Doom
The EPC are involved with the discovery and exploration of a major new mine and cave system underneath the village of Eyam.
Due to potential access restrictions, information regarding the specifics of this site are required to be kept secret, however we will reveal as much as we can as it happens.
For a gallery of images of the Doom discoveries, see here.
Blog:
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
- Hits: 50
Present: Dan Hibbits, Jim Lister, Bob Toogood
I had a telephone call from Dan, asking if I would like to accompany him, to the recently pumped sump in the “Wet, Wet, West,” with the intention of enlarging the passage in the sump to allow access to passage beyond?
We meet up at Stony Middleton, and walked up to a house, who’s owner had given us permission to use the shaft in their garden, that entered the sough, which in turn enters the mine and natural cave it intersects.
We made our way up the sough into the mine and climbed up a series of old iron ladders up a shaft that led to more passage and a choke, which was passed to the pumped out sump, the Eldon had drained with a “BOG Pump” a few days before. The sump was still dry and it did not take long to drill shot holes, in the rock restriction and then to remove it with snappers.
The restriction was still tight but passable which Dan quickly proved, in hind sight it may have been better to have made it big enough for a caver with a mini cylinder, but as Dan rightly said, “Lets see if it goes first” beyond the dry sump was a small chamber with a pleasant stooping sized, stream passage, meandering off, this was followed for fifteen minutes (?) to a cross rift, which was blind at both ends. Ahead was a raised gravel bank, holding back another sump (Sump 2). We thought it may just be a duck so I entered feet first on my back feeling for an air space with my feet. I felt none and was up to my nose so came partially out and asked Dan for his belt to hold onto so I could get further in. Kicking about inside the submerged section I could feel that the passage stayed approx. 1m square in dimension. I came out for a breath and Dan pointed out that a rather lot of water was now running from the gravel bank. We looked at each other and both started racing back to the sump (lets call it sump 1) Before it filled up!
To conclude; it definitely needs a return trip... We never returned due to access agreements limiting the number off trips during that time. The second sump could be drained easily by digging the gravel bank away but Sump 1 would need more people waiting to pump it out to ensure escape! There were small pieces of shredded fertiliser bag in Sump 2. I am sure were surveyed it on the way in but Dan had the data on his PDA and I never saw anything come of it. Lastly, A big thank you to Dan for inviting me!
I would love to know, has it gone?
Report By Jim Lister
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- Written by: Luke Cafferty
- Hits: 5244
Team: Rob, Dave and Luke.
After a quick catch up and now suitably dressed for the long slog up the sough we headed up to cliff stille. After the 80m abseil we set off for a nice cold walk along the sough. Within no time we were climbing up the ladder to the best lead in Derbyshire. Rob hadn't shut up about how easy digging it was so Dave and I set about digging. Dave took the pointy end and I set about making the entrance crawl hands and knees size. This is where it all started going wrong.
Luke hauling unusually fast
The passage seems to have the most sticky mud ever! Dave was even struggling to pull the empty tub back to the dig face. It took two of us to pull the full tub back along the passage! After a few hours we had only moved 6 full tubs from the end and with the long trip back out in the forefront of our minds we decided it was time to leave. Quick stop to have a nice cold beverage before heading out. Talking on the way out we have decided that we need to dig from the entrance all the way to end. It's not going to be a quick breakthrough...
Enjoying ourselves before the cold wet slog out
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- Written by: Tommy
- Hits: 5946
Spending the working week and Eldon pub socials together not being enough, Devious Reavis set out the enticing bait of a plan to assess "the best lead in Derbyshire" for its digabilty and measure it's psyche-generation capability for the wider Eldonship. This Saturday gone we strode under the sleepy and unsuspecting excursion of Eyam village to begin work.
A prompt meeting at 6 (pm that is, a slightly earlier than usual but not before breakfast) had us changed and ready in no time, I'd scored a free neofleece that had been passed around the generations in SUSS, Rob opted for no neoprene again, and bouncing up the track we were.
Cliff Stile shaft exhaled a beautiful draft, this tested the fortitude of one enterprising but foolish spider's web as we lifted the lid. Pre-rigged rope made for a simplified start, except that I hadn't used a rack to descend for a couple of years so spent time fannying about when I should have been (c)racking on. I kicked some loose stuff down onto Rob below at one of the rebelays to really hammer the point home of how unenthusiastic I currently felt (whinging about being cold to start with, and mocking the size of the crow bar we were equipped with were other such contributions to the cause).
But that all changed once we hit the sough, what a great bit of the underground to explore, the sense of history, the neat construction craft dished out in yards along it's length. There are a few sections of roof that appear to not take advantage of the natural strength of the arch geometry, opting instead for absolute brick on brick shear friction. Never mind; the rest was perfection to behold.
A score of minutes slipped by as the water enriched our evening via the mechanism of rapid cooling from the waist down, we now found ourselves in more modern developments. Two unconvincing and vitiated ladders later and we were prospecting the natural.
