Vince, Nick, Jake, Jon, and Sam
Well, here we are at last the first trip into WH of 2026. Now that the wet winter has passed and a sustained period of drier weather it is time to get back to some digging!
At Land of Hope & Glory (LoH&G) and as it was his first trip into this part of the cave, Jake and Jon took Sam for a tour around this fine section of the cave. Meanwhile, me and Nick went along to the dig to have a review of situation and make an assessment as to what our next move might be – it wasn’t looking especially promising at the close of 2025 (but, perhaps we’ve had it too easy and about time we worked a bit harder!) Nick descended the ‘pot’, some poking and prodding ensued, some bags were filled and hauled out, I joined Nick in the ‘pot’ and a discussion took place. The upshot being that I will resort to some “induced-rapid speleogenesis” to remove (hopefully) a ‘bulge’ of calcite so that we can better assess whatever lies beyond. The dig continues.
Jake and Sam helped to remove the filled bags to be emptied into Pointless Pot, Jon was already on his way out with some, now unused, buckets and ‘old’ bags that were probably beyond their useful ‘life’ (they were heavy!) We caught him up at the Cascade.
It is an excellent evening caving trip. Refreshments were enjoyed in the ravine taking care not to disturb the ongoing bat survey too much.