Saturday 24th February 2024

John Cooper, Pete Hann, David Morrison (Tuska) and Jude Vanderplank. Carried across two new bags of sand. One full mix of cement done and used by Pete (60%) at the bottom building supporting walls whilst John used up the rest higher up. Meanwhile Tuska was building walls on the surface. A second full mix was then done before Tuska left. Pete used all of it at the bottom. His wall now reaches and supports the roof boulder. One large boulder cemented into the floor as it was too big to fit on a wall. As we were finishing Jude appeared to inspect the work. 3 hours. John.

Bottom, inwards and downwards. Photo JV.

Wednesday 21st February 2024

John Cooper. Early evening trip to carry on with p&f on the large rock. Now in smaller chunks. Whether they are now small enough for Pete to build with will find out another day. Nice trickle of water flowing along and down into the floor. 1½ hours. John.

Pete Hillier and Trevor Hughes arrived on site at 19.00. Once at the dig face it was obvious that someone (John) had kindly destroyed the rock that I was going for tonight.
To give us room to work we hauled about 8 skip loads of ugly rocks to the surface enabling us to move the wall building rocks, so recently produced, away from the dig face. I attacked the next boulder forward and reduced it to a single residual piece. Quite a few smaller rocks were pulled out of the end leaving an enticing open space ahead from which emitted the usual draught.
We stopped work at 21.30 as the clarion call of the Hunters was beckoning.
The next trip (Sunday?) may, given some careful rock breaking, allow access to the c2m open passage ahead.
Good luck to the Sunday team. Trevor.

Sunday 18th February 2024

John Cooper and Trevor Hughes. John took across 2 bags of sand and a bag of cement, bringing back 3 of the scaffold poles which have been left in the digging shed at Upper Pitts. There are still 5 left on site. Trevor used p&f on the large rock ahead whilst I ferried some rocks out to the surface. 2½ hours. John.

The dig face  after yesterday’s session. Photo TH.

The top rock has been reduced in size, then split in half vertically and the right hand (slightly smaller) half reduced to spoil/walling stone. The left hand half has been turned 90deg with the sheared face uppermost ready for the next visitors to further reduce. The debris from yesterday is somewhat haphazardly stacked adjacent to the new wall and needs to be climbed on cautiously. Rather splendid open voids can be seen ahead and the whole area draughts well. A lot more work needs to be done to 1) reduce the residual top rock and 2) demolish the lower rock - which does move slightly. All this took 2 1/2 hours with JC nobly acting as my assistant and spoil remover. A decent pile of rock was brought out to the surface and the concreting stocks replenished by John. Trevor.

Saturday 17th February 2024

John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann and Adrian Vanderplank. Carried across a new bag of cement. John pointed out yesterday’s cementing so Adrian and Pete could avoid it. Capping kit taken in and used by Adrian breaking up boulders. One mix of cement done and taken down for use by Pete then John was despatched to get his drill and more caps. Lots more breaking up boulders by Adrian as well as clatch deposited behind retaining walls. Another mix of cement then done before calling it a day. No sand left, only stone dust in 1 dumpy bag. Third of a bag of cement left. Nigel got down the ladder and back up it again but didn’t get off the bottom. A couple of boulders hauled out to show willing, however plenty of space to build them into support walls. 4½ hours.John.

Loose blocks on the floor and far side capped. Some larger boulders in the floor also capped. Cementing on the near side with the intention of building a pillar to support the rock in the roof. Also infilling gaps on the left hand side with rocks and cement. Adrian.

Friday 16th February 2024

Mike Kushy and John Cooper.

MK started at 11am, took in drill and used the batteries taking apart the big boulder, still some of it left over. Buckets of clatch were filled and emptied behind the retaining wall. At 13.30 JC arrived and came down the bottom to help move a few dozen more buckets of clatch. Cement mixes were then made. 6 decent buckets were used in total, John filling some gaps higher up and MK working on stabilising the bottom. A decent pillar was built up to an overhanging boulder and a step was created to ease getting in and out of the very bottom. Interesting holes appearing at the bottom, one deep hole in the floor and a few straight ahead. 3 big blocks to dismantle and we could be into a new area. Finished at 16.00. 5 hours for me, Mike.

MK's YouTube Video from today

The dig face. Photo MK.