National Park After Dark - Britain's Worst Caving Disaster: Yorkshire Dales National Park

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

In June of 1967, ten people journeyed into the Mossdale Caverns, a cave system known for being dangerous and unexplored. These caver's mission was to explore unmapped passages and reveal new caving systems. When thunderstorms and torrential down pours suddenly flood the tunnels, the largest rescue mission in Britain's history ensues.Tickets to Spirited Stays: The Crescent Hotel HERE! (momenthouse.com/npad)For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Reel: Use code NPAD for 30% off your first orderApostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with code NPADBetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our linkBeam: Got $20 off when you use our link and code NPAD at checkoutFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Dark and mysterious, wet and cold. Beneath the surface of the earth lies thousands of caves.

They're quiet, largely unexplored, unmapped, and unknown. New discoveries of caves attract the most determined of the adventurers. To step into a place that no one has entered before is an accomplishment that many can never say. To escape the busy world and spend your days underground, mapping, exploring, and crawling your way to new locations can be the exploration of a lifetime. Squeezing your way through tight passages, swimming in underground streams, sleeping along the beaches with no light, and climbing your way up and through the corridors that go on and on forever, can land you a spot in history as the first explorer ever. or this dark, desolate, dripping area could become your everlasting tomb. Welcome to National Park After Dark. I never thought I'd see the day.

What day? That you were going to do another cave story. I know. It gives me anxiety. And I feel like a lot of people right away are going to be like, is this the nutty putty cave? Because a lot of people have asked us about the nutty putty cave that happened in Utah And the answer is no, this is not the Nutty Puddy Cave story because we already covered the Nutty Puddy Cave story on our Patreon.

And it's a really interesting story. It happened in Utah, the man who went down into the Nutty Puddy Caves and got stuck. If you are interested in hearing that episode, you can listen to it on our Patreon. But this is not it. And we did that a long time ago. And you have a problem with caves. So I am very, I applaud you for doing one. I have no idea where this is or what's going on, but I'm proud of you.

Conquering a fear. Yeah, I have a big problem with caves. Me and caves are not, not, no, no. Danielle saw it firsthand. Daniel saw it firsthand me in the cave. And the thing is, it's like it wasn't even that bad. Right. Not once did we have to crawl.

Not once did we have to like shimmy through anything. It was Jewel Cave. Yeah. I mean, we were, we were on the. the stairs a lot. And I mean, there were spots where I had to like duck down. And we did have, it was a national park ranger who was, right? Yeah, because it was a national historic site. Yeah, it was a national park ranger who led us through the cave. And she did make it a very enjoyable experience. And she knew a lot about it. And she warned us about the difficult parts. But I'm just,

I'm claustrophobic. And at one point, she turned all the lights off. And it is the darkest I've ever been in anywhere. It's like your eyes don't. adjust to this darkness. And at that moment, my heart was just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I can't do this. Get me out. Get me out. When we were in that huge room. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I remember that. Quickly before we start our story, I had a couple shoutouts that I just wanted to give. And first was to two of our listeners, Joanna and Brannon. They're getting married this week. So congratulations. Brandon wanted me to let you know, Joanna, that he is so excited to continue all of your trips.

and that places like Anza Berego and Mojaska Canyon have meant the world to him, and he can't wait to spend the rest of your lives exploring together. We're so excited for you both. Congratulations. Happy wedding day. Hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day, wonderful years to come, wishing you both the best. The second shout out I wanted to give is to my amazing aunt who just launched a website called esotericbody exploration.com, where she and one of her,

her close friends are going to be leading guided deep meditations and relaxations and a lot of really cool stuff. She's always been my artsy, fun, yoga, aunt, and she has some really cool stuff that she's going to be streaming. She's going to be putting up experiences that start March 19th and streams until the 28th. I'll add the link into our show notes. Also, just because of the kind-hearted people that my aunt and Christine are, is they are donating 10% of the proceeds to sexual and domestic violence organizations. It'll be a really cool fun

exploration that you can join. And they both have the most soothing voices you've ever heard. They're so calm and sweet, wonderful people. Go check it out. Links in our show notes. But yeah, let's start our story. Well, where are we today? We are heading to the UK. We are going to Yorkshire-Dales National Park, which is located in England. Lovely. Lovely. Absolutely. Lovely.

Well, before we do that, bringing it back to the U.S. just real quick to Arkansas, of all places, we are coming in hot. With our new event that's going on with Moment House, it's coming up quick. We're going to Arkansas. Everyone's like, why in the world are you going to Arkansas? And it's because Arkansas is a hidden gem and you should all know about it. we're going to the Crescent Hotel. We're going to tell some really wild stories, some crazy hospital stories, because this hotel used to be a hospital, very questionable things going on here.

