2xw
Well-known member
I had another thread on here about P8 digging but that was about Xmas aven - this one is about Bens dig and I was just a visitor. Unfortunately, after our big 30m long find in Xmas aven, Tommy has sold all his kit and started paragliding and I buggered off to York. Luckily, another member of the Hallamite triumvirate in the form of Jack Dewison also likes furtling around in P.
Mr. Dewison had been advised by an unnamed Peak luminary (rhymes with Nob Peavis) to dig in Gautries, but he soon discovered this was an exercise in some somewhat dangerous shale mining and had consequently eyed up the pot at the end of Bens dig. I'd always avoided being tempted by Bens dig because I'm not sure where, if anywhere, it might go. Then again, the end is a whacking great descending phreatic so maybe it'll pop into something cool. In many ways, I've stopped caring about the potential and more about being underground with my mates.
I digress - I had popped into Sheffield by train (which in many ways feels safer than being in the shop now) and arrived on Friday. By Saturday morning I was raring to go - unfortunately, it took us an hour to get there having followed the peloton up Winnatts pass, but eventually, Jack, Molly S and myself met Rostam and Laura B in the car park. We did see the Ritters who waved from a distance but didn't pay - perhaps we'll have to send them a bottle of somat when all this is over.
It was a gorgeous day, albeit not gorgeous enough to tempt us to queue on the Mam, so we cracked on and down.
I'm sure there will be a few reading that hasn't got back underground yet - I tell you what it was bloody brilliant. The smell and the cold air! P8 is a bit special too me having run down it many times, and it felt nice to be in somewhere you know, practicing a sequence of moves that is familiar. A gentle reintroduction. The feeling of "flow" was interrupted by redoing Jacks stupid rigging from last year, but after this, I felt like water flowing down and through. We managed to get to Bens dig in about 20 minutes.
I haven't visited Bens dig for quite a few years - it is somewhat of a monument to human perseverance or, possibly, obstinance. The pot right at the end is very intriguing - the route winds to it, then suddenly a ladder into a pretty large phreatic tube (more than arms width). This then ends in a sort of set of double pots, which drop dramatically. I'm not one of these Cave Poirots but someone said something about a phreatic loop.
The dig itself involves someone in the dig, someone sitting in the saddle between the pots approx 5m above, then some more people hauling the buckets out for it to be dumped... somewhere. It's a very short haul in a spacious chamber, which really makes for a social dig. We even sang at one point, I recited some Lancashire mill songs (no whistling obviously, out of respect) which nobody enjoyed. Rostam was decidedly quiet but perhaps this was for the best as I value my ear drums.
We removed a not unreasonable amount of kibbles, maybe 30 odd. Some of us forgot gloves, and after Laura Bare Hands Benn had finished bleeding into the dig (and having a barbeque to attend) we elected to leave.
There are some jobs for next time:
- Get a gin wheel to make the hauling easier
- install some sort of way to get into the dig so SUSS can have its only ladder back (maybe it'll be via ferrated)
- get the shrine to Lord Eavis out of the Xmas aven dig and put it in the new one
- Shore up the inside of the initial pot just in case we want to dig that later.
Mr. Dewison had been advised by an unnamed Peak luminary (rhymes with Nob Peavis) to dig in Gautries, but he soon discovered this was an exercise in some somewhat dangerous shale mining and had consequently eyed up the pot at the end of Bens dig. I'd always avoided being tempted by Bens dig because I'm not sure where, if anywhere, it might go. Then again, the end is a whacking great descending phreatic so maybe it'll pop into something cool. In many ways, I've stopped caring about the potential and more about being underground with my mates.
I digress - I had popped into Sheffield by train (which in many ways feels safer than being in the shop now) and arrived on Friday. By Saturday morning I was raring to go - unfortunately, it took us an hour to get there having followed the peloton up Winnatts pass, but eventually, Jack, Molly S and myself met Rostam and Laura B in the car park. We did see the Ritters who waved from a distance but didn't pay - perhaps we'll have to send them a bottle of somat when all this is over.
It was a gorgeous day, albeit not gorgeous enough to tempt us to queue on the Mam, so we cracked on and down.
I'm sure there will be a few reading that hasn't got back underground yet - I tell you what it was bloody brilliant. The smell and the cold air! P8 is a bit special too me having run down it many times, and it felt nice to be in somewhere you know, practicing a sequence of moves that is familiar. A gentle reintroduction. The feeling of "flow" was interrupted by redoing Jacks stupid rigging from last year, but after this, I felt like water flowing down and through. We managed to get to Bens dig in about 20 minutes.
I haven't visited Bens dig for quite a few years - it is somewhat of a monument to human perseverance or, possibly, obstinance. The pot right at the end is very intriguing - the route winds to it, then suddenly a ladder into a pretty large phreatic tube (more than arms width). This then ends in a sort of set of double pots, which drop dramatically. I'm not one of these Cave Poirots but someone said something about a phreatic loop.
The dig itself involves someone in the dig, someone sitting in the saddle between the pots approx 5m above, then some more people hauling the buckets out for it to be dumped... somewhere. It's a very short haul in a spacious chamber, which really makes for a social dig. We even sang at one point, I recited some Lancashire mill songs (no whistling obviously, out of respect) which nobody enjoyed. Rostam was decidedly quiet but perhaps this was for the best as I value my ear drums.
We removed a not unreasonable amount of kibbles, maybe 30 odd. Some of us forgot gloves, and after Laura Bare Hands Benn had finished bleeding into the dig (and having a barbeque to attend) we elected to leave.
There are some jobs for next time:
- Get a gin wheel to make the hauling easier
- install some sort of way to get into the dig so SUSS can have its only ladder back (maybe it'll be via ferrated)
- get the shrine to Lord Eavis out of the Xmas aven dig and put it in the new one
- Shore up the inside of the initial pot just in case we want to dig that later.
