Oxlow Cavern - Castleton
Oxlow Cavern, a partly natural and partly mined cavern near Castleton in Derbyshire, England, is a dry (at times), deep, and mostly large passage formed within a mineral vein. Entrance is via a narrow 17.5-metre (57 ft) mine shaft, leading past a mined level to the top of a slope in a natural vein cavity. Two further pitches descend to a col 70 metres (230 ft) below the entrance, offering two routes. To the east, a descent continues into the very large East Chamber. To the west, the impressive West Swirl Passage slopes down at 45° to the base of the fourth pitch and the massive West Chamber.
Oxlow is best known as part of a larger interconnected system, from West Chamber a route continues into Maskhill Mine, making it popular for through-trips.
Maskhill Mine is a neighbouring vertical mine system connected to Oxlow Cavern since 1951 via a route from west chamber and often used as the exit in through-exchange trips. its sequence of deep, airy pitches rigged with wide Y-hangs as well as to additional descents including waterfall pitches and a sizable final shaft.
Care must always be taken when tackling Maskhill as parts of the entrance shaft and numerous pitches below are loose and regularly reported to be unstable. I personally had an incident when I foolishly looked up below someone prussiking above to grab a photo and as I looked back down to check the photo on the go pro a sizeable boulder hit my helmet dead centre above pushing me to the ground. If i had still been looking up faffing around with the camera it would have landed on my face and that would have been a different story all together.
Luckily I got back up and was just a bit alarmed by what just happened but no damage was taken, lesson learnt, don't stand below people ascending pitches, especially in loose shafts.
