At long last we have finally had a look at the west side of the
Caplecleugh Horse Level, this as always with Nenthead has just opened up
another can of worms for exploration.
Entering the Caplecleugh adit, we
made our way to the main junction through many shale collapses. Taking the west
fork the first exploration was started. We had a quick look up the south
passage that eventually leads to the Black Ashgill Cross Vein and the south end
of Archers Vein, this area is driven in shale and some of the passage was in a
bit of a mess. We only went as far as the first rise into Black Ashgill Cross
Vein. Returning to the main horse level we looked at branches and slowly
followed the main route in. In general the state of the mine seems to be not to
bad apart from the collapses which cause the water to back up and become deep.
Eventually we reached a dry area which lied between Hewitson's and Barron's
Rises. Lunch was had here. Afterwards we had a more detailed explore of the
area, finding many interesting artefacts. Karli climbed into the flats above
this area and tried to get myself and Karl to climb up as well, but since we
had two pairs of wetsuit bottoms on, bending the legs was not that easy so we
gave it a miss - for next time just wear the 3mm. When he came back down, we
did not really want to hear what he had to say.
After this area we
carried on heading west along the horse level, in and out of water. Further
along we encountered lots of rises and hoppers, some of them on a scale we had
not seen before - all beckoning us to go up. Finally the water gave way to a
dry section where the horse level opened up with twin parallel passages
spanning the vein. We felt a long way in, and the mine here was beautifully
preserved. Finally whilst taking photographs of this area Karl came back,
urging us to come and see what he had found. He took us to some large flats
which were filled with set rail tracks and many artefacts we had never seen
before. Cameras were taken out!
At this point time was getting short and
we needed to head back as we were going to exit via Smallcleugh so Karl could
do the through trip. Making our way back to the main junction we headed east
passing the bottoms of rises where we had at the end of last year explored via
Smallcleugh. At long last we reached the Middlecleugh Sump and I peeled off my
extra bottoms as otherwise there would have been no chance of me climbing the
calcified ladders. All of us got to the sublevel above and after another short
climb we were on the Cowhill Cross Vein in Smallcleugh and on our way
out.
All the interesting features in Caplecleugh are in the flats and
stopes above the horse level and this is were hopefully our next trips will
focus on, now that we know the lay of the land. The section of plan I had taken
with us had been cut just short of the flats we came across at the end and so
not having any idea of how far there was to go we missed out on reaching the
forehead by some 150m - this will not happen next time. |
