Trips & Reports 2017

Good to finally get to Brown Hill. We'd been umming and ahhing about which cave to do on account of being joined by Fleur, Pete and Avelina and not wanting a late one. In the end we decided it'd be fine to derig Brown Hill and wouldn't be any slower than doing Dale Head on our own. On arriving at Floyd's entrance, we found all three of them still on the surface. Pete had gone down and struggled with the... read more

Brewery Shaft is a 3.5m diameter vertical free hang, descending from a wooden shack in the woods 100m into the ground beneath Nenthead. This trip had been talked up all weekend, and the time to head out had finally arrived, but with the sheer scale of the descent, a good degree of apprehension was in the air. Once at the hut, we headed through the dim rooms to find a wooden gallery, surrounding the steel grid which protected the seemingly... read more

I was fairly keen to do Brewery Shaft, but not if there was a big team going. A 100 m pitch with more than 5 people sounded like a recipe for a lot of waiting around, and judging by the level of enthusiasm the night before, it wasn't going to be a small group of people who were keen. But surprise, surprise, in the cold light of day, the beer-enhanced enthusiasm of the previous night had dwindled for many, conveniently... read more

The morning of the trip was a nice faff free affair with a quick trip to the bakery providing breakfast, and the warm(ish) TSG providing a convenient changing environment. With no ropes to pack we were soon sauntering through Castleton, eager to reach the impressive entrance to Peak Cavern and begin our trip (which had been planned the previous night after I got all excited when Lumens mentioned a free-diveable sump). Upon reaching the entrance those of us who were... read more