P8

Although it was a dry morning, it wasn't altogether surprising that there was a lot of water flowing into the usual entrance to P8 near Castleton.
We could have clambered down the usual entrance even with the amount of water poring down it. It would have been very wet and cold, but coming out would have been much, much worse as it would take a longer time.
So, it was an easy decision to give it a miss on this occasion despite having changed into caving gear and walk all the way over to the cave.
As we were there, I thought I would have a look at the older, dry but tight entrance to P8 which was a few metres away.
Karen dropped first down through the small hole to the small chamber just inside the old entrance and I followed. It was noticeably warmer in the chamber compared to the surface and Karen had already disappeared down a short low and sloping continuation. This led to a rift section with a flat out tube continuing at head height (while standing on the floor of the rift) and a second continuation at floor level.
Karen decided that either alternative looked very tight so she came back to the small chamber as I was having a look at what looked like another possible route from the chamber, but turned out to be a dead end.
Once Karen had returned, I went to have a look at the rift and small crawling passage and they certainly looked to be very tight. There was sound of water coming through the lower continuation: the tight section leads to the section of the cave not far in the wet entrance.
We clambered back to the surface and washed the mud and grit from the cave off of our oversuits in the small stream flowing into the cave and then slid down the wet grass on sloping ground to wash the dirt off our backs.

It was a very short caving trip but at least we got underground!