Jas and I recently did the Flowerpot Entrance to Gin Entrance through trip. Honestly, it’s not that bad…
But that wasn’t what Jas was thinking as she sat in the tube ready to descend, or as I went through a low squeeze below, or as we powered on through Dynamite Series.
Honestly, I think Carlswark Cavern gets a bad reputation. There are shit bits of it, and most of it isn’t so much “inspirational” as “survivable” but with the right group, it’s quite fun.
And in a two person Rapid Entry team, me and Jas were the right group.
We squeeze towards Picnic Passage to view Porth Crawl – the squeeze we wouldn’t try today, but that leads towards Clog Passage and more cave.
We then returned back into dynamite series, to the wooden plank squeeze. Jas made it hard to look. I made it look hard. Eventually we were in main Carlswark series.
Suddenly we saw some lights, and waiting in a large bit, two elderly bearded men rolled into the chamber and sat down out of breath. One had a GoPro spinning freely on his helmet.
“Have you just come from the Gin Entrance?” They asked.
“Nope, the Flowerpot Entrance”.
“Where are you going?” They asked
“Down there” – I said, pointing to the passage they’d emerged from.
“That’s to the Eyam Dale Shaft, they said, point at the passage to the Eyam dale shaft and the Gim entrance
After a while, their confusion and swearing subsided, and we put them behind us. We were not getting mixed up in their muddle.
Heading for the Eyam Dale Shaft, we scouted around and popped into the route to Gimlis dream.
First was an earthy crawl which I dropped into feet first.
Second was evidence of digging, and I dropped in, feet first. This turned out to be an extremely bad idea, as it resulted in having to reverse through an uphill flat out crawl, whilst lying in a puddle. Not recommended.
Eventually we slid down into a large chamber, and found out way through some boulder gardens til we found some conservation tape.
Gimlis Dream is obvious when you find it, but sadly not a sight to behold. A sight to put to the story, and a vandalism case study, but not an awe inspiring destination any more. I can only imagine John Beck’s pain.
(Continued below)
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
