White Pit 27/1/14

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Leonie Woodward, Toby Maddocks
2.5hrs
Hauling trip to clear the place of bags and rocks before Dr Nobel visits the end. All bags and rocks hauled and emptied to the top from staging area by Leonie and Mike with the rest of us below. Toby had a bit of a dig and filled 2 bags of spoil while James and Estelle hauled up most of the rocks from the lower shelf, then finished off hauling with Toby before hauling all those rocks as well up to Talus IV.

White Pit 20/1/14

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Rob Adams
2hrs
On arrival the gate had been removed and replaced by a wire mesh top padlocked in place. Assuming the CSCC have finally taken it away for repair! (or at least hope they have or someone has stolen the gate! :P) 3 of us arrived at the dig. James and Mike started hauling up to top staging area until Rob joined them to help while Estelle went digging. Dig had been washed out a bit making the top bit less of a poo mine, but that was soon restored as digging commenced! The right hand wall is pretty much all mud and rocks and this needs clearing back a bit - as this was done, it exposed a rock jutting out on the right with a nice flat top suitable for slicing off with a bit of Dr Nobel's which is making the way on too narrow to access currently. Possibly the left hand side could be reduced too but am wary that this is under where the water comes in and a rock did displace from above it while James was digging later, so it may be best left alone and concentrate on the more solid RH side. The floor has best part of a foot deep of proper 'slurry' which is going to be grim to dig out when we can access it, but the way on is looking promising and hoping that when we can access it better, there may be a lip or something we can knock off to help the slurry drain… the water dropping away noise is still very interesting and when you use a hammer in the area, it still echoes well. James went in after to dig, then Mike, then Rob while the rest of us moved around to move spoil up to staging area until we ran out of oxygen in there.
Next session requires a haul and empty of all the bags and then realistically we need to plan to reduce the wall/boulder. More could be dug out, but no real progress forward while the wall/boulder is there.

White Pit 13/1/14

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon

2hrs

Took in the new rope for top drag tray from Tim Large along with cleaned up maillon. Collected the wire as we went and arrived at the dig. Very little in the way of fumes and the Dr Nobel's had been very successful in reducing the right hand wall and the slab in front. Took photos before we started and then Mike went in for a dig as he’d not seen the place for a while. He removed quite a few large rocks before digging out a couple of bags of rubble and mud, then came out so Estelle went in briefly and pulled a boulder out of the way on, but it was too heavy to lift up to the shelf whilst she was nursing a sore back, so James went in and we also put a rope around it and managed to get it up to the shelf where the water comes in. With that out of the way, James had a dig at the end and a look at the way on. All looking very promising with a 2ft wide passage about 9” high in the bottom, but we need to make the access to it larger. After James had absorbed most of the puddle into his kit, Estelle went in and had a dig and filled some more bags up. The water is better channelled now so not much building up, but loads of mud remains needing clearing out. Had a look at below and took a couple more photos. The way on looks promising and the floor doesn't seem to be overly solid, neither does the roof – is mostly pendants that could be broken off, so need to clear where the drop is and then have a go at what is below. The air had got pretty thick by the end of digging today and there was virtually no water flowing at all into the dig. 

HLIS - 6/1/14

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon

1hr

There had been a report of some collapsing/moving rocks around the scaffolded area in the entrance by Bar Steward Passage, so a quick trip to evaluate this and report back to BEC and CSCC. There had been quite a few squally showers during the day, but at the point where we went down it was dry and clear skies, although showers forecast! We got to the scaffold and took a look and Estelle took some photos. There has been quite a bit of scouring of the mud around the rocks by the scaffold and some have definitely gone down Bar Stewards, not sure if it is blocked, but it doesn't look overly inspiring and it always was an ‘unstable boulder choke’ and suspect this will end up being lost over time. We gardened a couple and wedged them behind the scaffold, but more may move if we continue to get the heavy rains like we've been having. Just as we were leaving, it clearly had started raining hard on the surface as a flood pulse came down to meet us. We sat it out at the side of the passage keeping ourselves dry until it receded a bit. Surfaced to clear skies again! Have sent the images to Trevor Hughes as he probably knows the cave the best and also advised CSCC and BEC membership of the movements. 

White Pit 4/1/14

Stu Lindsay, Estelle Sandford

1.5hrs

Holes already drilled from Wednesday’s trip, so just laying the bang, wire and setting off tonight. Estelle went to the end and prepared it and tamped it well with the copious amounts of clay/mud we have! Large amount of water flowing again at the end. Stu didn’t come all the way down to the bottom, just passed stuff up and down. Estelle reeled the wire out and it was taken all the way out to past Klingons and then set off, made a dull thud, so hopefully done the trick. Will need to allow time for fumes to clear before checking results. 

White Pit 1/1/14

Estelle Sandford, Rob Adams, Duncan Butler, Stu Lindsay
2.5hrs
trip to haul and empty all bags in the system before banging the dig and putting the cave out of action for a couple of weeks of bad air. 12 bags moved from dig staging area to main staging area while Estelle drilled 3 holes in the rocks, 1 horizontal through the slab and 2 into the right hand boulder. There was a lot of water flowing into the dig today and the water pocket on the way up was also full. The water sounds really impressive dropping away with that sort of flow (there had been lots of flood alerts locally and lots of rain). Once holes drilled and Duncan and Rob had looked at the end, we moved up to main haul, swapped the skip for Stu's new one and Duncan hauled while Stu on corner and me at the bottom with Rob helping at bottom to start, then  slowly dying of alcohol poisoning while emptying bags! All bags removed to top - some 40-50 at a rough guess. Left the handful of rocks behind. Bang planned for Saturday. Also need to take a new hauling rope in for topside as we brought the old one out to measure and throw away as is knackered and also to release the crab and maillon off it. Tim has some old MCR rope he will hopefully sort for us ready for next time we go down.

