With Alex, Jonathon, Jake and Brockers.
Alex digging, lowering the floor of the rift
to be able to get into the passage beyond. Meanwhile, there was a backlog of
spoil to shift from Thursday’s activities. I loaded the skip to Jonathon who
hauled it along to the sit-up chamber, there he transferred the load to another
skip hauled by Jake to the slope. Jake then man-handled the load up the slope,
into another skip down to Paul on the haul and shuttle. Pouring a little water
down the passage makes the skip hauling much easier. The spoil was stacked at
the bottom of the entrance to be removed later.
Eventually, Alex made enough room to gain
access to the low passage and make some forward progress. Filling a couple of
bags then dragging them back, sometimes with a few stones too, and passed them
up to me in the rift where the spoil was dispatched on its journey to the
entrance pile.
At the end of the session, I swapped places
with Alex to have a look at the dig. Wriggled forward over some lumpy sediment,
brushed loose stuff aside and gained another couple of metres in the low, but
wide, passage. Can’t really see the full extent to the left and ahead, a lot
more clearance required, but to the right it does appear roomier, in-line with
the east/west rift. There is a big stal boss on the floor and I think some
cryogenic crystals on the roof – need my specs to see properly, next session,
bring the camera too.
It was time to make our way out of the cave
and to clear the pile of bags and rocks from the entrance. Thirty-nine bags
were hauled out and emptied, Jon had used a couple to fill holes along the haul
route to ease the passage of the skip. There were lots of rocks too, but no-one
was counting, at least thirty probably. Plenty of wall building material now
available. It had been another good session, but not the passage gained as hoped,
still plenty to do.