14/02/16
Arrived at the hut shortly after 11 to find Sam with his car bonnet up having just decorated the adjacent wall with half the liquid contents of his engine. Glyn then joined us and we headed up the dale to find the overflow from Cavendish Mill pouring down Farnsley Lane and into the the sough tail. This had the effect of raising the water level at the bend dramatically, with both the tail of Watergrove Sough and the downstream culvert completely submerged in a swirling mass of milky-white coloured water. Interestingly, as we climbed down into the Streaks streamway, the same milky water was entering via the main inlets (see survey), yet the water emanating from Watergrove Sough was crystal clear. This potentially suggests there may be a connection between Streaks Pot and Farnsley Lane Swallet and the small system of caves down Farnsley Lane. JB also once mentioned that Streaks had been smoke tested to Yoga Cave shortly after they discovered it, so a link right across the dale is theoretical, albeit probably not passible by human-folk.
I climbed back up Alex Aven armed with a lump hammer, crow bar and the drill and got to work levering out the dodgy block as Sam and Glyn went on a sight-seeing tour up to West Choke (Lu Blue Sump was unaffected by the Cavendish overflow and remained very Lu Blue apparently). After a while, I managed to encourage the slab out from the wall, only for it to fall across the passage and completely Lu block it. Luckily, I’d re-rigged the ropes higher up and was able to attack the fella whilst still in the aven, otherwise this would’ve been a slightly embarrassing occurrence.
After what must’ve been an hour or so of trying, I managed to break the thing down into smaller chunks which would sporadically drop down into the aven with a satisfying rumble and a boom – which at least created some entertainment for Sam and Glyn who were waiting patiently out of the way. Eventually I had to admit defeat, being generally knackered, and what’s left of the block shouldn’t take much to remove it (with a fresh pair of arms).
Packing up, we headed back down into the streamway, only to see a light headed towards us. A light which belonged to Rob who, until late that morning, was still in France. From the airport he’d gone home, picked up his caving gear and come straight back out. With this in mind, it seemed rude not to at least complete the through trip, so we headed on down into Nervous Breakdown. Although it’d been reasonably dry recently, the discharge from Cavendish had made a big difference, and the streamway was in full winter conditions. So much so that re-entering the stream after crawling over our sandbag training wall, I pushed the drill bag in front of me only to see it get instantly swept downstream by the full force of the water re-entering from the bedding on the left. This section always carries the most current and the bag simply disappeared into the distance as I went charging after it. Knee pads flying off, arms flailing, I eventually caught up with it some 15-20m further downstream and made a mental note not to let go of it again… unless I wanted to go fishing for it in Nickergrove.
A successful trip re loose boulder with a sporty/wet through trip to finish. (Sam, Mike, Glyn, Rob – via France)
Derbyshire Pennine Club 