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. 

White Pit 25/11/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Rob Adams
1.5hrs
James and Mike cleared last week’s hauled bags to the old dig – dumping bags complete as most were like concrete – while Estelle and Rob headed down to dig. Estelle did a stint of digging followed by Rob while Mike and James hauled up then to staging area. Digging fairly easy in mud and broken up stal and small rocks and the trickle of water is barely flowing this week, but interestingly the hole further up that was dry when it was flowing well at the bottom 2 weeks back, is full of water again! Almost down to level where the water goes off by end of session, should have near enough cleared that area to give us an idea what is going on next time. Still about ½ dozen bags at the bottom to come up but could do with a larger team next time to haul as well as dig. By the end of 1.5hrs, the air was getting quite thick although there did seem to be a slight inwards draught, but think it’s either full of co2 already or not enough to sustain workers for too long!

White Pit 18/11/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Leonie Woodward
1.5hrs
Estelle and James at bottom, Leonie on corner and Mike hauling. Some monster rocks and bags removed from storage area up to Talus IV and rocks put in wall. Bags still need moving and dumping. There was a few Denning  specials in amongst that lot… Now ready to start digging again. Need to take some bags down as all those hauled up will be dumped into spoil heap.

White Pit 10/10/13

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon
1.5hrs
Also joined by Richard Carey, Andrea Russe, Jude Vanderplank and 2 others from WCC who came with us to Talus then went on a tourist trip to St Alactites. Mike and Estelle looked at the dig and Mike had a little dig, still has a trickle of water flowing which disappears back under itself in the floor. Lots of mud to clear and need to clear open and expose the whole area. Firstly though a team is required to clear the left over rocks and spoil bags we staged back in the spring before apathy and bad air set in…

HLIS 24/7/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Claire Brimson and David McCausland (Lincoln) (ULSA)
2.5hrs
Rains a couple of nights back had clearly washed the cave out well as the dead bird and it’s bad smell had gone from the entrance. Mike, Lincoln and Claire went for a bit of a tourist trip up to the end where the bones are. We headed down and rigged Pewter Pot and found that the water levels across the ‘sump’ were considerably higher, probably a good 18” on last week. We all got quite wet making our way across and started digging the draughting hole to the right just after the sump. Lots of fairly large boulders were removed, being mindful of a ‘hanging death’ above us. The draught wasn’t as apparent as last week and the water level in the bottom is clearly influenced by the water levels in the sump, but this appears to be flowing into it and the water remained clear, despite the sump being extremely murky. We dug a fair bit out and it looks worth having a go at further, probably with plug and feathers to reduce the boulders down to a sensible size around the entrance of it as there are two massive ones making digging difficult. We left it rigged with the intention of coming back next week, whether it be a digging trip or a removing digging detritus from the cave trip if the water levels continue to rise.

Hunters Lodge Inn Sink - 17/7/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Stu Gardiner
1.5hrs
Tangent was due to come down as well, but he forgot his caving kit, having realised he left it over at Home Close last weekend! (great excuse if ever there was one!) He did pick up the ladders and rope from the Belfry though for us. He had thought it might be possible the water levels could have dropped in the sump in Brown Ale Boulevard, so hence had suggested the trip. The rest of us headed down into the cool (albeit very smelly entrance with a dead bird just inside rotting away…) and made our way to the top of Pewter Pot. The rope was way too short to double line but ok as long as someone was happy to freeclimb. We all headed down without lining and took a look. The whole cave seemed to be quite drippy and not as dry as thought it would be and the sump wasn’t particularly low, pretty much normal. Despite the drought recently, the ground water levels don’t seem to be too bad… As James had not been beyond the pool before, we crossed it and headed up Brown Ale Boulevard to the end looking for any possible places we could dig. On our way back, about 10ft up from the sump on the left, by the wall and some cracked mud floor, there is a small draughting hole where we can see water flowing and also it looks like it might duck under the wall if the rocks and mud were removed. The mud floors are only where the water sumps right up, so not that needed for protection and there is plenty of digging tools in there. We then headed out and met Tangent in the pub to show him photos and discuss the potential dig site. Agreed to head back there next week to take a proper look and take hammer and some slings too.

Project Pebble - St. Cuthberts 08/05/13

Stu Gardiner & Estelle Sandford.

A quick trip down through SBP to check the level of Lake Chamber, they were 'normal' with just about enough airspace to swim through into LCE.

Back up through the Rat Run into Mud Ball to look at Project Pebble. Many of the tools had become encrusted with calcite but are more than usable, the end of the dig was inspected with no recent signs of water and still a gentle outwards draft from the mud bank at the very end.

The floor is either a boulder or calcite so we ideally need to widen the walls to allow easier access to dig the mud out from the end.

Some old digging items were bought out from Pebble and also from the dig below Cerberus Hall.

Total time: 2 hours.


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white pit, back dated from Jan/Feb 13 from Mike

to fill some of the gaps in the log..

