2017

Dave Mitchell’s Dig 2017

07/01/2017 Pete Hann, Jude, Barry, Nigel & Myself.
The boulder partially capped last week finally succumbed to another 10 caps! Pete took over, clearing the bottom and all was going well until a rock in the floor slid and trapped his foot. Luckily with a bit of digging around the boulder he was able to move it off his foot. Two buckets of cement used. It looks like we will need some steel bar next week to support a boulder in the new roof. So a bit disappointing but a small amount of progress made and it was possibly made up for by the sound of boulders rolling down a scree slope, possibly! Adrian.

21/01/2017 Pete, Barry, Jude, Charlotte & Myself.
Pete set about cutting two bars of steel to support a slanting rock. Cement was then mixed and rocks were built on top of the bars. I managed (eventually) to cap some of the larger rocks further up the passage into some manageable sized building rocks which will be useful next week. So slow progress today, but at least some progress. Adrian.

28/01/2017 Pete Hann & Myself.
Down to the bottom and I then started trying to cap the rock at the bottom. I had to resort to using two caps per hole. Even with this method it wasn’t extremely successful and with two batteries depleted we resorted to 2 8mm holes 400mm deep with 20gm cord to reduce the boulder. Quite a lot of cementing will be required next week to stabilize the walls. Adrian.

04/02/2017 Pete, Nigel, Barry & Myself.
A frustrating day. Firstly the dig was very wet with water running down 2/3rds of the walls of the tubes. When we reached the bottom of the dig one of the alcoves where we tip spoil the bottom had fallen out(!!) and the contents were in the bottom of the dig. Two buckets of cement were used to plug the hole in the bottom and carry on cementing the walls lower down. Most of the day was spent on remedial work. Adrian.

11/02/2017 Pete, Nigel, Jude & Myself.
A day of capping and cementing. Slowly going downwards but at the moment we are still capping the large rock in the floor. When the purple caps work, which they occasionally don’t, they are incredibly effective. A good draught again which seems to be coming straight out of the floor. Which means we carry on straight down. Adrian.

18/02/2017 Pete Hann, Barry Wilkinson, Nigel Graham, Jude & Myself.
A day of digging, capping & cementing with more of the large slab in the floor capped, with at least the top layer of the rock removed. Luckily I had put my goggles on when I started to drill the holes for capping because I accidentally hit two unexploded caps from last week, with some quite spectacular results and lots of flyrock. Pete uncovered a hole at the edge of the slab which is at least 3 metres in depth and emitting the usual blast of a draught. An extremely successful session with more capping to do next week. 3 mixes of cement used. Adrian.

25/02/2017 Pete Hann, Barry, Nigel, Jude & Myself.
A lot of capping done at the bottom and when Pete went back down to the bottom again he opened up another hole almost directly below the slab I have been capping. A couple of buckets of cement used to support the walls. There is still more of the slab to cap but it has probably been reduced by at least a third. All then out and back to the Wessex…. Apart from Pete & Nigel who managed to get the van stuck, so Bill Small came out and towed him back to the track! Adrian.

04/03/2017 Pete, Nigel, Barry, Jude & Myself.
Pete, Myself, Jude & Barry down to the bottom. Pete had a quick look at the bottom and then I was let loose capping a rock at the bottom and the one side with Jude and Barry dumping the spoil I was creating. Pete was building a wall at the top of the current shaft, which not only will reduce the little rocks falling out but also got rid of a lot of large rocks which otherwise would have to be hauled out. By the end of the session two buckets of cement had been used. The floor at the bottom had been lowered by half a metre, three holes around the edges are of varying depths, one being 5 metres in depth. The bottom looks good and the digging for the next few weeks should be quite easy. Anyway we made our way out and left the howling draught behind. Adrian.

11/03/2017 Pete, Jude, Nigel, Barry & Myself.
Pete to the bottom to cement & dig. A few large rocks were removed and then some cementing of the sides done to stabilize the bottom. The bottom is loose and there are a lot of gaps around the sides, careful digging required! Adrian.

18/03/2017 Pete, Nigel, Barry, Myself.
More capping on the very large rock that we have been following down for the past few weeks. A gap in the floor has opened up on the right. This seems to be 3 metres deep? Not quite a caveable size but not as small as the gap in Spider!! Adrian.

25/03/2017 Pete, Barry, Jude, Myself.
Two smaller boulders capped today followed by a cementing & wall building session. The dolomitic conglomerate slab that had been held up by the boulder fell out! So that was split and hauled further up the dig. After Pete had built a wall down the bottom with the accumulated spoil we were able to see down and to the right and this was where the majority of draught was coming from. The VLR (Very Large Rock) continues down another 2 metres at least, but it’s difficult se see where the cave will head next, possibly under the VLR. Adrian.

01/04/2017 Pete, Jude, Barry & Myself.
More capping & cementing. Adrian.

08/04/2017 Pete, Nigel, Jude & Myself.
Pete & Nigel to the dig earlier than Jude & Me with holes drilled ready for the bang. Having collected the bang both quickly down the cave to load said holes, retired & fired. Adrian.

14/04/2017 Pete, Myself, Jude, Nigel, Barry?
All down to clear & cement. One large boulder on the side was threatening to fall out so that has been cemented in and the dig will now be left two weeks before clearing the rest. Adrian.

29/04/2017 Pete, Nigel, Barry, Jude & Myself.
? Adrian.

06/05/2017 ?
? Adrian.

20/05/2017 ?
? Adrian.

27/05/2017 ?
? Adrian.

Saturday 27^th May 2017. Richard Carey, John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank, Jude Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. 1 mix of cement sent down. Then 42 loads hauled up and another mix sent down. 2¾ hours. John.

03/06/2017 ?
? Adrian.

17/06/2017 ?
? Adrian.

24/06/2017 ?
? Adrian.

01/07/2017 Pete, Nigel, Barry & Myself.
28 buckets hauled out of the main shaft and then quite a bit of capping done, firstly in the floor and then on the roof in front. We can now see where the draught is coming from a hole in the floor a metre in, between rocks. Adrian.

08/07/2017 Pete Hann, Barry Wilkinson, Nigel Graham, Jude & Myself.
Mixed fortunes. Capping was good in as far as all the caps went off! But turning rock to gravel shards and not much of it a bit frustrating. Adrian.

15/07/2017 Barry Wilkinson, Pete Hann, Jude & Myself.
Loose mud taken out of floor. Small amount of capping done. 3 x 400mm x 8mm holes drilled to enlarge the gap leading to the bend. 2.2 metres 12gm cord used. Adrian.

22/07/2017 Pete Hann, Barry Wilkinson, Nigel Graham, Jude & Myself.
A slightly subdued start to digging after last weeks “discussion” about the Cheddar Waiver Agreement. Last week’s bang had worked well and had started to create a “tunnel” in between the two rocks. After clearing the rock & some mud from the floor I did some capping to widen the tunnel to allow us next time to do another bang on both sides. Looking at the “end” of the dig the rock is very waterworn and it looks like it continues leftwards and possibly down at the end. Still a strong draught. Unfortunately, capping was stopped by me getting a “lollipop” on the end of my capping bar. Adrian.

19/08/2017 Pete Hann, Barry Wilkinson, John Cooper Adrian & Jude Vanderplank.
Pete to the bottom drilling 3 x 1 metre 10mm holes while the rest of us cleared 22 buckets of spoil to the surface. Retired & fired. 3 metres 12gm cord, one det. Adrian.

Saturday 19^th August 2017. John Cooper, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank, Jude Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. 22 loads hauled from the intermediate stacking space to the surface before more spoil created at the bottom. 1½ hours. John.

27/08/2017 Pete H, Barry W, A & J Vanderplank.
Clearing spoil day from last week’s bang. After that capping to enlarge the tunnel. No sign of where the draught is coming from, just a lot of smaller boulders at the end. Adrian.

02/09/2017 Pete, Barry, Nigel & Myself.
Pete & Myself down to the bottom where Pete started not build up a retaining wall to hold mud & gravel spoil. I continued to cap the bottom of rock on the L/H side of the tube. The rock capped quite well and before long it had enlarged the tube quite a bit. Pete & I then swapped positions and with Barry & Nigel’s help we hauled a lot of rock up to the bottom of the shaft. With the capped rock cleared Pete started attacking the end and within minutes a lot of rock was being sent up out of the bottom. At the end of the session Pete had cleared the majority of loose rocks from the end. We were looking at a vertical rift 6” (150mm) wide. Further to the left may be a continuation of rift but we cannot see further along the gaps. In the roof some quite unusual calcite formations were seen. These are very fine (as in delicate) ribbon curtains about 5mm deep and 400mm long. The unusual part of this is that apart from the ends the whole of the curtains are detached from the roof. One explanation is that they had been formed on mud and the mud has become eroded away. One of the other formations looks like a suspended fruit bowl. Adrian.

09/09/2017 Barry, Pete, Jude & Myself.
Twelve buckets hauled up main shaft. Jude & Pete then deepened the floor of the tunnel. I capped more out of the floor and flake at the end. The way on is visible between two Very Large Rocks with, at present, a 200mm gap and a howling draught! Adrian.

23/09/2017 Pete, Nigel, Rich Carey, Jude & Myself.
First task was to remove some spoil from the top dumping site so 10+ buckets were removed to the surface. Jude & Pete then went to the bottom and removed some more mud and clatch out of the floor, and rock, which was hauled up to the TDS (Top Dumping Space). After a while I was sent in to do some capping, removing more rock out of the floor and a large flake on the R/H wall. A large rock in the floor was the next target and by then I was using, in some holes, double caps. A coloured one and a grey (just to get rid of them really). Having drilled a hole and inserting two(?) caps the caps went off with very little effect so I continued on the edge of the rock, but the hole was conveniently placed so I decided to re-drill it… Very bad mistake. One or two of the caps hadn’t gone off so there was an almighty bank, rock flying everywhere including into my face. How my eyes missed being damaged I don’t know and the amount of blood was minimal. Pete called me a F---ing W—ker which was probably justified for that. So we cleared the spoil and retired, peppered but wiser … until the next time!! Adrian.

30/09/2017 ?
? Adrian.

07/10/2017 ?
? Adrian.

Saturday 7^th October 2017. John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Adrian Vanderplank and Barry Wilkinson. 10 loads hauled from the intermediate stacking space to the surface before I descended and helped haul spoil, created by Adrian and Pete capping, from the bottom to the intermediate stacking space. 3 hours. John.

Saturday 14^th October 2017. John Cooper, Nigel Graham, Pete Hann, Geoff Newton and Barry Wilkinson. 42 loads hauled from the intermediate stacking space to the surface. Intermediate stacking space now clear. 1¾ hours. John.

28/10/2017 Pete Hann, Nigel Graham, Barry Wilkinson, Adrian & Jude Vanderplank ?
More digging and capping at the bottom. The boulder at the bottom just doesn’t want to play. A lot of caps used with not a lot of spoil. The plan is to use some 12jm or 20gm and to use this to break the boulder. So a frustrating day but at least we still have the draught. Adrian.

09/11/2017 Jude, Pete & Myself.
A very quick Thursday evening trip as I wasn’t going to be around on the Saturday and having missed the last Saturday. We decided to put in 1.5 metres of 12gm and try and break up the boulder in the floor. Pete drilled a few holes some of which broke through the boulder so it probably wasn’t as big as we had thought it was. 1.5 metres of 12gm cord inserted, retired and fired. (Big puddle on the surface but not too drippy underground.) Adrian.

18/11/2017 Pete Hann, Geoff Newton, Jude Vanderplank, Barry Wilkinson, Adrian Vanderplank.
A semi frustrating day. Rock hauled up from the bottom whilst I continued to cap (unsuccessfully). The boulder previously banged still had not completely gone so I worked on both edges to reduce the boulder but the majority of the time it was just splintering little shards off. At the end of the session Pete and I attacked some boulders further on and we had some good results. BUT this still leaves the boulder with the ridge. So the plan is to bang this again next Saturday. I just hope this isn’t a key boulder that’s keeping the larger side boulders in place? Hey Ho. Adrian.