A lot of history. A lot of ghost stories. A lot of body parts being found. Mm-hmm. A morgue. We're going to go underground, not during the event, but just planning like things to do while we're there. Of course, looking into tours and seeing the area that we're staying in and there's an underground

tour of Eureka Spring. so I'm dragging Cassie back underground. It's just going to be a all-around great time. You're just prepping me for the underground. You're like, you're going to like this. We're going to do it so much that you don't care about it anymore and you enjoy it. Slowly but surely working you. Yeah.

But if you guys are interested in grabbing a ticket, the show will be April 10th, but it streams for three days after. So you have up to 72 hours to catch the show if you miss it on the 10th. Tickets are on momenthouse.com slash NPAD and on all our socials, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, on our website. Come join us. There's options for meet and greets and for an after party where we're going to do a question and answer section. And it's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, we're going to answer all your questions, anything you have, podcast related, personal hiking, hiking, gear, whatever questions you have, we're ready to answer them.

And we're really, really excited. So we'll see you then. But in the meantime, watcher. No, just kidding. We're going to start the episode. And that's it. Goodbye. And that's it. The episode's done. Goodbye. No, so we will go into our episode. We're heading to the UK.

We have noticed that we have been getting a bigger and bigger following in the UK. So this episode is for all of you. I tried to add in kilometers instead of just... We have really been trying, and we've gotten several messages about it. very nice ones like hey include some I have no idea what you're talking about and honestly it really was never a thought that we had that we would ever have to do this because we thought maybe 10 people would be listening to this and they were all going to be local to us in America but that ship has sailed that ship has long sailed and we're very excited but bear with us we were trying because

we also have no idea what we're talking about when we say colomons So we're all lost. But we are going to Yorkshire Dales National Park. It's located in the UK. And it is north of Manchester, England, in North Yorkshire. It's a park that covers 2,178 square kilometers, which is 841 square miles. But to be honest, I don't really know what square miles looks like either or square kilometers so put it in reference of like something that we can like something we know it's really

big but not that big entirely unhelpful but okay it was established as a national park in the year 1954 but an exciting fact about this national park is it was also established as an international dark sky reserve in 2020 so super recently it earned this title because this has some of the darkest skies in the entire country. Oh, nice. Anytime we say dark sky, it reminds me of great sand dunes. Yeah, me too, actually, now that you say that, can see the Milky Way.

Everything's beautiful at night. And that's true for here, too. There are these huge, large masses of land within this national park that is free of any night pollution at all from other cities, towns, anything like that. And so this is a great place to go see the Milky Way, to see other planets in the sky, shooting stars. and you can also, during certain times of the year, you can see the northern lights here.

Oh. Okay. I feel like I have to look up where this is because I really am having a difficult time envisioning it. Just find Manchester, England on a map and then go a little north. But it is like if you are a nighttime photographer and you're in England, this is probably the place to go because it does have these beautiful night skies. It's a beautiful park. It became really popular to go see the night sky, but it also has hiking activity. cycling, caving. There's also a really exciting way to see the park is that there's a train

that will take you through these long, lush, rolling green hills of this park. And it's really cool. I saw one photo and I'm sure it's like one of the town photos or whatever. But the train, it's not just a train track. It is in some spots, but this one part of the area, it's like these huge stone, like looks like this huge stone monument. that goes over a valley and that's what the train drives over. Like it looks like something straight out of Harry Potter. Maybe Harry Potter was here. But, you know, like it's beautiful.

And it's like what you think of England as being like the old stone area. And this park is just full of lots of interesting and beautiful sites. It has a castle that dates all the way back to the 1300s, which are dates we never mention when we talk about the U.S. because it didn't exist. But when I did Edinburgh for holidays, Rural Park. There's remnants of a castle there from like that time period. And yeah, same. So long ago. Being from New England, we feel like we have claimed to like the oldest stuff, but it's like pitiful.

But we're going to the OG England. And they got they got times way back. And it's filled with this park in particular, it's filled with old villages that still have things going on in them. There's beautiful waterfalls throughout this whole park. And while the above ground is really beautiful, underneath the service is just as interesting. The park is filled with underground caving systems, one of which is gaping gill, and it's one of the most unmistakable features of the area. It's a 98 meter, which is 322 feet deep pothole that has a stream flowing into it. So you can stand like above it and look down. and at one point this was the deepest known pothole in all of Britain.

Below this pothole, if you get to the bottom of it, it extends into some caves. Very cool. I'm imagining a sonote, kind of. I know there's not water in it filling it. But, you know, just like all of a sudden this gaping huge indentation into the earth and you look down and it just goes on and on. Yeah. I mean, kind of a little bit. It's like rocky and there's outside a big, is like really green and lush and then it's rocky and there's a stream that trickles into it and it's wet and it's very interesting and it's a big thing that people go to visit when they go there and the cave system in this national park is very well known it attracts cavers from all over

and one of the cave systems the biggest cave system that we're going to talk about today is the Mossdale Caverns this episode is brought to you by Prime Obsession is in session and this summer Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting.

Watch only on Prime. This was first discovered in the 1930s. It was discovered by a man named Eli Simpson, who, found an early geological record of mining plans in that area. But when he found these records, there was no knowledge of any caves in this area. So he found them and he's reading them and he's like, hold on a second. Where is this? There's no caves here, but are there?

