Maskhill Mine

Today there had been a plan for an Orpheus trip down James Hall Over Engine Mine (or “JH”) with most participants exiting via Peak Cavern. Karen and I were planning to return via JH after visiting some part of the Speedwell Cavern system.
During the week I had noticed that the levels of rainfall reported on the www.peakdistrictcaving.info website had been fairly high recently and a photo of Peak Cavern's resurgence on Monday showed the water level issuing from the cave was high.
I email Wayne Sheldon, who knows Peak Cavern very well, for his thoughts and he agreed that the Speedwell System would have high water levels and there was a chance that exiting (or entering) Peak Cavern would be a “no go”.
So after contacting other Orpheus members, a decision was made to switch the plan to do an Oxlow Cavern/Maskhill Mine exchange instead. Some were also planning a trip into and out of Peak Cavern for tomorrow, but whether that would be on or not would have to wait until tomorrow morning to see what water levels were like.
Anyway, Keith was giving a lift to Alice on his way up from Rugby and the four of us met for breakfast as usual in Monyash café and then headed for the Orpheus cottages at 10:00 to meet up with others who were caving today as arranged.
We found Paul Thorne, Pete Wagstaff and Boyd busy packing ropes into tackle bags for the trip. Then after getting a list of who was caving where we realised there would be fourteen of us (including Brian Potts who would wait in the “Oxlow” layby)!
Karen and I wanted to go in and out of Maskhill Mine while Keith and Alice were wanting to drop down Maskhill Mine and exit via Oxlow Caver. As there were so many of us, Pete suggested that we four should head off first to start rigging Maskhill Mine to minimise delays and he, Paul and some others would drop down Oxlow Cavern and the de-rig Maskhill Mine later on. This sounded like an excellent plan so we set off for Oxlow Farm near the top of Winnats Pass passing the wreck of a BMW sports car astride a drystone wall next to the A515 near Parley Hay, which must have crashed last night while the road was icy.
As usual, Karen, Keith and I, joined by Alice, parked at the farm and made use of the barn to change in. We were grateful that the farmer allowed this as there was a very cold, strong wind blowing with temperatures not much above freezing.
As we were changing, Boyd arrived with Jason and Jack and they parked on the grass verge opposite and also got ready for their trip down Oxlow Cavern.
Once changed, we grabbed the tackle bags, five in all, and walked back down the road towards the layby and stile leading to Oxlow Cavern, Nettle Pot and Maskhill Mine, where we met the others parked up and also changing into caving gear.
Karen, Keith Alice and myself were joined by Dave Phillips and Brian Potts as we walked up the steep ground to the shaft entrance to Maskhill Mine.
It was bitterly cold in the wind as Keith started rigging the entrance shaft and I was very glad when he shouted “rope free” and I could get my descender on the rope and into the shaft out of the wind. Not only were you completely out of the wind once in the shaft, but it was much warmer.
With shouts of “rope free” below and above, we all made our way down the various pitches with the odd pause to allow the next tackle bag full of rope to arrive to keep Keith supplied to continue rigging.
At the small section with a traverse around a hole leading up to the small col above the final drop down to the sump, Karen had dropped down the last tackle bag, which she had been carrying and after Dave had picked it up. I let him pass so that he could hand the bag onward to Keith.
I followed the two of them down this short pitch which is rigged with a cord Tyrolean Traverse to allow the rigger to reach a small platform on the opposite side of a large shaft. Normally I just abseil down this short pitch, lock my descender off and pull myself across to the platform using the rest of the rope, but on this occasion the loop of rope wasn't long enough to do this so I had to swap over to prusiking and then re-ascend the short way back to the rebelay above and then again swap over to descender and again abseil but this time with my long cowstail attached to the Tyrolean cord in order to reach the platform.
A short drop led to a wide “Y-Hang” above the impressive Oxlow West Chamber with the lights of various cavers below and I was soon down to join Keith and Dave plus Mat Adlam-Styles, Jack Barratt, PeteWagstaff, Paul Thorne and Phil Wall from the Oxlow party, who had already arrived in the West Chamber. There was a lovely smell of hot food which turned out to be Mat's soup which he had carried in a flask. Karen, Alice and Brian were following down behind me.
There was no sign of Boyd, Chris Jackson and Jason, the remainder of the Oxlow party, yet so I started walking towards the end of the West Chamber to see of there was any sign of them and I soon saw their three caving lights approaching. They had also dropped down East Chamber for a look around.
I turned back to the others waiting below the last Maskhill Mine pitch where some were having a look at the drop down to the very wet sump at the far side of a short tubular passage and soon Karen, Alice and Brian had joined us. It was quite a group with the fourteen of us re-united in the West Chamber – and no one had brought a camera to record the event!
Soon Karen got back on the rope and started prusiking back up on the long climb back to the surface followed by myself as arranged with the others, with Phil following. Pete was already at the top of this pitch as he had prusiked up in case Brian need a help at the Tyrolean.
It was very pleasant making our way up the various pitches, especially without having to carry any tackle bags!
At first I could hear Phil's shouted replies with each shout of “rope free” I gave but soon it went quiet as he waited for Pete and Paul to arrive so that he could grab the first tackle bag and continue upwards.
Soon we were making our way up the scruffy and dirty section of the mine near the entrance shaft and back on the surface. There was still a very cold and strong wind blowing and we didn't hang around and made our way downhill and back to the road and the farm to get changed.
As we were walking back towards the farm along the road, we saw a pair of cavers walking towards the stile next to the gate across a field and we presumed these must be a pair who had exited via Oxlow so we shouted and waved and they waved back. We could work out who they were, but we found out later that they were a pair of cavers nothing to do with Orpheus who'd had a trip down Oxlow Cavern.
Anyway, once back at the barn and after saying “hello” to the farmer who was busy collecting stuff from the barn, and getting changed, we headed off back to Monyash to get warmed up at the café. We must have made good time coming out of Maskhill Mine because there was no sign of anyone else from our group, including those who were coming out of Oxlow (including Keith and Alice).
We were back at the café in time for a hot snack and a mug of tea and a little while later we were joined by Boyd, Jack and Jason with no sign of the others yet.

Anyway, we headed for home.