Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, Richard Witcombe, Dave King (with brief guest appearances by Alison Moody and Richard Warman (Kermit).
Early start to get a few bags of spoil ready and stop the hauling party suffering from inactivity!
In the end about 50 bags were filled, the lighter rubble bags being infinitely more manageable than the heavier old ones, which have now been taken out for a sound thrashing.
The way on is narrowing slightly with a possible undercut to the right and we'll need to drop down a step to progress. The roof is heading in horizontally though, the air is fine and at one stage Alan and I convinced ourselves that there was air movement, although this is doubtful.
We seem to have gone through the thicker clay zone and are back to a sandier top-fill.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2007 10:22:39 +0000
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Richard Witcombe, Mandy Voysey and Dave King.
We found a very wet Balch Cave. The Link Passage was particularly sporting with the paving slabs deep beneath a long pool. Two at the top of the pitch and two at the bottom made for hard work, but a total of twenty nine bags were raised and eventually dumped in Pool Passage. The digging face is a diminishing roof tube but down to the right there is an undercut with roof pendants.
For a change, the team had a drink in the Waggon & Horses - quiet but pleasant.
Rich Witcombe.
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:20:36 +0000 (GMT)
Richard Witcombe and Tony Audsley
Ladder fettling and installation (and more walling).
Tony Jarratt.
Mandy Voysey, Richard Witcombe, Rob Taviner (Tav), (Safe) Dave King, Alan Gray, Peter Flanaghan, and Clive North
Battery, drill and a new roll of rubble sacks taken to the end. Dave, Mandy and Clive did the bottom of the shaft stuff, Tav and Peter did the hauling leaving Rich and Alan to stack etc in JW Passage.
One and a bit holes drilled (low battery power) for the bolts for hanging the one-ton bags from - finish the job next week. 36 bags eventually removed to the Pool Passage tip site. Dig face apparently still heading almost horizontal - air fresh - all to hope for!
Remainder of evening in the Oakhill with some somewhat mud-splattered Prices....
More of the same (or similar) next week....
[With detail corrections from Dave (I can be reckless sometimes)
King and Rich Witcombe]
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 18:18:43 -0000
X-me-spamrating: 0.092871 (whatever that means).
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Alan Gray & Clive North.
While Clive, armed with an errant drill, made 2 holes for rock anchors, the rest of us removed 37 bags of sandy fill from the adequately-sized, horizontal continuation.
This was then shuttled out to the spoil dump before beating a retreat to the creature comforts of the Oakhill Inn.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2007 15:31:51 +0000
X-me-spamrating: 0.000028
[Gonzo obviously has a significantly lower spam content than
Clive - - interesting.]
Alan Gray, Richard Witcombe, Mandy Voysey, Rob Taviner (Tav), Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, & Clive North.
A nice dry cave, this week, for a change!
The chains, (courtesy TonyA) and d-shackles, (courtesy Dave)were fitted to the bolts to support the 1-ton 'sandbag' at the base of the shaft.
Alan and Clive spent the evening at the sharp end and in all 47 bags of sand made their way to the Pool Passage tip.
Much time was spent deepening and widening the final section immediately in front of the face to allow easier access and only at the end of the evening was the face itself attacked. This revealed, instead of a continuation of the nice horizontal tube in the roof, a large nodule-shaped piece of bedrock running across the passage roof reducing its height by about 6inches. Immediately behind this a slanting wall appeared, crossing the passage and sloping away at about 45degrees.
So, it seems the passage has taken another dive downwards - lets hope its temporary!
Buckets and spades ready for next week then....
Clive North.
Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 12:43:23 -0000
(X-me-spamrating: 0.001312)
An early start by Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Followed by Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav), Clive North, Alan Gray, Mandy Voysey (with bar room support from Richard Witcombe and a subterranean social visit by Alison Moody).
55 bags out to reveal the passage continuing down at a gentle angle and possibly turning slightly to the right.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 10:13:25 +0000
Mandy Voysey, Rob Taviner (Tav), Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Clive North, Alan Gray & Dave King.
A touch wetter this week, the pool at the bottom of the calcite slope was once again back to welly depth, and the connection passage was up to 3 inches of water.
Mandy and I headed in early such that we could adjust the tension on the chains retaining the one ton sandbag. Mission accomplished just as the rest of the team started arriving.
Then Mandy and I commenced digging, with a total of 52 bags being hauled up by Clive and Gonzo, and ferried down J W's by Alan and Tav (I think they were the positions held). Since we had run out of bags, Mandy tried to increase the count to 53, by emptying one out at the bottom of the dig and filling it again. So I suppose it was 53 filled, but 52 hauled out.
The rest of the bags were emptied as usual in the boulder choke and the walled in area in Pool Passage. Whilst digging a large detached water worn flake / flagstone (approx 20in x 18in) was removed from the right hand wall and placed as a step in the final approach. The flake took one casualty during its extraction, one entrenching tool handle. Oops ! !
A couple of small air spaces appeared at roof level, large enough to get part of an arm in each, separated by about 18in of limestone, which may be more roof pendants.
The trend of the dig remains the same, very slightly sloping down.
Dave King.
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:50:05 -0000
Richard Witcombe and Tony Audsley
In a desperate attempt to show some progress, we worked four days in a row. (It STILL isn't finished).
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Mandy Voysey and Dave King. Plus a social visit by 3 generations of the Warman family.
Gonzo and Tav were at the digging face, Mandy and Dave were at the top of the pitch.
The passage continues sloping very slightly downwards, widening, with a roof pendant, now fully exposed.
In all, 40 something bags were filled and removed as far as the approach to the breakthrough squeeze, at which point we left as we were short staffed and last orders was getting perilously close.
As always, the guest beer did not disappoint!
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Mandy Voysey, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King and Clive North
An earlier start to clear last weeks 40 bags and to bail out the 'wet link'.
Mandy and Clive attacked the end whilst Gonzo and Dave alternately hauled and cleared the bags down JW Passage.
By the evening's end 38 bags had been removed (we think!) to the tip so nearly 80 had been pushed 'round the bend' - at some cost to the teams energy levels!
Adding to the problems I estimate that each bag must have weighed in the order of 2 kilos EMPTY! They were so caked in mud that it took some time just to find a way into them for filling.
As a result, and also as many of them are wearing badly, it was unanimously decided to retire the lot (the bags that is) and get new ones for next time and to replace them more frequently. Assuming that Tav might be able to do the shopping for us we'd be happy to set up a 'bag-fund'.
At the end the passage has widened since I saw it last to about 5ft and the roof pendant turns out to be an impressive tooth shaped feature about two foot high. It's an isolated feature and behind it the passage continues almost horizontally being a couple of feet wide at the top.
Occasional rocks are appearing in the sand at the back on the right hand side - interestingly they are not waterworn at all but angular in character. The present 'floor' at the face of the dig is now composed of very compacted, hard sand with a thin band of black sand passing through it.
More fun and games next week.....
Clive North.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Clive North & Dave King.
The connection 'wallow' took about 20 minutes to bail before, armed with an array of pristine, new bags, 55 loads were removed.
There appears to be a wall ahead to the right of the roof pendant, with the continuation either ahead to the left or down.