So he became extremely interested in it and he started searching this area. He would drive up. He at the time was one of the few people who had a car and he would drive up to this area. and he would just walk around searching for any type of entrance to a cave. He would go back. He would do research. He would dive deep into other geological records that he could find to try and find any hint of where this caving system could be. And within all this research, it led him to believe that not only there was a cave system here,

but there was the most extensive cave system and possibly deepest cave in all of Britain. He ended up recruiting a man by the name of Bob Leakey to help his search. They began searching in old mine shafts that were outside of the area that it was believed to be in, but thought maybe they would extend further into this cave system that he thought. So they were exploring those areas. And they were looking for a long time. And their efforts heeded no results. And it wasn't looking promising for his discovery at all. That was until they started focusing their attention on a large stream that disappeared at the base of Mossdale Scar.

Mossdale Scar is a limestone rock cliff in the valley of Mossdale that is within the park. It was in 1941 that he noticed there was a large area of fallen rock above the stream. And this was during the war. So there weren't a lot of able-bodied men that could come help move all these rocks that had fallen. So he actually asked some of his women co-workers to come out there and help him start digging around this rock area because he thought maybe this is a cave entrance. It was on May 31st, 1941, when his suspicions of this cave proved to be correct, and they found an entire entrance beneath the rubble of the rocks. In just a few months, Bob Leaky, Eli, and his coworkers explored almost four miles of the caving system here.

Because there was a large stream flowing through this area, much of this exploring included swimming, holding their breath underwater for certain periods of time, and it was a little dangerous. You know, like when I think of caving, I think of walking through the caves. And these people are physically swimming in areas underground. That's nuts. Especially in, what is this, the 40s. Yeah. They don't have the equipment we have today. And it's still exceptionally dangerous even today.

So I can't even imagine the feeling I get from that description is like, they're like, oh, well, we're just going to send it. Like, we're going to go for this. And it's funny that you say that because actually, when they really started exploring it, they realized how obviously this cave was prone to flooding. And the women of the group were like, I'm out. We're not doing this. This is super dangerous.

I'm not going in here. They were noticing they were going in there. And if it was raining outside at all, if there was any type of weather, they would start noticing areas of the cave filling up with water. And the women were like, absolutely not. Like, I'm not doing this. So they dipped out. And Bob ended up exploring a lot of the caves on his own.

And this cave system was so large that he would be in there for hours. And sometimes he would be in there for days. He would sleep there. And he actually, I read a statement from him where he would sleep. It's like a beach side underground. There's a stream. And then there's like these sand silt sides. He would dig a hole, cover himself in sand and just go to bed.

It was like a blanket. it and he's like it was actually really comfortable. Okay, maybe, but he just didn't care about like flooding or getting himself in a situation where he couldn't get out. He did it where he was monitoring the weather very well because it would flood if there was bad weather outside. You know, if there's a lot of rain coming in, anything like that. So he would monitor the weather, go in for days at a time and just explore this cave.

That's wild. Right? I would never want to be. It's a different type of person. And I know that they're out there and God bless, but I mean, it's not for me. No, and there's no light down there. You literally have a lamp. Like if your lamp goes out, bye.

There is something to be said, though, about, and like you said, kind of in the intro, about being the first. As far as human eyes to set, you know, sites on an area that, to your knowledge, no one else has before. And, like, I know when we're going away. Way back to the Mammoth Cave episode, episode two, that we did, where initially when people were, it's obviously still being mapped. And there are portions that for sure haven't seen any human activity. But initially they're like, wow, no one has ever been here before. And then there's archaeological evidence of human activity. So it's just wild.

To be the first somewhere is a feeling that I'm sure is like addictive in a way. Just imagine being the first person to step foot somewhere. It'll make you want to make a bed out of silk and stay the night, I guess. You don't want to leave. During his explorations, he found areas that had jagged crawls. There were icy canals. There were places that were submerged almost completely in water. In some of his explorations, he was neck deep in water.

Sometimes, before he would get to the cave, the entire entrance was underwater. So to explore this cave, it was very obvious from the get-go, and he was in very good shape. but if you wanted to be in this cave, you had to have extreme physical strength and the ability to endure very cold water and to swim. He ended up exploring over six miles of caves. When he explored the farthest end of the cave he could reach, he found that the trip back to the entrance took between 8 and 10 hours. With the difficulty of navigating and the extreme risk of flooding, the caves were deemed extremely dangerous. The Mastell Cavern Passages were named things like the swim, confusion cavern, rough crawl, knee-wacker, mud tunnel, sand passage, far marathon, and mini-cow. Mini-cow.

I don't know why. Like, it was like the shape or something like that. I'll post a photo of the map on our social media so people can see it. But if you're not on social media, I would say look up the Mastale Cavern's map. because you can see where everything is. And I guess the story might make a little bit more sense in locations that we're going to be talking about too. But just the names of these passages are like, oh, that's scary.

