Lofthouse pot and sink dig

Goydenman

Well-known member
In Nidderdale Low Eglin’s is a finely decorated and sporting stream cave that goes east from How Stean Gorge. The stream disappears off into a too low bedding to reappear at the Stean resurgence. Going left from this bedding an older passage, Flood passage heads towards the village of Lofthouse. This ends in a low mud and water filled bedding just short of the village cricket field. The other side of the cricket field is the river Nidd travelling north to south. The river has truncated 2 caves, Lofthouse Foss caves (west and east) and Canal cave (west) and Lower canal cave (east). The latter has a fine trench running across the river bed joining the two caves. The river has almost truncated another cave Lofthouse pot. This is a 4m pot that leads to low water filled bedding heading for the cricket field in lne with and same altitude as Flood passage in Low Eglin’s. There is also a coked passage heading in the opposite direction (east) under the river bed above. The far side of that river is Lofthouse sink.

Black Sheep Diggers hope when the summer weather arrives, hmmm! To dig in Lofthouse pot heading under the river bed above. At present a small waterfall falls into the cave preventing digging but this usually dried up later in the year. Meanwhile work has started on Lofthouse sink to remove the choke from the far side.

The intention is to remove the choke enough to allow water to flow away from the Lofthouse pot bedding and make a connection with Low Eglin’s cave. So far we have scaffolded by the adjacent wall to the put and underpinned with blocks. Then we dug down and found a solid choked shaft which is now 2m deep. We expect to hit the horizontal choked passage at 4-4.5m depth.

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Lofthouse pot

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Lofthouse sink and Alistair all the way from the Peaks giving a hand with the digging for a day
 
With Limley Mine now on the back burner till winter attention has turned back to Lofthouse Pot given this long stretch of fine weather. Lofthouse pot is an old Craven PC covered over and rediscovered by the Black Sheep Diggers. It is a 3m pot to short crawl and then low awkward arch to flooded bedding. In very dry weather like now it is possible to see a thin air gap and feel a draft blowing. The Black Sheep Diggers have previously for a very short time tested a pump in there but long enough to see that it would lower the water. It also revealed that water was entering from the surface river Nidd above.

A plan was hatched to have a big push on Saturday August 30th.

Preparation….

Tom led a team to build a dam by Lower Canal Cave to divert the river Nidd int the cave and water exiting Canal Cave. The idea being to stop the inflow into Lofthouse pot. It worked and lowered the level by about 6cm. On the day of the big push the entrance to Lower Canal cave would then be blocked to create a dam of water for the pump intake.

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Ian Lawrence pulled together various resources for pumping mainly from How Stean Gorge (thanks to the team there for this) as well as the BSD kit.

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Chris worked on removing the awkward arch in Lofthouse pot to give better access to the bedding.

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Big Push….

On the day Tom, Tony, Chris, Ralf, Ian Lawrence and Ian Proudler turned up.

The surface team sorted pumps and hoses etc while Ralf and Chris dragged the kit underground. Ralf was at the sharp end manning the pump. With good coordination between underground and surface periodic stops where made and kit moved to continue pumping. A few problems were encountered including water rising rather than falling. Kinks in the pipes were sorted and progress continued in lowering the water. Further stops were made to dig out holes in the floor to lower the pump and extract more water. By this time Ralf the only wet suited person was getting very cold from the increased cold draft and laying in cold water. Eventually the pump reached its limit and so Ralf tried to squeeze through he initial tight bedding to the higher bedding beyond. Regrettably too tight he tried to dig the floor which was slow hard work and gave in being now too cold. He went up on the surface to warm up, the pump ran out of fuel and water level rose. With a fine view of open bedding, passage going left and straight on we retired to the pub and vowed to return soon…

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Flooded bedding at the start...
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View of open passage at the end of the dig....
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With Limley Mine now on the back burner till winter attention has turned back to Lofthouse Pot given this long stretch of fine weather. Lofthouse pot is an old Craven PC covered over and rediscovered by the Black Sheep Diggers. It is a 3m pot to short crawl and then low awkward arch to flooded bedding. In very dry weather like now it is possible to see a thin air gap and feel a draft blowing. The Black Sheep Diggers have previously for a very short time tested a pump in there but long enough to see that it would lower the water. It also revealed that water was entering from the surface river Nidd above.

A plan was hatched to have a big push on Saturday August 30th.

Preparation….

Tom led a team to build a dam by Lower Canal Cave to divert the river Nidd int the cave and water exiting Canal Cave. The idea being to stop the inflow into Lofthouse pot. It worked and lowered the level by about 6cm. On the day of the big push the entrance to Lower Canal cave would then be blocked to create a dam of water for the pump intake.

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Ian Lawrence pulled together various resources for pumping mainly from How Stean Gorge (thanks to the team there for this) as well as the BSD kit.

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Chris worked on removing the awkward arch in Lofthouse pot to give better access to the bedding.

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Big Push….

On the day Tom, Tony, Chris, Ralf, Ian Lawrence and Ian Proudler turned up.

The surface team sorted pumps and hoses etc while Ralf and Chris dragged the kit underground. Ralf was at the sharp end manning the pump. With good coordination between underground and surface periodic stops where made and kit moved to continue pumping. A few problems were encountered including water rising rather than falling. Kinks in the pipes were sorted and progress continued in lowering the water. Further stops were made to dig out holes in the floor to lower the pump and extract more water. By this time Ralf the only wet suited person was getting very cold from the increased cold draft and laying in cold water. Eventually the pump reached its limit and so Ralf tried to squeeze through he initial tight bedding to the higher bedding beyond. Regrettably too tight he tried to dig the floor which was slow hard work and gave in being now too cold. He went up on the surface to warm up, the pump ran out of fuel and water level rose. With a fine view of open bedding, passage going left and straight on we retired to the pub and vowed to return soon…

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Flooded bedding at the start...
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View of open passage at the end of the dig....
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If ever there was a case for a small rover fitted with a camera to see what's ahead. Or would that spoil the anticipation?
 
Some excellent efforts, and a great dig. Looks fairly encouraging ahead that it might become slightly higher.

In my experience, the anticipation of waiting for the next session to 'push forwards into the darkness' is one of the most enjoyable experiences in digging. You find yourself wishing the week away with excitement. Anyway, in the North York Moors the anticipation is often the best bit, when the passage ahead turns out to be somewhat smaller than it looked :ROFLMAO:

Look forward to hearing more, and fingers crossed lots of new cave lies ahead.
 
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