P8 Dig Diary Number 2 - Bens dig

[A_Northerner]

Hey Mark, SUSS still has a load of old rope ready to be taken into the dig (I'm sure you might recognise where we acquired that blue rope from ) but some of that tape wouldn't go amiss. I'll soon be moving house towards your neck of the woods so some time in early November I'll pop round to pick some up.

Cheers.

 

[2xw]

Mid November before lockdown:

Jack, Nat, Ben and myself headed into P8 for another session. We are digging before the upstream pot moving steadily downwards. We filled about 20 wheat bags - you are all put on notice that the dig is no longer suitable for coeliacs so I suppose for them specifically there is now bad air!

For some reason Nat went neck deep in the stream way on the way in so got exceptionally cold although a good time was had by everyone else. We emerged to a dark night with winter on the way.


We've had some comments about the bolts at the top of the climb from the stream way to Ben's passage because they're old and fucked. This is a simple freeclimb and the handline is only there to help you balance - it should not be relied upon! There is no need to replace it or bolt rash the top of this ramp.

 

[alastairgott]

Remove entirely or replace would be my thoughts. I know I?ve relied a lot on the bolts when I?ve been on that climb before and I dare say I won?t be the only one.

But then I have not seen the bolts recently so can?t comment on their condition. But I should think it would be fairly simple to drop a few p bolts in, if that would make you happier. (1 making sure someone doesn?t attack it with spits or throughbolts and 2 ensuring you have a rope to balance yourself).

 

[benshannon]

Is this dig still active? I popped in last night and had a look around. Quite cool that there is via ferrata in a cave 😂 the whole of the Ben's dig section from the stream way is incredible. The dig is going down, so where is it thought to lead?

 

[2xw]

Is this dig still active? I popped in last night and had a look around. Quite cool that there is via ferrata in a cave 😂 the whole of the Ben's dig section from the stream way is incredible. The dig is going down, so where is it thought to lead?

Yes, but infrequently visited in covid times. You'd be welcome to join us if you want ....


It's probably development that leads to the lower Ps, but there is a hydro connection between gautries and sump 4 so there's stuff in that general area. I've always wondered whether itll pop out in the bottom of Bull Pit.

An alternative hypothesis is that it'll turn left, circumventing sump 10 before open walking passage takes us below Eldon hole and onwards to Peak....

 

[FabianE]

Is this dig still active? I popped in last night and had a look around. Quite cool that there is via ferrata in a cave [emoji23] the whole of the Ben's dig section from the stream way is incredible. The dig is going down, so where is it thought to lead?

Yes, but infrequently visited in covid times. You'd be welcome to join us if you want ....


It's probably development that leads to the lower Ps, but there is a hydro connection between gautries and sump 4 so there's stuff in that general area. I've always wondered whether itll pop out in the bottom of Bull Pit.

An alternative hypothesis is that it'll turn left, circumventing sump 10 before open walking passage takes us below Eldon hole and onwards to Peak....

That's absolutely amazing!!! So much potential!!!!
[emoji50][emoji50][emoji50]

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

 

[benshannon]

Oh wow, that's pretty awesome 😳😳 yes I'd love to help out some time 😁😁😁😁

 

[Katie]

An alternative hypothesis is that it'll turn left, circumventing sump 10 before open walking passage takes us below Eldon hole and onwards to Peak....

In three more trips!

It is always three more trips. ......

 

[Logismos]

Out with the old, and in with the new!

For the last 6 months or so, a youthful-ish contingent of SUSS has been continuing the work on the downward phreas at the end of Ben’s Dig. Mostly organized by Ben Thompson, Toby Ward, and Ben Alston (though with club-wide input) we’ve got a good system going. On the trips I’ve been on, we’re extracting and storing about 7 grain sacks of spoil per hour by hauling up from the dig face, over the lip of the pot, and then filling bags with a traffic cone funnel. The bags are being stacked along the sides of the passage behind the dig, though we’re almost starting to run out of easy space to stack.