Like, do I really want to go down knee-wrecker? I can imagine what that's going to be like. You get a little preview of what's to come. Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely descriptive titles of each one. For the caverns, the neighboring cave systems are believed that they're actually linked to Mossdale caving. systems, but it's never been discovered. And because of this, it's believed that the Mostel

caverns have a lot more to be explored. And this became an extremely exciting adventure for cavers. People started getting drawn to this area because, like we said, you're the first. You're the first explorer. You're the first person to step foot here. You're the first person to map it out. If you can get down here. People really started heading over to the area and caving clubs around the area began heavily theorizing that there were spots of the caverns that wouldn't flood and it was safer to be in. So they wanted to map it out a lot better. Previously, the cave had been unmapped besides the drawings that Bob Leakey had done. And they were just hand drawn from memory, no scale, anything like that. And they wanted to really map it out. And there were actually

universities in the area that had caving clubs where it was a thing where people would come into this national park and they would explore the caving systems and Mossdale was like a huge attraction to these people. They wanted to know it more. They wanted to explore it more. They wanted to get down there. On June 25th, 1967, a group of 10 people headed to the caves. Two of these people included Dave Adamson, who is 26 years old and Jeff Burrow, who was 24. They were both part of caving clubs from Leeds University and had visited this cave system before. The other eight members of the group were also from caving clubs but had never adventured into the caves prior. Colin Vickers, who was 23, and Bill Franks, who was just 19, were

also accompanying them and they were both very accomplished cavares. There were other members who joined that were around 21 years old. There was John Ogden, Jim Cunningham, and John Shepard. Along with the journey was also Dave Adamson's fiance and her name was Morag Forbes. She was 22 years old at the time and her and Dave frequently adventured together and were planning to be married that July. Her friend Collette Lorde, who was 19, also joined with them as well. So there were two women and there were eight men who headed into the caves. Dave and Jeff's goal when entering the caves was to reach the mini cow passage. This is a passage. This is a passage. at the far end of the caving system that they believed was connected to other passageways into

other caving systems. Their mission to go down there was to use explosives to blast the blocked mini cow passage with the help of their friends to carry some of the gear. Their whole plan was to get through. It's about a 10-hour climb and crawl and swim to get to mini-cow. But they wanted to get there, set off some explosives, and try and find some other caving systems. Is that a lot of? Is that a little? normal do you know to do to blow up stuff underground for the sake of like finding other I don't know like for some reason I just thought that what's the correct term spalunking when you're spalunking yeah and you're exploring like if it just ends you just it ends yeah you don't just like blast it the hell open and they're like oh yes it goes on it's like well yeah no shade I feel like

England has a lot of things that they're like, you do what you want. I don't know. I mean, maybe it is normal. And I have no idea. I've just never heard of that. Yeah. And that's an interesting thing because I didn't, when I read it, I was like, maybe they had some special permission because they were part of a club and a university.

I don't know. Also, another fun fact, since you said splunking. In England, they were called potholers. Oh, pottholers. Which kind of made me laugh because I just think, oh, a bunch of potheads. It's like a bunch of pot-holeers. Well, just imagine someone going into Mammoth Cave. It's like, we found you five more miles.

We blew it up, but we got five more miles in. Like, I just feel like that's not a thing. Whatever. I'm sure someone will tell us, but I think it's just very odd. Yeah. And I just think of the safety of it, too. Well, yeah. It's like so much could go wrong.

I don't know their credentials for this. like if they were explosive experts or whatever, but there are caves that you don't really know, and then you're going to light off an explosive while you're under there. But, I mean, minors did that kind of stuff, too. So, I mean, it's not impossible. I guess I just don't really know that much about it to speculate, I guess, on what is the proper way to blow up underground.

But these people were on a mission to do this. And it was that same drive, you know, that we were talking about at the beginning. is like to explore, to see new things, to discover new things, to be the first. You know, it's just like this drive, very, very adventurous people heading down here. And when they arrived that morning, the weather was great. You know, the sun was shining. There were a couple clouds in the sky, but the weather was great. The afternoon weather did, however, reveal that there were possible rain showers and possible thunderstorms

that were going to happen way later in the evening. Jim and John spoke privately about their concerns about the weather, and they both decided together that they really didn't want to go. But they didn't know how to voice that concern. They didn't think that the others would agree or understand why they wouldn't want to venture in when the bad weather was hours and hours away. It might seem like they just didn't want to be part of this mission. They just didn't know how to bring it up. It wasn't until the two women in the group, Marag and Colette, stated that they weren't comfortable. They had been doing caving adventures before, but they were really small, and this was a really long journey for them.