Rob set about totally removing the final ladder from the support of it's accompanying wall to instead suspend it from some 6mm tat tied straight round a hanger plate, he said it wasn't wobbly enough before or something. While he was doing this, I was shuffling my way down to look at the dig face with a drag tray and the aforementioned crowbar. The most notable point of this moment in time was the fragrance of hammer-action pulverised limestone screaming its way into and past my nostrils; the draft in this flat-out tube was phenomenal! We later learned that this is is likely caused by or contributed to by forced ventilation some distance away.
The rope for the drag tray was too short to reach the full length of the tube so Rob cleared what he could halfway down while I made the ladder head more suitable for sitting and towing the drag tray out. Digging here is relatively straightforward, given that the mud delaminates very willingly...too willingly in fact, makes me think that whatever is beyond the dry sump wants to be found. Somewhere between lifting up turf rolls and skinning an animal it makes for a novel experience and should be sampled by all who proclaim their dislike for digging. That's the top two inches anyway and is certainly the name of the game for progress in the dig tube and at the face. However, at the ladder head, it was possible to efficiently cut away large bricks which made a very satisfying thudding sound when tossed down the ladder hole - stacking space is the last thing to worry about on this one.
Deciding we'd had enough and deeming the dig "a goer" (quick access, drafty-drafty, unique digability characteristics, decent sized natural passage, and no need to hire a skip) we set off to quench our thirst.
The trip out isn't bad at all, Rob complained for not donning any neoprene, I have to say my comfort level could only be described as "sublime", we flew up the shaft, I was grateful for post-exped fitness...
As we'd parked outside the Miners' it was probably quite a sensible choice for a debrief over beer and scratchings. The timing works out for a decent digging trip and still making the pub, no excuses.
Who's coming next time?
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
- Hits: 5443
LukeC, RobE
To ascertain whether a Stoney Dale entrance to Victory Level could provide a convenient and efficient entrance into Main Sough and Doom, we needed to get eyes on Victory Level itself. Previously I'd only ever been ~50m up it from the branch off the sough, up to a point where the roof reached the water level. I'd heard that in low water it continues for a couple hundred metres heading straight for the Dale, and even have some line data for this from an Eldon trip in 2011.
Taking advantage of the current low water conditions we thought we'd go for a look. Rather than going up from the sough tail (~45 min crawling, stooping and wading through water) we instead rigged Cliffstile Mine Shaft. This is an 80m engine shaft situated at the top of the hill with a metal lid and a strong draft out. Down the shaft are a number of quite extensive levels heading off, although all seem to peter out to nothing (see Descent 231). It lands on a blockage but in the 80's whilst a mechanical winch was installed on the shaft a small route was dug through to join the sough below.
A bit of questionable rigging off my dodgy old bolts got us both safely down to the sough and heading off up Victory Level in no time. Sure enough where I had previously stopped a small gap had appeared between the roof and water. A quick spray of disco smoke confirmed that the draft was going strongly through this gap and we followed it in. It's neck deep with one ear in the water to get through this arch (not pleasant in a furry suit) but soon it gets a bit more air space so you can wade mostly waist-nipple deep with your head out of the water. Unfortunately there seems to be no restbite. It continued like this for maybe 7 minutes at which point the skin was beginning to burn. Looking ahead here we could see for a good 40m and the roof was getting increasingly low, so we made the executive decision to retreat, with the firm plan to return in lots of neoprene.
By the time we got back to the pitch we were actually grateful that we could start prussiking to warm up. It's not that bad an accent, taking only 20 minutes for us both to be out. At that point we realised we had probably completed our task of finding a good entrance into the sough, Doom and beyond...
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
- Hits: 5599
LukeC, RobE
A long term project in Doom requires access to be a bit easier. Going from the sough tail is over 1 hour of sough wading in each direction, which is far from ideal for a evening trip!
Victory Level is an inlet just passed half way up. On the last trip it was draughting strongly, suggesting an alternative entrance might exist in Stoney Dale. Others had mentioned this as a possibility before, so I dug out an old survey of Victory Level.
When overlaid with the main Stoney survey one of the shafts lined up with the area around Ivy Green Cave, and another on the other side of the road.
Armed with this we went for a look around. Unfortunately it was the wettest day of the year, not ideal conditions for a surface bash!
Indeed the mine entrance below Ivy Green (Mine Level 10) ends in a tantalising boulder choke with a strong outwards draft. I wanted to check Ivy Green cave above as this also breaks into the vein here, to see if the draft might just be a small through draft. However due to the very heavy rain it was impossible for us to safely get across to the entrance.
We then headed down along the vein and across the road to the other feature on the old map. Indeed there is a level there exactly as expected, however it was a horizontal level, full of rubbish and with no drafts at all, so not really an interesting lead. We finished the day with the Windy Ledge through trip and went straight to the Anchor :-)