Franklin
Member
It was too wet for Pinocchio and perhaps not wet enough for our other current dig - Five Ways Pot on Dowlass Moss, so Badlad, Mick, Geoff, Duncan and I headed to one of our ever-loving digs - Golden Pippin on Newby Moss. First found and unearthed by Badlad, Mick and the Darklord and pushed by Badlad and Mick. It has great potential - near to Long Kin West but the stream it can take doesn't flow into it. While pushing the Pugwash Extensions in LKW, we diverted the large bog drainage down Fern, Moss and Golden Pippin to trace possible links. Most likely to be Moss Pot - no trace from GP.
Golden Pippin has two pitches both very tight in places. The first, below the entrance shaft, is a smooth pipe - see the snap of Badlad on his way out. The second pitch, spacious in its lower half has a tight and constricted start - see snaps of Geoff on the pitch. We SRT both pitches now - the ladder approach is a wrestle in the constrictions.
We capped the impossibly tight lower rift to the stream sink yesterday and we can now crawl the 2m to the small bedding at the end. (Snaps of Simon and Pete down there a while back, and Duncan, Mick and Geoff at brew time yesterday with Badlad busy at work!) It is small, measured in inches, but it had a howling icy draught yesterday. When we divert the stream into GP (often very large flow) we assume it backs up and sumps down there, however, there is no sign of it doing so. It appears to flow straight through ... a shaft just beyond? Digging will continue.
At the small bedding we discovered a frog that had been washed in, which we duly rescued and released out on the fell. Geoff pointed out that after being subjected to a day's capping and then the flash from my camera, the poor forlorn little chum was now probably blind and deaf. We saw its rescue as a poignant, if perhaps medieval, metaphor of our current times - 'The mad leading the blind' - it was Mad Tom leading the blind Duke of Gloucester across the weather beaten moors in Shakespeare's King Lear!
Golden Pippin has two pitches both very tight in places. The first, below the entrance shaft, is a smooth pipe - see the snap of Badlad on his way out. The second pitch, spacious in its lower half has a tight and constricted start - see snaps of Geoff on the pitch. We SRT both pitches now - the ladder approach is a wrestle in the constrictions.
We capped the impossibly tight lower rift to the stream sink yesterday and we can now crawl the 2m to the small bedding at the end. (Snaps of Simon and Pete down there a while back, and Duncan, Mick and Geoff at brew time yesterday with Badlad busy at work!) It is small, measured in inches, but it had a howling icy draught yesterday. When we divert the stream into GP (often very large flow) we assume it backs up and sumps down there, however, there is no sign of it doing so. It appears to flow straight through ... a shaft just beyond? Digging will continue.
At the small bedding we discovered a frog that had been washed in, which we duly rescued and released out on the fell. Geoff pointed out that after being subjected to a day's capping and then the flash from my camera, the poor forlorn little chum was now probably blind and deaf. We saw its rescue as a poignant, if perhaps medieval, metaphor of our current times - 'The mad leading the blind' - it was Mad Tom leading the blind Duke of Gloucester across the weather beaten moors in Shakespeare's King Lear!
