29/07/2025 - Evening

 29/07/2025 - Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Ed Ford - 2hrs    

AR arrived first and head down to start clearing from last weeks loud noise. Initially a little disappointed with the results, particularly with the roof shot. A little work with the crow bar changed this impression.

After filling the first few buckets EF and SH arrived to start taking the buckets away and tipping at the base of the ladder. As the spoil was cleared it showed that the charge had actually done better than expected and that the constriction previously stopping use squeezing into the slight enlargement ahead would be passable with all the spoil out. Unfortunately the floor of the dig is no longer clean rock, but a filthy puddle with 150mm of silt in the bottom, which would need to be lain in to clear and attempt to push ahead. Obviously SH was the man for the this job, so sans helmet he dived in head first, pushing the spoil and mud back to AR. In this fashion he got through the constriction giving us about 1.5m of passage that we didn't create! 

This is extremely constricted preventing a really good look around, but SH reports some vertical development and the main passage turns right and drops away. Throwing rocks off the drop suggests its a small step rather than a Titan-esque shaft.

After this excitement we started hauling up to the Echo until pub time. Shockingly this is the first time I've (AR) been in the ladder hauling position. Having experienced it now there needs to be a renewed push to mechanise this section as not only is it extremely hard work, but the likelihood of rocks or even a full skip getting dropped on the person loading the skip seem too high to be doing this every week.





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