Rift Ireby Connection

[georgenorth]

In light of the news that thousands of foreign cavers are currently rushing to Leck Fell to undertake 3 Counties trips, I thought I'd best let them know about our trip down Ireby on Wednesday night.

Water levels in Ireby were about normal (or even slightly lower than average). The low wet crawl into SE Inlet from the main streamway was only slightly wetter than in May, which was good news. The lack of a draught pointed to trouble ahead though!

Unfortunately we found that the 10m long connection dig was completely sumped. The roof clearly drops down lower than we had thought. We dug a small trench to start lowering the water but soon filled it in again in case we blocked our way out! I doubt that we could have dropped the water enough to get through anyhow.

It would therefore seem that except in very dry conditions this sump/duck will need to be bailed or syphoned from the Ireby side (the next dig (half man half chocolate biscuit) will also need bailing in normal conditions - one way caving like the Damp Link maybe??).  The sides of the passage had also slumped in since our last visit so some digging is also likely to be needed). Hopefully nobody's too disappointed

Ian leaving the low wet crawl at the exit of SE Inlet into the main streamway.

George.

 

[Alex]

I have not seen the connection on Ireby side, but I take it there is no way to dig out the floor to provide a permanent way for the water to exit the sumped connection? How long is the tunnel up to that point? Is the floor dig-able or is it solid rock?

 

[Les W]

Looks quite desperate to me, well done with digging it open in the first place.  :bow:

 

[georgenorth]

Hi Alex,

The floor on the Ireby side was dug down to bedrock. We will probably try and open it up again because there's things we want to look at in the end of Rift Pot. The main problem in making it permanently open is likely to be the silt - there's loads of it.

The flat out part of the dig is about 10m long. Trying to pass it as a duck would be epic!!

George.

 

[Cave Mapper]

Unfortunately we found that the 10m long connection dig was completely sumped.

Shame, lets hope it can be reopened again. Nice picture.

George: any idea how many people made the through trip while it was open?

 

[caveaholic]

Myself and Ian did this trip on the weekend after it was connected  . And after talking to Dave Ramsey last thursday he seems to think that nobody else has done it since

 

[georgenorth]

Sorry,

Forgot to reply to reply to this!

AFAIK there were 3 trips after the breakthrough (CM, YSS and MUSC).

I'll post when it's open again.

Cheers,

George.