- “Mum, sing to me”
What?
- “Just sing. Anything”
She started singing, and as the calming notes of “Caving Matilda” hit my ears, the fear subsided. Maybe I wasn’t going to stay stuck, facedown in this squeeze til the water rose and got me after all? I breathed out, pushed past the crux and eased myself out.
- “You can stop now!”
I’d just made it through the hardest part of the Flowerpot Entrance to Gin Entrance Carlswark through-trip, but mum still had to follow me through it herself…
One of the dangers of this tough, advanced, A to B trip, is that were one squeeze to be too tight, you would have to turn around and attempt to ascend the Flowerpot Entrance.
I first heard about the Flowerpot Entrance when researching Carlswark Cavern. The walk-in Gin Entrance, the Eyam Dale shaft… and the Flowerpot Entrance? What’s that?
In fact it is about about 5 lengths of large waterpiping forming a perfect human width splat-a-rat tube shaft into a remote part of the Dynamite Series – the squeeziest and most challenging part of Carlswark Cavern.
Stories of people stuck at the bottom of the tube having laddered in, but struggling to ladder out whilst the spiders watched them hungrily are definitely enough to encourage me to try to avoid having to retreat.
A few months earlier, Jonathan and Kim, had pushed the limits of the Crew’s knowledge of Dynamite Series – and this was the first time we were trying to link it up.
Could we find the passages they’d got to before?
—
We decided to use SRT, and the descent went remarkably smoothly.
At the bottom of the shaft, we dropped into a breathtaking flat out crawl. Literally – it was tight.
From there, we found our way through curtains of tree roots, to another constriction, and into a high chamber – which we descended to the bottom of.
From there, we pressed on left and down, taking the first hole in the floor and heading down down down.
Suddenly, I recognised where we were – the limit of Jon H’s last visit.
Soon we were crawling down a familiar passage towards a downclimb with a memorable stal column into the large junction chamber.
It is in this chamber that the ceiling passage from the Flowerpot Entrance comes in, the belly squeeze to the continuation of Dynamite and Picnic Passage goes on, and for us – the way back to the main cave…
But there was one major obstacle left before we got to the main cave…
(I took a look towards Picnic Passage – at the Hardest squeeze in Carlswark – the terrifying Porth Crawl – a sideways slot squeeze, with other squeezes on each side. One day, with the right group – I’ll have a go at it).
Between Dynamite Series and the rest of the cave is the “fencepost” squeeze.
For us, this meant a sharp 90 degree turn descent into a constricted wriggle in a puddle.
In I went, head first arms outstretched. Bending round the turn and trying to keep my face out of the puddle whilst fitting my head into the wriggle.
Eventually I made it… but at the cost of leaving an arm in an inconvenient location – pinned by my side.
I wriggled, and wriggled, and water splashed up into my face.
It was this moment that I got scared. It’s not that I’m afraid of water, tight spaces, or getting stuck – but maybe all three together, when they gang up… it was getting to me.
When mum started singing – I was distracted enough to forget the fears, release the muscles and slide through.
Mum tried coming through on her back. This was not drier. It may have been less scary. She made it through, no assistance needed!
After that, it was plain sailing through Dynamite Passage, North West Passage, Noughts and Crosses and Eyam Passage to the Gin entrance!
Would I do it again?
Definitely yes.
In fact… I already have,
but that’s another story…
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
