Caving in Derbyshire

We were supposed to be going to Yorkshire for the weekend, but the forecast was dire and Penyghent is not the sort of place you want to be when it's raining (plus there's a 1000ft crawl, which makes my knees cringe just thinking about it!).

We wimped out at the last minute at around 6:20 on Friday evening, phoned Jim and Keith to let them know we weren't going, I went to the shop for lashings of chocolate and we settled down in front of the tele for the evening.

Saturday saw us heading for Hitch 'n' Hike to buy me a new Meander suit because my old one was disintegrating rapidly. We then continued via Oxlow Farm - to collect part of Pete Collins' car that he carelessly left behind the previous weekend - to Perryfoot Farm and had a trip into P8. Several other people had the same idea, including Paul Cooper and his friend, Quentin, but we were all in twos and nicely spread out so it was very pleasant. Water levels were surprisingly low with the upstream sump completely dry and noticeably silty at the bottom, certainly compared to other years when I've seen it dry. The downstream sump was even siltier than ever with a large pool leading up to the sump proper.

Back on the surface, we headed for Outside at Calver Crossroads and had sausage and chips (Pat, if you're reading this, it was really lovely!!!!). I had a mug of tea... well almost... I managed to upend it all over the table and had to use a huge bundle of serviettes to mop it up.

Sunday morning and we'd agreed the night before to go to Knotlow Caverns (part mine) for a short trip. The weather, which had stayed dry as forecast the day before, was looking a bit more unsettled, but it was still dry. The first two pitches are straight forward and we then dropped down steeply to the head of the Waterfall Pitch. This is the engine chamber below Knotlow Engine Shaft and you can see big indents in the wall where huge timbers would have supported all sorts of gubbins (technical term!) for hauling lead out of the mine.

To get to a point where you can drop into the chamber without getting soaked - the stream comes out of a very narrow bedding (an inch or two) below the pitch head - you have to traverse a comparatively blank wall, hanging on the traverse line. In the past this has caused me all sorts of problems to the extent that I've had to back off it, unable to get across, but I think I've got it cracked now as I didn't even have to use my footloop.

I gather from various sources that those who went to Yorkshire didn't get far in Penyghent and if they went, they didn't get far in Hunt Pot either!! Thank you Metcheck, you saved us a lot of travelling for nothing.

Titan - the big one

Team Orpheus ready to go!

So, the day had finally arrived for the visit to Titan. Having seen it from the bottom a few weeks before, I had some idea of what to expect, but I don't think anything really prepares you for the real thing. Keith was rigging and he, Aaron, Paul T, Boyd and Larry were to go through to JH, whilst Chris, Dave, Phil Walker and Mark came from JH through to Titan.

Paul, Dawn and I were heading in and out of Titan, so we followed that group down the entrance pitch and followed them to the balcony that overlooks the 80m pitch down to the Event Horizon. It's a very scary place to stand, even when you're clipped into two different ropes. Paul T was on the rope when I first looked over with Aaron on the Event Horizon and with my light on full, I could see far too much. Awesome!

Boyd was next to go and Paul took a couple of photos of us before he set off.












He looked remarkably calm (8 days after his 70th birthday!) hanging over the edge while I took a final shot, a lot calmer than Larry did a few minutes later.






















I spent quite some time on the Event Horizon while Larry went on down and Dawn arrived and then headed back up. The prusik back up didn't seem to take too long, considering, but then I was busy taking lots of photos of all the pretty formations. The entrance pitch was another thing. It's quite a large diameter and deceptively long!!













Kate Humble, you're a star!!!