Sunday 11th May 2025

Mike Kushy. Went to Puddle Dig and moved some spoil back behind walls I built. Fairly draughty and long crowbar goes into the muddy floor with hardly any resistance. Then on to Cement Dig and cleared some of the backlog further back. Much stronger draught at this site and actually got quite cold even though I was moving the whole time. 2 hours. Mike.

Wednesday May 7th

 Mikes' Wise and Kushy checking out the result of last week's bang and to clear what we could with our limited resources. The left hand wall was damaged, but still intact and solid looking.  The rock in the floor had been broken out. MW dragged out the rock from the floor and some loads of the loose or detachable lumps for MK to stack or throw further up the passage above. We then swapped and MK investigated the undercut pulling off some more large lumps before attacking the backwall and uncovering a decent sized descending hole adjacent to and connected with the undercut. After removal of a large triangular rock, this showed the same sticky, stone filled and wet mud infill that we had buried with bang debris last week. MW probed the floor here with the large crowbar,  shoving it down 2ft without too much effort.  In summary we seem to have solid left and right hand walls and bedding roof and maybe have left the horrible loose stuff behind. We also now have room to dig. All we need is a minimum team of 5 for a 1/2 day to clear all the bang debris and the mud infill so we can see what we have found. 

2 hours

Mike Wise

Wednesday April 30th

Mikes Wise and Kushy to tidy up the base of Cement Dig and continue with necessary alterations.

5 previously stashed full buckets were moved out and 3 more extracted from the dig. MW drilled 7 holes, 5 in the left hand wall and 2 in the newly exposed rock in the floor and charged them while MK did more tidying up above.

On exit MK diverted to initiate some noise.

Despite feeling a bit unwell, MK still carried the drill bag in and out - thanks a lot MK

MK at the top of the shaft using his light to make himself invisible

Photo by MW

2 hours

Mike Wise

Wednesday April 23rd

Mike Wise and Mike Kushy along with Trevor Hughes (welcomed back after an illness), for a clearing session following the recent rock disturbance.

The hoped for open space on the left had not materialised but a large amount of rock had been sheared off the front leaving a clean face for next time and no significant collateral damage was noted.

Between us we dug, filled, hauled and disposed of north of 50 buckets of debris plus 5 or 6 big lumps of rock.

In doing this, we dug down on the right into the space left by the absent steps and below the bang debris into virgin fill. This was a solid but wet clay embedded with small stone. Soon afterwards we exposed an undercut some 18" deep running along the entire right hand side with a solid looking, flow stone covered vertical wall at its back. Also exposed was a rib of resistant rock with a rounded upper edge running at right angles across the middle of the dig. The connection of this rib with the right hand wall was hammered energetically, but nothing much resulted.

Satisfied for the moment we exited after 2.5 hours

At the start of the session a slight draught could be detected which I thought might be coming from the right hand hole that MK pushed in the first phase of WRH exploration. As we exposed the clay and undercut the draft increased noticeably to become a conversation piece above. I thought it came from the undercut. MK went down for a quick look as we exited and thought it was coming from the clean face on the left hand wall.

The next session will be used to clear the bottom of loose debris completely and if we remember to bring them, to use a smoke match or two. A photo or two will also be taken.

Mike Wise

Wednesday April 9th

Mike Wise, Mike Kushy and Sam Hill to do some clearing of the rubble at Cement Dig meeting at 1800. Before we could get at the dig debris, we needed to do some tidying up in the approach passage. MK hauled buckets of smaller material, while MW and SH dealt with larger blocks which were lifted out and stashed out of the way in the calcited rift area. This took at least 30 minutes.

With only three of us, heroic efforts had to be made, especially by Sam, with MW passing him buckets and MK somewhere above disposing of debris. Nevertheless, a veritable mountain of loose material  flew up in our shiny, but overpoweringly pleasant smelling new buckets and out via 2 bucket drag lines. A good few large rocks also somehow were got all the way out. This was kept going for an hour or so taking us to around 2045. Unfortunately, we all forgot to count the buckets.

MW then did some drilling. The floor in front of the left hand alcove shown in the final photo from Saturdays blog entry was dug back to what seemed to be a solid base. 6 holes were drilled. The back wall is split by a diagional joint; above the joint are some calcite features, below is clean rock. At some point during this activity MW found himself talking to MK rather than SH as SH had departed; it was getting late. MW and MK exited at 2200 after subjecting the drilled alcove to a bit of a prod.

Photo by Mike Wise 

Sam playing piggy in the middle