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--- logbook_2018 [16 Nov 2018 22:01] – [Logbook] Vallis Quarry Cave 11/10/18 cookie
+++ logbook_2018 [14 Mar 2019 00:17] (current) – [Sidcot Swallet. Jan 2017] actually Jan 2018 cookie
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 ====== Log Book 2018 ======
 ----
-==== Mangle Hole, Fri 15th Dec 2017 ====
+==== Mangle Hole. Fri 15th Dec 2017 ====
 So I returned to Mangle Hole yesterday with my new friends Mr. C. Bar and Mr. M.tock to see if I could make any progress.
@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 -- Max
-==== Sidcot Swallet Jan 2017 ====
+==== Sidcot Swallet. Jan 2018 ====
 Hi I was asked to right up a club trip what can I say but wow 😲 we started going to sidcot swolet but I don't not get throw the first squeeze after the entrance then we presented to go on a nover trip and it was amazing involved a lot of climbing and weching hopefully if I am allowed I would like to do this as my club trip as  it was really good fun and axel struggled with it and for the first time ever I was better than him at it that felt good as normal struggling to keep up if I was to do a club trip here who is up for it I will check the name with Barry   I would like to take a club rope down with use as we had to stop because there was a little bit of a free claim straight down that looked fun but there scechey so rope and Belay from the top will be needed to explore there then ended up at hunters after.
@@ Line 27: / Line 27: @@
 -- Will 20/1/2018
+==== Rope tech skills, Goaters. Thu 22nd Feb 2018 ====
-==== Tween Twins Friday 17th Aug 2018 ====
+Burt, Emma, Peter, Chris C, Lawrence
+After meeting in a freezing car park with the above and Barry, Danny and Will (who went to West twin adit) we trooped into goaters main chamber and had a good session setting up various handlines, assisted handlines, Z rigs and hauling systems. There was a lot of metal gear to have a go with; prussiks, shunts, stops, a rack, crolls, grigris etc and a variety of different setups were assembled and used. Some were more complicated than others! The old adage of "less is more" seems to be the way forward unless you intend to carry out some form of complicated rescue with a very badly injured person - in which case you'd probably call MCR. The other useful gem to come out of the night was a link to this site: [[http://www.animatedknots.com|www.animatedknots.com]].
+Overall a very useful session which I will run again using  more scenario based problems, and in a different cave just to add some spice.
+-- Burt
+==== Tween Twins. Fri 17th Aug 2018 ====
 Jonathan Williams, (leader), Aidan Harrison, Emma Gisborne, Lawrence Wilson
@@ Line 39: / Line 48: @@
 -- Lawrence Wilson
-==== Bradshaw's Cave Thursday 30th Aug 2018 ====
+==== Bradshaw's Cave. Thu 30th Aug 2018 ====
 Pete Sanders, Emma G, Chris Castle, Andy Watson (leader).
@@ Line 53: / Line 62: @@
 -- Chris Castle
-==== Cloford Quarry Big Cave Thur 13th Sept 2018 ====
+==== Cloford Quarry Big Cave. Thu 13th Sept 2018 ====
 Chris Castle, Emma Gisborne, Andy Watson (leader)
@@ Line 80: / Line 89: @@
 My first trip down Hunters Hole was excellent and a real SRT playground, huge thanks to Sean for doing all the hard work.
--- Lawrence 18/9/18
+-- Lawrence
+==== Oregon Caves. Sep 2018 ====
+{{ :2018.09-barry_hulatt-oregon_cave.jpg?direct&200|Oregon Cave}}
+Just finished a great trip to the Oregon Caves. Well worth it if you can get this far, but it is a bit remote. The caves are in marble as opposed to limestone. I also managed some lava tubes down in California and climbed more than half of Mt Shasta. Didn't see the Sasquatch.
+-- Barry Hulatt
+\\ \\ \\ \\ \\
 ==== Waterwheel Swallet. Tue 2nd Oct 2018 ====
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 A pleasant walk back to the cars via fields and stiles (much easier) was followed by a debrief or two at the New Inn, Cross
--- Lawrence 10/10/18
+-- Lawrence
 ==== Vallis Quarry Cave. Thu 11th Oct 2018 ====
@@ Line 138: / Line 154: @@
 -- Chris
-==== Shute Shelve Cavern Mon 15th Oct 2018 ====
+==== Pierre's Pot. Thu 11th Oct 2018 ====
+Barry, Dan, Will, Axel
+Four of us did a trip down Pierre's Pot on Thursday and noticed the gravel and skid marks on the road. The walk from the carpark is at times quite hairy and on that occasion was particularly worrying in the dark for the large troops of kids we met. Well done those in charge of them and well done kids for being so careful.
