1st April 2017

With Tav, Jake and Jonathon.

Tav started the digging, later swapping places with Jonathon, who was at the bottom of the slope. I was at the top of the slope, hauling spoil and transferring the load to the skip down to Jake, on the haul and shuttle.

Before things got underway, Jake replaced the worn-out skip with a new model, that required a little fine tuning, a new return haul line was also fitted.

A steady flow of bags and rock came from the business end and time drifted by. It was soon time to move back to the entrance and clear the pile of spoil to the surface, we ended up a little later than planned. I took the opportunity to have a gander at the end before joining the others, haven’t been up here for a while. I was struck by how big it was, a lot of spoil has been shifted. High up (NNE) there is a space that could do with opening-up a bit just to check if there is anything there really. Low down in the floor (W), under a bag, is a small calcited gap downwards, this would appear to indicate there is something at a lower level. We’ll have to wait and see how it develops, there is plenty of sediment to be removed beforehand. Although the small gap might require some induced rapid speleo-genesis at some time in the future.

Back at the entrance, about 55 bags, some rocks, a ‘dead’ skip and rope, and a small frog were hauled out of the cave to the surface.

A busier session than usual at the Hunter’s; the ashes of two of Mendip’s caving stalwarts were spread, Tony Knibbs at Longwood and Ray Mansfield at Swildon’s. Left the pub rather later than anticipated.

Author: mendipgeoarch

Archaeologist, Geologist, Speleologist