OUCC Proceedings 13 (1991)

Paul Brennan had mentioned to me the existence of a large resurgence in Barbondale. Having heard about this mini-Keld Head and mis-read the guide book description, thereby getting the impression of about 30m of small passage to an underwater boulder choke, a visit to this site was planned. An impressive rising was found as advertised, but unfortunately I found, on kitting up, that the boulder choke began at the entrance. Tony Seddon and I spent a happy couple of hours pulling boulders from the rising making about 1m of progress.

Two more trips saw further digging operations at Short Gill with another couple of metres of progress made and some large rocks removed. However on our last trip to Short Gill Rising Tony and Mike Mead found that all our previous progress had been lost - the passage having filled with small stones that had fallen in from the resurgence pool. Shoring will be needed to prevent this occuring in the future. Engineering of the streambed below the resurgence pool led to the water level being lowered by about 1.5ft.

A discussion with Clive Westlake and others present at the 1989 CDG AGM was discouraging as they said that the site had been dug on a number of occasions in the past with little success. They described the site as a resurging boulder choke. A return is planned in the not too distant future.

Dave Horsley