Category: 2021

With Jake, Jon, Nick, Tav, Duncan and Brockers.

Jake had commented on Saturday “we need to make up for lost time”, Nick had earlier postulated “200 bags!”, so we gathered again for a ‘super’ session. The predicted wintry weather had not materialised, in fact, according to the surface crews, it was pleasantly sunny.

During the morning session, Jake and Tav took on the surface duties, the rest of were underground. Brockers joined us a bit later in the morning. The underground duties were rotated, and 124 bags were filled, dragged, and pulled up the entrance to be emptied onto the spoil heap.

At lunchtime, all gathered around the entrance for refreshments in the sunshine.

The afternoon session followed, this time Jon and Nick were on the surface, Brockers, Jake and Tav took it in turns to dig, Duncan and I hauled the bags and loaded the skip up to the surface. Another 120 or so bags went out of the cave plus a few skip-loads of stones, a total of 250 for the very productive ‘super’ session.

At last breaking free from lockdown and the digging team assembled for the first time in 2021. After a quick chat underground, I returned to the surface with Brockers to haul-out and empty bags, etc. The rest of the team mixed it up underground and shared the duties. The filled bags emerged from the cave at a steady rate, 115 of them and a few rocks too, all pulled out by Brockers! It was very pleasant on the surface in the early spring sunshine and sheltered from the breeze.

The team enjoyed themselves so much that we have decided on another session on Monday.

Vince, Roz and Brockers.

Carried on where we left off last weekend. Extended the upper section up to a small fissure in the roof, cleared some loose stuff away but could not see much. The exposed deposition layering continues to be intriguing and of particular interest was some layers formed over fallen boulders.

The extra pair of helping hands resulted in more stuff out to the surface, 36 bags emptied onto the spoil heap this weekend. There is still more to be done and looking forward to the team reuniting when the lockdown is over.

Vince and Roz.

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Vince and Roz

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Just me today. Some spoil management required, the morning spent trying to extricate my boots from especially glutinous mud!

A low turnout for the first digging session of 2021 but, not wholly unexpected. The UK government has imposed more corona-virus pandemic restrictions, that includes an ever-fluctuating and rather confusing “Tier” system. And, the weather is not great, temperatures are just about at freezing point or below and the roads are icy.

As a follow up to a suggestion that buckets might be much easier to empty, I had made a cradle/skip to pull buckets/containers up and out of the entrance rift and today was an opportunity to try the system out. I had a couple of buckets at home and also, had converted a couple of 20 litre drums into ‘suitable’ containers for spoil. As we were underground anyway, we decided to fill some bags as well. Brockers was upfront filling the bags, I cleared them away and filled the containers, the bags and containers then were shuttled along to the junction. To make it easier to get up and down the ever-deepening pit at the current end of the Soft South a ladder was put in place. It was revealed that the “solid floor” partially exposed last session, is probably a large boulder.

We filled about 30 bags (plus the other receptacles) then decided it was time to move the spoil up to the surface and add it to the spoil-heap. I can categorically state that the 4no. containers were far easier to empty than any of the bags. However, for the alternative to be a success we need a lot more containers when it is considered that we have 100+ bags available to be filled with sediment.

It was also noted that the spoil heap requires some attention, and a redistribution of sediment is necessary.

As I drove back across the border to a “Tier 3 Area” it was snowing quite heavily!