Sunday, 22 January 2023

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




Sunday, 8 January 2023

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.