As the summer holidays drew to a close, Matt Day and I found ourselves on Friday evening, once again in Stoney Middleton. A flick through Caves of the Peak District had brought my attention to Merlin’s Mine, which promised to be one of the longest underground adventures in Stoney and a return to the enchanted forest below the crag. Matt packed the rope for the two pitches, as I realised I hadn’t brought any jammers. Cursing everyone I’d come into contact with recently, I packed a microtraction and pantin, hoping the pitches would be more like ramps. They were not.
We quickly changed, and followed the indistinct path for a few minutes before finding the top entrance. So many spiders. I rigged the first rope and descended the first pitch, soon seeing light seep in from the lower entrance. Down another pitch and we dropped our SRT kits. We followed the description onwards to Gimley’s dream. From what I can ascertain, Gimley was a bitter person, with a grudge against tall people. This ended in muddy boulder rubble and we headed back to the main route.
The weather had been exceptionally dry, and we found the dive line for sump 1. It was bone dry. Excitement built with the new prospects on getting to the end of the cave without dive gear. What followed was 7 sumps in series, ranging from a few m to 220m in length, all sized between a crawl and awkward sideways wriggle. My appreciation for the initial divers grew, imagining struggling through with bottles and in admiration, or perhaps curiosity, I tried to hold my breath for the duration of the “sumps”. I found this incredibly hard, but it is possibly good training for the time-short cavers, who finds themselves in a drought ahead of an upcoming expedition/race.We raced forwards, the nature of the cave lending itself to fast stooping scurrying or bear crawling, from sump 2, to 3, to 4, excited to see the water levels in the next sump. Beyond sump 5, there were no footprints and we believed we were the first this year to go this far. We couldn’t believe it when the sump 6 and 7 were nothing but inches deep.We reached sump 8 with glee. Here the water really did fill any ongoing passage, although there was nothing further marked on our 1989 survey. We turned back and set out sights on Shagga’s sump, which was muddy, wet and eventually inpassible.
Glory filled, we turned around. On our way out, we met two local cavers, who’d returned especially to see how far they could get through the sumps. Whilst they shot off through the cave, I faced the prospects of at least one pitch and my cobbled-together pantin and microtraction. On the other hand, a dark thought whispered, the two strangers had left their kits helpfully at the bottom of the pitch. Keeping us on the good path, Matt kindly lowered his jammers down the pitch for me and the strangers kit remained undisturbed. I reflected on my upcoming trip to Gaping Gill and he said I should probably keep hold of them. He was right, in the way he usually is.
I stayed that night at the TSG, where I saw a whiskey bottle being prepared for use as a ceiling mounted glass-confetti cannon in the kitchen. I retired to bed, where almost no sleep was had.In the morning, after a stop in Peverill’s bakery, I set off for Nat Dalton and Sarah Parker’s, scooped them up and we all arrived in a festive mood for Alice and Mike’s allotment party in Leeds. Dear readership, if Alice invites you to a party, ask how many hours of manual labour are expected. She’s is very honest, but only on request.
None the less, I got away with some easy jobs like holding screws for the shed builders, making bouquets of chopped lavender and overseeing the BBQ. Rachel McGlaughlin taught me to make rope. After the pub, we squeezed Sam Lee (CSCA) and his caving kit into the every burdened car, somewhere between 300m of rope and ample cut lavender. With the windows down, the drying lavender produced a snow-globe effect.
At the NPC, we met Rachael Pajak (RRCPC, MUSC) and planned an early start for our Flood v Marilyn exchange. We set off shortly after 8.30 from Clapham. Sarah, Nat and Rachael rigged Marilyn, and I rigged most of Flood (via Wade). Sam and I reached the main chamber first, with our route being simpler and shorter. We were well prepared, with puffy jackets, sandwiches and a group shelter and the time passed easily, watching the light dance on the waterfall.
Soon, happy voices reached us and we set off for Marilyn. Sam tried to lead us astray and I found the route on, in a manner that surprised us both. I offered to derig, and he took that as permission to leave the cave, without a second thought of the three bags of rope and tight pitches that lay between us and the exit. I caught up with him and gently educated him about derigging as a pair. This is where the first derigger waits at the top of the pitch, the second derigger passes them the end of the rope and the first derigger packs away the rope whilst the second unclips the top bolts. Lovely and very efficient.We trialled this on the top pitch and I think Sam found it too nice, meaning he couldn’t say anything positive at all. I reached the entrance lid first, and after minutes of grunting, sweating and puzzling, I narrowly escaped Marilyn. I closed the gate and waited for Sam, letting him get the full experience of being trapped in a cave, in full daylight.
On the surface, we found the other team and pottered back down the hill. A final drive took us to Bull Pot Farm to washable and return the rope, before returning Nat and Sarah, and finally heading home. Lots of lovely cavers, all smelling of lavender.