Halloween story of the night!!
So, my dad is a spelunker, and just came back in with a great story from tonight. Basically, every Thursday, him and his friends (both called Mark) go down the abandoned mines or levels found all across the Dales. There’s one that’s full of water, Barneycraig, that they’re hoping to drain out, which has collected from a source further up in the valley. The aim is to connect this one to another which intersects it at a right angle. So, imagine these three fifty year old men in their overalls and helmets and lamps, going down an empty mine on a dark, cold Halloween night. Sounds just great, right?
They’re up to about 500-600m in from the circle in the top right. This is where they go in:
So, tonight, they head down about half a kilometre, to the point that they’ve worked up to. Mark and Mark are working at opening up one of the falls that leads into a cavern, so that they can go further in. My dad is surveying and shifting debris from further back. As they move these huge rocks away from the wall, the opening gets bigger, and more water is flowing out.
All of a sudden, dad hears this strange noise. It’s a really low, guttural sound, all hollow and echoing, like that huffing-growling noise that dogs make, but a hundred times bigger. Mark and Mark can’t hear this, because they’re right next to the water. Dad can, though, and he shouts “what the hell is that?”
One thing that you should know about the mines around this part of the Dales is that they’re fucking dangerous, they’re closed off for a reason- I’ve been down a few times and they’re terrifying. In this particular level, from the Nenthead or Barneycraig end, there’s a few very, very long descents by rope and a lot of water, and the cold certainly doesn’t help. Everything echoes, and if you turn too fast with your head torch, you’ll see things that aren’t there, or that rightfully shouldn’t be there. The worst part is when you hear the noises, because it’s like adding fuel to the anxiety fire.
Mark and Mark stop and step back to listen. As they do, the water does little to mask it, and this haunting noise only seems to get louder. It’s the kind of sound that makes your hair stand on end and your imagination run wild because there’s nothing that you can think of to describe it in the moment, so you start to panic. If an ancient, eldritch beast, or some lost spirit were to awaken from its slumber in that mine, it would sound like what these three were hearing.
Dad repeats his question. Mark B turns to look at him, white as a ghost in the glare of the headtorches, and says “I don’t know- but I bloody well don’t want to find out!”
Long story short, they legged it out. Turns out the noise was coming from air rushing into the cavern they were opening, because it was that full of water- like if you tip a full bottle upside down and let it all glug out.
Tl;dr- Dad and his friends got spooked by water noises and thought they’d woken up a monster. Happy Halloween!