Wed 9th Jan - Mark, Mike, Tom Smith, Richard Savill & Sarah Rowlands hauled all the bags from previous weeks up to Talus & filled another 10 which are still waiting to go. There is enough space to stick your head down the end & see a small tube going off to the left which still needs quite a lot of mud clearing out of it
13th Feb Mike & Mark dug in the White Pit mud mine 

White Pit 27/3/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon
2hrs
Estelle filled the remaining bags in the dig – hole in floor had been slightly blocked and it was pretty wet down there until hole unblocked. Only about 10 bags spare as rest full. Air not overly special but choice of way on really, either dig out the floor or carry on to left. Floor still needs loads digging out whichever is chosen. Moved onto hauling up bags to Talus until we were too worn out as really need a bigger team of people at the moment – many of the bags are too heavy and there is still a lot of rock to come up.

White Pit 20/3/13

Mark Denning went down at 4:30 with generator and drill to deal with the large boulders at the bottom and break them up to manageable chunks with chisel. Stu Gardiner went down and assisted him and they started digging out the bottom. Estelle Sandford & James Begley arrived at 7pm and Mike Moxon at 7:30 just as Mark left. Stu continued digging in little air for a while. Rest of us moved the rocks and bags up to staging area then Stu ran out of air at bottom, so came and assisted moving the rocks up and making a few of them a bit more manageable. Ready for a haul to start next session.

White Pit 13/3/13

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Sarah Rowlands, Richard Savill
2.5hrs
Hauled all rock and bags from staging area to Talus IV and emptied them into old dig. Found that re-using the skip and emptying them at top rather than in dump spot is easier! Left the bags across the walled area to see if they might dry a little before next week… Sarah and Mike had a bit of a dig but with the large boulder Mark had pulled out of the floor last week right in the way and too big to move, it was very awkward digging. This needs to be dealt with before proper digging can resume…

Wednesday 6th March - White Pit

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
Estelle digging first and then Mike followed by Mark. No shortage of easy digging mud, some stal and sandy stuff with the occasional rock. All bags filled up again ready for hauling next time and all are in the upper staging area, so only one haul length to Talus for next week! Mark at the end of digging pulled the really big boulder in the floor out and can see no trace of where the water may have gone in the floor. All traces of water currently dried up and nothing flowing. Does seem to be some slight circulation of air coming down from the ‘mini’ avens above where the water was coming in.

Tuesday 5th March - White Pit

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Leonie Woodward
2.5hrs
Around 30 bags plus rocks were manhandled from the dig store area in two stages to Talus IV and emptied. Dig air seems good and the water has dried up to a very small pool after a dry period. Ready for digging tomorrow night now.
(had been trip not logged a couple of weeks back by Mike and Mark which filled all the bags)

Tuesday 5th February White Pit

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon, James Begley, Henry Dawson, John Bennetts, Rob Adams and Milky Mat
2.5hrs
Estelle, Mike, Mark and Stu started off on the big bag and rock haul and were soon joined by James and we made a good start before Henry turned up with John, Rob and Mat so we spread out and managed to have both hauling ropes going so as to get the rocks and bags from bottom and shelf to the staging area. Once the bottom was cleared, Estelle went into dig and started filling more bags. Running water had died to a very small trickle, but floor drains fine from puddle still down into the crack. Easy digging in loads of mud/rock/staled in floor. Henry took a quick look at the dig, before he and the other 3 left us to go and do a tourist trip into Prophecy and St Alactites. Mike took over from Estelle digging and then Stu went to have a dig and the air died fairly quickly into his dig. The upper part of the cave is now cleared of bags and rock with about 7 or 8 bags at the bottom and a few rocks, plus 3 big rocks that need breaking up at some point. Looks like we're back to once a week digging or start looking at getting the fan in place to aid the air problems. We also cleared all the detritus from the cave that we've randomly left and all the dead bags of bags by the entrance - 3 bin bags, 2 bags of bags and 2 tackle sacks worth!

White Pit Wed 30th Jan 2013

Estelle, Mark Denning, James Begley, Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
Borrowed the boulder net from Caine Hill and Mike went into dig initially while Mark, Estelle and James hauled boulders and bags up from shelf and space just above the dig to the stacking space at the top. Mark took over digging and the rest of us carried on moving spoil up, then Estelle had a dig, then James before the air died again. :-(
The dig has gone around to the left and there is a rift like crack in the floor with the nearer side to out being stalled rock/mud again and the far side being solid rock. All the water is going down here now and flowing away well as Mark managed to block up the other way on. Mike had dug into the upstream end as well on the right, which is about body length and body sized and there is water worn rock. This is probably worth investigating as well as the downstream route. As you look at the dig, the left hand wall is all rock and boulders with the usual stal cementing, but everything is getting really mucky down to quite a flow of stream so it’s a bit like poo mining! Plenty of rock/spoil to remove for a few sessions yet and the upper level is now rammed with bags and rocks awaiting a big haul session to Talus.

White Pit Wed 16th Jan

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark Denning
2hrs

With the snow in the White Pit depression and freezing temperatures, Mike had abandoned us for Grebe and Stu had played the 'work' card, this left the three of us to head into White Pit. All bags in staging area were moved to Talus and emptied and then the bags from the bottom moved up to staging area while Estelle started digging. A lot of progress had been made on the last two (currently unlogged!) trips and coming from the right hand wall is a constant trickle of water which heads off to the left just out of sight. The water in the equation has turned digging to a poo mining and we're digging with a bag stuffed in the hole where the water goes to try and stop spoil heading down there until we can see where it goes. Left and right hand walls attacked to try and widen the dig so we can get around the corner and see what's going on and following on from Estelle, James and Mark also had a good go at removing boulders and more mud and about a 20 odd bags now need hauling and emptying, plus be useful to have a boulder net to remove the rocks from the lower shelf and bottom of dig and a larger team next week! Air remained good throughout, so hopefully the having found water has turned this problem around!

