Welcome,
Guest
This is the area for all the YSS trip reports only please
Topic
James Hall Over Engine Mine to Peak Cavern (31 May 2025) 02 Jun 2025 15:07 #21892
- Topic Author
- dchadwick
- Offline
- Admin
-
- Posts: 392
- Thanks: 75
With not many people signing up for accommodation on the Peak District trip, I was beginning to wonder if it was going to be worth running.
When the evening meal and caving polls went up, there appeared to be more people. In the event we had eight people for the Saturday trip and enough to run two smaller trips on the Sunday.
Having not done White River before, I was keen to have a look at that. Keith primed me that there were some snug crawls at the top of Block Hall. He didn't tell me about the 150m or so of prussiking to get to the top of Block Hall.
We split into two teams to make the pull-through descent of the Ventilator more efficient.
Having paid our dues (£3 for leaving via Peak Cavern & £2 for entering via JH), we headed across the fields to the entrance.
After the straight descent of the entrance we went along Cartgate (which I am sure keeps getting longer) to Bitch Pitch.
Having dropped Bitch Pitch to the Workshop, we had a discussion about which route to take down Leviathan.
Having selected one of the routes, we found that the lower half of the descent was already rigged, so we left one of the bags on a ledge. This was later collected by the second group to replace their Ventilator ropes which Ade thought were going to be too short.
We then headed towards the Speedwell entrance before heading up Block Hall. We had a bit of a crawl in Watt Passage (some of it flat out) before emerging in the Kingdom and the start of the pretty section.
Progress along the Kingdom was mainly easy with a couple of steps over big holes (Cuckoo Clock Ski Slope & Moose Trap).
We then turned left and made our way along White River before the three part pull through in the Ventilator and the squalid walk/crawl along the Trenches to emerge in the Treasury.
From there we had an easy exit via Peak Cavern where they were setting up for a Ferocious Dog concert that evening.
Team: Keith, James, Lukas & Dave
Other Team: Ade, Dave, Alex & Rich
Time: About 4h45
When the evening meal and caving polls went up, there appeared to be more people. In the event we had eight people for the Saturday trip and enough to run two smaller trips on the Sunday.
Having not done White River before, I was keen to have a look at that. Keith primed me that there were some snug crawls at the top of Block Hall. He didn't tell me about the 150m or so of prussiking to get to the top of Block Hall.
We split into two teams to make the pull-through descent of the Ventilator more efficient.
Having paid our dues (£3 for leaving via Peak Cavern & £2 for entering via JH), we headed across the fields to the entrance.
After the straight descent of the entrance we went along Cartgate (which I am sure keeps getting longer) to Bitch Pitch.
Having dropped Bitch Pitch to the Workshop, we had a discussion about which route to take down Leviathan.
Having selected one of the routes, we found that the lower half of the descent was already rigged, so we left one of the bags on a ledge. This was later collected by the second group to replace their Ventilator ropes which Ade thought were going to be too short.
We then headed towards the Speedwell entrance before heading up Block Hall. We had a bit of a crawl in Watt Passage (some of it flat out) before emerging in the Kingdom and the start of the pretty section.
Progress along the Kingdom was mainly easy with a couple of steps over big holes (Cuckoo Clock Ski Slope & Moose Trap).
We then turned left and made our way along White River before the three part pull through in the Ventilator and the squalid walk/crawl along the Trenches to emerge in the Treasury.
From there we had an easy exit via Peak Cavern where they were setting up for a Ferocious Dog concert that evening.
Team: Keith, James, Lukas & Dave
Other Team: Ade, Dave, Alex & Rich
Time: About 4h45
Attachments: