June Round Up

 We've been a bit lapse in keeping up with this blog, so here's a round up of what's gone on in June:

Diggers involved: Alex Randall, Sam Hill, Mike Kushy, Alex Hannam, James Hallihan, James Vickery, Stan?, Ross?

Skips to surface in 2026: 16.

AR went on holiday for the first couple weeks of the month so SH had assistance from MK for a couple of charges. Then on a solo clearing trip SH was able to squeeze through into the source of the echo! Finally a breakthrough!

Unfortunately the echo was more impressive than the pot which is maybe 2.5m high by 2m in circle, but with an obvious continuation of the cave leading off, but not at human size. This appears to end in a puddle in about 4m time so we'll have to get there and see whats going on there.

With AR back from holiday and AH unemployed and many students loitering around the Shepton hut we were able to have a big hauling session with only a few mishaps with untrained staff. AR also had a proper look at the breakthrough, taking several attempts to get back out of it! Two skips were brought to surface this session, and the squeeze into the breakthrough removed with a loud bang.

The 1st July session just saw AR and SH clearing all the spoil that had fallen into the new pot, and stacking at the bottom of the railway. The red skip worked well for dragging bags back through the low section to the corner, then hand balled back to the railway (which still needs the roller fixing)

This gets us to 16 skips for the first half of the year.

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