And they wanted to just hang out in the caves, explore some of the entrance passageways where they didn't have to go super far out. So when they mentioned this, the two men, Jim and John, volunteered to stay behind with them. Like, you know, they're not super experienced. We can hang out, make sure they don't get lost and take care of them. As long as Dave and Jeff didn't need them for what they were trying to do. And Dave and Jeff collectively agreed, like, no, you can stay with them. We have plenty of people to carry the gear. We can get out there, make sure that they're okay and whatever. So they decided to stay behind. The two parties divided at the cave entrance. Dave and Jeff went off in their group to head further down. And then the four others, Jim John and

the two women went off onto their little passageways that were closer, safer, wider, easier to navigate. And that group explored for a long time. They had gotten there in the morning and it wasn't until 5 p.m. that the four of them finally emerged out of the entrance. When they saw daylight for the first time in hours, it was now drizzling outside. But there was no storm that had rolled in. There was a very small amount of water. Nothing was significant. The entrance was clear. Everything was fine. And they weren't expecting the other group to be out. The other group wasn't planning to be back until almost midnight that night. And it was only 5 p.m. So they decided that they were going to head out. Jim drove all of them back towards town. Marag, who was waiting for

her fiance to be done, stayed behind in a large barn in town to shelter from the small amounts of rain that was going on. She was just hanging out waiting because she was planning to meet up with him after. The rain started to get heavier and Marag went back to the cave entrance to check in on it. She saw that rain's coming down. She knows with the flooding issues and when she got there, everything looked fine. There was a little bit more water in the stream, but nothing alarming. and she went back to wait for him longer. While she was waiting, torrential downpour started and an inch of rain fell in just a few hours.

It was 9 p.m. when she returned to check on the cave again. And this time she found the entrance to be nothing but a lake of water and the entire entrance was gone. Oh, shit. What happened to monitoring the weather? It just rolled in fast. Oh, God. I feel like this is a common theme for a lot of our episodes.

It's just the weather. You know, weather can change so fast and things can happen. I mean, an inch in just like two hours, that's so much rain to happen. So it was pouring, thundering, a huge storm rolled in. And when she saw what the entrance looked like now that she had been in and through earlier that day, she panicked. She was horrified. She actually ran two miles to the closest farm to grab a telephone.

And she called the police immediately. Immediately they called Warfdale Fell Rescue Team. They were a rescue team around the area, and it was really common and fairly routine procedure to rescue people from caves. But for Mastell Caverns, this was a totally different obstacle. This was a cave that they dreaded ever having to be called out to because they didn't know this cave very well. This cave's not mapped out. People haven't explored it. They really don't know enough about this cave to go in and start a rescue mission because they don't know how.

The only people that would be fit for theirs to rescue would be cavers themselves who are in the town. So they start calling all these different caving clubs, telling them of this dire situation and that they need to get people out immediately. And they even start calling the pubs that are around the area that were popular pubs for cavers to hang out at. And we're like to tell everyone that this is going on. We need everyone to get up to this cave now. This is an emergency. One pub that they called was named Martin Arms. and it was near Engleton, which was the town that the four of them had driven to prior that day.

And it happened to be the same pub that Jim and John had decided to stop for a beer at. They had been indoors and were completely oblivious to the storm that was happening outside. And at the news, they quickly grabbed all of their gear, which was still wet from their own explorations. And they headed out as fast as they could back to the entrance of the cave. When they got to the scene, it was horrific. The entire entrance was underwater and in front of it was a small lake. It was 11 p.m. with torrential downpours and the rescuers had no idea where it even start. There were tons of people there and it was a complete frenzy.

Soon a group of fire engines and tractors arrived at the scene. It became one of the biggest rescue missions in Britain's history. Over 300 people arrived to try to help. needed to stop water from entering the cave, so their first step was to build a dam and diversion ditches for the water to get away from the entrance. It was known that there were areas of the cave that didn't fill up with waters fast and also areas that didn't flood. Their hope at this point was that if they could stop the water from rising inside the cave, Dave, Jeff, and all of their friends that were with them could have found a safe area to wait for rescue. By dawn, the entire

area look like a war zone. There were hundreds of people, many who were using their bare hands to dig ditches and to add onto a dam. By morning, they had built a diversion ditch that was six feet wide, 10 feet deep, and 10 yards long. Wow. That's putting in a lot of work. A lot of effort. And that's not all. They also built a dam. The dam was 10 feet tall, 15 feet thick, and 70 yards long. They really went after it. Whoa. Yeah.

They worked through the whole night. I mean, it needed to be done. There was motivation, and a lot of these people here are cavers, too. So they know how much is at risk. They're rescuing their own. You know, these are their people. And they pretty much put together the impossible. I mean, it's only been a few hours, and they built this.

But one of the issues that they ran into was that the dam that they built wasn't very stable and they ended up bringing in 10,000 sandbags to help keep the dam in place. Among the people that were helping to build this was Jim Eyre. He was 41 years old and a highly respected caver in Britain. Dave had actually asked him a week prior to join him to the mission to explore the cave, but Jim had declined. He had explored hundreds of caves before, but Mossdale was one that he never wanted to adventure into. He saw this cave as a killer. It was too dangerous, and he never understood why people even dared to enter it. It was known that it flooded.

