Friday 17th October 2025

Hollie London, Harley Bennett

HL and HB headed down WR at 1630 to assess the damage from the previous bang. The new ladder made an excellent addition to the entrance series and new tape definitely highlights where you need to go navigationally. HB highlighted the bacon as we entered the bedding chamber, something we would normally charge past on the way to the dig face. After stopping to photograph the bacon, we continued down to the up and over boulder. The bang has successfully doubled the body space above the boulder, with the bottom half remaining intact. The pot before the boulder looks to have opened up and was drafting well. Due to lack of man power and everything being lose, we decided not to clear and retreated having photographed the damage. On exit, one plank fell off the wooden lid down the  entrance and needs a repair job to screw down. HL made a short term fix until the weekend so nothing can fall down. Hollie.

New base section. Photo HL.

Formations in Lower Badding Chamber. Photo HL.

Needs clearing. Photo HL.

Wednesday 24th September 2025

Mike Kushy, Mike Wise and Sam Hill. All down the cave for around 6.30pm. Took in drill and extra batteries plus charge materials. The wire was tested from the shaft as it hadn't been used for a while, no signal so took the tester to the joint. Tested higher wire from lower end and all fine, tested lower wire and no signal. Took the tester to the furthest end of the wire and discovered stripped cable and ends broken, fixed and tested okay. MW began drilling the up and over boulder, whilst SH cleared out behind where the recent rock moved ready for cementing. MK made some mixes in TPC and sent them up to SH. In the meantime MK kept moving rock around in TPC to make the floor better. Around 8.30pm MW called that he was all set up so we decided it was a good time to leave. Charge set off from Boulder Rift Chamber, very quiet considering we were only 30m of bang wire away. 2 1/2 hours. Mike K.

Tuesday 23rd September 2025

John Cooper and Mike Kousiounis (Kushy). Survey trip of Tea Party Chamber and on to current end. Twenty minutes in, 60 minutes surveying and 40 minutes out (it’s uphill!). The current end chamber appears to be developing a wetter, muddier floor. Now got to process the data collected. (See Survey Page.) 2 hours. John.

Saturday 20th September 2025

Mike Kushy, John Arnold (With GoPro), Jason Hares (Jay) (With GoPro) and Lucas McMaster.  All undergound just after 10am. Took in sand, stemples and fixing kit, 5l of mixing water and food. MK went ahead using pink conservation tape to set route markings (don't cross the tape for the best route basically).  All down to TPC no problems, JH mentioned that the rock above the light connection would need sorting on the way out. MK sorted out more taping in TPC whilst the others took the time to look around. We then all went through to the final chamber where more taping was done by MK whilst the others used GoPros on sticks on various holes. MK then went through with the others on how to clear the 'intermediate chamber' and left them to it. The plan was to go and set the via ferrata stemples in place. Unfortunately the drill started smoking, so that plan didn't work. With JH in TPC hauling the buckets, MK part way in assisting buckets through the pipe, LM filling buckets/working the rope and JA loosening mud we cleared for a good hour before stopping for lunch. After lunch MK went to loosen mud and had discovered JA had been digging his way to China. With MK loosening mud and digging to China, JA filling buckets/working rope and LM/JH hauling back to TPC we did another good hour or so more clearing. Towards the end we discovered a hard calcite floor about 1ft deep, hopefully all the mud is only 1ft deep! Packed away drill and we all started to head out, also with any empty bags. The boulder above the light connection did need sorting indeed, LM and JH sorted this out and got it moved close to the 'emergency exit'. Consequently some clearing of loose stuff and stabilising needs doing, this is a high priority job. Need to make a list of materials in TPC now. 6 hours. Mike K.

The link to the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyboaDlXhcg

It's rather long so key bits can be found here:

0.19 Cement Dig
0.23 Approaching Light Connection
0.35 All in Tea Party Chamber
0.45 Entering The Hookah Pipe
0.55 to 1.09 In the Final Chamber - note the frost shattered Stal
1.24 Break in filming - starts again leaving Light Connection
1.38 Rock moves!

Wednesday 17th September

Sam Hill, Mikey Waterworth, Ed Ford, Jake Baynes, Adrian Miles and Mike Wise.

Team split into 2 parties with different aims

Mike Wise solo report:

A drill, capping kit, lump hammer and micro crowbar were taken down to Boulder Chamber. Here the irritating pyramid shaped lump on top of the large boulder at the top of the 10ft climb was capped off using 3 holes and 5 caps. The top of the boulder is now flat. Some minor dressing was done with the lump hammer. The kit was abandoned temporarily in the chamber.

The hammer and crowbar were taken down to Boulder Rift Chamber where the floor of the step-up and crawl into the bedding below Calcite Squeeze was attacked for about 45 minutes to improve head room and generally remove lumps from the floor. Large amounts of rock varying in size from very big/just liftable to hand size were removed along with their covering of mud. The big stuff was stacked in the chamber, the smaller stuff and some mud was rammed back into the gaps that appeared below the mud covering.

Started packing up at 2045 and began slowly exiting at 2100 having heard nothing from the team below. They caught up with me at Boulder Chamber and at the entrance shaft I found that someone was jiggling the hauling rope from the top. It turned out to be SH who mistakenly had exited via the old route - he must have run out!  Thanks to JB for carrying my drill box down into Boulder Chamber at the start. 

Other report:

All visited TPC. EF's foot came off the slippery scaffold bar on the descent from the Light Connection and he somersaulted down onto the chamber floor. Injuries declared in the Hunters later were a damaged knee and a badly swollen wrist. MWa scanned everything from TPC to the end.

2 hours 

Mike Wise

After Ed’s acrobatics, myself and Jake had a look at TPC. I then went through the Hookah to join SH and MWa at the end. Myself and MWa went back to the chamber just after the hookah and cleared some of the spoil in both directions. MWa and SH went back to the final chamber to look at prospective leads whilst the rest of us started heading out. All on the surface by 21:30. Adrian.