Sunday 29th January 2023

Mike Kushy, John Cooper and Courtenay James. I left Courtenay and John to dismantle the obtrusive rock at the Boulder Rift dig, this took them about an hour and a half. Meanwhile I worked on opening up the cemented dig in the main bedding some more, also managed to clear out some rock from the on going area. When JC and CJ arrived we cleared the rock built up from plug and feathering and some clatch. The session was ended with some more cement work on the walls higher up. There's still an annoying bit of rock low down which needs coming out to allow further clearing ahead. 3 1/2 hours. Mike.

Sunday 22nd January 2023

 

Before

Mike Kushy. Solo trip to work on the cemented dig at the bottom of the main bedding. Plug and feathering the right hand hole, made it big enough to get into. Need to open up the slope on the floor a bit more which won't take long. Head first a view off to the right for a few metres, a small hole down to the left, draughting very well, appeared. A flowstone wall ahead, all feels very safe. Broke my 14mm drill bit and didn't have a spare so had to improvise with a 10mm and what I had left of the 14mm. Will need a team of at least 3 next time to pull the clatch and rocks out. 5 hours, Mike.

After

https://youtu.be/W3jSOnFQxAU

Saturday 7th January 2023

Mike Kushy, Andy Thompson and Courtenay James. Carried the rest of the bags left throughout the cave down to the Bedding Dig. Cleared out a lot of clatch that had washed in. You can now see the holes in the floor more clearly again. Looking down the pit, the hole on the right has a good view to a stal'd up solid wall which is concave with nodules on it and some nice formations. Good draught when you stick your head in too. There's a huge slab like block across the floor which I think has dropped from above (4m or so). I believe this could be the cause of the blockage. With some cementing done off this it should be possible to plug and feather edges off it and some of the right hand side to get in and clear the rest of the clatch and some bigger rocks. When we're into the next bit a lot more work cementing will need to be done, but for now it's workable and a decent size to allow progress forwards. After this we went to the most recent dig in the Boulder Rift. Good progress was made for an hour or so clearing cobbles and grit back, it's a decent size in there now and there's a lot more to come out, buckets left on site. At the end of this session a big block was moved that now blocks the way into the dig, this will need to be broken up to allow access again, but it will make the whole dig much more comfortable. This block will probably take a few hours to break up. 5 hours. Mike.

Monday 2nd January 2023

Mike Kushy, Samuel Hill and Frank Tully. We took in a lot of materials, 6 tackles sacks of sand, 2 tackle sacks of cement and 2 bags with drills. With hopes of getting into the new passage seen last time we set to work at the most recent dig site. The plan was to open up the approach to bring bigger rocks out, we soon gave up on this realising it's a big job and decided to head further down and squirrel on with the hope of a 'big breakthrough'. Frank joined us at this point. Capping and pfs we managed to make a hole big enough to squeeze into the next bit, that wasn't 2m high but more like 2ft, got the width right at about 5m though. Eastwater Lower Traverse type passage, and 'proper cave' with a small streamway. The water hits a sandy cobble filled floor and heads left (looking down), digging here will require opening up the squeeze, which in turn will require opening up the approach to get large rocks out. There's also a couple of fluted rock paths heading back up into the ceiling, but just slightly too tight to get up into. MK on the way out of the new bit decided to go check out the other pit, it was then decided efforts for the day would be better spent on the bottom of our original Boulder Rift dig. Some corners were taken off and we managed to get a body length in, boulders in the ceiling again (clean washed) with an easy diggable floor full of mud and sandstone cobbles...interesting site with a much more pronounced draught! On the way out looking up to the left you can see a hole with water trickling out of it, I predict this is the other side of the chamber we broke into earlier...the survey should confirm this once done.

We then finished off by cementing at the bedding chamber dig. Really happy to start breaking up rocks in the floor here next session and there's quite alot of clatch to come out. 1 half bag of sand and a 1/3 of a half bag at the bottom, quarter Daren drum of cement. There's 2 tackle sacks of sand left in the 4th chamber from the entrance plus a tackle sack of sand and a tackle sack of cement left in the first chamber (plenty enough for the next session). 6 hours in total. Mike.

The bottom left of the new 'breakthrough chamber'

The final squeeze into the new chamber

A view of the new chamber from the squeeze

Sam in the bottom of the original dig in Boulder Rift

The view looking back up from the last photo

The other side of the dig looking back towards Sam

The sharp end

The sharper end