With Tav. After an enforced break due to a whole load of things – vehicle breakdown, illness, the season’s festivities and some very crap weather – we were glad to get back to digging in Hallowe’en Rift.
First task was to ‘battle’ with some rather large boulders, one being too big to fit into the skip so was dragged and shoved down the length of Toil and Trouble to the bottom of the pot. This particular boulder later required a considerable effort to get it up to the top of Witches Cauldron and along to the base of the entrance shaft where it is now a temporary step. After clearing the remaining boulders and cobbles I set about removing the wobbly boulder jammed in the small rift to the left. Ended up taking out a very large slab of rock that is too big to fit along ‘T and T’ so will need the attention of the sledge at a later time. Anyway the wobbly rock was now moved and placed to one side and digging was easier to progress in a quite comfortable space. The way ahead as always is both tantalising and frustrating. Lots of sediment will need to be removed and some slabs of old flowstone that are buried within the sediments will require breaking up. About a metre ahead there appears to be a ‘T’ junction although cannot see fully what happens to the left where most of the draught seems to emanate. There is now a large amount of spoil to be removed from the cave to the surface and this will be the priority when the full digging team are assembled.
Hunter’s for the usual refreshments and discussions.
