Saturday - 7th July 2001
People present - Pete Dale, Duncan Jones, Andy Whitney, Jim Whitney

Duncan had plans of doing Eldon and P8 (Jackpot) but since I'd been up since 3am I had other ideas. A quick drive down via our new route which, added half-hour to the journey. We eventually arrived at Perryfoot village, located Eldon Lane and Andy. We then parked the cars and got changed, sort of, well I didn't I had other plans. While the others were faffing about with ropes I set off along the track towards the hole with nothing more than my helmet, light and over suit. In the distance I could see an area of the field fenced off 'that can't be Eldon Hole' I thought to myself but alas it was. Reaching Eldon I had a quick look down and then sat down on the grass in the warm sun and waited for my fellow cavers to arrive. Eventually they turned up with Andy's Dad leading the way and the other two stumbling behind. (No stamina some people)

It was decided that lights would not be required for this trip and over suits for that matter. So we chose our route down and without one utter word of complaint Dunc snatched the rope and raced off to rig it while Andy took some photos of me posing. Hearing a faint cry from below signalled our turn to descend. Andy had decided to use his new rope for this trip, which turned my stop into a go! Abseiling the pitch holding onto the rope with two hands to slow myself down is interesting to say the least but finally I reached the bottom.

Dunc and me seemed to wait for ages for Andy to come don and when he did eventually arrive for some reason Andy had brought his camera down. Even though he never used it so it must have just been for the pleasure of hauling it back up the pitch. On my way up I thought it would be funny to drop vegetation down onto Andy, strangely he didn't feel the same way about it. Earlier on the way down I had noticed an abandoned karabiner so on the way back up I swung across and snaffled it but not without a lot of hammer with my descender to loosen it by this time Andy was getting rather annoyed at waiting for me (Never mind) to vacate the rope. Everybody back on the surface we were greeted by a sudden downpour, typical Derbyshire.

Some people say Eldon Hole is a small Alum Pot I say they need glasses. Although it resembles Alum Pot it isn't very deep it has no water you could practically jump across it in fact its nothing like Alum Pot. Apart from that top trip go do it.