The 'chamber' at the end is taking on impressive proportions as we start to take the floor out.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 09:14:53 +0000
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav), Alan Gray, Richard Witcombe.
Cave fairly dry. Mandy and Dave at the sharp end. Fifty three bags of spoil raised and dumped. New roof pendant hoving into view.
Rich Witcombe.
Richard Witcombe, Tony Jarrat (JRat), Tony Audsley
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At long last - IT'S FINISHED.
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Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Richard Witcombe, Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav), Alan Gray and Clive North.
Alan and Matt set to for the evening at the end and managed to dig out 47 bags worth of spoil.
I had a look at the end of the evening and was amazed to see how far back the face had gone in the two weeks since I last saw it. The dig face is now about 3ft beyond 'The Fang' roof pendant which really is very much in the way (don't worry I'm not about to destroy it - read on!).
Alan's work had revealed an open continuation of the roof tube which turned sharp left then sharp right (length about 3ft) at which point the sand came up to the roof again. The rift below was only about 6inches wide. However, there is a wide continuation of the main passage, just above floor-level, which appears about 4ft wide with small roof pendants. This avoids the need to follow the tube to the left, but would need the floor dropping considerably for access.
Whilst ruminating on the fact that 'The Fang' was right in the way of future operations, I spotted an inch high, horizontal crack in the left wall. It turned out that a very large slab of solid on a corner had dropped slightly. Getting the bar behind this showed that the whole corner was detached and loose. We managed to hammer off a large chunk and break it up with the sledge but we've still got the major portion still in situ.
We need to drop the floor a foot or so to release the block then break it up. This will give us a much improved working space to attack the end and remove the need to agonise about the future of the big roof pendant, which is such a major feature.
So rock-wrestling next week - sorry to hear of Gonzo's hand problem - maybe we should call the passage 'The Carpal Tunnel'??
Clive North.
Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray, Rob Taviner (Tav) and Clive North.
A fairly sombre start to the evening absorbing the news of Dave Irwins death........
Rich renewed his acquaintanceship with the dig face and produced as a result the requisite 48 bags of spoil which were conveyed to the ropeway by Mandy and Clive.
Dave kept a lightless-Tav (sounds like some sort of almost exinct bird....) company at the top of the shaft whilst a sterling solo performance by Alan ensured the bags found their way down JW Passage.
At the end of the evening, Clive paid attention to the boulder which finally succumbed to an onslaught of levering and rocking and ended up slumped across the passage. It must be five feet by 3 feet by two approx. and the face of the wall left exposed is well eroded so it must have become detached an awful long time ago. The rock is far too massive for breaking by hand so some advanced techniques will be needed. This we'll postpone for a while. In the meantime, digging can continue to the right of the block where there is still some of the continuing passage visible to follow, and in the floor area generally. At worst this will give us a hole which can be backfilled with material from the face at a later date.
Rich made a good suggestion for evenings when we might be low on labour - with four it would be easy to empty the one-ton bag at the base of the pitch which can then be refilled on other 'low-labour' evenings.
On the way out, I was following Mandy and about half way along Pool Passage I thought I saw a large rat scurrying towards me. On inspection it turned out to be a rabbit! A hop, skip and a jump chase followed until Mandy cornered it and gave it a home inside her oversuit. The M.R.R.O made its way out, passing said rodent hand to hand through one awkward squeeze.
On the surface it was released well clear of the cliff but was last seen bobbing along back towards the entrance!
Clive North.
Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav), Alan Gray, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Tony Littler and Clive North.
Good to see Tony Littler back again and ditto Gonzo......
Tony, Gonzo and Tav spent the evening at the sharp end sending a rapid-fire burst of bags up to Alan and Clive on the edge thence to Mandy and Dave in JWP.
A grand total of 53 and a half bags (yes - the half being the bag that the bags came in!) in total.
That's it - more next week!
Clive North.
Mandy Voysey, Rob Taviner (Tav), Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Clive North and Dave King [also known as 'Destructive Dave' or 'Dave - give me the job and I will finish the tools - King' ]
At the dig face Alan, Mandy and Dave kept up the pressure with 47 bags by the end of the evening. The need for removal of the boulder is being keenly felt but this will have to wait for a while.
Clive North.
Mandy Voysey, Richard Witcombe, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav), Alan Gray, Tony Littler, Paul Stillman (!), Pat Cronin (!!) and Clive North.
For the first time we had enough people to enable the spoil to come out all the way out to the tip in Pool Passage in one go and as a result achieved a record-breaking 75 bags!
Consequently Mike, the landlord of the Oakhill Inn, couldn't believe his luck when we all trouped in for our customary couple of pints each plus hundreds of bags of crisps!
The big rock at the end has been persuaded to fall into a dug hole in the floor by Pat (maybe it was trying to get away from his singing...). Next week we aim to break it up.
Clive North.
Rob Taviner (Tav), Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Alan Gray, Dave King, Paul Stillman and Clive North.
Due to the scarcity of diggers it was decided to spend the evening emptying the 'one-ton bag' at the base of the shaft. Tav busied himself with this with everyone else moving the bags (54 this week) back to the tip.
At the end of the evening the famous boulder in the dig was demolished. As a result of all the digging around the boulder in recent weeks, the chamber is big enough for some members of the team to stand in. Now the boulder is gone it will be enormous !
The way on is obvious at the back of the chamber behind where the boulder lay - carrying on horizontally with more roof pendants.
Soon we'll address the logistics of extracting the spoil through Erratic.....
Clive North.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray, Clive North, Mandy Voysey & Dave King.
Gonzo headed in early to sort the hauling skip for the Erratic Passage route. He found it was not necessary to enlarge the squeeze, so this feature remains intact, although a couple of minor adjustments were made below the squeeze.
At the front end, the boulder as expected was no more. Most of the debris was used to good effect by Rich in building a retaining wall/step into the now voluminous 'digging chamber'. Limited standing room now available, book early.
Some fumes were present, but by the end of the session they had dispersed.
Dave completed the emptying of the one tonne sack, whilst Mandy and Gonzo hauled the bags to the top of the pitch. The rest of the team (Alan, Tav & Clive) successfully hauled the bags up through the tight squeeze into Erratic Passage, and then up out of the entrance, to be emptied in the quarry.
A couple of well positioned planks (not a reference to any of the team) half way up the climb may guide the skip and save the need for somebody to manually guide the skip through.
Back at the 'digging chamber', the last few remnants of the boulder were removed to the empty tonne sack, to be used or hauled out at a later date.
Dave King.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Richard Witcombe and Alan Gray.
An entertaining evening with little to report except:-
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Mandy Voysey, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray and Clive North.
Rich positioned himself in Erratic whilst most of the rest slithered down through the squeeze to the pot. Clive preferred the longer route in and found about five inches on water in the link crawl.
Alan and Clive attacked the end and after a while found the back wall is sloping away again at about 45° then it goes horizontal again.
Looking at the roof tube we have been following down the passage, it was obvious that its continuation was to the left at the back of the chamber. Some excavation was done which revealed the cracked blocked is probably another larger roof pendant and there may be something of interest on that side - very hard to tell though at this stage of the game.
