Topic

After meeting up at Ripley I drove Nigel and myself up to Scar house dam to check the water levels. Turned out they were quite high and the wind was blowing the occassional wave over the top - it was all quite dramatic. With the history of the area in mind we were working on the assumption that we wouldn't be caving but we decided to try and find the entrances anyway.

We quickly found Manchester hole from the road and went over to have a look. While we did notice a tide mark around the entrance to the cave the water level was nowhere near there so we had a small scout inside the entrance before heading upstream to see where the water was sinking into the cave.

After our investigations there we wandered down to Goyden Pot and had a quick look in the entrance with the manhole cover however as I wasn't wearing an oversuit I didn't go in far. The main sink was quite impressive but with the force of the water and the dire warnings of flooding we just looked at that from a distance.

After some discussion we went back to Manchester Hole. We headed down stream using a handline to cross a muddy mound. The water while fast moving never got above welly height although we did get wet during a crawl near the end. After reaching the sump we headed back out except this time we crawled in the stream
instead of going over the mud.

All in all an interesting if quick trip.

lets hope its better for the clubs visit on 15thAapril

Even though it was a short trip some of the conglomerate beds were superb, infact some of the fossil beds contain the best example of clam/scallop beds i have seen, they were fantastic and well worth a further visit

the photo is the wrong way up Brian. Below is a link to the document i mentioned. Makes some interesting Sunday evening reading.

www.british-caving.org.uk/publication_information/Goyden.pdf

To be fair I uploaded the post from my phone so it is impressive I got the picture on at all! That document did make interesting reading... the water levels today seemed to look like those shown in the pictures from the flood test they did!

Brian

yes i agree and looking at the survey on cavemaps i dont think we reached the end, apparently there was air space along the right and another entrance (Box pot) just before the sump

I did not come on this trip because I did not know which Ripley it was. When I googled it, it was in Derbyshire oh well.

Yo Alex, you should have scrolled down a bit further

Even though it was a short trip some of the conglomerate beds were superb, infact some of the fossil beds contain the best example of clam/scallop beds i have seen, they were fantastic and well worth a further visit
Nigel, next time you are there then in the Labrinth you will find amazing black chert nodules in the walls and they are huge. I doubt if there is anything of the sort in any other Yorkshire cave. It is a good round trip if a bit frustrating on the navigation front.

Even though it was a short trip some of the conglomerate beds were superb, infact some of the fossil beds contain the best example of clam/scallop beds i have seen, they were fantastic and well worth a further visit
Nigel, next time you are there then in the Labrinth you will find amazing black chert nodules in the walls and they are huge. I doubt if there is anything of the sort in any other Yorkshire cave. It is a good round trip if a bit frustrating on the navigation front.