar. Sophie and I exchanged a look as we realised a carabiner would not fit around it and we wouldn’t have enough rope to tie a threaded figure 8 on a bight (we had only packed a 55m not a 60 as we were limited for choice). Instead we used one of the slings we had bought for the deviations, tying an overhand as one would in climbing to add a semblance of redundancy.
Sophie descended first, as is the etiquette when one has done the rigging, and I keenly watched the sling for signs of weakness, aware it was probably entering its adolescent years. Satisfied it looked super good enough, I followed Soph down, learning from Ben’s mistakes and closing the hatch behind me. I touched down at 1130 and with quick check of the map we headed east down Cartgate.
Here our experience differed dramatically from the lads who preceded us. Four tackle sacks between two people made this section a logistical nightmare. We dragged one bag behind us on the lanyard and hugged the other like a baby where we needed to stoop or rolled it along the floor ahead of us on crawls. For climbs and traverses, one of us would go first unburdened and then we played a game of pass the parcel with the bags. To add to this, when we reached the edge of the first water-filled void, Sophie deemed it an adequate time to announce was scared of deep water - proclaiming she would rather “traverse over a death defying height than these pools.”
The way down Bitch pitch was a breeze and we finally made it to the Workshop. After gawping at some relics, we took the traditional route to the top of Leviathan. I rigged the backup anchor and headed down to the Y-hang and deviation. Here I was perplexed by the meaning of the red zip tie on one of the Y-hang bolts (please do tell me what it means if you know) but with no other options, rigged off it anyway. Then came the deviation. I clipped in and descended from it before realising I had placed it about 6 inches too far to the left, leading to some unwanted rope rub.
There being nothing I could do about it now that I had weighted the deviation, I asked Soph to fix it on her way down and descended what was potentially the most amazing descent I’ve done. It was also probably one of the scariest. I’m not normally one to fear heights but hanging over the top of Leviathan looking down into a black void which my Fenix didn’t touch the bottom of was a gulp-in-the-throat moment. The sheer scale of the chamber was awe inspiring.
At the bottom, I searched around for some anchors but none appeared before me. I briefly poked my head in the Tea Room route before deciding to look more closely at the dam. Walking from the Tea Room to the dam, there was some stretch in the rope that caught me off guard as I tried to reweight my descender, causing me to slip and dislodge a large rock in the scree pile.
I verbalised my distress with an “Oh shit!” as I watched the small boulder pick up speed and start to bounce down the slope, off the dam grate, and down the final pitch of Leviathan. There was silence for what felt like an eternity before a loud crash filled the cave - signalling that the rock had reached the bottom of the 50m pitch. Apparently after hearing all this, Sophie’s first thought was that I had died.
I cracked on rigging, but after failing to find any bolts, I used another sling to tie a rebelay off the angle iron holding up the dam since it was the only thing I could find solidly stuck to the wall. I dropped down to the lower level of the dam, tied off the 80m rope, and started to rig the final pitch with the 60m. Sophie joined me at the pitch, head pale as a sheet after witnessing my apparent death. She had been unable to move the deviation so we would just have to ascend with minimal bouncing.
We bottomed cave at about 1600 and had a little poke around Cows Arse Worms and the trap door to Speedwell before starting the ascent. I was excited to try out my new Pantin, but Soph scoffed at the idea of making things easier. I bet her a pint that I would have three of the four tackle sacks by the end of the ascent (whether I won this was dubious as we ended up hauling one together).
As I was derigging, Soph went first and we made good progress up the first pitch before starting the second. The waterfall pitch was less beautiful on the way up as the water (thankfully the flow was not too heavy) splatted into my eyes whenever I tried to look up, and froze me to the core the rest of the time. It was also not fun to imagine the rope grating on the rock with every movement I made.
An inspection of the rope showed our worries were unwarranted as, thankfully, we had just fluffed up the sheath a little. We then ate a Darren drum picnic in the workshop and, inspired by my perceived death, discussed what the other would do if one of us were to become horribly injured down here (I would love to hear people’s safety tips for two person caving teams).
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful, Bitch Pitch was overhyped - even with two tackle sacks each it was not that hard to do. I did pause half way to admire the chunks of pure lead in walls that had been polished shiny by the parties that had been down before us. Cartgate was also far easier the second time round and we barely stopped for breath as we were now pushing the clock to get back for the TSG meeting. We arrived at the bottom of the first pitch at about 1925.
Sophie was getting tired and so I ascended first with two of the rope bags and she tied the third to the bottom of the rope and just hauled the emergency kit up below her. When we both reached the top, I set up a Z-haul to get the last rope bag up. We hauled on the rope for far longer than we thought it should have taken (I know you have to pull 3x as far with a Z-haul but this felt like it was taking the piss). Finally, we finished and sprinted back to the car.
We stripped off our oversuits and saved the rest of getting changed for back at the TSG Chapel as it was now pushing 2030. Bursting in the door of the Chapel hoping to make maybe the last 5 minutes of the meeting, we found it dark and desolate. I checked my phone to ensure I wasn’t going crazy and found an email informing me the meeting was actually on Friday. Somewhat relieved, we washed ropes and headed back to Nottingham for a well earned sleep.
-Sophie
.