+We had some interesting gymnastics in Pierre's and all got in and out of the parts we could easily fit into. Dan and I noticed that someone has been doing a bit of uncompleted 'hidden persuasion' in the slot below the bolted slot. Any of us?
+-- Barry
+==== Burrington Coombe. Thu 11th Oct 2018 ====
+It is sometimes easy to forget how lucky I am to have the Mendips on my doorstep and to treat it's gorges as nothing more than roads with bends in them that get me to where I want to be.
+I thought I would share an unusual period in Burrington Coombe that perhaps goes to show that others also just use it as a road, or possibly race track.
+On Thursday 11/10 I was working for Charterhouse outdoor centre doing morning and afternoon trips gorge walking in the East Twin valley. After a successful morning trip I loaded the kids into the minibus and drove down the Coombe to turn round and head back to the centre for lunch, however, rounding the bend at the West Twin valley we came across a car on its roof with a paramedic just arriving on scene, the young lady that was driving was out of the car and fine so we headed back.
+After lunch I drove back to Burrington but was confronted by lorries reversing back up the Coombe and drivers flagging me down to say that there had been an accident and the road was closed, assuming that it was just the recovery of the mornings crashed car I carried on as I would be parking before I got to the closure, however when I got to the sharp left handler with the matrix sign I saw that it was a head on collision between a lorry and transit van (not much left of the van) not wishing to have the kids walk past the gory scene I went back to the Burrington Hams car park and took them for a walk instead.
+Saturday morning saw me doing a morning Goatchurch trip for some scouts. To my surprise there was a car on its roof resting on the bottom of the Rock of Ages.
+Sunday and a morning down Goatchurch then afternoon down Swildons, amazingly no upside down cars at all!  It was too good to last as Andy Sparrow came out of Goatchurch in the afternoon to find a car on its roof at the bottom of the West Twin valley.
+So in summary a 400yard stretch of road had seen at least 4 separate accidents in 4 days writing off 5 vehicles and who knows what injuries.
+It's Autumn so the roads are wet and have leaves on them, but nothing out of the ordinary or one would think dangerous?
+I'll continue to use the gorge roads and remind myself how lucky I am to be able to use them as part of my "commute"
+-- Lawrence
+==== Shute Shelve Cavern. Mon 15th Oct 2018 ====
 Chris Castle, Lawrence, Andy and Rachel, Neil and Carol, Will, Kriss Cawson and Nikolai Stankiewicz (guests).
@@ Line 158: / Line 204: @@
 -- Chris
-==== Shute Shelve Cavern. 21st Oct 2018 ====
+==== Shute Shelve Cavern. Sun 21st Oct 2018 ====
+Chris Castle, Judi Durber, Peter Sanders, Emma Gisborne, Brendan Hanley.
 This trip was much the same as the last one so I won't go on too much.
@@ Line 169: / Line 216: @@
 -- Chris
 ==== GB. Mon 29th Oct 2018 ====
@@ Line 187: / Line 235: @@
 -- Lawrence
+==== Winterhead Hill Swallet. Thu 15th Nov 2018 ====
+Axel, Barry, Will, Stu, Steph, Seán
+Axel, Barry, Will and Stu, TOOTHACHE MOLERS joined Steph and Seán for a slightly delayed start due to Danny being diverted back home due to fog. Upon arrival each person seamlessly drifted into a task for the first ?? or so minutes clearing vegetation, building silt traps, clearing out the "sink point/s and capping the monster rock seemingly blocking the way on. Seemingly was right, after its removal smaller, some about half the monsters size steadily followed along with about half a cubic metre  of mud, silt and thin layer of yellowish sand.
+Toward the end another monster was encountered, I say toward the end it was actually about an hour ish. After strenuous efforts of crowbarring digging out around it heaving and cursing, a single hole with 2 caps seemed to have sorted it 3 or 4 just liftable [ getting tired!] lumps left the last little bit  ….. uuuuuuuuuum 20 mins or later after having cleared a few football size rocks from around it, "THE LAST LITTLE BIT" desperation and aggression took over and it was pounded by "Bertha"  the 6ft  30kg+ digging bar, little bits giving up as it slowly sank below the water level. sinking below the water level! ! ! OH s*** we had puddled the drainage, so end of session was using Bertha to find it again. Successful night, of around 2 1/2 hours - 3 hours resulted in gaining a depth of about 1m+ over an area of about 1m x 1.5m.