White Pit - 02/01/13

Stu Gardiner, Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon & Leonie Woodward.
Session to clear the debris from the previous visit, upon initial inspection the expected amount of rock and stal had been removed with some decent sized boulders ready to extract.
There was much more mud than expected which was probably obscured by the calcited boulders in the roof and floor.
The small hole with running water noticed on the previous visit was again uncovered and the water could be heard trickling away and then dropping down a small drop, the passage carrying the water is small but seems to be carrying fresh air, and although not drafting it certainly helps with the constant battle against bad air.
At least another 2 digging sessions will be required to remove the debris and all the filled bags will need to be removed up into Talus.
Total - 40 bags removed from dig face.
2.5 hours.
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White Pit - 19/12/12

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning & Stu Lindsay

Six shot holes drilled at the dig face and charges set, detonated from Klingons on the starboard bow.

Shortly before the holes were drilled a small hole at the very end of the dig was noticed with a very small trickle of running water.

2 hours


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White Pit - Wednesday 12th December

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Mark Denning
2.5hrs
Hauled all the bags up to Talus and Mark emptied them. Estelle went and dug and cleared out 3 bags worth, but getting harder to dig as space a bit limited. James did one bag and then Mark did a further 3, but we all agreed it needs banging to make it bigger which hopefully will be done next Wednesday. Air remained clear all evening down there and it appears to be draughting inwards.

White Pit 5/12/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon

1.5hrs

Digging the end and moved all the bags we dug and had stored previously up to the top ready for a haul next time. Mike dug first and then Estelle had a dig and then Mark. Fairly easy digging in stal floor which has a mud infill underneath and any rocks seem to be coming out ok. Debatable as to whether the bit we are sat in could do with a little chemical persuasion to enlarge, but the way on so far is easy digging so we could leave as is. There is a boulder in the roof above which is well stalled in but looks a bit precarious. Way on has an obvious sign of a void, how big we might well find out next time… Hoping for something a bit more than the usual little pocket we seem to find! 

White Pit 27/9/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning & Mike Moxon
2hrs
Arrived and bang had removed some of the rock but also only cracked some of the walls. Took a couple of pics then removed the already full bags up to Talus before Mike went in and had a dig. The air was really quite bad down the bottom although much of the bang fumes were gone. Mike did about 1/2hr or so before he came out and Mark went in and did about 1/2hr or so. Straight on blocked by calcite now, floor is still soft and diggable, left hand might go under. There seems to be some sort of draught, but there really is limited oxygen in it! Retreated to pub with headaches! We really need to remove all our digging debris from there and also empty the place of the hessian bags, that were a good idea at the time, but might not be helping the air problem as they do rot and get mouldy.

White Pit 11/9/12

Estelle Sandford, James Begley
Popped in for 20mins to retrieve Stu Lindsay’s bang wire. Noticeable smell of bang as you go down the slope into second chamber and whole of Talus IV smelt bad. I went as far as the hauling corner just above steep bit and managed to free the wire and we pulled it up from there. Reckon that needs another good couple of weeks before a revisit to the actual dig site.

White Pit 6/9/12

(missing 2 trips from here from Mark between this and 4/7)
Estelle Sandford, Stu Lindsay

Mark & Henry had already drilled holes last Monday, so 8x 12mm, 450mm long holes ready. Holes suitably stuffed and then set it off from the bottom of entrance shaft, with a satisfying thud in the distance. Will need to retrieve Stu’s bang wire soon, but dig needs leaving for about a month before checking.
Trip time 2hrs

White Pit 4/7/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning and Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
Emptied and cleared all the bags that were en route or awaiting emptying and bagged up the old rotting ones for taking out of the cave later. I dug first, quite awkward digging now as having to dig around ankles with limited space around. Mike had a go next and then Mark and Stu – still plenty coming out, still have some sort of draught as the air remained clearer the entire time although really needs another bang.

White Pit 13/6/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson
1.5hrs
Stu G turned up at Belfry with idea on breaking rock with air chisel, tested it and it used an entire 7L cylinder in 2 minutes! He hadn’t brought any kit, so didn’t come over. Henry on surface wall building still. Estelle, Mark and Mike to dig, moved bags up to Talus, then moved ones from shelf in dig to Talus leaving Mike filling bags. He filled 12 and we ran out of time. There is a draught, but no air as such, it is still quite hard to breath at times down there. Dig now has an archway going on at the end, floor still needs digging out. Reckon another session should let us know if we need to bang it again.

White Pit - 6/6/12 - back to the dig!

