25/8/26

Estelle Sandford, Mike Moxon, Harley Bennett, Jon Riley plus from Mendip Activity Centre, Kerrie Binks, Maddie Pole, Ruby McKeown, Oli Warren, Ben Murphy, Joe Holloway

2.5hrs

Estelle went in first and with a bit of help from others, moved most of the boulders that were dropped at the end of last week's session. Once they were out of the way, Kerrie dug alongside Estelle, removing spoil and some more rocks, then swapped for Maddie for the first round of buckets, 2nd round was Ruby and Oli, whilst Estelle continued to dig out the floor, whilst they dug forwards. The hole in the floor  is much larger now and has on the left as you look at the main dig, a matching sloping side towards the lowest point we're at currently to where the hole is before the boulders, so hopefully this will find us a similar hole this side. At the end of the session Harley had a go at some boulders, made them loose enough they had to come out, so Estelle finished them off, leaving a new pile of boulders for next weeks team! With such a large team, a lot of rock was taken out as well as the 70 dug buckets - we have 35 currently in circulation. All spoil was dumped down the side passage again. Pub alarm didn't go off so lost complete track of time, hence the much longer session. James had walked Holly up and was quite bored in the car waiting. Headed Hunters after. 

18/8/26

Report from Hollie/Mike M

Hollie, Kushy, Mike M, Charlie/Ben from Mike's work, Jon, Harley, James

MK arrived early and scraped buckets before heading to dig face. HL joined underground at 1830, bringing two extra stacks of buckets just as MK was filling the last of what he'd brought down. Focusing on dig face dead ahead, rather than the lower right corner. Lots of large boulders appearing in the mud, including a small fridge-sized block that HL dislodged with crowbar. HL and MK started transporting all 36 filled buckets out and completed the first haul as reinforcements arrived. After hauling and emptying, HB and HL continued at the dig face. Once loose boulders to the right at head height were removed by HL, HB  and Charlie and Ben (no light / oversuit) at front for 2nd round, only Charlie for 3rd (of 18 buckets), as Ben was kept busy hauling. All were emptied down side passage by MK & MM. We retired another bucket a couple of weeks ago, so there are 36 now, making 90 total this evening between 8 of us.

11/8/26

Estelle, Mike, Harley, Ed, Jon

1.5hrs

Jon arrived earlier and started digging before others arrived, rest of us turned up and headed down, completed the bucket filling, Harley digging in the wall in front and Estelle digging in the floor. Estelle was working on a line across the dig to try and see if possible to pick up the line of the rift from the earlier hole in the floor. Met with solid red rock on right hand side that looks like typical floor rock, but almost dead straight in front, the crowbar goes down full length when wiggled through the rock/clay. Continued digging out the rocks and mud from there and it is clearly a way down and around 18in or so deep in the floor when left. With the end dig site so big now - we all could have dug in there at once tonight! - we need to focus on getting a shelf going forwards, but also completely clearing the floor area out to see if there are more opportunities of a way down. The feel of the way on is that it may be an inlet possibly and that we may actually have a 'pot' in the floor, but we won't know whilst we've so much mud/rocks there! After all the buckets were filled, we removed them to the surface and most were dumped down the old LH dig site - aiming to get that as full as possible before any winter flooding! 

4/8/26

James, Harley, Ed, Kushy and Mike.

MK headed in around 1700 and started moving boulders around at the end and pre drilling holes ready to be plug and feathered. EF arrived around 1730 and got busy dismantling the boulders. MK moved these into the side rift. Several buckets were also filled up with mud from the floor. Ed carried on splitting rock until the others arrived. Looks to be some huge boulders in the floor still. JB, MM and HB arrived around 1900. 2 buckets runs completed and dumped into the defunct entrance next door. In my opinion probably best not to do drill work before clearing as it made the air quite thick. Finished for 2100.

28/7/26

Estelle, Mike, Ed, Jon, Greg Hawkins (MCG), Kushy

2hrs

A slightly earlier start for Greg, Mike and Kushy, and 38 buckets in circulation that did 2 runs, 70 went from the front and 6 from the puddle (although 1 did have a split in, so wasn't as full by the time it reached the spoil heap!) One down at end, with broken handle, was left on surface. Fast session with a strong team and finished before James arrived walking up with Holly, so had to pick him up enroute to Hunters.