+Site is interesting, at present no solid walls or bedrock, rocks are fairly rough of various types, sort of conglomerate, possibly harptree bed and quite minerally, hard to get a good picture as most is covered in mud, so have not seen a lot of time in water? The next one or 2  sessions will probably be good with a team of 4 to 6/7, spoil removal will need to be organised and a plan of where to put it most certainly organised before much more effort. The "way on" furthest point in the sink depression looks extremely uninviting at the moment, under a cliff of "loosely" stacked rock. Without shoring and a bigger area to work in was the basis of my encouragement to dig where we did !  NEEDED is a quantity of scaffold/ clips and items to assist shoring. There are a couple of digs that currently are not being pursued so maybe a forage of these sites will have a lot of what is needed.
+-- StuL
+==== Far Rift Dig. Thu 29th Nov 2018 ====
+Andy, Lawrence, Paul
+{{ youtube>wVa3XNVxDE0?large|Far Rift Dig. 29/11/2018}}
+I'm sure we are all aware of the massive potential of Goughs Cave (huge resurgence, massive catchment, little known cave).
+About 35 years ago Far Rift was identified as a possible way on, out of the known cave system. A dig was progressed through a squalid duck, finally reaching a narrow vertical rift that was forced by Tom Chapman to the top some 5m above, where it opened out a bit but had no obvious way on, interestingly a dead bat was found at the top, where did it come from?
+Interest waned and the dig was abandoned. Scroll forwards 15 years and Andy Sparrow was a cave leader, leading a group of tourists around the adventure cave circuit he noticed a draught coming out of the dig, on closer inspection the draught was actually causing ripples on the surface of the duck, interesting.
+Another 15 years passed, Gough's management changed and Andy managed to get access agreed for Cheddar Caving Club to dig at the site in April 2017. The first phase was to improve access to the top of the rift. The horizontal squeeze, crawl and duck was blasted open to provide an easy hands and knees crawl to the bottom of the vertical rift. This was enlarged but unfortunately in doing so large amounts of mud was released which meant a lot of time was spent shoring up with a bag wall and drystone wall. Lots of man power from the ChCC! Finally the top of the rift was reached and a decision had to be made. Up and left, or up and right. The consensus was up and left. Much blasting (courtesy of Aubrey Newport) resulted in the blind top of the rift. Think again!
+Rudimentary smoke testing suggested that the draught may be coming from the right. At this point Aubrey (and his explosive licence) retired from the dig due to a knee injury. Fortunately Andy came to the fore managing to get his license.
+Since Andy has gained his explosive license progress has been rapid with multiple trips per week. A horizontal tube near the top of the rift on the right has been followed for 3m until Tuesday this week when a vertical space above was noticed, this was blasted last night without much hope, more to rule it out before continuing horizontally.
+Today (Thursday 29th 2018) myself and Andy met at the cave to clear debris from the blast and see what needed to be done next. I was a few minutes late meaning Andy had fallen into conversation with Paul (cheddar cave leader) so he was invited along to see progress.
+As expected a few bags of rubble was removed from the bottom of the rift then up to the top to inspect the damage, sadly the upward squeeze into the vertical space was still intact but a couple of minutes with a hammer removed a nobble and I was volunteered to "give it a go" with much pushing from below I managed to get up about 3m, time for a rest and shout back a description of what I could see, "closes down to the left, not much to the right, maybe a hole about 4m above me but looks like another blind top to the rift" I found another foot hold allowing me to push up another half meter. To my surprise I was looking straight into a horizontal alcove on the bedding about 2m round and 20cm high!! Putting my head in between the stalactites I could see around the corner along a passage about 20cm high disappearing into the distance!!!
+A hammer was passed up and I started along the right hand side of the 2m wide passage. After about 3m I was half way along and could see over a low mud bank to a void beyond, despite best efforts it was just to narrow and digging heavy clay with a claw hammer just wasn't going to do it.
+I retuned to get Paul's helmet with GoPro (hopefully uploaded soon) pushing to the max I got within 2m of the void, it is about 3 or 4 m across and maybe vertical in nature, I got the impression I was at the top of a pitch? So we are now out of the rift into a very different area, also it is covered in bat shit and draughting well. This is all heading out of the known cave, couldn't be more excited!
