Peak Cavern - White River and the Moose Trap - 25th Apr 2009

Saturday April 25th 2009

Members present: Imogen Shepherd,  Kevin Francis,  Max Spicer

Imogen and I headed down to Castleton 8ish on Friday night planning for an early night and a long kip. However as soon as we stepped off the bus outside the Peak Inn my nostrils twitched and I smelt fire. I knew this could mean only one thing... a late night! SUSS, TSG, MUSC and Big Eldon Jim were out (due to a DCRO practise trip running on the Saturday) and a barbeque had been going complemented with plenty of beer. ICCC turned up around midnight. Several hours, drinks and loud explosions later I crawled into my sleeping bag, knowing we were starting early the next day for a long trip.

Max arrived at 9ish and after scoffing some Beast-In-A-Buns we kitted up. Our plan had been to run a derigging trip down the Moose Trap, but this was deemed unnecessary so instead we just went with a plan of heading down it and not derigging. Much better! To add a twist to our plan a crack MUSC team were also heading along White River and planned to be snapping at our heels. We raced behind them through the entrance series, the water been stupidly low. Normally where the water would reach uncomfortably high it was barely going over the tops of my wellies. The lack of a submersion didn't do my hangover headache much good, I'd been looking forward to the refreshing dunking! We overtook them at the junction to Treasury as they preferred the idea of us lubing up Colostomy and the Trenches for them. Imogen made her only wrong route finding turn at Fawlty Tower so I went through the gate and up the ladder first, but let the others overtake me at the top. I had the SRT ridden tacklesack and wanted to be slow at the back!

With Imogen "colostomy lover" Shepherd at the front we whizzed through, barely stopping for breath! I looked forlornly at the Ventilator as we went past, I knew it was rigged and would have been much easier than the longer crawling route, but we had promised Max some SRT so to Block Hall it was! There wasn't much waiting at the Egnaro ladders and after a brief period of standing up, we were back crawling along the bypass to the Streamway. Once there we cleaned off and cooled down a little. I'd been roasting throughout the trip so far and my head was still throbbing. Imogen and then Max sped up the first pitches of Block Hall, and just as I was about to get on the rope MUSC turned up. They went to have a look at the Bung Hole (it was empty) and gave me a head start on the pitches. This didn't seem that necessary in retrospect as we didn't see them again for quite a while!

Block Hall is a great shaft, the small initial chamber masking it's actual considerable size. The second pitch has a fun pendulum swinging back over the first (mostly handline) pitch. From then on up it is constant changeovers and deviations. The higher up you get the better decorated it becomes, the sides in places are white with flowstone. When we reached the top many "rope frees" later and had crawled along Watt Passage (it's still horrible) we were only 20 minutes behind my planned schedule. Not bad! Once into White River we had a quick look at the climb up to Heaven (but didn't go up) and also the Kingdom Inlet (again not going up)

Max cursed not bringing his camera as we worked our way to the Moose Trap. I accidently bypassed the first pitch by scuttling down a twisty rift passage to avoid a traverse (which apparently is the good thing to do) and the others soon followed. We sent Max down first. Descriptions liken the Moose Trap to a Yorkshire pothole and this is fairly accurate, but it wasn't as airy as most Yorkshire potholes that spring to mind. Still the pitches seemed short (compared to Block Hall) and the rock was covered in fossils. The lower we got the wetter the pitches were, but I still think these were pretty dry. I met Max overlooking the final pitch, which leads into the sump. Lack of rope meant we didn't go down, which seemed sensible given we'd only be scooting down into a sump! We shot back up. Allegedly these pitches are 75m long. It didn't seem that far (the bottom pitch was only 7m) but we had been conditioned by the Block Hall prussicking before! Overall, by the time we had climbed up out of the pitch we had bypassed before we had gone up 168m - the equivalent of 93% of a Titan prussicking trip!

Shortly after the Moose Trap you reach the river part of White River, and it was still stunning, though looking increasingly spoilt. Imo turned to head to the Ventilator whilst I has a quick look at the crawly route to Arse Pot. On my way back I met up with MUSC who had been up for a small glimpse of Heaven. There was some good banter as we descended, I took my time on the first pitch to look at the formations before gingerly making my way round the traverse for the second pitch. The bottom was very loose so I waited patiently for Imo to get well clear of the bottom pitch before I went down. Max did the same, but apparently MUSC weren't quite as gentle and he was followed down by a shower of rock. Thankfully he was unscathed. We shouted farewell to MUSC and popped down the final ladders back to the Trenches. We didn't take any detours on the way out, and washed at the Muddy Ducks as we knew there was not high water at Buxton Water Sump. On the way back through the streamway it became apparent that my lights were running low, I checked and we'd be caving constantly for 7 hours.

The lights in the show cave were off, and the gate in the Great Cave was locked shut. After a minor stress Imo spotted the obvious door and soon we were off stomping to daylight.

This was a magnificent trip, totally varied, rewarding and hard work to boot. It was helped immensely by having so many ropes conveniently in situ - I doubt we'd get the opportunity to do it like that again any time soon.