It's obvious though that we need to form another 'step' in the passage and drop the floor by a couple of feet to continue forward, whichever direction we end up going in.
One casualty of the evening was the handle of the mattock which gave up the ghost. I'll see if I can get it sorted. In the meantime, there is no entrenching-type tool in the dig, only the spade, bars and hammer.
On my way out through Pool Passage I came across two young rabbits floating face down in a pool - gone looking their brother without a light I suspect.....
If someone can take a bag next week they are up on a ledge on the right-hand side (going in) about 10yds before the low crawl into the final bit of Pool Passage.
By evenings-end 56 bags, give or take, came out.
Clive North.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray & Richard Witcombe, plus guest BEC digger, Matt Blount from Clevedon.
Cave was still wet and muddy - even fit Dave took ages ascending the Erratic Link. Forty five bags were raised and in due course dumped outside. At the face, the loose detached piece of wall fell over, hitting Gonzo's leg but luckily doing no damage to the passage. The two, by now very smelly, rabbit corpses were removed from the cave - Rich loaded them into a sack and Alan carried it out, (complaining bitterly all the way).
Pleasant sojourn in the Oakhill, but a surfeit of crisps, I feel.
Rich Witcombe.
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Once again, my apologies for the recent lack of updates. I have been away from the computer for a while, studying the migration habits of boulders. Boulders, like birds, like to move south in very cold weather. They are, however, much easier to photograph as they don't fly out of the frame just as the shutter is pressed. Here is one I caught resting by the shore. It could well qualify for the title of "King Cobble" as it is 23ft (7 metres) high and over 158 ft (48 metres) in circumference. The foreground scale is 5ft 3¼in tall and as the ¼in is very important to her, this height cannot be metricated. Enough of that. I have filled in the missing entries for the 9th, 16th & 23rd May and will try not to be so lax in future. (Until the next time, anyway). |
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Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Alan Gray and Clive North.
Due to the lack of muscle we agreed just to dig and stack at the base of the shaft. A grand total of 52 bags now await removal.
Alan attacked the latest boulder with the hammer and reduced it by about a quarter, by which time we agreed just to stack it at the back of the chamber. If we get another big one we'll reduce both of them at the same time. It's not in the way at the moment
The face is looking interesting - seems to have levelled out (at the back on the left at least). There also seem to be an upward development (probably a pocket to be fair) which goes up for a foot or so in sand.
Pool Passage was expected to be awash after the rains but in fact was fairly dry - the link passage only had about 3 inches of water in it as well.
We've all signed up for next week - even Matt is showing interest!
Clive North.
Alan Gray, Clive North, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey & Richard Witcombe.
With the 52 bags from last week slowly being escorted out of the cave, Matt set to work on the dig face for some hot and sweaty labour filling an extra 32 bags. The situation at the end remains easy digging in a sandy fill through some attractively coloured sedimentary layers ("If only those layers could talk" as Rich mused wistfully later in the pub) and no sign yet of any change in the nature of the passage, though it does appear to be levelling out slightly. There seems to be plenty more scope for excavation down there, and in most directions at the moment.
A stunning new record of 84 bags of spoil brought to the surface dump tonight through Erratic via the rift connection. We have now built a very fine patio area from the spoil outside the entrance, enough to support a couple of deckchairs and possibly even a barbecue !
Matt Voysey.
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Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Alan Gray, Rob Taviner (Tav) (with a surface appearance in extra time by Richard Witcombe). 48(?) bags to surface. Way on very much as before. Took a couple of photos (attached). Regards
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Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Alan Gray and Clive North.
Alan and Clive at the sharp end with Matt ferrying bags up to Mandy at the pitch.
60 bags found their way to the surface by the evenings end....the dig shows a continuation of the dramatic 'tube in the roof'. More needs to be dug out of the left wall and some from the floor to provide working space. The left hand wall may in fact be more long roof pendants - in which case we are probably picking our way slowly through these features in what is probably a large passage ......
Time will tell .... hopefully !
All best
Clive North.
P.S. Pool Passage very dry even after all the rain......
Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, Rob Taviner (Tav), Mark Lumley (Gonzo) & Dave King.
Since, shifting the spoil in two separate operations last week seemed to work quite well, we went for the same tactic this week. The first stage was to shift/haul the spoil from the sharp end, up the pitch and stack the filled bags in JW Passage (ouch!). Then we all moved up the cave for the second stage. Hauling the spoil up the through the rift connection to erratic, and on out to the surface.
Very little horizontal progress was made this week, with most of the emphasis on lowering the floor by approx 10" to ease digging operations. A total of (I think) 72 bags were removed to the surface. (Might have dug more, but we ran out bags, plus I think boredom threshold was getting close or Mike (Oakhill L'lord) could be heard calling).
In the interest of health and safety, some of the spoil was used to reduce the potential trip hazards on the path leading up from the quarry floor to the patio/barbecue area.
Dave King.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Dave King, Tony Boycott and Clive North
All to the end for a concentrated session of 'pass-the-bag-back' until we had a respectable pile of about 60 bags ready to go up. (The ropeway now needs some attention to re-tension the cable before we do any more hauling as it's getting really hard work to fight both the skip dragging up the slope and the very slippery, muddy rope.)
As access to the bottle screw at the bottom is very tricky it would be easier to undo the jubilee clip at the top first - we'll need another spanner for that.
The end is looking, well very similar !
More frolics next week I suspect !
Clive North.
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Inquiries have revealed that the three figures in Gonzo's recent photograph of the Balch pitch are Dave King, Dave King and DAVE KING ! (See detail extract on right). How can this be ? Is it possible that Gonzo's sideline interest "Gonzo Genetics Co" has succeeded in cloning a human being (or at least a close approximation to one). In 2004, Gonzo's attempts to produce multiple Rich Witcombes mercifully did not get beyond the drawing-board stage (see here), but this time it appears that he has been successful. Where will this all end ? Has Gonzo a diabolical plan to produce serried ranks of Mandy Voyseys to help with his digging projects in South Wales ? Some thoughts are just too awful to contemplate. |
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Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Clive North, Alan Gray.
Due to the lack of diggers the exercise was completed in two phases –
40 bags removed. Digging at the end has revealed phreatic scallops in the roof with a ½cm air gap between infill and roof.
Alan Gray.
Alan Gray, Dave King, Clive North, Rob (Tav) Taviner, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Richard Witcombe.
A late kick-off to the earth moving action tonight thanks to the negligent car-park gate blocking activities of a certain Cornish, Ford Ka driving dog walker with an imperfect appreciation of the actual duration of five minutes. We shall have to procure and mount a "this gate in constant use" sign I feel.
Whilst Dave fitted a brand new heavyweight pully (to minimize friction!) to the top of the pitch and the usual cableway fettling was performed, Matt and Rich resumed the attack upon the dig face. Around a foot of floor was removed from an area directly in front of the large vertical wall that is blocking forward progress in the passage, from which efforts it has become clear that this "wall" seems to be another, extremely large, roof pendant, the bottom of which has not yet been revealed.