It was known that it was hard to get through some of these passageways, and he never wanted to go into this cave ever. But today, he stood at the front of the line to lead the rescue team underground to save his friends. The dam that needed constant repairs was working. The water in the caves had receded far enough back that they could begin sending in the rescue team. Jim and John, who originally entered the caves with Jeff and Dave, but had elected to stay back with the women, insisted that they needed to be part of the rescue. Many people there advised that they shouldn't.

It was already a very traumatizing experience, and they weren't in the right state of mind to head back into these caves, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. Along with them, John Reston and Frank Barnes came as well. Frank was probably among the most committed on the entire rescue team because his best friend since childhood was John Ogden, who was inside the cave. They had been exploring caves together since they were only 11 years old. And John Ogden's father, who Frank had known his entire life, was sitting at the entrance

praying that they would find him and come back with good news. Jim Iyer, who was leading the rescue's first priority, was to set up a phone line. He wanted to be able to have communication with the outside throughout this dangerous mission. So they end up sending in a phone line all the way to one of the caverns deep inside the cave. But it would only extend so far. So they got it to a certain point. And then it was just there. And that was the rough crawl cavern area, which I'll post the map and you can see exactly where all this is.

When the rescue team entered, they noticed that there was flood debris everywhere. The roof was lined with foam and everything was wet. So you could see that this stream had flooded to the roof of this cave. They started their way through the passages and they made it to rough crawl. Rough crawl is a room-sized chamber that was impossible to stand in. This one, just like it says, rough crawl, you had to crawl. The next section was near marathon. Dave and everyone would have had to go through this section to go to Minicav,

so they knew that this was the direction that they needed to go. It was still filled with water and the team had to wait. No one on the team at this point had ever passed Rough Crawl before and didn't know this area either. Tony Waltham, a caver who was based out of London, ended up arriving to the scene just around that time. He knew them near Marathon Passageway, and he knew the cave very well.

He had been down there many times. So he went, and he met up with Jim Iyer's group in Rough Crawl. And when he arrived, spirits were pretty high. There was joking around, people were laughing, and most of them believed that they were going to find the six guys down there. They believed that they were up there. in mud cavern, which was a spot past near Marathon, that

was higher ground and didn't flood. And they're like, they're probably just hanging out there, just waiting for us to get there. They're fine. They all had really high spirits. They're laughing, choking around. When Tony arrived, he took over the lead of the group and started bringing them into near marathon.

This area of the cave always had water in it, but it was low enough now that the team could venture through it. It was a tight space. It was only 10 inches high. and two feet wide and the passage was 900 feet long. I'm sorry. What in the world? 10 inches high?

Yeah. So for everyone that's not based in America. I was just going to say. What is that? Because I know that even as I'm 5. What, 5.3? I still feel like that would be very difficult to get through. I mean, it's 25.

centimeters high yeah and would you say two feet across so less than a meter across yeah it's nuts yeah and nine it's um 274 meters long so it's a pretty long passage but it's really small i mean 10 inches i just think of like a ruler you know you're your entire body under a ruler under a ruler well is this the one that's called near marathon? Yeah. Well, now we know why. It's a marathon to get through that. Absolutely. And this is the part of the caves where I would not know. If you're claustrophobic. You'd be like, all right, well, I've come far enough. It's been great. I'm going to go ahead and turn around. It's been great. I'm going back. No, thank you. But all of them, they're all on a mission and they head right down. and as they were moving, one of their headlamps caught a glimpse of something.

There was a lamp that was thrown along the rocky side of the wall, and there was a wire hanging from it. The way that it had been sitting, it was obvious that this lamp hadn't been left there, but had been forced here by water. Oh, shit. The team headed farther and farther down, and their spirits began to rise. The area of water would be coming to an end soon, which meant that the chances of finding their friends hiding away in northern. mud caverns was becoming a real possibility. They began shouting and yelling, hoping for a response, but nothing came. Just as their hopes were getting high, Tony rounded a corner and saw four legs in wetsuits. It was very apparent that they were no longer alive. There were two bodies that were jammed up

into a side rift, wedged into an area that looked like a last attempt to find an air pocket to breathe into, leaving their legs trailing in the passage. That's very rough. Jim Iyer started instructing next steps. They needed to send out a team to give the bad news, which Tony Waltham joined. He was the one who first saw the bodies. After a few questions, they realized that one of the rescuers with them actually knew all of the people involved in this incident, and he became the designated person to identify who they

found. Jeff and Mike Ryan were identified as the first two bodies that were found. The remaining of the team inched past their bodies to find the remainder of the crew. A short distance away, they found Dave, Bill, Ann Collins' bodies. With the devastation and confusion within the cave, the rescue team forgot that there were actually six people down there, and they turned around and headed out. I was just doing a mental count because I was adding up from the group that went off in the beginning that weren't involved in this group. I'm like, wait, am I mistaken? So what happened to the last person? Well, when they returned to the entrance of the cave, they found that the dam had been breached. Water again was flowing in and making it too dangerous to reenter. But it was now that they realized

