There are many places around the Peak District worth visiting and The Dale in Stoney Middleton is one of those places where, if you get the chance, is well worth a day spent wandering around taking in the views via the numerous different trails and paths.
Myself, @stefglazby and a few non steemers met at a parking spot on the A6 and geared up ready to tackle whatever we came across. We sat in the car and pulled up the DCA cave registry database on Google earth. You can access this publicly via a Google search. Its simple to use and shows almost all accessible cave and mine workings in Derbyshire, kindly kept updated by the Derbyshire Caving Association.
We found our targets and set off up the main path until we saw an obvious side oath leading up the cliff. This soon became a bit of difficult climb and after about 15minutes we arrived at the opening in the cliff face.
It looked tight and the dreaded spiders were guarding it well. Hood up and jacket zipped tight, I entered first followed by stef then the others. Guy who is a non member and relatively new to the underground exploring, was soon testing his greatest fear of confined spaces as the coffin tunnel tightened around a series of 90° bends. Halfway through and Guy freezes... "I can't do this boys it's too tight I'm shitting myself!"
"Wait here" I replied "I'll continue ahead and see how much more there is to go until it opens up".
It wasn't much further a hundred metres max so I turned back around and reassured the rest of the group that it opened up and they were in for a treat at the end.
They all continued towards me after some umming and arring and soon we came a T-junction where it was possible to stand up. Always a blessing when you're 6ft tall!
We had a quick look to the right hand passage and it quickly became tighter than the previous tunnel and involved belly crawling through dirty puddles. It was still early so we opted against getting wet too soon and took the left hand passage instead. This lead back out onto the cliff face but to a ledge like walkway only accessible via a diffi out climb or the tunnel workings we had just came out of. EPIC VIEWS! we took a break on the ledge over looking The Dale before continuing on the cliff edge path to the next hole. We came across 2 or 3 openings in the next few hundred metres but none had anything significant to be worth the effort of getting inside.
We continued along the path and soon discovered a rather exciting looking hole at the base of some tree roots. "Can we get back out that if we drop in it?" One of the lads asked nervously. "I dunno let's find out" I replied with a grin on my face evil enough to unnerved the rest of the lads.
"You first then big bollocks", I laughed and made my way down, making the lads wait until I knew there was reason to continue. YES! "This is the one boys, get yourselves down here it's extensive!"
We followed a tunnel for a few minutes before coming to a chamber which broke off in different directions. A few minutes of poking around each route we heard voices and echo's of footsteps, lots of them! "There's a group down here let's get out the way they sound like a school trip we aren't setting a good example here!" Only one of us had a helmet on as it was too tight in the first hole to navigate through without the helmets getting stuck!
We moved into a side passage and sure enough about 30 kids accompanied by the tour guide and rather pale teacher at the back. The tour guide thanked us for making way for his party then we continued the way they came from.
It was soon clear that the we had missed a turn somewhere as the ceiling got lower and lower and the floor wetter and wetter. "I'm struggling here boys" Guy moaned as the other 6ft man started to crawl through ankle deep freezing water. "Me too" "me three"
A quick break and some photos taken we decided to call it quits and make our way back to the surface, backs and knees battered and stomachs groaning for some lunch.
Once at the surface it began to snow and we were thankful for the moaning as exiting the hole any later could of proved diffi got if the weather confined to deteriorate.
Finally we made it back to the car following the lower path at the side of road. It was further to car than we expected, not realising how far we'd actually travelled up on the high level cliff edge path.
All in all a brilliant morning spent in The Dale and still plenty more to see further up the road. Until next time Stoney Middleton.
All photos have been taken by myself and if you enjoyed this post, please upvote and follow me ready for my next adventure!