In additional exploration the small, clay-filled pocket on the left of the dig uncovered last week was pursued further until it became clear that its roof started rapidly trending downwards, behind the aforementioned blocking wall and at the same alarming angle as the rest of the passage behind us. Unfortunately, this side pocket is really rather too small to follow so, as expressed by the timeless lyrical wisdom of Status Quo, "down, down, deeper and down" is looking like the only sensible option for next week. I wonder just how far down we can go?
A count of 64 bags brought to the surface tonight; special mention to Tav for single-handedly pulling every one up the rift connection to Erratic and of course not moaning one little bit.
Matt Voysey.
Paul Brock and John Noble
A BEC look-see and help-out trip. All five bags that were stored at the face were filled and then some more spoil was excavated and stacked.
[Details recounted by John over a few pints in Hunters' on Monday lunch-time.]
Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray, Dave King and Clive North.
Alan, Mandy and Clive to the end with Dave and Matt on the ledge with Rich in JWP.
50 bags taken to the surface.....a BEC party had been down and very kindly filled five bags for us (completely !). These took a while to empty and repackage in several 'hauler-friendly' versions. There was also a large pile of excavated sand awaiting removal as well.
As a result only a few bags of 'virgin spoil' were taken from the face.
It's looking like there may be one large pendant on the left side with two small ones on the right. The big pendant has a conspicuous horizontal crack running across it near the top which may mean that it will detach itself (with or without encouragement) as we dig around it.
It would be worth removing some of the left hand sand wall (ditto right) to see what's there before proceeding further.
All to dig for (as ever!)
Clive North.
Alan Gray, Rich Witcombe, Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav).
A small crack team removed 60 bags from the face, of which 35 went all the way out. The remaining 25 are awaiting removal in JW's Passage. Digging exposed the very large pendant in its entirety - a very fine feature which hopefully can be preserved. The 'crack' seems to be a natural waterworn feature. Some good quality solid bedrock was exposed on either side of the pendant so the obvious way on is down below it, following a large, steeply dipping phreatic, sand-filled tube.
Rob Taviner.
Alan Gray, Dave King, Clive North, Rob (Tav) Taviner, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Richard Witcombe and Mark (Gonzo) Lumley [artistic advisor].
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," is something I certainly didn't cry this week, but nevertheless it's an apt quote. After a bemusing and protracted episode of mass debate, where the group questioned the optimum team configuration with which to tackle tonight's dig (you'd think we'd never done this before!), we all gave in to inevitability and piled in as usual.
Matt and Dave headed down south with a batch of empties to get a head start on the excavations; meanwhile the rest of the team began to tackle the couple of dozen bags waiting patiently for removal from JW's passage, whilst being sketched in a series of high action poses by Gonzo (on his first trip underground since wrist surgery).
At the sharp end, efforts were concentrated on lowering the floor of the passage in front of the great pendant to allow digging beneath, and towards that objective the existing step has now been lowered by about 8 inches, but it's going to need to go down a fair bit more before we can easily dig under the blockage. Forty new bags were filled and in due course hefted to the surface, bringing the total dumped tonight to 65.
Matt Voysey.
Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Rob Taviner (Tav), Clive North, Dave King, Richard Witcombe, Alan Gray & Ray Deasey. (Guest Appearance from Australia)
50 bags removed to surface. Excavations behind and to the left of the 'Great Pendant' revealed a heavily fluted bedrock wall, which suggest it's going fairly vertical. The bedrock seems to be changing character as well - becoming coarser. This seems to tie up well with the geology to the west of the Withybrook Fault (along which Balch Cave is formed).
It looks like we have reached the junction of the Clifton Down Limestone (within which Withyhill, Shatter & Balch can be found) and the Hotwells Limestone (Fernhill, Fairy/Hilliers). We can expect the limestone to become steadily coarser, darker & crinoidal. The Hotwells also contains a lot more impervious shale which exert considerable control over cave lithology.
The overall effect is to change the main direction from N-S (fault controlled) to E-W (shale band influenced). So pretty much anything could happen. It is possible, however, that the dig represents a hitherto completely unknown fossil level of devlopment in the quarry running parallel to the Hilliers streamway.
Rob Taviner.
THE OLD SWEATS:
Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, & Dave King
PLUS from the MNRC:
Steve Shipston & Fiona Burchell.
PLUS from the BEC:
Phil Coles, John Noble, Paul Brock & Sissel
Balomatis.
Excavations continued behind and to the left of the 'great pendant'. With my most earnest encouragement, guest digger Fiona filled a creditable 40 bags which were removed then to surface by regular diggers and others. I realise this total may fall under the professional diggers' average, but it must be five years since I regularly appeared underground to egg diggers onwards. Dave K reckons I should have offered to help dig as well, but Fiona appeared to be enjoying herself too much.
Geologically, there appears to be a facet of rock closing in on the dig face from the left-hand wall, dipping steeply downwards at an angle of 50 - 60 degrees. It is not known whether this is a continuation of the wall, or an intruding feature. A 2" deep flake of either very coarse limestone or more probably very muddy calcite protruding from the back wall should soon yield to mechanical tickling.
Examination of the back cut mud floor under the pendant revealed the presence of blue-grey clay, rather than reddish glacial fill. Whether this has precipitated out of standing water or has been simply washed in I will leave to the geologists, as I will the significance, if any, of these features.
Debrief for Matt's benefit followed at the Oakhill.
Part Two, with names of those present, and details of what caused Mandy to run away and hide, to follow by Dave King.
Steve Shipston
[Fiona Burchell was so shaken by this
experience that she took refuge in poetry.
See An evening out:
Mendip Style]
Dave King's story.
For me, digging preparations started early this Wednesday, in fact on Tuesday to be precise with the de-greasing of suitable oil containers and giving them a new life as spoil buckets.
As Wed evening approached, I received a request from Mandy to pick her up since Matt was unavailable (three down, Tav is also away & Gonzo's still recovering from his operation), followed shortly by a text from Clive "won't be out tonight - pub maybe" (four down).
On route, I decided to go via the MNRC, to badger the five staying there into joining us, with a partial success I persuaded two already weary cavers to give in and join us (up by two).
At Fairy Quarry car park, Alan arrived solo, no Rich (five down - two up). The five strong team now comprising, Fiona B, Steve S, Mandy V, Alan G & self (Dave K), headed off across the quarry with a bit of newt spotting en-route. Whilst I took Steve and Fiona in through the lower entrance via Pool Passage, Mandy and Alan went in via Erratic and installed the new hauling skips, hope you all like blue.
With a few options thrown about as to how we best deploy ourselves we all went down the pitch with Fiona at the sharp end, Steve exchanging empty for filled bags, myself, Alan and Mandy ferrying bags up the dig passage (we still need to name it yet). [ The Carpal Tunnel ?? ]
After a dozen or so bags were removed, noises were heard back up the pitch, someone's coming, perhaps Clive - no, Gonzo and a sketch pad - no, the ghost of Wig ?? Mandy being the last in and nearest to the bottom of the pitch had her own ideas and wasn't going to be the first to meet who or what was descending the pitch. So like a greyhound out of the starting trap (but not as elegant), she bolted past first Alan and then myself towards the safety of the dig face (a dead end ! ! ). A band of four BEC then revealed themselves, of which a couple had been down before, the weekend bag fillers. [See 22nd July entry (T.A.) ]
So a hasty re-deployment and instruction on the hauling systems etc. enabled us to have four at the bottom of the pitch, two hauling at the top, one in JW Passage and two in Erratic. Bags were coming up thick and fast, perhaps we could get back on target of fifty bags after a slow start. Not to be, The Hunters was obviously calling louder than The Oakhill, so as suddenly as our BEC guests had arrived, so they disappeared, despite invites to the Oakhill.
Another change of positions saw Mandy and Alan emptying all the bags they'd hauled up to Erratic out by the entrance, whilst Steve loaded and Fiona and I took over the pitch hauling. In total 40 bags were removed, not a huge sum admittedly. But taking into account our additional diggers, comprising - one occasional, four part-time BEC and one guest, not too bad. Well we wouldn't have shifted many if it were just the three of us, in fact we might have opted for a caving trip elsewhere, so the assistance was much appreciated.
The remaining five-strong team plus Matt on surface support re-grouped at The Oakhill for some well earned refreshment accompanied by roast potatoes, egg mayo rolls, cheese and ham sarnies, garlic bread etc.etc.
Diggers tonight were:-
Mandy Voysey, Alan Grey, Dave King. MNRC Guests - Steve Shipston, Fiona Burchell. BEC Guests - Phil Coles, John Noble, Sissel Balomatis, Paul Brock.
Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, Dave King, Richard Witcombe and Mark (Gonzo) Lumley.
Mark and Alan at the sharp end. While Alan removed four bags of spoil from the left hand side of the pendant in the hollow created last week, Mark investigated the start of a phreatic tube at roof level to the right of the pendant. The hollow was cleaned up and the facet of rock closing in on the dig face from the left-hand wall was identified as bed rock, thus only leaving a dig area of about ½m2 to the left of the pendant.
Meanwhile, Mark had furiously enlarged the start of the tube and when the digging session was finished (56 bags) it was over ½m long, horizontal and widening out as we dug lower. The way on looks to be straight ahead but more of the right hand wall will have to be removed.
Since the Oakhill was calling, it was agreed that the bags would only be moved to JW Passage and the other diggers ascended the ladder, leaving Alan at the bottom to load the skip.
When Mandy had climbed the ladder, she complained of a stabbing sensation in her hand and on examination of the ladder, several of the strands of wire were seen to be broken. No problem, the ladder would be reversed and the faulty section would then be at the bottom.
The bottom of the ladder was secured to the traversing pulley using the "C-Links" and during its ascent became stuck; Dave gave a slight pull and it was freed. However, on examination of the good end, it was discovered that the one of the wires at the top of the ladder had completely broken.
Back to plans A and B ~ leave Alan down at the bottom till next week or allow him to climb the dodgy ladder. 40 bags were hauled to the top of JW Passage and as the time was rapidly approaching 10 o'clock, it was agreed that the remaining 16 bags should be left at the bottom of the pitch until next week. Not wishing to spend a week underground, Alan successfully climbed the dodgy ladders, which were then removed from the cave for inspection.
Alan Gray.
With the combination of these two vast write-ups on last Wednesday's efforts I'm sure we've witnessed a record breaking dig report for sheer girt bigness.
In fact, analytical application of statistics has revealed a stunning 20.875 words were written per bag of spoil removed. Just imagine if we described the journey of every bag from erratic down to the dig and back up with such a sum of words - it would go something like this:
"Toss, kick, squeeze, toss, drag, unbag, open, fill, ferry, load, haul, transfer, haul, load, haul, carry, load, haul, empty, re-bag, rol"
Matt Voysey.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Alan Gray, Richard Witcombe, Rob Taviner (Tav), Tony Audsley.
   (Click on images for enlarged versions). |
An early start by Gonzo and Dave to shift last week's 40 bags from JW passage to Erratic. The full team then removed the remaining 16 bags from the bottom of the pitch. The right hand 'wall' at the end of the dig was dug out by Gonzo and Matt to reveal that it is not a wall at all, but a long, serrated roof pendant that rises on the other side, hopefully to gain the 'normal' height of the passage further to the right. We dug in to a crowbar's length through the soft, dry, black and red sand layers but have not yet found the right hand wall of the passage - all to play for. 100 bags came out of the cave in total (and one retired skip) before the pub beckoned. Regards
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  (Click on images for enlarged versions). |
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Morning: (Using JRat's convention of putting surface workers in brackets means that I get mentioned twice). The days work involved preparing formwork for a concrete beam to stabilise the entrance shaft. People skilled in these matters say "measure twice, cut once". Lesser mortals try it, cut it, try it, cut it, try it again and cut it again. Enough of that, time for the Hunters'. Afternoon: More of the same, Tony down the hole, measuring; Alice at the top, cutting ... and cutting ... and cutting ...
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Richard Witcombe, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Alan Gray, Dave King and Clive North.
Due to the restricted digging team, we all located to the bottom to pass the bags back to the base of the pitch. This was then followed by a hauling session to the 'stacking-station' at the top of JWP.
Some 55 bags were excavated by Alan, Dave and Clive. The end is looking very good (for a change!) - the vertical wall is on the left, whilst to the right of the latest 'big fang' pendant the sand has been removed for a couple of feet to the right and also horizontally straight on. No sign of a right hand wall or a limit to the horizontal development at this side. All to dig for (again!).
The next session will have to start with bag removal to the surface....
Clive North.
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Morning: In double brackets because working on the surface and at home, fabricating a bender for the reinforcing bar for the concrete beam. This was made up from Useful Metal Bits rescued as they were about to be thrown out in a tidy-up session at the Belfry. Shame on you Henry :) Afternoon: 20+ times up and down the entrance ladder. Fitting, bending and tweaking the reinforcing. Progress slow as ever.
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Morning:
Tony Jarratt (Jrat) and Henry Bennett (plus visitor: Nigel
Taylor).
Two loads out. Lots of digging and bag shifting.
Afternoon:
Tony Jarratt (Jrat) and Tony Audsley.
Two more loads out. More bag filling at the end. Tony continued work with the lintel preparation.
Tony Jarratt.
Richard Witcombe, Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), David King, Clive North, Robin Taviner (Tav), plus Fiona Crozier (BEC) and Hannah Bell (BEC).
Rich, Al and Mandy in Erratic. Gonzo in JW. Dave & Clive at the top of the pitch. Tav plus visitors Fiona Crozier & Hannah Bell at the dig.
Excellent turnout saw 55 bags from last week plus 60 new bags removed to the surface. 115 in total !!
The dig face now consists of a left and right branch which is probably one very wide face split by two very big roof pendants. The right hand branch currently looks like the best route to follow as the roof tube is more pronounced. Too early to say for sure but the way on seems to be continuing to dip gently downwards through some very soft sand. Still haven't found a solid right hand wall though.
Warm work at the face - although not quite as warm as crawling for 3000 ft in bone dry concrete tubes in full wet gear !!
Rob Taviner.
[Afterwards, Hannah wrote a ¾ page entry in the Belfry Log, extolling the wonders of the dig, while Fiona said it was "Wikkid" (T.A.)]
Tony Audsley.
Tony, posing as a 
operative, hosed down and scrubbed up the walls
of the entrance shaft, in preparation for concrete,
etc. (Apologies to this evening's team for the
damp state of the rift).
