Monday 1st January 2024

Started with Mike Kushy, John Cooper and Dave Morrison. MK went to bucket fill the spoil in the horizontal tunnel with JC and DM on surface. After half hour or so Monica Bollani showed up. With MB and DM on surface, JC took over the bucket filling and MK went to the dig face to break up the big boulders above the rift. After a while MK moved up cave and cleared out behind the retaining wall, passing smaller buckets and rocks up to JC. MB left after a couple of hours. After this, time was spent downsizing a large boulder at the bottom of the step down. JC came down to inspect the lower chamber and we both agreed after a good cementing session we can look at opening up the step down to make a straighter pull to surface, JC also agreed it's worth pushing the rift at the bottom of the slope. Good draught coming out at the end once the big boulder was removed. The rift at the bottom has a lot of loose clatch to come out. Could potentially be done with 3, a rope would be needed to pull buckets up the slope at the bottom though. Probably over a ton of spoil taken to surface today. Came up to a poly fram that had been constructed by DM, ready for the shelter covering. 4 hours. Mike.

Wednesday 27th December 2023

Mike Kushy and Sam Hill. Started with MK on surface whilst SH filled buckets from the horizontal tunnel. After an hour or so this was all clear, so we moved on down to the dig face. SH worked the point and many buckets of clatch were pulled out. These either went into the deep hole near the step down or behind the retaining wall (which seems to slope off into the deep hole anyway). Plug and feather work to remove larger boulders and an interesting few minutes watching Sam poke some large boulders out of the ceiling headed down cave. Most rocks have been taken up cave and stashed in the horizontal tunnel, now full again. Several larger blocks are to the side in the lower chamber and will need breaking up more. After swapping a few times at the front some large rocks were pulled out of the floor revealing a deep, narrow, solid, rift with a very cool draught coming out. Too narrow to fit down but hopefully working back in and under the chamber there will be bigger space. At least at the current sharp end it feels very solid and safe. Out of batteries we decided to retire without clearing the horizontal tunnel. With a decent team of at least 5, 6 would be ideal, the stuff to come out could be done in one. Otherwise it can be done between 2 (3 ideal) with some staging. It would be nice to bring all the loose out rather than filling up other voids in the floor. 3 small buckets in the cave at the moment but we could do with another 3 and a short length (6-7m) of rope to drag up from the rift. Some cement work would also be ideal around the chamber area, but all in all not too bad. 5 hours, Mike.

Sam at the sharp end sat above the rift. Photo MK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The continuing bedding behind Sam,about half a foot gap from top to bottom. Photo MK.

The vertical rift below Sam, about half a foot wide. Photo MK.