Estelle Sandford & Mark Denning
1.5hrs digging the end.
Mike failed to turn up on time, it was peeing with rain so we decided to give up the idea of cementing in favour for a dig at the end to clear the bang we laid back in Jan. Filled about a dozen bags until we ran out and then moved most of them up ready to haul and Mark carried on digging spoil out. The bang has done a good job and lots of fractured rock/stal, but reckon we’ll need another once we’ve cleared this. Sort of think we can hear space beyond, also at one point there did seem to be a draught, although the air was generally poor! We need to get this air tested for CO2 levels at some point soon… Looked at side opposite to the shoring on way in, we need to look at finding a way of making that safer as it looks like it has the potential to all come in and collapse rather than just slump and because of our new route in, we are caving more to the left now than before. We also need to have a damn good clearout in there as the place is minging with mouldy bags and other rotting vegetation we’ve left behind…

White Pit 23/5/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon
2.5hrs
More wallbuilding and cementing. Mostly filled in the incoming side of Klingons, just working on the other side now. Both the left and right hand walls look like they have the potential to slump in without some sort of protection in place. They aren’t as bad as the main bit we’ve blocked off with metalwork and railway sleepers though. Reckon one more cementing session and we can go back to our dig.

White Pit 18/5/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson
2.5hrs
Took over more sand and cement and made a mix then Henry arrived so we lowered the railway sleepers into place and put them on the metalwork. Then started wallbuilding on top of them and did quite a lot of cement before retiring to the Hunters.

White Pit 18/4/12

Estelle Sandford, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner, later joined by Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson
3hrs
Took down drill, etc. and generator to bolt some of the bars in place with anchor bolts, also removed a bit more rock to make sure we were back at secure rock. All three of the short lengths bolted into place, now need to bring down some cut down railway sleepers and cement lots or rock in. Mike & Henry brought some cement and Henry started a project to build a shed construction on the surface to house the air pump and generator while we are digging. They made a start on that.

White Pit 14/3/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, James Begley, Mike Moxon, Sarah Payne
1.5hrs

Me and James at bottom loading bags/boulder net and rest at top hauling with winch and emptying said bags and net. All empty now so have moved the winch and a frame to under the trees. Removed a good pile of rocks, all make lovely rockery rocks!

White Pit 7/3/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Mike Moxon, Ivan Sandford
2hrs

Ivan had repaired the capstan winch (shit in the carburettor!) and back running fine. I had made a new boulder net for smaller stuff and we got to hauling lots out. Ran out of petrol part way but Ivan saved the day with some fuel he had as we’d forgotten and we reckoned at end of session we have about 1/2hr or so left of clearance. Got very cold on the surface hauling stuff out.

White Pit 3/3/12 hauling day

Estelle Sandford, James Begley, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Trevor Hughes, Mike Moxon (fresh back from 6 weeks in New Zealand!). (Jo Hardy (& Amelia) and Hels Warren turned up with cakes and sausage sarnies lunchtime)

Turned up at Belfry and loaded up the capstan winch and scaff bars for A frame and all the other bits and bobs we thought we might need and headed over to the dig. Stu missed the obvious chain over gate post when trying to get into the field, but thankfully I noticed that one! We initially tried to ‘sled’ the winch over but decided to wheel it across as field not that muddy. Set everything up and Trev soon arrived with boulder net and some strops. We set to work with me, James and Stu at the bottom and Mark and Trev at the top who were joined by Mike an hour or so later with his jetlag! We removed roughly a third of the pile of boulders before lunch and I also went down to the dig to see if I could get a suitable skip, but we seem to have only damaged ones. The dig was clear of fumes, although very mouldy and there is plenty to clear at the end now from the last bang we couldn’t get to a couple of months back! Came out at 1ish when Jo turned up for lunch and beers and then Hels turned up with cupcakes. We went back underground/surface haul soon after, but the winch only lasted about 30mins or so before it started stalling on us and we couldn’t keep it running, so forced to give up and go and drink coffee at the Belfry. Hoping Ivan can fix before Wednesday so we can continue clearance and also get on with the shoring work. When I looked from the other side of the collapse, there’s a boulder that looks a bit dodgy, but it may be possible to force it to stay in place with shoring/cement.
09:30-15:00

Templeton 22/2/12

Mark Denning & Estelle Sandford went over to Templeton to collect some steel for White Pit and have a look at their dig and dig with them. Stu Gardiner came over and took some metalwork, but didn’t go underground as he didn’t have kit.
They have some serious engineering there, including a dumper truck and cctv and lots of winches and pumps! They also had a breakthrough on Monday into a new pitch which is 35ft long and 8-10ft wide and still going. Mark went down to look at that and I went down to their main dig which had just finished being pumped out. Dug about 10 or so buckets and then came up all the fixed ladders to the surface. Very muddy at the bottom.
2hrs

White Pit 15/2/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, James Begley
2.5hrs

Using the trusty chisel and ‘feather’ method – lots of holes drilled and used them like plug and feathers to break up the boulders, many fractured easily with just sledge hammer. We have cleared all the boulders now from the top of coffee pot and that is now open, and can get through to Talus, although still looking dodgy – I went through to have a bit of a look and don’t think it’s likely to come in on it’s own again, but we need to shore it properly having started the job! Waist of Thyme is now blocked with the spoil requiring going to the surface. We are planning to sort a weekend job of hauling and clearing with borrowing an A-frame and winch to do the job. Also needing to go over to Templeton to acquire some metalwork as they have all the digging pile of steel donated by Trevor Hughes.

White Pit 8/2/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Stu Lindsay, Trevor Hughes and Tim Large
2.5hrs
Others came down to assess the damage and give us ideas on way forward with shoring. We removed about 2 tonne of rock from the collapse up to the entrance to Waist of Thyme and nearly blocking the way on there. 20 bags of spoil as well and all this needs to go surface once we’ve sorted out a winch/A-frame. Way on is sort of open, but needs a lot or rebar and shoring up and cementing in order to stop further slumps.

White Pit 1/2/12 - crash... bang... whallop...!

