Yesterday Badlad, Geoff, JJ and I rambled up to 50m deep Pinocchio Pot on Leck Fell - three years since we abandoned the dig in a low wet crawl. Simon and Di's survey placed us about 30m from the end of our other dig in Far Frink Passage in Ireby 2. We wondered how three years of rain and flood might have altered the soggy end. It is at the foot of Geppetto Pitch, 25m of clean washed shaft and shoring, that takes a healthy stream in wet weather. The final crawl was dry and a small tube about 2m long appeared below the usual waterline - we could return to dig it in fine weather - though the stacking space is all used up at the bottom. We would have to do as we used to do and haul it up into Magic Money Tree Chamber - though even that 'ballroom' of a chamber is pretty full. We have all-but shored-up and filled any stacking space. We could perhaps fill up Roo's Kitchen in the chamber - but where would we have our snap (diggers on strike)?

We left without making any commitment. I took some snaps and compared them with those we took three or four years earlier. Some interesting differences.

It also happens that Badlad included two names from the dig in the recent UKC competition about naming passages - Magic Money Tree Chamber and the Bruce Forsyth Memorial Stairway to the Stars.

So here are some snaps of the BFMSTTS - with Jackie and Mick having just completed a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers routine and of Badlad doing a solo routine yesterday; Di on Geppetto Pitch when only half dug out, and Geoff yesterday hemmed in with shoring; Simon in the final lake and Badlad gazing into a low and muddy future yesterday.

As the dig was never really concluded we didn't write it up, so some of you may be interested in this little addition to Leck Fell.

Cheers,

Frank

Nice work. Did you fix the scaf poles with dowels?

All the scaff was fixed in with 8mm rebar and all the boards are treated. On an early push the weight of Magic Money Tree Chamber bent a scaff pole, slowly, as we dug underneath it. A sobering sight! We backed it up - still okay!

A slight directional mistake in the above report - we dug away from Far Frink!  :-[ 

.......and we use 12mm rebar to pin the scaffold

Wow that's some proper engineering!

Yesterday, Badlad, Mick, Geoff, JJ and I spent a short day attempting to re-start the Pinocchio Pot dig. As stated above, we abandoned the dig as it flooded and we ran out recruits to help haul the debris up the twisting shored shaft of Geppetto Pitch. Mick took to digging the now dry lower crawl. He took with him a bundle of builders' bags to fill with the recently exposed silt. The rest of us cleared rocks from the shored ledge half-way up the pitch up into Magic Money Tree Chamber, and then hauled the rocks at the foot of the shaft up to the newly cleared ledge. This made room for Mick's silt-filled builders' bags that had begun to stack up. Badlad did the final shift at the front and both he and Mick uncovered an opening in the silty blockage which then released a strong draught. The silt floor can be seen to drop a couple of metres ahead. The potential for development in this part of Leck Fell is clear - it would seem we have awoken from a three year sleep to see the way on! 

Back in 2018 it was difficult to leave Pinocchio, an epic amount of work by a large group of diggers had revealed a remarkable subterranean feature. The joint swarm of Magic Money Tree Chamber is floored with a mountain of debris and beneath it lies the clean-washed sinuous descent of Geppetto Pitch. The route the pitch follows was entirely dug out. Yesterday we laughed about knowing every ripple, flake, crack and fossil exposed on the walls. We imagine the chamber and lower rift shaft clear of all the remaining debris and shoring and what an extraordinary imagine it conjures, though we probably fail to imagine half of it.

I've attached some more shots of the dig - taken from my 2018 archive. Yesterday we were too busy to stop and take snaps! The first is of the entrance shaft - a typical depth for progress through the surface drift to the bedrock this high on Leck. The following shots are of various points of Geppetto Pitch during the dig and the final shot is of Geoff on first entering Magic Money Tree Chamber - into the "deep air's unmeasured wilderness"! 

Frank

great to see this dig back on the cards with the changes at the bottom....hope it goes
see PM

We had a major push yesterday to remove all the spoil from the bottom of the pot all the way back into Magic Money Tree Chamber. The recent rain had generated a pool in the newly dug section though it appeared to be draining slowly rather than sumping.

I've attached some shots of Mick looking into the cleared though pooled end to the dig. Badlad went back at the close of play and bailed the pool into a higher sink. Easy silt digging ahead and we now have stacking space for the bags. Also a shot of Mick at a short stretch of scaffold engineering at the start of Geppetto Pitch - there is a lot of weight up there. 

Also a shot of the hauling team on the Bruce Forsyth Memorial Stairway to the Stars - the best place for them! 

Digging continues.

Cheers,

Frank

Nice!

