John Cooper and Jude Vanderplank. Survey of bedding chamber. 1 ½ hours. John
John Cooper and Jude Vanderplank. Surveying from Station 14 down
over pit, down through calcite squeeze then an anti-clockwise loop taking in
the muddy bottom. Still a lot to survey. 2 hours. John.
MK, JC, MW and
CJ. Met Tuska on the
surface measuring up and sorting surface stuff. Courtenay made a cement mix and
we all headed down. Ferried all the tools into the newer section of cave. Mike Wise
started to enlarge the calcite squeeze then John took over. Meanwhile the rest
of us started taking photos. John had made the squeeze big enough for us all to
carry on down cave. I showed John where the boulder chamber is and he also
looked at the bottom. John then went to work more on the calcite squeeze whilst
the rest of us took more photos. We also had a little poke at the muddy area, I
predict this to go Saturday fairly quickly.
On the way back
we headed into the boulder chamber to photograph more. The prime dig site was
blowing a really good draught this evening, strong then the bottom of the
bedding chamber, Mike W was very keen to dig here. Whilst in the boulder
chamber we could hear John above and managed to have a conversation, to a
certain extent. 2½ hours. Mike.
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| Looking down Upper Bedding Chamber. Photo MK. |
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| Calcite squeeze linking the Bedding Chambers. Photo MK. |
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| Bottom of Lower Bedding Chamber. Photo MK. |
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| Boulder Chamber. Photo MK. |
MK and Frank Tully. With John’s go ahead we went on into the next bit. Still following the bedding, about 10m wide and 25m down to the bottom. Probably doubled the cave length. More digging yet. On the way out found a hole into boulders that seemed to go back towards the entrance shaft. Nice draught in the bedding passage. Came back to hut for lunch. Then MK went back in to do more plug and feather work and cementing on connection points. Started 10.30, lunch at 1pm, back in for 1.45 and finished about 16.30. Tusker and John came in the afternoon to mix and look at how we will finish the entrance as no more spoil to surface. Mike.
John Cooper went over, did one mix of cement and lowered it half at a time to Kushy who did a valiant job of ferrying it to the old end and making it safer. No time underground – but see Kushy’s report below. John
MK and Frank
Tully. I was prepared to go in alone and just open stuff up a bit and cement. In
the Common Room at the hut John asked if anyone was joining me and Frank was
happy to come and assist me so John said we may as well push on into the next
bit of cave. So we did. The bedded roof continued and the passage opens up to
about 10m wide. We headed straight down the middle and came to a calcite
blockage, 5 minutes with a crowbar and we both got through. The bedding opened
up again to the estimated 10m wide and continued down for at least another 10m
deep. Here it hits a phreatic layer. In the middle of the bedding is a
horizontal passage going through the ceiling and into boulders (draughty) but
no open way on. The ceiling here looks almost sump like. Coming back to the
bedding area the ceiling can be follow to the left (looking downslope) to a
long mud puddle thing, the draught is most prominent here and a black space can
be seen beyond a triangle shaped hole, about 10 inches high...yay more mud to
dig out. We headed back uphill checking the far sides of the bedding...Frank on
the right, me on the left. At the calcite bit we had crowbarred into Frank was
on his way up and I noticed a small hole in under to the left. We both pushed
through the flat out hole into a large boulder collapse with a solid wall on
the left. It goes quite far in and feels like the end is under the entrance
shaft, probably 10m or so below. Signs of water coming in here and the solid
wall can be followed down cave to another calcite blockage, again also
draughting well. Some rearranging and support work and this would be a
promising dig site also.
All in all we
estimate we've got about 100m length and just shy of 50m depth, but the survey
will let us know for sure.
We headed back
to the hut for lunch.
After lunch I
went back in alone to use up the drill batteries, opened up the final squeeze
some more and the horizontal squeeze before it. John then arrived with Tuska
and a full mix of cement was taken down (really hard work alone even though in
2 halves) and support work was down around the final squeeze area and the start
of the bedding passage. Hopefully it's a lot more comfortable for the surveyors
now, but on Wednesday more work will be done making it more comfortable still.
Mike Kushy
MK and JC. Went into the end chamber, had a look ahead and down the next pot. Prospectful but very unstable. Lots of stabilising after the final squeeze and at the end of the boulder slope. Spent the end of the session opening up some of the connection points. 1 ¾ hours. Mike.
John Cooper and Mike Kousiounis. Took both drills over. Initially both went through the final squeeze into the big passage so Mike could have a good look down the hole. Thought up on the left looked far more interesting. Took some video. Then John came out through the last two squeezes and attacked the penultimate one that stopped Adrian yesterday. Mike concentrated on enlarging and simplifying the final squeeze. Stopped when John’s drill gave up in a puff of smoke. 1¾ hours. John.
John and Mike. Knowing John had been to the bitter end gave me more confidence
to go check out the new bit. It's quite treacherous and the boulder slope will
need stabilising. The pit in the floor seems to go down quite far and there's
quite clear passage off to the left which will be easy to get into once
everything is safe. We finished the session opening up the final squeeze and
the squeeze previous to that, more to be done on these yet. There is a higher
passage in the new bit that makes it look like the solid wall could run back to
the entrance, unsure we need to do this though.
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| John in breakthrough squeeze. Photo MK. |
John Cooper, Adrian Vanderplank and Jude Vanderplank. Surveying. Started with a plumb of the entrance using a fibron tape then the rest with DistoX. Recording on my memo recorder as we went along and backed up the actual legs in the survey notebook. Adrian failed the penultimate squeeze and Jude didn’t like the look of the final one so after I went through I surveyed back from the end on my own. Will need doing properly. 2 hours. John
From Kushy (with editorial corrections) John, Adrian and Jude surveyed Tuesday 11th. After their trip I asked John if he had a looked into the ongoing passage, turns out he went in and surveyed right to the end. Obviously a lot more guts than me I'm sure John will give a more detailed report.