Wednesday 19th October 2022

Mike Kushy, Courtenay James, John Cooper and Mike Wise. Courtenay made a nice cement mix on the surface then carried it down to the first bedding chamber. The calcite squeeze was hammered slightly more open by Kushy, Mike and John. Several buckets of spoil and boulders were removed from the very bottom of the “final” bedding chamber with a possible draughting way on was visible. John went out to the cement mix and stabilised some boulders while the rest of us went into the boulder chamber (see Oct 16^th log), shouted up to John and dug rocks out of the hole in the floor. 2½ hours. Mike Wise.

John Cooper, Courtenay James, Mike Kousiounis (Kushy) and Mike Wise. One mix of cement (half a bag) taken in. We first enlarged the calcite blockage mentioned in the previous report. Then a tour round. MW took pictures and video. Cemented in below the original “final squeeze”. Going to be a sod to survey! 2½ 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.

 

Sunday 16th October 2022

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