that there was still one person unaccounted for. And that was John Ogden. They had to wait out the storm before they were going to be able to reenter the cave. The following day, two separate crews made it to rough crawl again before having to turn back because of water levels. Teams wanted to get into the caves as quickly as possible because John Ogden could still be alive. It was very possible that he could have found his way to the higher level mud caverns that wouldn't have flooded and was waiting there to be rescued. They still couldn't go out that day and then the following day, early in the morning, they sent out another team to look for him. The water levels were finally low enough to get back into the near marathon passageway and to get further down. And not to be morbid, but I'm assuming

they were unable to move the bodies. So are they just passing them? Yeah, they're like squeezing past who they're finding to get through these areas. And when they get down to near marathon again almost immediately, right past where the original bodies were found, they saw another pair of feet. It was covered in flood debris and sand and almost unseeable, but it was John's body, and they had originally not seen it because of all of the debris that was on top of him. Oh, okay. The team returned back to give the horrible news that John had perished under the conditions, and soon a debate ensued about retrieving all of the bodies because they wanted to offer their families a proper burial service. After a long discussion, it was decided that it was just too

dangerous, and it would be too difficult of a task, and that their bodies would have to remain there. The coroner then ordered the caves to be closed permanently and to forever be respected as a grave. This was an extremely sad and difficult situation for friends and family, but it was also an extremely disheartening situation for all of the cavers who dreamed of exploring the remainder of this unexplored cave. The Mossdale's were like gold to a lot of people. So that was a really devastating hit to them to lose their friends and to also lose the opportunity to ever go down there. All in all, over 300 rescuers spent days and sleepless nights carrying out this mission. It was one of the largest rescue missions in Britain's history. And the rescue report of this concluded with

never has so much been done by so many people for such a small reward. The following Sunday, they held a memorial service. There were hundreds of cavers, family and friends that came back to show their respect and honor the victims of that day. The service was filled with people who had a great admiration for the courage and the endurance for the people who engaged in this kind of activity. The six men who died out there that day were regarded as caving fallen heroes. Although the caves were officially sealed in 1970, three years after the incident, friends of the victims ventured in one last time. They went in and moved their remains to a higher level cavern, away from where any flooding would happen. They sealed it off to offer them a more

private and real burial. And this part of the cavern is now known as the sanctuary. Okay. So remember before we started recording and I was like, I've had a rough couple days and I feel like I'm good and I'm back and I'm done being sad, that just got me. Yeah. That's tough. That's really tough.

It's a really tough episode. And in a lot of our stories, we try to find the good in it, the good things that come out of it and the happy stories that come with it. And this story is just not one of them. It's really tragic and it's awful what happened to them. There is a memorial there for the people who are still buried to this day. A lot of the cavers every year on the anniversary will go there to visit and just pay their respects to the victims of that day. And there have been the rescuers who have spoken out about that day and what happened and what ensued. But the, and census of all of it was that the people that went down there that day, they were heroes in the

caving world. You know, they went down there to do something that no one had done before and people have a really, really high respect for them. And unfortunately, they just got hit with too much weather and they didn't get out in time. And it's just super tragic. And it has gone down as the worst caving tragedy in all of the UK's history. It reminds me of a. situation that has a happier ending. But remember the situation in Thailand? There's a movie called The Cave about it. It's like a documentary. And I really want to say it was a soccer team of children, of like young kids and a couple adults. And they went exploring just like, oh, we're just going to go like pop in here. And same thing. Flooding happened. And they got stuck in there. And it's very similar to the story.

like everyone dispatched teams to try and rescue them. And there was a lot of worry that they weren't going to be safely rescued. And it was going to be a recovery mission. And I think they all lived. That's a much happier story. I'm Googling it now that you said that. There's article. Is it a really recent movie?

Oh, 2019. Because there's a really recent article about it in October 2021. Just talking about says the rescue captures the mission to Free 13 from an underwater cave. And underwater, I mean, water just adds an entirely different aspect to caving and to cave rescues. You know, like that just makes things so much more dangerous. Well, for sure. In the Death and Zion book that I have. And I believe there was one that happened in Antelope Pannon as well nearby.

Flash flooding is just something that can happen, obviously, in the blink of an eye, hence flash flooding. And it could be like a beautiful. day and then 20 miles away, a storm happens and you're fucked, you know, and you never see it coming. And it's kind of like that's the feeling I get with this. Like based on how you describe this group of people, yes, they may have been young, but they seemed very experienced. Yeah. And they were going to bring their fiancés in with them.

I don't get the feeling that if you had a concern, that something wasn't right, that you would put your loved ones at risk like that. Yeah. Oh, when you say that, I don't know why it always brings me back to this, but just the way that you said that reminds me of Timothy Treadwell and him bringing his girlfriend. When you said that, it just made me think back to him because he, like, very clearly brought his loved one into a very dangerous situation. But, yeah, you know, it seemed like it was a very, it was an exciting day for them.

