25/03/2026 - Evening

 25/03/2026 - Evening - Alex Randall & Sam Hill - 2hrs

Saturday's bang cleared up, bagged and stacked back at the foot of the ladder. The bang had been better than previous but the passage is still proving slow progress. Next round of holes drilled and fired. Still looking fairly good at the end but more work to do. There's a decent stack at the bottom now so worth hauling up to Echo next week if we have the team. 

Bad bits, partway down the railway there's an area of loose rock that's getting worse on the right looking down hill. Sam noticed and tried to remove a small bit, but a lot more followed, and when we fired I heard some stone landing on the railway so this will need sorting properly with a long bar at a safe distance. The 1m long bit also broke near the end of the last hole. No issue for this session and a higher quality replacement has been ordered.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

01/07/2025 - Evening

 01/07/2025 - Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Ed Ford, George Brookes, Hollie London Two big skips surfaced, 2025 total to date: 12 Alex R used a combination of plug and feather and a hammer to remove a lump preventing the lowest ladder from being moved to the left. The aim of this is to align the ladder with the rift above, and install another ladder in the rift to act as a track, so one hoist will be able pull buckets of spoil from the bottom of the ladder to the top of the rift. There are two further lumps that will need removing, but these will require some delicate use of chemicals. The rest of the team worked tirelessly pressing the hoist buttons, with Ed loading the Echo hoist and Sam driving it, and loading the South Pot sled. George and Hollie drove the the South Pot hoist and loaded the big 166' skip. After removing the lump discussed above AR returned to surface, raised the 166' skip and sent it down for refill. Then had to deal with GB inconsiderate parking to empty the dum...
Read more

2025 Round Up - Templeton South Pot - Railway Video!

Although there has been no blog post since 18/11, work in the South Pot has not stopped, with the work to mechanise the lowest haul continuing.  In this time the following have been involved in the work, in no particular order:   - Sam Hill   - Alex Randall  - Mike Kushy  - Hollie London   - 'Mushroom' Dave Kinzlett  - Sam Coleman  - Lee Venning  Thanks to the efforts of the above, the inclined railway track has been completed. This is mainly constructed from a large steel ladder liberated from the surface set up at Homeclose, and scaffold tube braced between the walls of the rift with another pair of tubes perpendicular to these to form the rails. This then ties onto the pre-existing ladder from the bottom of the cave up to the rift, by means of some bent sections of scaff. There is also a 'boat trailer keel roller' fitted here to guide the winch cable over the change in gradient.  The previous team to dig here before...
Read more

26th March 2025

Image
David Morrison (Tuska), Mike Kushy and Alex Randall. MK and DM did some more work at baby Templeton in the morning. Clearing out run in and shaping the surroundings. AR arrived around 1pm ish and we all set to work on wiring up sockets. 2 x outdoor 13amp double plug socket boxes wired up with braided 2.5mm cable, we decided we'd cut and fit the 16amp connection plugs in situ. Fired up the generator and laid the winches (with 13amp plugs fitted), tools, lights (with 13amp plugs) and drill into the sled. AR and MK headed on down to greet the sled. The first winch bracketed onto the original steel great. AR concentrated on fixing the socket box onto the wall with a wooden backing, whilst MK concentrated on cutting the braided wire to length and fitting the 16amp plug to connect into the existing wiring. Went smoothly and lights/winch worked well. We then lowered the 2nd winch, drill and tools down the South pot sled. The steel runners could do with a cleaning up/rubbing back and greas...
Read more