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Dave King, Mandy Voysey, Clive North, Matt Voysey, Rob Taviner, Rich Witcombe, Alan Gray. Plus Fiona Crozier (BEC) and Hannah Bell (BEC).
Gonzo, Dave & Mandy at the front. Clive at the bottom of the pitch. Matt and Hannah on the ledge. Fiona at the u tube. Tav and Richard in Erratic. Alan on the surface.
Passage ahead has large, loose rocks (one of which made its presence felt!), suggesting a wall, although they may just be fallen blocks embedded in the sand, while to the right the digging is easy, through soft sand. No sign of a right wall as yet.
We may have turned a corner, it may be an inlet or it could be that we're just wandering around in the roof of a large, choked passage and the way on is still downwards.
75 bags (wantonly overfilled!) to surface.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Tony Audsley {Alice Audsley, Rosie Audsley, Pierre Abastado}
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Morning: The underground worker installed the formwork and some of the reinforcing bars while the surface workers sawed wood, ferried ironwork and stood round the shaft, soaking up the rain. Afternoon:
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Tony Audsley {Alice Audsley, Rosie Audsley, Pierre Abastado}
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Morning: Afternoon:
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Balcheviks:
Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Rob Taviner (Tav),
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Honoured BEC Guest:
Tony Jarratt (JRat).
JRat and Mandy at the front. Gonzo, Dave and Tav shuttling bags to the base of the pitch. Then all moving back a stage to end up with 58 bags stacked up in JW passage before retreating to charge up with vital fluids, minerals and salt at a nearby haven.
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Tony Audsley.
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A quick visit to photograph the beam and to grind off the excess lengths of studding which were sticking down from the bottom of the shuttering. Hopefully, bags should not catch there when being hauled up the shaft. (All the shuttering will be removed on Tuesday).
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Tony Jarratt (JRat), Carole White
One Land Rover load of spoil taken to the dump then spoil clearing and bag shifting underground.
Tony Jarratt.
Tony Audsley.
Two hours levering, hammering, sawing and wrecking the shuttering. All is now off. Not the best beam ever, but it will do.
Tony Audsley.
Regular Balcheviks:
Dave King, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Matt Voysey,
Mandy Voysey and Richard Witcombe.
Plus BEC diggers: Hannah Bell, Pete
Hellier and Sean Howe.
Although working nowhere near the face, I will attempt a brief report of Wednesday's activities (10 Oct) lest Tony A and Alan G get restless.
Early arrivers, Dave K, Gonzo, Hannah and RW, were joined later by Matt & Mandy and BEC guest diggers, Pete Hellier and Sean Howe. No bats were present in Erratic Passage, so last week's J.W. Passage stockpile of 58 bags was whisked out to the surface. As the full team gradually spread themselves around the cave, more bags started coming up from the face. By the evening's end, another 54 bags had been taken out of the cave - making a grand total of 112.
The front-line diggers reported that the roof is dipping down again !
News from the Oakhill Inn - the present tenants are moving out so it will be a new landlord next Weds.
Rich Witcombe.
Tony Jarratt (JRat), Carole White, Mike Willett, Jake Baynes and Phil Coles.
60 loads out. The skip hauling in the main rift works well. Lots of bags moved throughout the cave.
Tony Jarratt.
Tony Jarratt (JRat)
Widened the skip road and filled bags at the end of Root 66.
Tony Jarratt.
Trevor Hughes, Tony Jarratt (JRat).
Lots of bag moving underground and 43 bags hauled to grass.
Tony Jarratt.
Tony Jarratt (JRat)
Lots of bags filled at Root 66. Two loads hauled to grass. One Land Rover load of bags taken to the dump.
Tony Jarratt.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Dave King, Richard Witcombe and Alan Gray.
Gonzo and Tav at the end, Matt at the bottom of the pitch, Dave and Richard at the top, Alan in JW, Mandy in Erratic.
After Tuesday's rain there were signs of flooding at the dig, with partially buried tools suggesting that water may have come in through the sandy fill on the right at the end (the Sandy Warhole !?), and sunk in the clarty well on the left.
Digging continued straight ahead, to the right of the large pendant, following a phreatic roof arch for a couple of feet. Beyond this point we will need to go down again as we have reached a wall, arch, or narrow turn in the passage.
After 60 bags were removed, a moist exit was made through the breakthrough point to Pool Passage before adjourning to the Horse and Jockey for libations and talk of winter projects.
Regards,
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Alan Gray, Dave King, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Mandy Voysey & Matt Voysey.
Dave at the sharp end, Alan & Mandy ferrying spoil to the bottom of the pitch, Tav & Matt pitch hauling, Gonzo hauling through to JW Passage.
Down at the digging face, it became apparent that the vertical wall straight ahead was not connected to surrounding rock. So digging commenced above, below and around the sides of the rock and some lowering of the floor. Attacking the rock with a wrecking bar caused it split down the middle. Eventually, after 44 bags of spoil removed, the two halves, measuring approx. 6"x24"x36" each, were finally free to drop to the floor. The two slabs were hauled away from the digging face, but will probably require reducing with a sledge' before moving them further back.
The face has now progressed a further 2ft, but is narrow. The first part of the right hand wall as you approach the end is limestone, but appears to be a huge boulder that's dropped about 3", well that's the depth of the mud band between it and the roof. The final approach on the right is more clay/sandy infill. The left wall is still the large pendant as previously reported.
After relocation of resources for the second stage of hauling and tipping the 44 bags of spoil were removed to the surface. Followed by an investigation of The Oakhill after its recent change of Landlord.
Dave King.
Alan Gray, Dave King, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Richard Witcombe and Hannah Bell.
Halloween Digging
Mandy Voysey, Alan Gray, Dave King, Rich Witcombe and Hannah
Bell.
(Photo Matt Voysey).
Gonzo and Alan at the dig, Matt, Dave and Richard at the base of the shaft, pumpkin-illuminated Mandy and Hannah at the top.
The two large blocks from last week were quickly demolished and sent back to Richard (AKA Hadrian) who, after removing the 1 ton sack from the bottom of the shaft, commenced work on his long-discussed wall to keep out the northern marauders.
The dig progressed for 60 plus bags horizontally, through long slabs, and down through soft sand.
36(?) bags were hauled to surface before adjourning to the Horse and Jockey for a discussion on whether it was a suitable venue for an ATLAS Christmas dinner one Wednesday in December (cauliflower cheese and chips for under £4.00, extra Yorkshire Pudding 20p !).
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
Alan Gray, Dave King, Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav), Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Rich Witcombe. Plus: Faye Litherland (BEC).
Tav and Matt at the dig, Faye and Alan hauling through the passage, Mandy loading the skips, Richard walling at the base of the shaft, Gonzo and Dave hauling at the top of the shaft.
Matt concentrated on the dig face, heading straight ahead while Tav dug in the alcove to the right of the current site. This alternative may be promising as it is a three feet high wall of sandy infill showing many bands of sediment. With two people digging, seventy bags were quickly filled and with much sweat they were hauled though to the base of the shaft. Meanwhile, Richard continued with the wall building; filling the void created with old infill from the Hessian sacks that he split open. These old sacks will be removed from the cave.