You know, I don't think that fear of the danger was in the forefront of their minds. And the weather was supposed to hold out for a long time. It was just a tragic accident. Yeah. You know, maybe if they had left a little bit earlier, things might have been different. But it's all the like what ifs. You know, at the end of the day, you don't know what's going to happen, especially with weather, like, that extreme. They didn't know that there was going to be an inch of rain coming within the matter of a couple hours.

Like their time frame to get out was really short. Well, and so I'm just trying to envision location-wise when you are describing it. Because even if they did get a sense of like rising water or they got a sense of an issue happening, they still have to go through that, what is it, near marathon? Yeah. That tiny passageway that's going to just, I don't know. Like, I just feel like it's an eight-hour trek. back. So even if something is happening, what are they going to do? I feel like maybe there's a moment

of realization, especially when you said there some of the bodies were located in an area that it was clear they were trying to get to an air pocket. It's like an impending doom feeling of knowing that it's not going to be good. Yeah. And just like the terror that brings makes me, I think that that's like kind of one of the most difficult parts about it. To know that there's evidence that they were struggling to try to survive and find air right before they died is really makes it. It's a horrible story and just knowing that makes it so much worse. Yeah. Well, as far as, you know, what their families did for them, putting them to rest in the best way that they could and to section off an area and name it the sink.

for them is that's very that's like I keep saying that's what got me out of the story in general I mean I feel like we talk about a lot of shitty things but like you said there's usually like a silver lining to it in a way and this one just like doesn't have it and I'm trying to grasp for like anything you know but yeah wow that was a really tough one yeah it's a hard episode and the the capes are still shut down to there are rumors and speculations that some of the clubs still go into them and have found ways into the Mossdale caverns to still explore and venture around or whatever. So maybe they're still slightly in use, but they are closed off. The park itself, I guess the only silver lining of this story, which isn't really silver lining to the story, is that Yorkshiredale National Park is beautiful. I would definitely recommend looking it up if you are in the area. or planning to go to the area. It's the rolling green, lush hills with beautiful stone towns inside them that are just like,

there's so much history there. And it's just so old. And there's these waterfalls. There's this huge castle there. It's just a really cool spot. And if you are into night photography, I would say that this would be a really cool spot to visit as well. So just to switch it until like the underlying tone of what we like our podcast.

be as we want to inspire adventure and travel. It's like, and we're on the upswing. We're on the upswing. There's some, there's, um, just to bring a little attention to this national park. And it is beautiful. And there's a lot of really cool national parks in England. You should look it up. It just seems like a different setup than the US has.

You know, like they're so big and so popular here. And maybe it's just because I'm not there. It seems like it's a little more toned down over there. But they're just as beautiful and they're really cool. There's a lot of stories behind them. So I definitely suggest looking into it more. I know that we'll definitely be back to the UK for some more stories in the future. There's a lot of adventure to be had overseas too.

So go check it out. And if you are in England and you've been to this park, send us some pictures. I'd love to see them. Well, I just looked up while you were talking gaping gil. And yeah, not what I was envisioning. It's beautiful. But from the pictures from inside it, looking out, looking in, I mean, it's cool. It's literally like just like this huge gaping hole in the ground.

The pictures from inside looking up are just like magnificent. So I do get the draw of wanting to explore more of a space like that. But that cavern, that area is huge. It's wide open. You're not in a small. Everyone in Google us right now, gaping gill. It's beautiful. It's huge.

You're not in any pockets. I'm sure there's a very safe way to go down. It looks like they have stairs to get down there. Like, that's amazing. I would go down there. I would have fun down there. Cool. Well, I would like to say thanks for sharing.

I don't know how I feel about it. I feel like I would like to say thanks, but I hated this. Yeah. Did not enjoy. But I did enjoy learning about the UK. a little more and we do need to go back there more. I think that's only our second episode there, but we get suggestions all the time. So we're ready. We're ready. We'll be back. We're ready. We'll be back. All right. Well, thank you everyone so much for hanging in with that. I don't feel well.

Go do something. That was a tough episode. Go do something. That's good for you. Go for a hike. Go outside. Go hug your dog or your cat. Do something. I just picture a hug. hugging a cat and it's just like, it's like, get away from me. It's actually going to make you feel worse, so maybe you don't hug your cat. We'll see you guys next week. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

But watch you're back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark. and on Twitter at NPAD Podcast.

Become an outsider by joining our Patreon where you'll gain access to monthly bonus stories and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our partners, you're supporting our show. To access our special discount codes along with source information from today's episode, check out the show notes.

For information on the show, to shop our merch store, sign up for our newsletter and more, visit NPADPodcast.com. And if you're enjoying the show, Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You're listening to this podcast, so I know you've got a curious mind. Here's a helpful fact you may not know yet.

Drivers who switch and save with Progressives save over $900 on average. Pop over to Progressive.com, answer some questions, and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit Progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary.