Author: mendipgeoarch

Report by Vince.

Vince, Jon, Jake, Duncan, Mike’s back after injuring himself, Nick and Tav.

We thought the water levels might be interesting this evening after heavy rain over the last few days. Walking to the cave entrance the River Axe was in full spate; a lot of water was coming from the resurgence. Throughout the cave there were drips and trickles where they hadn’t been seen before and we had a small stream for company in places.

At the dig we were not surprised to find a considerable depth of water flooding the dig at the bottom of the sand pit. A tentative effort was made by some to get a better look, but the consensus was, not worth getting that wet!

Digging was impossible so we mooched around the cave for a while looking at the water levels before going to the pub earlier than usual.

Report by Vince.

Vince, Jake, Jon, Nick and Duncan. Duncan had recruited some guest diggers from the North, Adele Ward and Lee Smith.

Initially, a trip to assess the water level in the dig as it has been raining quite a lot. I had my camera and UV light to take some fluorescence images, just in case. The flow of water in the cave was noticeable, the cascade was especially active.

At the dig, rather surprisingly the water appeared to have receded [slightly]. There had, of course, been some slumping, mostly clay/silt/sand but some boulders too. We decided that, as we were there anyway, we should clear some of the slumped material, and there was enough of us to get the buckets away.

There was an intriguing trickle of water coming down from the roof, this appears to have been the cause of the slumping. A cluster of fractured, loose rock was poked and became dislodged. A bar pushed into the wet, softer allowed an increased flow of water. Pushing the bar in further indicated there was some open space beyond. Some more poking resulted in more slumping, quite a lot of splashing and more space was revealed. It was getting exciting. The ladder was called for to make digging a bit easier, rather than being at arm’s length, and to remove a couple of obstinate boulders. Ladder in place the offending rocks were eventually prised free, more splashing and access into space beyond was opening. It looked enticing and there was fresh air movement too. Managed to wriggle up into the small “chamber”, sticky clay floor, some pools of water, the source of the trickle, but not quite enough space to see the full extent of what lies ahead. More digging required. Nick and Adele had a look too. Time had moved on quickly as it does when you’re enjoying yourselves, there were calls of “pub-time” from other team members, so we left it at that for tonight. Moved the tools and buckets to a safer location and departed. A very good and fun evening.

Didn’t get around to taking any photographs.

Report by Vince.

Vince, Jake, Jon, Nick and Tav.

It’s been raining, quite hard at times, for the last week or so. There was some discussion as to the consequences of this, Hallowe’en Rift had still been dry and mostly drip free on Tuesday evening. The trip up through the passage off Chamber 20 revealed that water was flowing in several places.

Approaching the dig, it was noted that the aven had water cascading down and the small tube it drains into was overflowing. Generally, this is not a good sign and so it proved to be, the dig was flooded to a considerable depth. Digging was impossible. We managed to rescue the tools and extract a couple of large boulders that had slumped in. we decided to spend the evening on some spoil space management, we found some rocks and built some walls. We just need the dig to dry so that we can fill the spaces we created.

We did, however, keep ourselves amused for the evening before we went to the pub!

Report by Vince.

Vince, Jake, Jon and Tav.

Tav digging, although weary after a day spent trudging around Ebbor Gorge guiding Mendip Cave Rescue to the various cave and mine entrances. It was Vince’s turn to ‘bag a munro’ clearing away the filled buckets from Tav, climbing out of the pit and loading the skip. Jon was hauling the skip, occasionally lubricating the slope with a frugal splash of water, unloading the buckets or rocks, to be carted away by Jake. The filled buckets and infrequent rocks were added to the spoil heap or wall as necessary, the buckets then scraped clean and returned, the process repeated. 54 skip-loads were dispatched and dealt with, there was no discrimination between filled buckets and the occasional rock in the final count.

It was warm work and refreshments later at the Hunter’s Lodge Inn were well earnt!

Report by Vince.

Vince, Jon, Tav and Nick.

Jon digging, Vince cleared the filled buckets and rocks, passing them up to Tav at the top of the ‘sand pit’. Tav forwarded on the receptacles and loose rock to Nick to empty the buckets and use the stones to build a retaining in the intermediate spoil dump on one-side of the slope. There 67 loads of various descriptions.

Jon finished the session with a loud ‘crash’ when he decided to collapse some quite large and loose’ish boulders from the roof. The boulders had been situated above the position that Jon had been digging away all evening. There’s now plenty of sledge-hammer work for the next session now.

There are some interesting sedimentation layers, these were the subject of some discussion, there was of course the usual banter too.

An enjoyable and productive session.

Report by Vince

Vince, Jon, Tav, Nick and Estelle Sandford.

Another guest digger, Estelle, joined the team for this evening’s session. Nick had just returned from working in the ’back of beyond’ and was ‘chomping at the bit’.

On arrival at the sand pit, Estelle and Nick were dispatched to the dig face and left to get on with it. Jon, at the top of the pit, loaded the filled buckets into the skip hauled up the slope by Tav, who regularly administered water, like some demented bishop blessing the hordes, to lubricate the passage of the skip. Tav also kept the tally because he’s the only one who can keep count. My job was to empty the buckets, 102 of them, any rocks were added to the retaining wall. The spoil heap is getting to the stage where it requires some more care and attention, the spoil needs moving to the back wall to give us more dumping space.

At the end of the evening, another productive session.

Report by Vince

Vince, Mike and 7 Belgian cavers, members of the Cascade Caving Club.

Good job the Mike had recruited some help as we were a bit thin on the ground otherwise. It was a slower, steadier trip through the Chamber 20 passages. There were plenty of stops to point out some of the interesting features along the way. Photographs and discussions ensued.

When we all arrived at the bottom of the ‘sand pit’, it was a little bit crowded. I showed the Belgian team where to dig, gave them the mattock and the empty buckets and left them to it. Mike and I did the spoil management, I hauled the skip up the slope, and Mike emptied the buckets.

The Belgian contingent were enthusiastic diggers, there was plenty of banter between them (more chatter than Brockers). They did their bit, we did ours, time passed and soon the pub beckoned. The digging stopped and we left, no-one was counting the buckets. An enjoyable evening in good company.

Report by Vince

Vince, Jake, Jon and Tav.

We assembled in the showcave car park as usual and made our way up to the tradesman [tunnel] entrance. It was warm already.

A smaller team this evening so we utilised one of the alternative spoil disposal areas so that digging was possible. Tav did the brunt of the digging, Jon did all the clearing of the filled buckets and sporadic rock. Vince was at the top of the sandpit, the “real Chamber 21”, passing the receptacles to Jake who was in control of spoil management. To enable maximum utilisation to the available disposal space, rocks were moved, retaining walls constructed, and a lot of buckets were emptied.

With all the activities in full swing no-one kept a tally of the buckets filled and emptied so after some discussion, a compromise was reached, 77 is a good number, it has symmetry and we shifted that many last week. We were satisfied, a good productive session, by now everyone of us was warm, time to head out for some refreshment.

It was oppressively warm on exiting the cave and there was some spectacular lightning on the way up to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.