25/11/2017 Pete Hann & Myself.
Sadly another day of a depleted digging team. Having known that we were going to be short we had decided to put an end to the boulder that had been a pain for far too long! Four holes drilled, two of which went through the rock! (showing it wasn’t quite as big a rock as we thought). Retired & fired. Hopefully next week we will be looking into the gap we have seen for weeks. Adrian.

02/12/2017 Barry W, Pete Hann, Nigel Graham, Jude & Myself.
Twenty buckets hauled from the intermediate stacking space to the surface. Followed by some capping and clatch removal at the bottom. Small hole opened up in the floor but it was only about 2’ deep. Pete went and looked along the passage head first but couldn’t see any significant gaps. Very little draught today. Adrian.

16/12/2017 Pete Hann, Barry Wilkinson, Nigel Graham, Jude & Myself.
25 buckets hauled to the surface in nearly freezing conditions. Then all of us underground to haul from the bottom to the ledge. Jude & Pete got “dig fever” towards the end but with Nigel, Barry & I beginning to get very cold we stopped. I had a quick look at the bottom and it was starting to look interesting at the bottom. Jude & Pete had dropped the floor about a metre. Along the left-hand side of the wall / floor holes are beginning to appear which are dropping into clean washed black rock underneath. Adrian.

23/12/2017 Pete Hann, Nigel Graham, Myself.
Well some days just don’t go to plan, do they? With Barry deciding that Man flu was getting the better of him Pete decided that we would do a mix of cement and go down with this and the capping kit. Pete first to the end and having removed a few rocks from the floor decided that removing a bulge on the Left-hand wall would make looking at the bottom for the way on easier. Place swap. Now with me at the front several holes drilled and capped large flake of rock removed… capping bar now in bits. The pin had sheared off at the base. At least we still have the pin! Couple more caps set off with a lump hammer, With the feeling that the caps and our luck were running out I decided to cap a rock on the floor. Hole drilled, cap and rod inserted. No bang. I now have a lollipop in the floor. With some effort I managed to move the rock and beat some rock off it to make it slightly smaller and then man handle it back to Pete who proceeded to turn it into kit form and retrieve the r4od. We decided to swap places again. On the way out I noticed the cement on one of our walls had cracked and a tiny gap of maybe a millimetre wide had opened. Pete now at the front not quite as happy as he was muttering about people breaking the dig! It looks like my capping had disturbed a rock underneath causing the rock (which actually is the complete side of the dig) to have moved, not much but enough to cause concern. After a lot of thought Pete decided he would start to build a wall at the end to support the rock. After I had kicked the bucket of cement over, whoops, things progressed quite well until a boulder in the right-hand wall decided to lean on Pete’s bottom. If you had thought Pete wasn’t happy before he definitely wasn’t now. After making sure nothing else was following the boulder o0ut he did manage to turn around and end up in a sort of sitting position cuddling a boulder. Quite funny for us, Pete didn’t see the joke. I eventually managed to get myself in headfirst down the tunnel and between the two of us roll it up tunnel to give Pete some room… If you have ever seen a cat climbing a wall backwards…. I now have rocks behind me and a rock in front of me, low head room, long legs and I’M THE WRONG WAY AROUND – Bugger! Well I did get out, it wasn’t pretty. Pete finished using the cement filling in the hole where the rock had come from and we decided we’d had enough excitement for one day!! Adrian.

30/12/2017 Pete Hann, Barry W & Myself.
Last digging trip of the year! Two buckets of cement mixed and taken down the dig. Pete continued to build up a wall on the Right-hand side (where the boulder had previously fallen out). Also at the “end” he continued to build a rock bridge to stop the big boulder on the left from moving any more. The next step will be to start capping the floor out, with gaps on both sides hopefully we will make quite rapid progress. Adrian.