Peak Cavern - 8th Nov 2009

Sunday November 8th 2009

Members present: Chad B,  Daniel Hughes,  Flori De Castro,  Imogen Shepherd,  Jonathan Booth,  Kevin Francis,  Sarah Goodchild,  Steven Spall

Nemo, Jon and I had a spritely start after a well needed early night and began cooking porridge for the team that were heading down from York. The Chapel was a hive of activity as dozens of SUSS woke up, hoards of Chesterfield daytrippers arrived and all the TSG members who were down having a working weekend all converged. The tame keyholders had all disappeared and when there was a big push to get everyone from all the other clubs that were hanging around into Peak and our team hadn't arrived I began to get a little worried! I had a few words with the unfamiliar keyholder and there were some grumbles on his behalf but I had managed to blag a bit more time. At about 9.55 Chad's team arrived and we hurried them to the kitchen so they could gorge themselves on the porridge. It didn't take long for the lot to be devoured and then the keyholder returned to say that the showcave had agreed that it would definitely be ok for a small group to go in later (small group - hehe)

We didn't really want to take the mick too much so we sorted out the money and indemnity forms and after a little play with some chemical suits headed up to the cave. We met the showcave manager and his kids on the way up so we had a little chat. We were running about an hour late to get in. Oops. A tour group was leaving as we were heading in which meant we didn't get to hear any of the tour which was a shame. Instead we dashed through the showcave doing in a few minutes what takes most tourists half an hour! We reached the slide and off everyone went. I think it's about time someone lubricated it again to make it fasterer ;)

The water through the five arches was louder than normal, but not much deeper. When we got to Victoria Aven the water was backed up a little but the ducks all seemed fine. Very refreshing! Chad, Jon and Imo seemed to be taking it in turns at the front. I was happy to splash around at the back! Nemo got to Surprise View ladder first and watched the freshers down it. There were lots of questions about what the surprise was. No one had any problems at all climbing down, though I confess that I was actually being unusually nice here as I sat in the streamway damming up the water. Being the dam had a big disadvantage as a small torrent followed me as I went down. The water level in the main streamway was pretty high and made the journey to Buxton Water Sump and back quite cold and sporting. I was worried that the freshers might be getting too cold, but they marched on unperturbed.

We passed a group just before Surprise View ladder and made our way up to Squaws junction. "It'll get drier soon" and "Once we get past the next inlet the water level should be lower" were said on several occasions. At Squaws we bumped into another large group who I assume were Chesterfield. As the others continued up to Far Sump I shot up to check the water levels on the way to Wigwam Aven. It was all fine so I raced back to catch up with the others. They must have been going at a good pace because I didn't catch them until the hand lines up to the Picnic Dig. As we were now out of the stream there was a little rest here. To our surprise some cavers appeared from up above so we got out of their way and carried on with our journey. It didn't take long to get to Far Sump which, as we were now getting used to, was backed up and pretty wet. The start of the dive line was under a couple of inches of water. There was no mud to sculpt out of so we headed back downstream.

When we reached Squaws the team had a choice. March back down the main stream, which was wet but quick, or climb up the small Squaws waterfall and do some smaller muddy crawls. I was pleasantly surprised when the muddy crawls won the vote! Once we were all up the small waterfall I gave everyone another choice, dry but muddy or wet and clean? Strangely most people choose dry but muddy! I took Steven, Dan and Jon up the wetter way whilst Imo whizzed the other way, getting to the climb first. Everyone was really quick and had no problems going up it, but oddly it seemed we had stuck all four brave freshers into the muddy tube first, whilst the four experienced people were stuck behind them. We couldn't really overtake them at all so we sent them on their way down the muddy slides. It was now the freshers started getting much more vocal. "I'm covered in mud, and I'm really enjoying this, I'm not sure I'm meant to be!" said Flori amongst a flurry of squeaks that maybe only the bats in the system would understand! As the passage widened (!) Chad overtook and went up front. The passage became more of a muddy obstacle course and everyone seemed to be having fun. All too soon this ended and we had to descend down to Galena chamber, Chad going first talking our intrepid beginners down the rift.

Considerable amounts of mud had appeared on the faces of Flori and Steven during the crawl and these two were first down the rift. As soon as they were both in the chamber at the bottom there was lots of splashing, laughing and more squealing. No idea what happened between them both whilst they were alone down there...

From Galena we headed back to the junction where we would meet Surprise View. On the way there is an old dig which is listed as a SSSI due to the stunning mud sedimentation that can be seen at the dig face. Mud formations and sediments are an acquired taste, and it was in quite a tongue in cheek manner (knowing we hadn't really seen any stal all day) that I announced the passage as really rather pretty. I think almost everyone had had their fill of mud though and only Jon and Steven went to have a look. The others just don't know what they missed out on ;)

The way out was all easy going and everyone had a good splash around and a clean off in Buxton Water. I still think the sight of a group of cavers cleaning off is one of the funniest things you can see underground, especially when a chain is set up so backs can be scrubbed! The team had paused by Pickering's Passage and I promised we could go up there another time when more people had kneepads on and had been on a few more trips as the trip up there is quite crawly and has a couple of "fun" climbs.

On the way back to the Devil's Staircase Steven and Jon sang the Irish Rover and we walked out (again, completely missing any tourist groups - boo!) into the ever welcoming daylight. We'd been underground for a bit over 3 hours and there was plenty of time left in the day for hot showers / tea / chilli / more tea / beer / conversation. A cracking day out, hope to see all of our team members back underground soon!