Eldon Hole

Karen was still on the Isle of Man visiting an old friend and Keith planned to come up to Derbyshire for the day as there was an Orpheus Caving Club committee meeting in the afternoon.

So, we decided on a trip down Eldon Hole to see how much snow was down there remaining from the winter and from a fortnight ago.

We met in the café in Monyash and then drove to the farm near Eldon Hole and got changed into caving gear. Between the remaining snow outside the farm and the muddy ground, we managed to find a space to park in.

After walking up to the open shaft of Eldon Hole, we found quite a lot of snow hanging on the eastern edge and there was a large lump nearly the size of an old Mini with a large crack threatening to fall down near our intended route: the North Gully.

We tied one of our ropes to some of the fence posts surrounding the hole, and Keith attached his descender to the rope and tried to get the lump to detach itself and fall down. The chunk of snow refused to budge and so we set off down.

At the point where the gully ends and the shaft proper begins on the north side, Keith was just setting off down when I arrived. While I waited for Keith to shout up “rope free” so that I could follow down, the sun made an appearance and soon there were small bits of snow and ice dropping down from above as the sun warmed the top of the east wall.

I shouted down to Keith that it looked like things were getting dodgy and to come straight back up once he reached the bottom and not hang around, and I would wait where I was for him.

Soon we were back on the surface after an interesting trip. We had even needed our lights!

After walking back to the car and getting changed again out of caving gear, we returned to the Old Smithy café in Monyash for a brew and some cake before attending the meeting at the Orpheus CC cottage.