Saturday 31st May 2025

Mike Kushy and Mike Wise. Took in 2 8ft scaff bars and 2 x daren drums of sand/dust to Cement Dig. MW cut the bars whilst MK drilled for pins. MK also made a small mix and started buliding up a wall from solid ledge at the bottom. MW then made a further load of mix to keep building. No building materials left so will have to fill Daren drums to carry in next session. Lovely draughts coming from all holes leading 'down cave'. 4 hours. MK.

MK's youtube video from today

The dig face (looking east), I'm stood on the big solid ledge. Photo by MK.

Wednesday 28th May 2025

 John Cooper,Jake Baynes, Mike Kushy, Hollie London and Mike Wise

Johns log entry:

  I went in via the Puddle Dig route and had a look at the bottom of Cement Dig before the others arrived. At least a couple of meters deeper than the last time I was there. Hauling was done in two stages using two ropes. Started with MW at the bottom filling small buckets (5L) which HL hauled up and passed across to JB. He removed the bucket from that haul rope and attached it to the upper one which I pulled up and emptied. Initially we were hauling and dumping via the original East slope but when MK arrived the top haul moved across to the West slope where emptying by MK was easier, even though a longer haul. After a while I swapped with MK so resumed emptying the buckets. Much later, about the time the spoil being removed changed from bang debris to original deposit (sticky and muddy), MW and HL swapped. 60 loads of spoil removed from bottom. Definitely needs 5 people to work effectively.

 

Mike Wise log entry.

 The first 30 buckets were easy containing mostly bang debris. The following 30 were harder to fill and empty comprising in the main sticky mud and access to grab this stuff was down slope and under the under cut, so was harder to get at.  In the end HL was able to get in under the bedding roof and see around a sharp left corner into about 1m of narrow ongoing passage. Spoil removal at the corner noticeably improved the draught but there is loose material coming down from above the undercut somewhere. 

On Saturday 31st some stabilisation work is planned by MW and MK unless 3 more bodies are available in which case some more clearing will be done.

 We also need to improve the method for hauling up from the bottom - it is unnecessarily difficult. 

No photos this week, but prospects are looking more positive than they have for quite a while

 2.5 hours

Mike Wise.

Friday 16th May 2025

Mike Kushy. 1 hour filling trailer with rocks. Mike.

Photo MK.

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