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning
1hr
Took a longer bar and hammer down, poked the armchair sized boulder and the wedge and didn’t come down immediately, but putting a rope around the little one and prodding the big one brought the lot down – an immense amount crashed down making Stu literally leap up out of the pot and we all exited pretty fast as it felt like the cave was caving in! Went to surface and looked around, it hasn’t collapsed the surface! Went back down and took a closer look, can still hear rocks falling and the way on to Talus is thoroughly blocked now. We need to consider whether to try and access from above or try and clear and cement this in to regain access in coming months.

White Pit 25/1/12

Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning
1.5hrs
Went to look at dig at end of talus and still really bad with bang fumes 1.5 weeks later. It had been noticed when they went down on the banging trip that there had been a slip at the dodgy place by top of coffee pot/Talus junction so we took a crow bar and some rope and realigned some boulders – with a little prod and pull, we had serious boulder jenga and loads came down. Coffee Pot is almost blocked now and the way on to Talus is still just about passable, but there is a hanging death armchair sized boulder ‘floating’ above so we won’t be going under there in a hurry. Decided to leave it to self dig if it wanted to and come back for another look later.

White Pit 4/1/12

Estelle, Henry D & Mike M

2.5hrs

Henry went in first clearing the remains of the rubble created by Mark last time with the chisel drill and continued digging downwards through mud while Mike & Estelle hauled about a dozen bags up from the dig and shelf. Then Estelle went in and after doing a little digging in the floor, was attacked from above by a tennis ball sized rock, so decided the roof needed gardening. This has been tidied now and a fair bit of rock brought down. The digging in the floor isn’t easy as it’s quite tight and you need to double up and have your head by your feet! Mike went in after and carried on gardening and clearing spoil. As it stands ideally need the chisel drill for next time as the passage we are following down is getting quite deep and really awkward to dig now and needs widening and hammer and chisel has little impact. It may be worth considering Dr Nobel’s linctus as well, although air was really rubbish all night tonight, quite thick all the way through in the dig area and above it. All bar the last few bags were cleared to Talus and dumped.

Lock has been changed as old one died.

White Pit 14/12/11

Estelle, Mark, Stu, Mike, Henry

3hrs

Last dig for Mark before baby due to take over his life! Using the generator/drill as much as possible to create as much debris as possible and do as much damage as possible to give work for the next session! All took in turns to have a dig, quite a lot of looser mud and stal encrusted around it, but still needs widening. Following a water worn wall and can see s bit of what looks like black space beyond, but not sure what we’ve got. All bar last few bags cleared up to Talus. Also poking around in RH wall in middle of Talus by spoil pile removing big boulders to pass the time and keep warm! Air not overly good, but kept better by only the digger being in the dig and the rest generally staying up in Talus out of the way.

Stu Gardiner & Mark Denning.

A very productive digging session that saw around 20 bags filled from lowering the floor and removing most of the small boulders that lay in the way, the chisel bit on the drill worked very well breaking up the loosed stall and fractured rock (probably from previous chemical persuasion).

Again the bad air drove us out towards the end although there is plenty to haul and around 4 - 5 bags worth of loose spoil to be extracted from the hole.

It would seem that the right hand wall of the hole undercuts and with the aid of a camera Mark managed to get a photo of underneath the dig face which again shows another void.

A new skip is now in place.

Total time underground: 3.5 hours.


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Location:While Pit - 11/12/11

Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson.

Work continued on trying to gain access to the hole beyond, the floor was lowered but will need a considerable amount more to make digging the hole comfortable.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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Location:White Pit - 07/12/11

Whitepit - 23/11/11

Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Stu Gardiner, Mike Moxon & Henry Dawson.

Continued with the removal of the bang debris and filled bags from the last digging session, these were all hauled up to Talus and stacked.

Work continued on the large boulder, which was reduced in size further more, a significant hole has appeared underneath the boulder which when rocks are rolled down they tumble away for a short distance, the best thing is that we now know that the boulder has an end to it and this will aid the final extraction.

Mud from either side of the dig face has been removed making it even more spacious.

Around 40 skips were taken to Talus throughout the evening.

A Petzl hanger has been installed directly above the dig to aid the hauling of the bags and skips, it is now estimated that to get bags and skips to the base of the first shaft we need 4 people (2x people at the dig, one person at the bolt, and another to move the bags to the base of the shaft).

The plan is to take the generator down on Monday 28th to assist in the removal of the boulder with digging as normal on the Wednesday.

Total time underground 3 hours.




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White pit - 09th November 2011

Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner & Henry Dawson.

Mark and Stu spent 2 hours breaking up smaller boulders and removing around 6 -8 bags of spoil before drilling 6 shot holes in the large boulder, Henry arrived around 20:50 (just before the pub) and placed the cord into the shot holes, with the bang wire in place and rigged up we detonated from Tallus before exiting the cave.

The plan is to leave the site for around 2 weeks to allow the fumes to totally clear before venturing back down and removing the bang debris.

