Last year, Sam and I went to a mine near Matlock.
When I visited this place last in January 2020 I noted that there were many spiders, antique bolts and only crawling available.
So it was interesting when we arrived and discovered we only had two kneepads between the two of us.
At the start of the walk to the mine, Sam said “up there?!”. Apparently the “path” did not look suitably appealing, which was accurate because it wasn’t fun to walk up.
After making the entrance to the cave look considerably more difficult than it was, we headed in. The entrance is this horrible tight tube – tighter than anywhere else in the mine – that eventually comes to a narrow shortish pitch.
The pitch is well equipped with bolts from approximately the Tudor Caving era interspersed with newer-ish bolts, placed in a sparse ish array. A tudor era rope was also in situ. The rigging I did with the 15m rope, may not have been textbook but was safe and allowed us to descend to a halfway passage. The way on.
(protip: take at least 2 maillons and a short piece of cord for an optional deviation)
A short way on further, a drilled natural provides a great anchor for a 2-3m awkward downclimb, protected with an insitu handline.
There aren’t any surveys available of this mine, but it is made up of grim rubble belly crawling through uninspiring passages, with walls rich in minerals. Clearly the miners were here for a reason!
Samantha shot off like a worm down a side passage, embracing #nomorekneepads as she would a Children in Need campaign slogan.
Eventually it turned into a dead end, and I guided her towards the route towards the through route.
The mine has two entrances. The upper entrance, and a crawling lower entrance which is in someone’s garden. To exit via the lower entrance, you need to seek permission – which we hadn’t done, but since our SRT kits were at the bottom of the second climb – we weren’t going out that way.
At one point Sam tried to trick me into going head first down a hole of doom. Unfortunately, I knew the route was hidden behind her back – because I’d accidentally fallen down the hole of doom headfirst the last time I was here.
(Continued below)
Originally posted on this post on Instagram
