Joe, Jon, Ben, Sam P, Rob
After successive weeks of small but enticing breakthroughs, a team assembled which included some less frequently attending GGWs. DJ Ben Marks decided he would lower himself to coming to our dig, even though he declared that he was officially over caving and not even Matienzo could make him “feel anything inside” (his words). And Sam, the other half of the Pembros, came out of retirement.
Jon wanted to take some photos on the main pitch, and seeing as I somehow ruin every photo it was decided I would head straight for the tight rift we were capping from last week. Given Ben’s misery and inability to smile while down a cave, it was decided he ought to come with me as well.
We made reasonable time to the end, having to stop only briefly because I gave bad instructions and managed to get Ben stuck in the stemple squeeze. I began capping down into the rift armed with two very different but terrible crowbars. I was making reasonable headway, but heading almost vertically down, and the further I progressed the more awkward the capping became. I was eventually having to post myself headfirst down the tight slot and then having to reverse back out to grab anything and/or Ben would pass it to me. Every time any capped rock would immediately rumble down and block the way so I would have to reach back in to try and push the rocks through.
After about an hour of work, I had just about got it to the point where I thought I could squeeze through into the space beyond, when the others joined. The jeering from behind did little to help the frustrating capping as I repeatedly failed to set off the caps one handed and upside down, tantalisingly close to another breakthrough. With a final crack and rumble of rock into the void below, I was through, just.
The space beyond was a small chamber with terrifying and huge boulders suspended above. There was a very narrow bedding heading SW with no indication of anything beyond. The floor was comprised of a ruckle of small and reasonably clean boulders with a general faint draught coming up through but no single obvious way on. The main draught was coming from above, which appeared to be a continuation of the previous rift and would be a terrible dig and no enticing leads. All in all, not the result we were hoping for.
Jon and Rob joined me and got some Insta content. We had a quick poke in the floor, concluding that this would actually be easy digging, but would require more work than we are typically capable of, generally going instead for the quick and “easy” wins.
We’d have to return to survey this extra bit of cave but left it for now to check out the bottom of the main choke. Rob and Dylan had surveyed and checked out most of the leads down there, but there was a hole they’d left off in a cherty pot under suspended boulders. Rob and Jon went through first under a horrendous stack of rocks and I tentatively followed after. The dig here followed some solid wall but appeared to have tailings from some mining work above and was constantly washing back in. This dig would also require significant shoring.
We made our way back out, somewhat deflated but already looking elsewhere in BWH for the way to Stoney Middleton. Not sure if we convinced Ben to come back and feel something inside him again.