Total time underground: 3.5 hours


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White pit 15th oct 2011

Mark Denning

My house has been overrun by women and I am well out numbered so there is only one thing to do... run away. So White Pit digging it is then.
The task at hand is to enlarge the space at the dig face because its tighter than a nuns c**t. I have decided that the way to do this is to take out the loose looking small boulder from the right hand wall. This will in turn free up the large boulder which the open water worn hole is disappearing under.
Armed with the 110v drill I got stuck in. At first I thought this would be a fairly quick task athough I should have known from my optimism that this would not be the case. I removed the stal and small rocks from around the top and two sides, inserted two chisels and beat the hell out of it. Not a twitch, this thing was still stuck fast so I started to loosen up the underside at which point I found out why it didn't move. It didn't stop where I thought it did, it's bloody huge.
Now, me being a little stubborn all this means is I had to hit it a little harder. After 6 hours underground I filled up several more bags, got the massive boulder out of the wall, moved it as far as I could (about 4 feet), created a huge pile of spoil at the end and got beaten out of the dig by the bad air which was by now getting pretty bad.

Mark Denning 6hrs digging

Whitepit 12 oct 2011

Stu Gardiner,Mark Denning and Henry Dawson

After a few weeks of good digging and many loads of spoil removed from the dig face it has now gotten to the point where getting out of the dig is in its self a challenge. The time has come to do a hauling session and break up the huge boulders that we can't remove because they're just too damn heavy.
Stu and myself went down first and carried on poking the hole in the bottom until Henry showed up. Then the 3 of us hauled out all the bags of spoil and several large boulders that didn't really fit in the skip but Stu assured me that balancing 20 kilo rocks on top of and partly inside of the skip was as safe as house's.
Henry now carried on digging whilst Stu and myself broke up the remaining really big boulders using the two chisel method ie. drill two 14mm holes side by side make them into a slot, insert both chisel's and hit as hard as you can. The results are pretty impressive, 300-400mm thick boulders split neatly straight down the middle.
Once all the boulders were in manageable chunks we hauled them up to the middle point, gave up and called pub time. All in all a very successful evenings work.

2.5 hrs in dig ish

Whitepit - 08/10/11

Mark Denning & Stu Gardiner


Phase 1 was to remove the extremely large boulder that was concealing what seemed like a water worn rift below, on the previous visit Mike was unable to even move it.  Stu set about chiselling away any stal using the 110v drill from around the edges.  The plan was to try and break it into 2 manageable sections so 6x 10mm 500mm deep shot holes were drill through the boulder, the were enlarged with a 14mm short drill bit to allow the chisels to be set in, after a few minutes of whacking the chisels the boulder cracked in 2 allowing the 2 sections to be removed from the dig face.


The way on seemed to again be straight down in the floor, however a small void under what seemed to be a solid wall gave the impression that it may well go horizontally.


Mark went in to investigate the wall, he then came to the conclusion that the wall was in fact another very large boulder/s that was agian staled in place, he set about removing the stal with the drill until it was exposed enough to attack.


Stu then adopted the shot hole approach in an attempt to remove the top of the boulder that was wedged fast against the roof, this would hopefully free up the boulder enough to crack it in half with another set of shot holes - this was all carried out seamlessly.  Stu went up top to recover from mild C02 poisoning whilst Mark removed the 2 sections of boulder.


The removal of the boulder revealed around 3ft of open passage beyond, this was dug down in awkward conditions and again another void was located at the base of a scollped wall with white stal present.


The floor is very loose and the way on is straight down.


The dig is totally stacked out with filled bags and many large boulders that will need to be removed ASAP.


We were finally beaten and forced to retreat due to high levels of C02 - a pint in the Queen Vic soon aided recovery.


Thoughts on the high C02 is that we spent nearly 4 hours on Wednesday working hard on the boulders and then 48 hours later another 4 hours working equally as hard, this coupled with the decreased space due to the filled bags and boulders would have reduced the flow 02.


Total time underground: 4 hours.

Whitepit - 05/06/11

Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner & Mike Moxon.

Another good session with the generator and 110v drill, the large (massive) boulder was considerably reduced and most sides exposed.

It is thought that one more session will see it moved enough to break it up and then remove from the dig face.

Hopefully the way on is downwards and it 'should' be relatively comfortable digging.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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Whitepit - 28/09/11

Stu Gardiner, Mark Denning, Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon.

Mark went down early with the generator and drill and managed to take off the large flake of rock that was barring access to the floor below.

After this was removed from the dig Stu started to remove the floor and exposed a water worn clean washed (small) rift leading off and continuing downwards, this was blocked with small rocks and debris from our previous digging above. A large staled boulder will need to be broken up using wedges before we can carry on, this will hopefully make the digging reasonably comfortable.

A hauling session will be needed soon as the dig is filling up fast, air was good although very dusty dye to the excessive drilling and chiseling.

Total time underground: 3 hours


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White Pit 7/9/11

Estelle, Mark D, Mike M & Bill C

2.5hrs

Did a haul and cleared all bags, may have noted a flaw in our eco bags – they get rather mouldy! Once cleared, we took it in turns to have a dig, initially hammer and chiselling at the rock, but this was pretty fruitless so worked at the muddy corner off to the left and cleared that out. Doesn’t look like any sort of obvious way on, so need to consider Dr Nobel’s special or otherwise back at it with the chisel drill. No point in digging really without one or the other at the moment. Suspect we’ve blocked up way on currently as air not so good tonight.

