Maskhill Mine

Karen wanted to have a bit of SRT rigging practice and I suggested Maskhill Mine as we had to be in the Castleton area in the morning. I was going to meet Tony Seddon of StarlessRiver.com at the TSG hut to buy a new furry suit.
After our visit to see Tony, we returned up the Winnats Pass to park at Oxlow Farm again for the third time in as many weeks and got changed into caving gear.
We met Jo and her companion at the layby leading to the caves and had already met them earlier at the TSG hut as they were also meeting Tony about caving gear,
Jo and the other caver were heading for Oxlow Cavern and we left them en route to take the steep uphill route to the entrance shaft of Maskhill Mine.
As we only wanted to carry a single tackle bag of rope each, we had enough rope to reach the top of the vertical section called Murmuring Churn as Karen set off down the entrance shaft.
I followed after hearing her shout up “Rope free” after she had passed the first rebelay and I was glad to get into the shaft out of the cold wind which was blowing on the surface.
There were a couple of awkward places where the resined in bolts made it obvious you were supposed to tie the rope to them but it wasn't always obvious which was the best way and I rearranged a couple of the belay points.
Karen dropped down the final section of rope above Murmuring Churn and I followed and was just at the final rebelay when Karen shouted up she had run out of rope and was ready to start coming up again so I also started up again ahead of Karen as she followed de-rigging the ropes as she went.
We were back on the surface after around three and a half hours at 16:00 and were soon back at the farm and changed out of caving gear.

A quick return to the Orpheus hut to wash and put the ropes away and then home.