White Pit 30/12/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley
2.5hrs
Estelle dug for 2.5hrs and filled 12 bags while James assisted in moving them up passage as his neck was too sore to get in the squalid little hole and dig! There was a little puddling when arriving at the dig but no water flowing despite lots of rain and flood warnings in local areas and the puddle was soon washed over the top of the boulder making the usual impressive waterfall noise as it flushed away. Digging initially in diarrhoea consistency for the first bag and then the usual sandy/silty/staled in stuff interchanged with diarrhoea when the water started flowing. Removed a couple of small boulders and also managed to dig a small hole in front of the big slab blocking the way on to make it drain lower down as reduced the depth of the dig by about 6” or so below the lip of the boulder now. Realistically there is a boulder on the right that needs reducing – would be easy to cap or P&F that as accessible, but the big slab is probably easier to look at Dr Nobel’s to reduce down to accessibility of it so may as well put holes in the other too. It would be possible to dig out more mud on another digging session before dealing with the boulders, but it is uncomfortable digging. The air got bad middle of digging, but then the water started flowing like a tap left slightly on and the air suddenly cleared before gradually getting worse again as the session went on, but it wasn’t that bad at the end – have definitely had a lot worse! Can only assume there is something somewhere sort of syphoning and opening and closing an airway, which might account for while the little hole part way up towards staging area sometimes has water in and sometimes doesn’t. There was water in at the end, didn’t notice at the beginning.
Next session requires large hauling session as all staging areas full of bags and rock.

White Pit 16/12/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Rob Adams
2hrs
James and Estelle arrived and dig and Estelle started digging. James moved some of the bags left over from last week up the passage a bit until Rob arrived. The dig wasn’t as pooled as last week at the start of it so maybe the mud has some drainage. Estelle threw some stones down the gap that can be seen and they rattle. Carried on pulling apart the left hand wall and making it larger, there was a boulder in the floor on the right that seems pretty solid. After about 6-8 bags and some largish rocks, the dig is quite a bit more open and making the puddled water flow down it sounds really interesting and it appears that there is a slab in the way and it opens up a bit. Above also has some potential, but not sure as can’t see clearly. Rob and James moved all the bags up to the staging area and then Rob came down and had a look and dug a couple of bags of spoil out. Air remained moderately ok.

White Pit 9/12/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Rob Adams, Henry Dawson, Nick Gymer
1.5hrs
Estelle arrived at the dig to find about 18" of water in the bottom. Sion had dug below the lip of the flow last week and it had pooled. Rest of the team started work hauling out leftover bags from last week while Estelle created some more. First the lip was broken off a bit to lower the water levels a bit and then continued to make the dig space larger around the hole where the water disappears making quite an interesting dropping noise and it sounds quite echoey. At the end of Estelle's session digging you could see stal in the roofspace above where the water is going and also a wall going forwards with a mud slope you can't reach the end of. Mike went in next and then Henry, both continuing the enlargement and a total of about 20 bags were removed from the dig but still can't quite get in far enough to see the way on yet... By the end of digging the air was really bad at the dig site. About a dozen bags at the bottom to bring up now, but rest of the haul route is clear. Ongoing digging is still mud, stal and rocks and not overly difficult.

White Pit 2/12/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Rob Adams, Mike Moxon, Sion Way

1.5hrs

Hauling and digging session. James went in first and dug for about 40mins while the rest of us relocated bags from the lower end to staging area. Then Sion dug for the rest of the session while the rest of us hauled and dumped spoil out to the old dig. Air remained not too bad for whole session, still going down nicely and fairly easy digging.