+What next? Andy is now on holiday for a couple of weeks (damn him!) then a couple of bangs to widen the vertical squeeze then a night digging towards the pitch/chamber, then who knows?
+So essentially about 15m of new passage found with a very obvious and potentially open way on, this is what dreams are made of.
+-- Lawrence
+==== Swildons Sump 1 ====
+Will, Axel, Danny
+The other day I did a trip with Danny and axle down to sump 1 and back not through as there was not enough of us. I would like to go through next time with a wet suit on a weekend. it took use 4 hours dead on I know it is a along time but never made it that far before.
+-- Will 7/12/2018
+==== Goatchurch. Thu 6th Dec 2018 ====
+Will, Axel, Danny
+Hi guys feeling a bit broken today as last night Me Danny Axle done caving I got down the drain pipe with Dan 1 end and Axle the other I know. I actually got down the last time I done it I was about 10 and shot through took me slightly longer last night. We then went down the pub.
+-- Will
+==== Far Rift Dig. Sun 16th, 17th, 19th Dec 2018 ====
+Andy, Lawrence, Paul
+Andy finally got back from holiday on Saturday, I don't think I could have waited much longer.
+Sunday evening and we were back in the cave drilling holes into the vertical squeeze, a loud bang later and we retreated to allow the fumes to clear.
+Monday morning and the waiting was finally over, Andy, Paul and myself(Lawrence) met at 10:00am with tools, rope, drills and bolts nothing could stop us now! Debris was cleared from the bottom of the rift and up we went, sadly only the bottom half of the squeeze had vanished, I was once again volunteered to go up. Wow was it this tight last time? Andy and Paul set about enlarging the remainder of the vertical squeeze with hammer and chisel while I set off along the horizontal squeeze. Again it seemed to have shrunk.
+Flat out digging heavy clay was tough, with only minimal spoil space I kept the trench through the mud bank to about 8 inches from the roof and shoulder width, eventually I had to fully commit as I had run out of places to stack the spoil. Only 1m left to the void ahead, dig ahead and push spoil forward and around me, no way to reverse out, I had to get through. Predictably I got wedged with the wet clay sticking me to the floor, 5 minutes rest and getting my head back together. Had to go forward. Push. Push. Scape the mud away with my hands, movement! Struggle, shout back I'm through! Lie half out of the tube to get my breath back. What can you see? The floor! Is it a pitch? No!
+Andy and Paul had made good progress and Paul was half way along the horizontal squeeze but could get no further. The GoPro was sent through and film shot, apologies for heavy breathing but I was knackered.
+So what did we find? The squeeze exits about a foot off the floor of a small chamber about 2m across, a hole in the right hand wall leads into an area of breakdown with three passages leading off, the first a bedding plane is half full of mud and would need digging, the second a well decorated tube, any investigation would destroy the pretties, the third leads up a mud slope into a high rift with possible bedding going off at a high level. Straight ahead the passage continued into the darkness about 4m high and 1m wide, I turned back at this point to let the others join in. Got back to the squeeze knackered so all decided to retire have a rest day and return for the big breakthrough.
+Today (19/12/18) all met at 10:00am, expectations high. I went straight up and through to continue digging the floor down in the squeeze, Andy removed some rock from the roof at the start of the horizontal squeeze (provisionally named The Portcullis) Twenty minutes later and all three of us where through and ready to go into the unknown. Previous point was passed, another two steps and the open passage ahead closed down to nothing NO! NO! NO! Not to worry, Andy climbed high into the rift to have a look at the possible bedding going off, it didn't exist, NO! All other possible ways on where examined, nothing. I had misidentified the rift as passage, it is in fact the top of a cross rift.
+So we have found about another 20m of passage, there is bat shit everywhere, a breeze, the squeeze and rift both head north, the bedding plane heads north and east, there is scalloping all over the place.
+What next? A break for Christmas, then some housekeeping to improve access, then explore the bedding. We will be looking at a couple of hauling sessions and skinny cavers to continue digging out the floor of the squeeze so should be plenty of opportunity to come and have a look at progress yourself.
+Today was disappointing at first, however we are heading out of the known system in a relatively large passage complex and we may have picked up a network of bedding planes in a cave that is dominated by them.
+Although I have been on point for the last couple of trips this is due to my build, the dig is very much Andy's baby and he did a fine job today on motivating us after the initial disappointment
+-- Lawrence