Wet in the Dales

[TheBitterEnd]

but at least it'll keep the Lancastrians out 

Ahh, Lancashire, I'm sure the residents will be happy to stay in their own county having a plentiful supply of entrances to one of the finest cave systems in the north (/country..?) within its borders..  :

So long as you all stay out of Westmorland, where of course the very finest caving is to be found 

 

[paull]

Around 6pm tonight, the road that goes from the A65 at Country Harvest, through Burton in Lonsdale was only just passable due to a 2ft deep 20-25ft long 'puddle' at the other end, where it meets the Lancaster-Kirkby road. Could be interesting by weekend, but at least it'll keep the Lancastrians out 

wont keep us out  we will just come over the bridge and head through tunstall towards kirkby lonsdale and turn right onto the a65 

 

[barrabus]

There were lots of floods on the A65 between Kendal and Clapham tonight (6-7pm), but the return journey (10.30ish) was much easier as nearly all of the water had drained away.

 

[Pitlamp]

"but at least it'll keep the Lancastrians out  "      ???

We're already in - and busy doing missionary work! (It's a tough job but someone's got to do it.)

29 mm in the gauge this morning near Clapham and still chucking it down as I type.

 

[Billy Butcombe]

Mr P - you are an ex Lancastrian  :chair: Ah Darwen doesent count anymore but we were glad to get shut anyway

 

[whitelackington]

According to the Independant
"High winds caused havoc across the country with 106mph gusts recorded at Great Dun Fell in the north Pennines" 

 

[Pitlamp]

Hey - the sun's just come out! (Still pretty draughty, even so.)

 

[langcliffe]

Sun's come out in Wharfedale as well - in fact, the Bounty Bar Maidens are starting to cavort under the palm trees.

 

[Pitlamp]

Let's not get carried away . . . .

 

[Robert Scott]

John, you've been cooped up with those dogs for too long.
Has cabin fever set in?

 

[Fulk]

Well, I've just got back from a trip to Lost Johns' Cave, and we were somewhat 'gobsmacked' to see a whole heap of flood debris on a sloping ledge about a foot above the left-hand panker for the Y-hang for the final pitch . . . which would seem to imply that the whole cave back from Groundsheet Junction ? and, therefore, presumably ? for all the way down the Master Cave and some distance upstream ? was full to a depth of about 30 ft ? that's a whole lot of H2O.

 

[Pitlamp]

Indeed - but I suspect it'd not have been moving very quickly. Leck Beck Head is severely choked, which acts as a restriction to flow (causing backing up in feeder caves such as LJ, Lancaster, Gavel, etc.). The next outlet as a flood builds is Witches Cave - but here the water is coming up a very immature shaft (relative to the big deep submerged tunnel) - so this is also restricted. So there's just nowhere for a lot of the water to go until flows reduce again.

I guess this is the reason you were able to take that amazing picture of Fall Pot with the lake in it!

 

[Fulk]

So ? at the risk of  sounding  a bit na?ve ? may we infer that all the sumps sort of rise together, or will there be a  delay between, say Lancaster Hole sump rising and Lost Johns' sump  doing so?

 

[Pitlamp]

I suspect you're right fulk, as long as they're all at Leck Beck Head level.

What intrigues me is that the sump in the upstream stuff in Witches Cave (below the Shuttleworth entrance) doesn't seem to rise by as much as Downstream Lancaster. This suggests another (as yet unexplored) restriction downtream of the known limit in the Lancaster sump. Or it may be accounted for by some of the Leck Fell water being able to escape up the shaft to Witches entrance if the Lancaster water enters the phreas further downstream of this point. (If this all seems a bit difficult to get one4's head round, take a look at the article/diagram about the sumps in the Witches 2 journal published in May last year.)

Of course the Lost Johns Sump isn't quite at Leck Beck Head level - remember that small cascade between the upstream and downstream sumps in Witches 2?

I've wondered whether the main development in the Lancaster sump (which is immense) actually emerges in Witches 2. If so, maybe the Lancaster water follows an immature route to Leck Beck Head from somewhere within the huge downstream sump, possibly accounting for the Lancaster sump pool rising by (evidently) a greater amount than Lost Johns, Gavel, Pooh's Revenge, Witches 2 etc.

 

[Pete Brookdale]

so wheres this picture of a flooded fall pot would love to see that and in person!

 

[barrabus]

so wheres this picture of a flooded fall pot would love to see that and in person!

See the "Underwater stalactites in the Dales" thread in the Cave Science section:

the main downstream sump in Lancaster can back up around 30 m in the very highest flow - when it forms a deep ominous lake in Fall Pot.

Here's a snap ? sorry  about the quality, I was using a digital camera underground  for the first time for  this 'once-in-a-lifetime' picture:

What you say about the conditions underwater in flood, John, is amazing. 'Awesome' is not a word I use often, but it might be appropriate in this context!

 

[Fulk]

We were very lucky to see this sight ? a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Friends of ours got to Fall Pot a few minutes before us, and they said that the water was almost at the foot of the in-situ ropes that replace the old iron ladder . . . they hadn?t dared to get off the rope for fear of being swept away. By the time we arrived the water was on its way down and it was safe to proceed ? so it must have been ~1.5?2 m higher a few minutes previously.

Oddly, there were no obvious signs of the high water ? no foam, no flood debris, nothing to indicate that where we were walking had been under water a few minutes previously.

 

[Goydenman]

We were very lucky to see this sight ? a case of being in the right place at the right time.

Friends of ours got to Fall Pot a few minutes before us, and they said that the water was almost at the foot of the in-situ ropes that replace the old iron ladder . . . they hadn?t dared to get off the rope for fear of being swept away. By the time we arrived the water was on its way down and it was safe to proceed ? so it must have been ~1.5?2 m higher a few minutes previously.

Oddly, there were no obvious signs of the high water ? no foam, no flood debris, nothing to indicate that where we were walking had been under water a few minutes previously.

That's interesting about no foam etc. I once entered Goyden pot by Back Steps entrance to view the flooding only to find a large lake in the main chamber with the whole of the main stream passage deep under water. The water was flooding in from first window but no waterfall just straight onto the lake! Thinking about it now that lake left no foam or debris to show it had been there wonder why that is.

 

[Pitlamp]

As an aside, one place where you do get foam accumulating in flood is Sand Passage in Speedwell. It's a flood outlet in the form of a canal maybe 20 m long which then sumps; a 21 m or so dive through this "Treasury Sump" emerging in Peak Cavern.

I once dived through Treasury Sump from the Peak end and surfaced in solid foam! Virtually all of the waist deep canal was foamed up to the roof. I had to keep breathing from the regulator and following the line along the canal until I got to the Speedwell streamway, which was the first place I could actually see anything. Wierd!

 

[Les W]

Thinking about it now that lake left no foam or debris to show it had been there wonder why that is.

I would think that you would need turbulent water to make foam. If the water backed up slowly through boulders there might not be any foam.
Not sure how this would work in Goyden but if the water backed up enough to "remove" a waterfall then the turbulence would be gone (temporarily) and no foam made. It doesn't explain what happened to foam that might have been there from the waterfall though (unless that had flowed off downstream...)