The Deep Thought #42 Dig

The majority of leads in Peak Cavern's White River Series were pushed to terminal conclusions during the original exploration of the extension in the early 1990's but one site was left with a question mark hanging over it. Deep Thought branched off heading north from White River Passage terminating in a calcite choke just a few metres short of the New Rake mineral vein and the possibility of associated development. Small holes here draughted well and the place reverberated with a promising echo.

On the 16th of June Dave Nixon and Shaun Puckering returned to the site after more than a decade to investigate further, armed with a drill and some 'cave enlargment tools'. The original draughting hole at the top of the calcite choke still looked and sounded promising but on this visit a strong draught was issuing from a tight slot at floor level. The slot was enlarged gaining entry to a squalid flat-out body sized crawl. The floor had to be dug out to make progress and with some effort this was pushed for a few metres to a sharp left-hand bend. beyond, the crawl continued for another 4m to an acute right-hand bend that was initially too tight to pass. The inside of the corner was removed and passed into the continuation, becoming narrower and higher. At this point, about 15m in, the cave defeated the cold and fatiged team who exited via The Vetilator and Peak Cavern.

The passage at the end was left 'going' and shelved while other projects were investigated.

Update:

On the 18th of November Rob Eavis and Rob Middleton returned to the site to have a go at the calcite choke above the start of the new crawl armed with a drill and some Hilti Caps. A flat drill battery brought proceedings to an end with the choke requiring more work. A return to this promising site is planned for the near future.

Filming in Titan for BBC's 'Inside Out' was completed on Thursday 2nd. This team filmed Sidetrack Cave for the same programme in 2003 with excellent results so this forthcoming feature should be worth seeing. The programme is due to be screened on Monday 6th November on BBC1 at 7:30pm.

Link:

BBC Inside Out

in Sidetrack Cave.

Looking down from the top of Titan, with Dave Nixon on the rope. The black hole at the bottom is The Event Horizon, which is only half way down!

Photo: Robbie Shone 02/01/2005

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Interest in Titan has rocketed following the BBC's multiple broadcasts throughout Monday. It was featured in various national news bulletins and was broadcast in full during the evening as part of the Inside Out series. The number of visitors to this site rose from the usual 17,000 hits per day to over 211,000 hits on Tuesday alone. During October 1047 PDF cave guides were downloaded but on Monday alone there were 2854 downloads just for Titan! We've been inundated with email requesting further information about all aspects of caving and the cave. Media interest seems to have snowballed with various news papers taking up the story and a number of television companies expressing interest in further filming. As a result the Titan team have gone into hiding!

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