While the remainder of the bags were being hauled up the pitch, Alan decided to have a look at the end where Matt was digging. Matt had extended the dig ahead for about two feet, revealing yet another large flat boulder embedded in the mud. Using the large crowbar and much effort, this was removed from its mud tomb and with Alan pushing with his feet and Matt pulling, it was dragged back to the alcove. The even larger boulder that was embedded in the right-hand wall was then prized out and also dragged back. When we reached Richard, who was still walling, he became very excited about the rocks "just what I require for my wall".
We all them moved through the cave and the seventy bags were emptied on the surface spoil heap.
It was then like Death Race 2000 as we made our way to the Waggon and Horses, but they must have heard we were coming as they switched all the lights off and pretended to be closed. So back to the Oakhill. An interesting addition to their menu board Wi-Fi soup ! -- now you can connect to the internet while having a pint -- maybe we could have a live web cam show each week to discuss the dig with those who could not make it? [What a DREADFUL thought. I thought that Mobile phones in pubs were bad enough, but that is a vision of HELL. (T.A.)]
Alan Gray.
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Morning: Tony Jarratt (JRat). More bag filling at the end after taking three Land Rover loads to the dump. |
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Afternoon: Jane Clarke, Tony Jarratt (JRat), Tony Audsley and Millie (Jane's dog). Emptied all the full bags (ca. 200) at the dump in glorious but cold weather. [Because of the total lack of suitable space by the shaft, all spoil has to be Land Rovered to a separate dumping ground(T.A.)].
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 Jane Clarke and Tony Jarratt at the spoil dump |
Hannah Bell, Alan Gray, Dave King, Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Rich Witcombe. Plus: Steve Sharp (Axbridge Caving Group - ACG).
Hannah and Steve at the dig, Matt and Alan hauling through the passage and loading the skips, Richard walling at the base of the shaft, Mandy and Dave hauling at the top of the shaft.
Alan and Steve spent the first part of the session breaking the large boulders (extracted last week) into moveable chunks which were then ferried to Richard for his Great Wall. Steve and Hannah then continued digging straight ahead in the mud filled small passage removing several small boulders as they were revealed.
Thirty six bags were hauled to the top of the pitch and when we had taken up our new positions these were then emptied on the surface.
Steve did some extra digging at the end, estimating that there will be some twenty bags for us to fill next week from the spoil that he extracted. He noted that the horizontal passage was pinching in but the rock on the right was not bedrock but more mud entombed boulders. Additionally, he stated that in the roof of this newly dug passage was very wet mud - interesting as it has not rained since the 9th of November (according to the Mendip Weather Station).
Alan Gray.
Just for the record, two bags of spoil were dumped behind the Great Wall - (for Matt's benefit, this was 5.26% of the evening's spoil removal). [For those who don't know him - Matt is a lover of all things numericalT.A.]
Rich Witcombe.
And finally, Paul Stillman announced that he went to Eastbourne on Wednesday and, what is more, he enjoyed it ! (We do worry about Paul).
Wednesday 14th: Mike Willett, Alex Livinston, Tony Jarratt (JRat), {John Williams (Tangent)}.
60 loads out with Tangent (no caving gear) on surface hauling duties. One litre of red drain dye dumped in dig near the base of Son of a Pitch (SOAP). The terminal dig seems to be closing down.
Friday 16th: Tony Jarratt (JRat).
The total number of loads out so far, including an estimated 170 for the original diggers, is 2700. At an estimated average weight of 8Kg per bag, this makes a total of 21600 Kg or 19.44 tons !
Dug in the floor, the alcove on the left and at the end. Here a small hole on the left was poked and a fall of clay revealed an inaccessible air space above. Is this the way on ? Two holes drilled on the rock corner. Lots of bags filled and stacked. The air was good.
Saturday 17th: Tony Jarrat (JRat).
The vacuum hose was extended and a third hole drilled. One Land Rover load of bags taken to the dump.
Sunday 18th: Tony Jarrat (JRat).
Excellent results from yesterday's session and it is now possible to access the airspace via a dug-out classic "S" bend of two metres. The airspace has closed up but digging led to another one beyond. More bags filled and stacked.
Monday 19th: Tony Jarrat (JRat), John Williams (Tangent), Paul Brock.
All dug at the end, lots of bags were filled and stacked. The second air-space was almost reached, but bad air stopped play. This is almost certainly the way on and it looks good. Lots of bags hauled up to S.O.A.P.
Tony Jarratt.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Alan Gray, Matt
Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Dave King.
Plus: Steve Sharp (Axbridge Caving Group ~ ACG).
After Gonzo had finished scaring a spider by flashing at him (well actually he doesn't flash, just illuminates), we all headed off down to the dig via the rift.
As expected it was a tad damp. Down to the left a puddle of water and to the right, where digging continues, 4 to 5 inches of water had turned the un-bagged spoil from last week into a mud slurry. We checked for signs of the water having flowed in from above or down the passage, but no indications were found.
Mandy and Dave set to work bagging up the slurry and the bags were then ferried back by the rest of the team and deposited behind Richard's new retaining wall at the bottom of the pitch. We dug a channel in the dig passage to allow most of the water to drain down to the lower left alcove. Whilst bagging the slurry and draining the water, Mandy uncovered the source of the water, a small hole in the right hand wall at floor level.
Mandy said, "A torrent of water was gushing in through the hole."
Dave said, "The water trickled in until the water level rose and stabilised back to the level we found it at."
This level must either be the temporarily raised ground water level, or the water level in the lake chamber or stream passage a few feet further in ! ! ! The mud/sand underneath the mud slurry seemed fairly dry, indicating that the water doesn't easily drain through the floor, which is probably why the lower left alcove hadn't filled with water.
In total, 53 bags were deposited behind Richard's retaining wall. Then we all exited via the wet link and adjourned to the Poacher's Pocket.
Dave King.
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Alan Gray, Mandy Voysey, Richard Witcombe, Rob Taviner (Tav) and Dave King.
Dave came up with the lame excuse that he had hurt his knee and would only be able to haul bags from Erratic Passage. With such a small group it would not be possible to haul all the spoil from the cave so Alan suggested that Dave could find all the spiders in the passage and give them names. After a short reflection, Dave decided to come down to the dig face. [Dave has been told, by the consultant, that his knee must be rested and not to put unnecessary weight on it otherwise it may require an operation]. Mandy suggested, most unkindly, that Dave had crinoids on his knee!
Gonzo, Tav and Alan started digging and transporting the spoil, Dave and Mandy transporting and Richard wall building. After removal of about 10 bags of wet mud, the dig returned to its usual consistency; sandy mud. However, the air was heavily laden with CO2 and after a filling a few bags, the diggers were all panting away and had to change around.
The end of the dig seems to have changed, pinching in, but still following the small phreatic roof tube. Gonzo excavated a section of the left-hand wall about six feet from the end of the dig and it seems as though this could be another small tunnel behind a massive roof pendant. Before further forward progress can be made, the floor will have to be significantly lowered. 55 bags were dumped behind Richard's wall.
Alan Gray.
There were two ATLAS teams underground this week - in two caves.
The Balcheviks: Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Rob Taviner (Tav) and Steve Sharp.