The vertical phreatic has continued down for a few more meters, requiring more staples in the wall and steps cut into the mudbank at the bottom. In the week-or-so between sessions, the dig generally gets about 10L of water accumulating at the bottom and we’re seeing many different layers of sediment as we continue down. So far we’ve had layers of very fine gravel through to silt and clay, with a recent layer of clay being a lovely orange colour and hard work to dig.
Recently, there started to be a solid rock ceiling over the dig face, with a nice phreatic shape to the new roof. This horizontal turn ended after only about 75cm however, with an entirely vertical wall of calcite which we have followed down for almost a meter.

Hopefully the suggestion earlier in this thread that we might have an equal amount of upwards digging on the other side proves untrue, as it’s taken at least 150 man-hours to even get to this point!

Any questions or advice, let us know!
_______________________
For those interested in the scalloping, see the below images. It's hard for any of us to tell if scallops are even present, never mind how the scallops are shaped.

 

[Pitlamp]

Good effort; the late Keith "Ben" Bentham would have been proud of you (and no doubt very encouraging too).

 

[pwhole]

This is awesome - well done. And keep going if you can. Try not to spend too much time in there over summer though - or take some tanks of outdoor air in

 

[Phild]

Just because you don't have the upper body strength to do P8 on cowstails doesn't give you the right to re-rig my ropes ya prick. It's rigged perfectly fine for those that appreciate a swift descent of the cave

I was two years too late to have already read the post, but I,ve just read the update and would comment on your old, somewhat harsh post about cows tails. Just because people don’t have the ability to free climb the pitch down and across the wall as we always used to do, doesn’t give them the right to bolt it and use cows tails. If not skilful enough use a ladder. Back to the post. Good effort by all involved. Ben would have been very pleased, although it may have silted up sump 1 . I remember Ben arriving in Buxton and he dedicated his life to digging and even persuaded me to dig Oxford avens to a conclusion with him. Tongue in cheek comment.

 

[A_Northerner]

I was two years too late to have already read the post, but I,ve just read the update and would comment on your old, somewhat harsh post about cows tails. Just because people don’t have the ability to free climb the pitch down and across the wall as we always used to do, doesn’t give them the right to bolt it and use cows tails. If not skilful enough use a ladder. Back to the post. Good effort by all involved. Ben would have been very pleased, although it may have silted up sump 1 . I remember Ben arriving in Buxton and he dedicated his life to digging and even persuaded me to dig Oxford avens to a conclusion with him. Tongue in cheek comment.

My dated comment was a jest towards my digging partner and not meant to be taken seriously.

 

[Rob]

If you're digging, you're winning.

Keep it up.

 

[Phild]

My dated comment was a jest towards my digging partner and not meant to be taken seriously.

I thought as much and like I said tongue in cheek

 

[2xw]

Out with the old, and in with the new!

I used to be with ‘it’, then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’, and what ‘it’ is seems weird and scary to me.

and it'll happen to youuuuuuuuuuu

 

[A_Northerner]

Recent update

The SUSS efforts in Ben's Dig continue. Following a period of heavy digging down the sandy tube, we began to look at the teetering mound of sediment that loomed above the dig face with cautious dread.

The tube is slightly less vertical now and we have cut 'steps' into the dense sediment to aid access to the face, but you're now digging with some 6m of clay perched beside you. This needed fixing before it slumped.

This lead to a pause in efforts that I'm sure many are familiar with; whilst materials were sourced, calendars were aligned, and techniques were decided upon in how to shore up the tube. 6 months later we're happy with the results so far. A dozen or so scaff bars and boards have been taken to the dig and we've been grinding away at them to make a boarded tube we can be proud of.

Haven't any photos of the progress so far but you get the idea. The advantage of this method is that it's given us a fair bit of stacking space where we can backfill the boards instead of hauling all the way to the top of the shaft.

This freed up Young Joe from the far end of the hauling rope, allowing him to lay down some of the finest digging tunes on his waterproof speaker, keeping efforts going with a variety of shanties, hauling songs, classical Spanish guitar for some reason, and the Ace of "Spades".

Efforts were eventually halted by warped threads on a thru-bolt meaning we couldn't set the final horizontal bar. But next week we're due to take 12 more boards in, so there's plenty to be going at for the time being. Eventually the engineering will subside and give way to some actual progress at the face.

 

[Pipster]

Great stuff, keep it up!