Frog pot North choke

Goydenman

Well-known member
Great session Thurs 17th - made a change from working on Dry Wath bedding
Ralf and I dug down 5ft and now can see stream running 5ft further down.
Guys we need to take in scafolding (from top of Toad-U-So pitch) to ensure we can continue through choke safely and not lose what we have gained from big boulders falling into dig.
 
B

Black Sheep Ralf

Guest
Did you check the measurements Will the drill fit the bag?  :-\
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Have now looked at measurements
Drill way less than 51m long but is 23cms wide bit tight but possibly might work.
If drill gets wet not end of earth prob could be dried out and ok
If battery does get wet then will it will die (did with Nigel once) that is a lot of money to replace. Suggest go with bag for drill and somethine like darren drum/ammo can for batteries
Also looking into use of Landrover inner tube bag???
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Wonder if all this water has washed out the newly entered passage - we mightbe able to get under the arch without digging if the weater has helped  ::)
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Hey for anyone else looking in on this thread
ralf dug under the arch and explored 6m of stream passage. At the end the rift it splits into two - water coming fom both rifts. Looks like they join up again in a bit. Floor loose boulders and gravel which we plan to extract and hopefully the two rifts will be bigger at a lowr level - likley as that is what has happend in the stretch found so far.
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Hey Ralf - great session last night.
The waterproof bag for the drill worked well.
We now have a line over the sump pool to keep the equipment out of the water.
We still need more robust bag for drill suggest we use my SRT bag or maybe you might spot yet another small rucsac!!!

Two more jobs ebfore we dig on with North choke in my view
1. Bit more stabalisation work on Shackleton choke including get rif of boulder that makes it tight to get through
2. Scaffold way into North choke dig to prevent choke slumping into the dig especially that boulder that you noticed. There is already scaffolfd poles in the system and I have been given several couplings.

North choke dig - take a slice offf the left wall and push on up the stream. The fact the floor is covered with shale and it is rising at a steep angle suggests we might well have a shale cavern ahead.

We really could do with another digger. One to dig, one to pull back buckets to the base of the climb and another digger to pull it up the climb and empty the buckets.
 
To protect your drill, what about an Ortleib type drybag (foldover) for canoeing inside a normal caving tacklebag (with additional padding as protection). This should keep it dry as long as you are not too rough with it! I've used this method to get a sleeping bag in and out of Daren Cilau without it getting wet with success.

Alternatively, you can get neoprene drybags (with a drysuit zip) from dive shops. These have been used to dive drills through significant lengths of sump (ensure neutral weighting for a proper sump but a floating positive one in Frog Pot would probably work well in the drained sump).

Andy
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
psychocrawler said:
To protect your drill, what about an Ortleib type drybag (foldover) for canoeing inside a normal caving tacklebag (with additional padding as protection). This should keep it dry as long as you are not too rough with it! I've used this method to get a sleeping bag in and out of Daren Cilau without it getting wet with success.

Alternatively, you can get neoprene drybags (with a drysuit zip) from dive shops. These have been used to dive drills through significant lengths of sump (ensure neutral weighting for a proper sump but a floating positive one in Frog Pot would probably work well in the drained sump).

Andy
Thanks psychocrawler yes we have got the canoeist fold over waterproof bag and we did have it in a small rucsac but the rucsac got trashed in one trip so need to get another. The drysuit bag may well be a good idea for us if we get fed up of going the long way around to the dig and choose to go through the drained sump again. Cheers
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Good news bad news as ever!

Good news  :) - offer of help from new and old contacts, that is awesome news suddenly we go from two digs to having a team again. Managed to move ladder and scaff bars from Dry Wath bedding connection down pitch to Frog streamway. I cant believe we managed to get them all way through New Goyden especially Dry Wath series to this point. They will easily be transported now to North choke.

Bad news :( - too wet to drain sump and worse thing boulder fallen and blocked way out of Shackleton choke which needs removing from far side when we finally drain mud sump.

Bit of a struggle playing the diary game at present trying to match up when people free to dig but that will be overcome, the weather will setlle and we will push on with the dig......but I would say that being the 'eternal optimist' !!!
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Great session.
Ladder and scaffolding installed at the dig. Flood debris removed and arch made easier to get under to follow the stream. At the restriction where the passage divides into two slice taken off the right wall so we can get at the flake separting the two routes. Waterproof bag worked well for transporting the drill but even more floating it inside a digging bucket through the lowered sump.
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Another good session and nice to have additional team member, Andy. A good 18 inches of the flake that separates the two passages removed. At present pace expect 3-4 trips to get to where we can see cascade of water flowing over a couple of boulder blocking the passage. Ladder and scaffolding doing a fine job. Quite a bit of debris removed which was a mix of gritstone, limestone, shale plus a chunk of lead bigger than a ping-pong ball. I wonder if we are going to intersect Limley Mine? Diggers Ralf, Andy, Chris
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Andy and I after having tour of Frogpot/Aquamole series worked on the dig. After removing slices off the block preventing progress in the stream passage we were able to squeeze part way along its left hand side and see the passage beyond. A small but ok crawling passage continued for about 15ft then turned right - can't wait to get in it.  Couple of more trips we hope. The passage is still climbing like its an inlet passage but the sizeable stream is unlikely to be from the surface and more likley October passage Goyden - which thinking about it does descend with a cascade at one point.
 

graham

New member
Goydenman

I don't know this area at all. Do you, by chance, have an up to date survey model that shows where all these bits are in relation to each other?

For the benefit of us spectators.
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
My first go at inserting an image...
5789508933_5b30da1ffa.jpg


Is that any use Graham?
 

graham

New member
Thanks, yes. A bit lo-res and difficult to read but immediately I understand your posts on this a lot better.  (y)
 

RobinGriffiths

Well-known member
I've seen a geological map of the area somewhere (5 mins of googling which didn't find one). The caves are in fault bounded inliers within the millstone grit. I think it showed the risings being in a different inlier to the caves.
 

Goydenman

Well-known member
Yes Manchester Hole is in the most northern inlier, Limley inlier. New Goyden in the Thrope inlier and then further south beyond the village of Lofthouse is the Lofthouse inlier where the resurgence is Nidd Head.
 
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