Some News on the
Digging Scene. - Low Douk.
Since it’s collapse some years ago (two or three times) Low Douk has either been ignored (by the great British caving
public) or looked at with frustration by the digging brigade.
The floor of
the chamber looked inviting in places, but after one or two false starts a way
on was found at a high level on the right hand side of the shakehole facing the
cliff, along a crawl that had to be persuaded to let us through. It stayed
fairly awkward and restricted to the first 25ft. pitch.
The way out of
this chamber had to be blasted a few times to reveal a free climbable pitch of
about 35ft. followed by a short restricted crawl to a 25ft. ladder pitch with a
small ledge half way down. At the base of this pitch there are three ways off.
One ‘up draught’ has yet to be pushed. ‘Down draught’ was dug doggedly by Bungalow
Bill Edmundson, this broke through into Low Douk
below the corkscrew. The third way off, down a sandy crawl is at present being
dug and has been radio located to be a mere thirty feet from the Kendal series
in Rift Pot.
Rift Pot.
The Kendal
series is so named because a few, very dedicated, members of the K.C.C. and some friends have
been pushing a rather horrible passage out of the bottom of Rift Pot main
chamber (in the opposite direction from Larger Pot). Until recently the Kendal
extensions stopped at ‘The Temple of Doom’; a forbidding name for a nasty
boulder ruckle followed quickly by two other not so
nice chokes, all linked and followed by a long crawl/ flatout
crawl/grovel to a rather grand junction at a streamway which oddly enough goes
upstream in both directions. The water sinks in the floor of the master junction
and has recently been dye tested to
This is the
three counties link we’ve been searching for ever since Dave Brook said it was feasable. All we need now is to be able to melt ourselves
down in water, wash through, and re-assemble on the other side! Work is
continuing on providing the dry way! Top Sink to Large Pot here we come.
Shout Pot, Kingsdale.
It is with
deep sadness and regret that I report the demise of a dream. Having spent 12
months, sometimes three nights a week digging Shout Pot, we found a rather good
40ft. pitch which stopped immediately upstream, downstream started small wet
and gets worse! You win some, you lose some, and you lose some more.
Steve Round.
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