The Fairies:Alan Gray, Richard Witcombe, Mandy Voysey, Hannah Bell, Dave King (with Zimmer) and Clive North.
The Fairies set off down Fairy to *he*k out the as*ending rift, about half way down the *ave, whi*h we had noted as a possible winter site.....
The rift is about 30ft high, steeply angled and around 2-3ft wide on average, *losing down to about 18in*hes wide at the top. At this point, there is a lightly stal'd boulder blo*kage. One or two of the boulders are mu*h bigger than the rift, so they must have emanated from somewhere 'bigger' higher up and have jammed in the narrow lower portion.
A happy half hour or so was spent ha*king away at the jammed ro*ks (*live) before passing them down to Hannah, who was *ontentedly wedged in a *onfortable portion of the rift. She in turn guided them down to Ri*h, who was trying to stay upright on the slippery lower slope leading up to the rift. He in turn passed them on down to Mandy and Dave in the roomy *hamber at the bottom. (Is it just me or is this getting just a little tedious?!)
After some *ontortions and verti*al wriggling, I put a short hole in the *losest jammed ro*k and fitted a small *harge.
This apparently did what was expe*ted and removed the first ro*k from the *hoke. To *ontinue, we would need to widen the approa*h in the immediate vi*inity of the *hoke (about 6ft below) - this shouldn't take too mu*h effort before ta*kling the *hoke proper.
Hannah (who *he*ked out the damage afterwards) reported that there were fumes in the rift below the *hoke but around the fa*e itself it was *lear - maybe this points to a slight air movement down from the *hoke. (Or maybe it's be*ause the fumes sink anyway!)
The only digging next week will be into Xmas meals at the Poa*hers Po*ket!
Clive North.
We arrived at the bottom of the pitch to find Ri*hard's wall had been undermined by a sand slump, making it unsafe. This was pa*ked with spoil and ro*k but will need major repair or removal.
Steve Sharp and Gonzo filled a dozen or so bags just to ensure that the passage was suffi*iently steamy to make Tav's 20 minutes of surveying a little more *hallenging. The trio then exited, removing the spoil from this week and last.
The suggestion was made that we should sort out the wall and then leave the dig in pea*e until the spring. Bal*heviks and Fairies then adjourned to the Horse and Jo*key for a dis*ussion about Nigel Graham's ..... [ two lines deleted here to protect Gonzo from possible litigation (T.A.)] . ..... Deep joy!
Regards
Mark Lumley (Gonzo).
In the letters pages of recent issues of Descent (198 &199), sensitive souls have been complaining about the names given to some cave passages. A crawl in Priddy Green Sink seems to cause particular offence. This apparently causes so much torment that some people cannot even utter "they words" and have to refer to them as "c-words".
In due deference to such exquisite refinement, I have replaced the letter "c" by an asterix in the accounts of last Wednesday's digging.
These accounts are certified as entirely "c-word" free and may be safely read by all.
P.S. If, on the other hand, you are a fan of "they words", you could always listen to this
The diners:
Rob Taviner (Tav), Richard Witcombe, Faye
Litherland, Hannah Bell, Mark Lumley (Gonzo),
Alan Gray, Tony Audsley, Alice Audsley, Simon
Meade-King, Mandy Voysey, Matt Voysey, Janet
North, Clive North.
Additionally, for the
after-dinner wittering session:
Jim Young, Dave Morrison and Tim Ball.
Absent because of
'flu:
Dave King (and he had made all the arrangements - no justice in
the world).
Poachers Pocket Christmas
Menu 2007
Tomato & Basil Soup
(served with crusty bread)
Stilton & Stout Pate
(served with toast)
Prawn Cocktail
(served with salad garnish)
***
Roast Turkey
Braised Beef with Chestnuts & Celery
Grilled Trout with Almonds
Caramelised Onion & Goat's Cheese Tart
served with seasonal vegetables, roast potatoes & all the
trimmings
***
Traditional Christmas Pudding
Mo's Home-made Mississippi Mud Pot
Fruit Sorbet
Selection of Cheese & Biscuits
***
Coffee & Mints
Four hours of drinking, then eating & drinking, then wittering & drinking. All very satisfactory.
Dave King gained the "Digger of the Year Award", logging 49 sessions. Mandy and Alan Gray were runners up with 45 and 42 sessions respectively.
~ 10101010 ~
Mark Lumley (Gonzo), Richard Witcombe, Steve Sharp, Dave King, Alan Gray, Matt Voysey, Mandy Voysey, Rob Taviner (Tav), Phil Romford.
Matt, Tav and Alan down the very bottom, whi*h had apparently flooded up to an impressive sump sometime during the last 2 weeks (you *ould see a foamy tide-mark high on the walls) but was now dry, so at least draining well. A possible tiny inlet spout on the right wall was fingered. Also new was a rather hefty boulder/flake, whi*h we had previously taken for bedro*k, lying deta*hed from the *eiling. Rather in the way but possible to work round. Unable to progress further horizontally where the rift walls begin to *lose in, we started lowering the floor and sta*king spoil in the passage behind - 44 bags worth.
The rest of the team (in*luding guest veteran *aver Phil Romford) had to haul 50 bags of really slimy mud from the remains of Ri*hard's wall (whi*h had *ollapsed almost totally) out of the *ave and to the surfa*e. There's still work to be done down there in the new year.
Then after a jolly session jump-starting Phil's (borrowed) *ar with duff jump-leads, we were off to meet *live at the "Old" Mendip Inn and to keep the unhappy bar staff from their beds an extra half-hour...
Matt Voysey.
Just to add to Matt's report -
The slime mark was about 3 feet from the deepest part of the dig so last week, when we were enjoying the *hristmas meal the dig would have been a sump ! The flake that broke off was six feet six long and 2 feet thi*k and fell into the spa*e where one of the haulers would have been sitting had we been digging. The floor of the dig looked as though it was *overed in liquid *ho*olate where the water had retreated.
Alan Gray.
[ * See below, 9th December for an explanation of this(T.A.) ]
Alan Gray & Clive North.
The last session of the year saw us at the end and hasn't changed in the 3 months since I saw it last!
The contents of 21 bags were packed into the alcove in the approach chamber (behind the rocks) and a little forward progress made. The right hand wall at the end is a strange thin slab of bedrock a few inches thick with sand behind - it's obviously another, albeit strange, version of a pendant angled at about 20° off vertical.
It continues back towards the entrance for about 6ft - if removed will provide some much needed width and some more walling stone ! By digging out the sand behind it (there is a section missing in the middle), it should be possible to break up quite a bit of it at least with the short sledge. Alan put his head into the aforementioned gap and could see along behind the slab for about 18inches.
We certainly felt slight CO2 effects as the evening wore on - a burning candle here as a precaution would be a good move when we have several diggers in situ.
It's a great shame about Rich's wall - it's certainly a real mess there at the moment.
Quite wet in Pool Passage (although the low crawl was dry) and The Link needed a bit of a bale out.
Back to normal on Wednesday then!
Oh, three out of three pubs we passed last night were closed so no nightcap!
Weather forecast not looking promising at the moment for a New Year's day boat trip.....
Clive North.