White Pit 17/8/11

Estelle, Mark, Henry D

Using chisel drill again with generator and managed to break up a bit more rock, still quite slow going and may need to drill holes or make use of Dr Nobel’s best to enlarge and get rid of rock in the way. Hopefully a few more sessions should give some answers. Air still clear, although dusty by the end of the session

2.5hrs

White Pit 9/8/11

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Mark Denning, Stu Gardiner

Digging in usual dig at bottom of talus with generator and chisel drill. Stu went in first and managed to get rid of the rock bridge to make a bit more room and then inverted himself to have a look down the hole. It is water worn and seems to drop away shortly, but still too tight and small to get into. Estelle went in next and attacked the left hand wall. Rock crumbling reasonably easy into small pieces, but still relatively slow progress (although a lot faster than a hammer and chisel would be!) - had a look myself at the way on and it looks good and feels cold/fresh. Mike went in next and carried on attacking the rock, followed by Mark. Looks like we need the chisel drill again next session, plus a damn good bag haul.

2.5hrs

13/7/11 to 3/8/11 Whitepit. The end is nigh

To start with, Mark (myself) has gotten over the man flu which struck him down at such a tender age and rejoined the digging efforts made by the White Pit team. A great deal has changed in the last few weeks the tiny void of which Stu got his fist stuck in has grown massively as Estelle described in the last blog, and the new bags work very well. Something to do with the fact Stu can't over fill them.

20/7/11 The big haul
The amount of spoil down at the dig has now gotten to the point where Stu and Estelle had to move bags to climb out of the dig face on the last trip. Space is in short supply.
After a good hauling session and there now being enough room to start digging again we set about filling bags with nice soft mud. The only problem is the dig face is not quite high enough to sit upright so you have to sit with your head to one side with your legs out in front of you while trying to dig the mud from around your feet and putting it into the bag up by your head. This is not the most comfortable position to dig in and don't half hurt your neck after a while.

27/7/11 I think we got something
Digging today was Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Henry Dawson and a few guest cavers who were made to haul in payment for a tourist trip guided by Mike.
One of our main team was missing tonight on a Wednesday digging night. I found out later that Stu Gardiner was in fact at home building wardrobes (turns out they were no ordinary wardrobes they were in fact larger than GB so he said).
After the visitors had done there work Mike said his farewells and wandered of on his tourist trip which just left myself Estelle and Henry D, Henry had a go at digging first as he had to leave early so this just left me and Estelle.
After about half an hour Estelle came crawling out of the dig with the usual chronic neck ache and so it was my turn .
The dig face was now getting very awkward to dig so I decided to try to lower the floor that we had all been sitting on whilst trying to reach to dig at the face. Within a couple of good swings with the hammer and chisel a little hole appeared and with every strike it got bigger. By now Estelle was getting very excited and asking what I could see. Looking down, there was a deep black hole about 4 to 5feet deep with possible leads off in several directions. The best thing of all, the one thing we have not had in this dig before, there was a draft. It's not a howling gale but it is enough to keep the air in the dig fresh and crisp.
The digging pace now sped up with both myself and Estelle very eager to try and move enough of the boulders to get a good look at the leads at the bottom of the hole.
End of session and time to tell the team what we had uncovered no surprise here they were all a bunch of sceptics its not like either me or Estelle would wind them up is it.

30/7/11Time to hit it hard
With Mike busy and Stu on a charterhouse sump pushing trip it was left to Estelle and myself to go back armed with the generator and chisel drill to beat the hell out of this new hole and widen it to body size.
We were only down there for about 4.5 hours and in this time we filled a dozen or more bags and pulled out several of the large boulders that were in the way. This gave us enough space to get a good look down the hole but we still couldn't see how far it goes .
It was now getting close to finishing up time and with Estelle suffering from the effects of too much free alcohol the night before we made one last push to remove a small boulder about the size of my torso and left it there needing help to get it out.

1/8/11
Digging on a Monday we must be keen. The first job of the day get that boulder out. With Stu under it and Mark above we heaved the boulder up to the first ledge and wedged it there using Stu's head. Surprisingly Stu didn't like this technique much so with a little more pushing the boulder was taken up to the hauling point.
Now the rest of the team could get in there and and see what the fuss was about. The air was still fresh and crisp and good progress is being made.

3/8/11 That's a lot of spoil
On the previous couple of trips we had all used the chisel drill and this is very effective which produces lots of spoil. First job Estelle Mark and Mike had to haul 30+ bags of spoil and several large rocks that Estelle had some how managed to fit in the skip. Not long after starting, Henry D turned up and finished of the emptying of all the bags. Digging was by hand tonight and Henry was very keen to get in the dig face after learning about the new found discovery. Unfortunately I had gone in first and broke our only lump hammer again.
No matter we still made good progress with the crowbar.

To round it all up, Stu Gardiner, Estelle Sandford, Mike Motson, Mark Denning, Jo Hardy, Bill Combley and Henry Dawson along with numerous others past and present have opened up what would appear to be a small but drafting water worn passage that has a great deal of potential so we will keep you all posted with more news as it BREAKS.

Whitepit - 13/07/11

Estelle Sanford and Stu Gardiner

With Mark having man flu and Mike being a traitor and digging Bone Hole we set about attacking the dig face with our newly acquired eco friendly bags that we found in the digging store, this was due to Mark filling the others on Saturday.

Our Eco Friendly bags were excellent

The dig face is now almost comfortable and you can almost sit upright and dig forwards. The CO2 levels were of a constant worry however it was agreed that they were acceptable and did not really cause and issue, towards the end it was noticeable that our breathing became a little heavier but not dangerous by any means, the plan is to acquire a CO2 meter for a later trip purely as a matter of interest.

The dig seems to be following the same trend as the rest of the excavated passage but is showing no signs of dropping in depth (yet), the floor is mud and this needs to be dug out so that the digger can move forward, the roof remains water worn and spirits are high.

Total time underground: 2 hours