Mike Kushy, Hollie London, Mikey Waterworth and Olivia Dawson. MK and HL to begin with started at 10.30am, we cleared the bang spoil from the up and over boulder to start. The space over the top is a lot more comfortable, although the lower piece is also shattered and could be removed entirely (personally I think we should just cement in and stabilise what's there). Next job was to drill the stemples in (thanks to Lee V for use of your Hilti drill for this), one on the side wall below the ledge and another up near the scaff' bar. We could do with putting a couple of smaller metal holds higher up again, but all a lot safer now. Next MK started drilling for shot holes in The Hookah Tube, 3 holes @600 and 1 at just shy of 1m (1m drill bit currently sticking out of the wall, battery ran out!), whilst HL went on into MHH and started to dig out the final squeeze some more. A retaining wall was built at the 'up cave' end of MHH to put all the glorious mud behind. CO2 and O2 tests were done throughout, see results below. Around 12.30 MW and OD came and met us in MHH. They said the air looked very thick. We agreed a plan and continued the already started dig to the right of the formation. Unfortunately this hit a solid wall 1m in and won't give us the clearance to dig around the formation so we will have to try a dig in the far corner? (tarpaulin sheet now over the formation for protection). MK and HL left the others to continue digging as they both felt puffy and like they needed better air. Really felt the air quality change once back in TPC. HL started to rebuild the landing area below the Light Connection. We had a tidy round and got packed to leave around 3pm. MK went through to MHH to let the others know our plan and we all decided to all leave together (also getting close to 3% CO2, our set safety limit). Very wet in MHH today with puddles everywhere. Would recommend not going into MHH for a while and let the air settle, so we can retest the differences (probably the worst day of the year today for testing air quality in a cave, so hopefully it passes). Oh MK and HL went to mix some muck towards the end but realised there was no cement in the cave. About 5 drums of sand though, 10l of mixing water and a bag of stone dust. 5 hours. Mike K.
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| MK drilling holes for stemples. Photo HL. |
CO2 and O2 results (thanks to Stuart 'Mac' for use of your monitors):
Start (11.30am) - CO2: 2.08, O2: 18.76%
12.01pm - CO2: 2.31, O2: 18.5%
End (14:16) - CO2: 2.56, O2: 18.18%
*Apart from 15 minutes (around 1pm) there was only 2 people in MHH at any time and working whilst we monitored*
