Category: 2019

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.

Report by Vince

Vince, Jake, Jon, Nick and Tav.

A bigger team tonight and good to see Jake back after his flat maintenance stint.

It was the usual warm trip through Chamber 20 to the dig. The thing is, by the time you arrive at the dig you are warm, very warm, then, straight into swinging the mattock and loading the loosened sediment into the bucket. And you feel the need to work quickly as those team members waiting might become impatient, well that’s the perception.

Jake was digging, I cleared away the filled buckets and passed them up to Tav at the top of the sand pit. Tav transferred the buckets into the skip, which was hauled upslope to the spoil dispersal area, this was being managed this evening by Jon and Nick.

As the session progressed Jake got warmer and warmer, so we swapped places, my turn to warm-up, not that I was particularly cool anyway. More buckets filled, rocks battered with the sledgehammer, all removed to the spoil heap.

There was some discrepancy regarding total number of loads removed, but 77 was the figure we stuck to as it has some symmetry to it. A good productive session and we were all ready for the pub for some well-earned refreshments!

Report by Vince

Vince, Nick and Tav

A smaller team assembled this evening so we decided that spoil heap management would be a good thing to concentrate our efforts on. We built some walls, moved some rock, built some more walls somewhere else, and shovelled a lot of spoil around filling the nooks and crannies. Time passed quickly. At the end of the evenings session we had a lot more space to dump more spoil.

Report by Vince

Vince, Mike, Jon, Nick and Tav

There’s been a short break between digging sessions as sometimes happens when work and personal commitments all come together. A good number of the team gathered for this evening’s session though.

As usual it was a warm trip through Chamber 20 to the dig. Jon and Nick entered the ‘dig-pit’ to fill the buckets. Tav was at the top of the pit, transferring the loaded buckets and occasional rock into the skip hauled up-slope by Vince. Mike was dealing with the sediment re-distribution. The downside of lubricating the slope with a regular splash of water is that the hauling position becomes quite mucky and overalls become mud plastered, and damp!

Mike waits for the first buckets to arrive.

It didn’t take long for the diggers to settle into a steady rhythm, there wasn’t much time between loads, a total of 90 loads were dispersed, mostly buckets.

All went rather smoothly, there were no mishaps, nor any character assassination (not much anyway) and it was an enjoyable evening session.

But all good things come to an end and it was pub time!

Report by Jon

Last minute delays meant that only three diggers (Jon, Mike and Nick) attended this week. Hopes raised by a brief sighting of a fourth (Duncan) were dashed when it was realised he was taking the wet route.

With the absence of unruly influences, the team members were on their best behaviour. In an auspicious week for the nation, in which presidents visited from Europe and America to remember events of 75 years ago, nobody mentioned the War, nobody mentioned Brexit and the only wall to receive a mention was the one around the spoil heap.

Jon dug out stone from behind St. Vincent’s Rock. Nick hauled 25 skip loads of it up the dry slope. Then work began on the spoil heap. While Nick tended the sharp end, moving spoil high up into the corner, Jon concentrated on building up the wall at the other end.

Mike did the jobs of three people at the bottom. He dug 24 bucket loads from the end, concentrating on the right hand side. He carried these up the slope and loaded the skip. A Sage Elder recently revealed that he thought that the way on might still be under the right hand wall. Mike reports evidence of a possible undercut.

49 skips, no-one offended, the spoil heap tended and digging progress made. What good boys we were.

Report by Vince

Vince, Jake, Nick and Jon

The usual warm trip to the end of Chamber 20. When Vince arrived (delayed by a battery change) the others had decided it was his turn to dig. Spoil removal is the easiest job, plenty of room to swing the mattock, then scoop the loosened sediment into an empty bucket. The sediment mostly comprises pale yellow silty sand overlain by stiff pink-brown laminated silty clay. A lot more effort is required to dispatch the filled buckets to the spoil heap. Jake cleared the filled buckets up to Nick, who loaded the skip. Jon hauled the skip up the slope, emptied the buckets, cleaned them and returned the empty, clean buckets. Jake, under instruction from Nick, reduced a couple of boulders to more manageable pieces, useful walling material.

Jon also took it on board to record this evening’s tally. It was evident when looking at the count that there had been a “mid-haul” crisis around the “30” mark, when a shaky hand recorded the number. This was put down to Jon getting-up at 04:30hrs this morning to get into work early so that he could leave earlier and have time to get through the chaos of roadworks at Stonehenge and be on time for digging this evening.

At the end of the session: 58 buckets filled and emptied. Its okay with four but, more is better!

Vince was away, digging on
Gower with John Cooper and Professors Danny McCarroll (Swansea University) and
Danielle Schreve (Royal Holloway, London). Jon provided the following account
of the evening’s activities:

Report by Jon

“Of late, the Wookey Hole
and Halloween Rift diggers have shown increased enthusiasm for their
activities. Early arrival and a prompt start now appear to be the
norm. And so, it was at Wookey Hole this week. Five of the team
(Jon, Tav, Jake, Nick and Mike) met before the appointed hour. Even the
latecomers were early.

At the dig, Nick assumed
digging duties, supported by Mike. Jon loaded the skip, leaving Tav and
Jake to haul and empty.

The digging spoil is now
dry, easing the task of emptying buckets, and a team of five is a good number
for this dig. The bucket count rapidly increased and, unusually, was
accurately recorded by those team members at the spoil heap. 135 buckets
of spoil were removed.

Mike reported that the
floor was lowered by some 12 inches (30cm).

The prompt start resulted
in early calls to depart, but the team held out to the end. They then
retired to a local hostelry for some well-deserved liquid refreshment.”