But are you only allowed on that project if you wear a yellow suit, Franklin?  :-\

Well, good point, Pitlamp - and I was in yellow too. We do permit the occasional difference in helmet colours and Mick, the rebel, does often appear in red! 

S'OK, if ever you invite me on a trip in the future, I've got a yellow suit an' all. 

Extremely impressive work I must say 

We have been continuing the dig down Pinocchio since the last post and yesterday Badlad, Mick, Geoff, Duncan, Dave and your correspondent hauled what we counted to be 80 bags of sand (estimated at a cubic metre - a ton?) up from the sandy tunnel at the bottom up into Magic Money Tree Chamber and deposited it what was once Roo's Kitchen. Sorry Roo, no room for your stove and pots and pans, all dining is now done on the Bruce Forsyth Memorial Stairway to the Stars - a bit vulgar and shoddy, I know, but needs must. 

The dig down in the tunnel is moving forward easily in the sand, and the difficulty, as with all such digs, is moving it and avoiding bad air. A hole has opened up and the roof of the passage is seen to be rising up ahead of us - a good draft was felt blowing out onto the happy diggers - the wild spirit of Leck Fell was upon us!  We are now about 3 - 4m beyond our previous limit.

Attached photos show Mick at the end - last week, progress has been made since. The photo was taken from beyond the old end of the dig. Also, two old snaps of Badlad and Di taken while the dig was in progress down the Geppetto shaft. The snap of Di (at what is now the Guillotine Ledge) was taken from the position that Badlad can be seen in. Another snap from yesterday : Geoff, Duncan and Mick sorting out bags to go back down the dig in the chamber by what's left of Roo's Kitchen and an early shot diggers dining there. And a final snap of the hauling team on the surface yesterday.

The dig continues. 

Loving Franklin's posts about 

....and get to use 

Awsome photos Frank! But so so many words! [emoji1787][emoji23][emoji1787]

Sent from my SM-M315F using Tapatalk

chunky said:

Awsome photos Frank! But so so many words! [emoji1787][emoji23][emoji1787]

Sent from my SM-M315F using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Take no notice of him Franklin, cheeky photographer that he is 

Hi Pegasus and Chunky, as you know, 'Chumsnet' (alongside UKC, our international digging community of over 40 lost souls has its own communication network, initially named by Geoff) last night was overwhelmed by posts of numbers! As a digging English teacher, I had innocently reported a very rough estimate by our digging maths teacher, that we had hauled a ton of sand out of the dig. Badlad had a message to say that by our estimates it was more than that - which then started a debate as to weight, volume, number or bags, quantity in each bag, contents of each bag (sand or hot air?!  ).

It made me think that a dig report could be made by using equations ...  :doubt: Any ideas? 

I suggest...

Take the number of bags
Multiply by the estimated weight
Divide by the number of haulers
Exaggerate the total by the density of the spoil
Times by the square root of the number of pints of real ale in the pub afterwards

.. and that my friend will give an exact figure of how much you enjoyed the trip 

We had another trip down Pinocchio at the weekend.  It was after the heavy rains of Thursday/Friday and the water had clearly been up to the roof.  Although mostly drained away it still left a good few inches of misery at the end.  Therefore we decided to clear all the spoil heap up the Geppetto pitches to the Magic Moneytree chamber rather than try to dig the end.  This is done in two stages requiring five or six people for each stage.  Some fifty bags of sand/mud removed.  The water is draining away much quicker these days and the small triangle above the mud draughts well in some conditions.  Anyway it has given us renewed hope for the big breakthrough into Ireby 3. 

Two 'on site' videos to follow.  Both at the bottom where hopefully you can appreciate that this is a major tunnel if it wasn't so full of sandy mud.  The first is me getting to the bottom to see what damage the flood waters have done and the second after our hauling efforts had removed the pile of waiting spoil.

https://youtu.be/rY9lqSJ8lQQ

https://youtu.be/FVLQUp7zWrU

After all the recent rain, the sandy dig has gained a pool near the front though we expect it to drain with this recent blast of sun. Yesterday we had a great team turn out with Badlad, Mick, Geoff, Duncan, JJ, Bones and your correspondent. Even with the addition of the pool we shifted a 'ton or so' of sand and we can now see helictites ahead of us in the rising roof passage. Attached snaps of Mick 'Bones' Sharp crossing the water and then returning to dry land.

Back on the surface we took advantage of the fine weather and, in the finest tradition of caving, enjoyed light refreshments on the fell. Here we met the Legends of Sleepy Heapey, Simon and Di, who had just shattered the boulder that had blocked the entrance to Ireby Fell Cavern, and then a group who had been diving in the Three Counties - Allan, Chris, Josh and Kevin.

Digging continues.

Cheers,

Frank