|
| |
Highlights of the Year During this year we:
cross-rift in extension passage discovered air space found at roof level behind the
hanging boulder pumps and generator purchased
The Dig Log
Weekend 28th/30th January Keith, Brendan,
Graham, John and Keith travelled down on the Friday evening. The
water level at the lowest point was just a little over welly height so
it was decided to pump it out. Once the pump had been started this
took only about 5 minutes.
Adrian joined the team on Saturday and with Brendan acting as Duty
Officer at the club, five of us dug out another 5 feet of passage,
removing 105 buckets of infill.
On Sunday the team was strengthened by the addition of Pete, Mick
Bowdler, Mike Cavanagh, Jim and Mike Noble. Approximately 120
buckets of infill was removed.
The passage discovered last August (Extension Passage) is now a little over 20 feet long
with solid roof and walls. It is trending downwards at on angle of
approximately 5 degrees and has been dug out to a depth of about 3 feet
6 inches.
The dig team |
Pete removing a boulder
|
The new passage - Pete in the foreground
and Jim behind |
Mike Noble at the dig face |
The Dig Team: PAn (Sun only), MBo (Sun only), MCa (Sun only), JDu (Sun only),
KEd, BMa, MNo (Sun only), GSm, JSm, ASt & CWe
Weekend 7th/8th May Another very successful
digging weekend. On Saturday morning we constructed a
single-bucket railway over the pool and in the afternoon we removed 75
buckets of spoil.
On the Sunday we removed another 112 buckets of infill.
We appear to have discovered a cross-rift with the passage we have been
following, continuing ahead. Another weekend should confirm this.
During the weekend we added 6 feet to the length of the cave.
The Dig Team: MCa (Sun only), KEd, BMa, MNo, GSm, JSm & ASt |
Keith Edwards in the newly discovered
cross-rift. |
|
Weekend 11th/12th June Yet another highly
successful weekend's digging by a very small, but highly dedicated team.
After a sunny week we all expected the dig to be dry, but the
Extension Passage had a significant amount of water at its lowest
point. We managed to bail this back into the main pool and then went to
examine the dig face. There was foam high in the roof of the cross
rift indicating that the Extension Passage had recently flooded to the
roof. The water had washed some of the infill out of the passage
straight ahead and had exposed a large pointed boulder hanging down from
the roof.
Brendan used his electronic draught detecting meter and found a small but
significant draught to the left hand side of this boulder.
During the Saturday Adrian continued to dig ahead and managed to get
underneath and past the hanging boulder - 60 buckets of infill were
removed on the day. On the far side of the boulder the passage
roof effectively disappeared with only sand above the digger.
On the Sunday Keith investigated the roof behind the hanging boulder
with the aid of a 4' length of angle iron. After about half a
dozen prods the bar went through to reveal black space. After
about half an hour the hole in the roof was large enough to climb up
into. We are in a narrow rift about 7' 6" high (from the existing
floor) with about 3" of air space in both directions. The passage
back to the cross-rift has been dug out to body-size and will connect to
the top of this rift. A small air space can be seen to both left
and right along the cross-rift. The left hand passage (looking
into the cave) seems to be an inlet.
Ahead the passage continues with air space at roof level.
Approximately another 5' of this passage has been dug out. It is a
narrow rift - about a foot or so wide and so although air space exists
at roof level the passage will have to be dug out to the existing floor
level where hopefully it will continue to be wide enough to get through.
Another 36 buckets of infill were removed to surface on the Sunday. |
The newly discovered passage looking up-dip, back
towards the entrance
The newly discovered passage looking down-dip, the
way on |
The Dig Team: MCa (Sun only), KEd, BMa, MNo & ASt
Weekend 9th/10th July A large dig team and
probably a record for the amount of infill removed - 140 buckets on the Saturday
and 120 buckets on the Sunday, but nevertheless a little disappointing.
There was a lot of water in the extension passage and so the first
couple of hours on the Saturday were taken up in baling water from here to the main pool
and from the main pool to the surface.
When digging commenced it became apparent almost immediately that the rift ahead
was joined in the middle. Above (where the air space is) the passage is
too small to follow, below we could see an arched roof. Unfortunately by
the close of play on Saturday is was impossible to remove any more infill ahead
as most of the way on was below water.
On Sunday John and Adrian lowered the floor by the dig face and ramped it back
along the passage. Now the water drains to the bottom of the passage and
so should be easier to bale out next time. Before we can go digging again
we will need to source a pump.
During the weekend approximately 2 feet was added to the length of the system
and about 6 feet to the depth.
The Dig Team: PAn, MBa, DBo (Sun only), KEd, BMa, MNo, JSm, ASt
& CWe
Weekend 17th/18th September
Brendan and Keith inspected the dig 3 times during the weekend. The water
was 4' 6" high at the dig face and only drained by about 1.5" during the
weekend. It was estimated that approximately 1000 gallons of water will
need to be shifted before digging can again commence.
Thursday 22nd September Three 550W pumps have now been purchased by
the club. Once we have a generator digging activities will re-commence.
Weekend 29th/30th October We started pumping
operations at 12:45 and the pumping went very well indeed. Everything performed
as we had predicted/hoped for and we were shifting the water at over 6 gallons
per minute. Under ‘normal’ circumstances this would have completely
emptied the system in a little over 2 hours. Unfortunately South Wales had had
(even by its own standards) an excess of liquid sunshine during the preceding 7
days and the water level in the dig was high, in fact very high, in fact there
was about 4 times the normal amount of water in the dig, in fact it was
completely sumped. So pumping on the Saturday took 8 hours! Never the less we
were all set to dig on the Sunday when we retired for the night.
Then during the night it rained, it poured, it was torrential, a deluge, a cloud
burst and when we got up in the morning it was still absolutely p'ing down. All
of the tracks were rivers, water was pouring out of the party quarry and down
the hillside, and all of these water courses were converging at our dig! Now we
had left the pumps and the wiring in the dig and so Keith got changed and legged
it to the dig see if it was still possible to retrieve these items. It was,
just! The archway had about a foot of airspace left before it sumped so he
managed to duck through and get the tackle. While he was doing this the water
level rose by about 4 inches.
Needless to say we abandoned operations.
When we left Penwyllt the river was a brown ragging torrent and water was
resurging in the middle of the field next to it, bubbling up out of the ground.
|
