Little Waterfall Swallet
Little Waterfall Swallet is next door to Waterfall Hole and has received only a small amount of attention from diggers over the years. Until now...
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- Written by: Jeff Wade
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Comme un membre EPC d'étrangère qui fréquente très peu les projets d'actualité, j’étais ravie de voir du beau temps en surface pour suivre les explorations à Little Waterfall sans craint d'eau. Cependant maintenant le course d'eau est dérivé vers un autre trou pour facilité l'accès.
Faune du coin - ¨Team Awesome¨ que je ne ferais pas partie...
Au parking, grâce de covoiturage de Luke depuis Buxton, il avait les visages que je n'ai pas vu pour un petit moment; JP, Joe sans âme, Rob, et Dylan. Après un peu de grignotage et boissons, on était prêt pour le travail du soir, à descendre les 20m de puits et agrandir un fenêtre en bas et en aval d'un méandre important qui souffle fort, mais qui était impénétrable.
Clairement à 6 personnes, nous étions trop nombreux seulement pour faire élargissement, donc on est devisé en deux, équipe creusant, et équipe touristique et photographe. Moi je faisais partie du deuxième.
JP a sorti son reflex et flashes, et Joe sans âme était obligé à faire les poses longes sur les petits margelles glissantes comme le photographe lui demande. J'ai tenu un flash comme je pourrais.
Entre temps, Luke, Dylan et Rob sont passés l'étroiture pour voir le suite. Ce n’était pas large, mais possible de mettre deux personnes debout au même moment.
Rob et Jeff dans la partie nouvellement découverte...
La faille continuait devant mais malheureusement pas trop large, il faudrait creuser en plus. Le travaux s’arrête là pour aujourd’hui.
Toujours du soleil en surface après pas plus de deux heures sous terre. On enchaîne au Mechanics car on avait un petit soif, qui était retardé à la cause d'un changement de fût.
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- Written by: Jon Pemberton
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Due to conflicting schedules the gang has been split up for the foreseeable weeks, so Sam and I had agreed to head down LWS on a different evening to other gang members with intentions of aiding progress. Also Sam had not been about for the past 9 weeks so it was an easy one to get back into, rather than a romp to the end of Baggers.
Armed with drill and rock removal tools our plan was to crack on with Dig#2 (Rob’s dig/2nd Reich) but on inspection it looked miserable! Tight-as-you-like and the way on looked tiny (even for Rob). I wanted to inspect the lower dig (1st Reich) although I’d never actually seen it in the flesh it mad sense that this would be the way on. We dropped down to floor level and both had a crawl to the end. It was tight for sure but not as desperate at the one above. With your helmet it off you could just about see into a black space but how big was that black space? Big enough to crawl along? There’s only one way to find out…
We started to dig out the floor (which was awkward) It involved digging a small mount facing the dig face and because of its tight nature you’d then have to push said mound underneath you, hop over it, turn around and then throw it towards the bottom of the pitch. Progress was slow but necessary in order to cap the face ahead. After a couple of shift swaps we were about 12 inches away from a proper look at the void. At this point Sam started to toot on his vape and gassed the place out! We were knackered and now we couldn’t see owt! We decided to head to surface via a quick ‘B-line’ to the top dig but this involved a traverse off the rope at the top of the pitch and I literally couldn’t see my hand so we headed out for post beers on surface instead.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Over the last few weeks the 1st and 2nd Reich digs have taken an absolute hammering. Both digs are simply the widest sections of the rift as it tightens to the west, one above the other, and the strong draught suggests they are a good lead. What's more, following heavy rain at the end of May a stream could be heard beyond!
I've taken a fancy to the top (2nd) dig and over 4 trips have now progressed about 2m to the top of a vertical drop down to the floor below. This offers a tantalising view of a clean-washed, rift passage heading off. Unfortunately the drop down is too tight to get along so progressing any further here will take a lot of effort.
The dig face back at the end of May
Meanwhile Joe has been working the lower dig, and whilst he had a slow and frustrating start, last night saw some great progress and he too now can see into the next passage. We even have visual contact between the two ends.
This now makes 1st Reich the most promising looking dig and I'm hopeful that in the next trip or two this should be able to be passed. Fingers crossed the passage beyond is big enough to fit along!
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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The Reich digs, at the western end of Brooklands Straight, are 3 similar constrictions at different elevations. This direction appears to be downstream and all 3 draught, but other than that probably most people would happily call it the end of the cave. Thankfully, that’s where the Eldon begin.
Last week Jon and Joe went photoing in the Far Left leaving me to spend a happy couple hours capping the righthand wall of 2nd Reich. This made about 600mm of progress widening the rift, although not very exciting as you can fit about 2m passed this point to where it gets really tight.
Looking out of 2nd Reich at Joe, by RobE
After Joe had a fight with his shower and unfortunately came off worse I was on my own tonight. To be honest, this dig is very much a one man party, so that suited me fine. It had rained all day (42mm in 24 hours!) and the waterfall was flowing well. V2 was taking all the stream leaving V1 nice and dry still, but there was some evidence that some water had flown down Brooklands Straight recently.
Excitedly upon arriving at the dig there was an obvious rumble coming from ahead. I squeezed to the front, filming for the Team, and clearly a stream can be heard flowing ahead. Water sounds are very hard to decipher, but this feels like it could well be a similar amount of water to that flowing down V2. Game on!
2 hours of capping later I’d made another 500mm ish although then wasted another hour with a snapper which didn’t fire, much to my annoyance. Then I realised that my jammer had fallen off my SRT kit in the entrance crawl so I had to improvise with a pantin to get up the 20m pitch. Nevertheless, a great session, although there’s lots to do to get through! I’ve never really started a mining project like this before so we’ll see how high the enthusiasm stays.
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- Written by: Rob Eavis
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Hal, Chris, Joe, Rob
Whilst another team worked down Cussey tonight, we planned to continue exploring V1, sort out the rigging and have a better look at the digs. During the prep talk it became apparent that nobody had managed to inform Hal that there is now a 20m pitch to reach the end so he’d have to share an SRT kit, oops! I’d also managed to forget my oversuit cos I’m an idiot, so it was a furry only trip for me.
Me n Joe headed to the far left, leaving Chris and Hal to work on the pitch. I was quite keen to try remember some of the survey stations from last week as I’d forgotten my marker, however this was definitely harder than I thought. Meanwhile Joe was off climbing in the roof and managed to pop up into some new stuff. I surveyed my way up to him, through a narrow rift and back into the main choke, and we eventually dropped back down into known ground. This bit of the cave is very similar to Waterfall Hole, where you could survey loops all day and make the cave look really long, even though it’s just a pile of boulders. Still, I’ll take the extra 20m, thanks.
Joe in the new loop
We had a bit more of a poke around, including looking at the big rift in there which is parallel to the main Brooklands Straight rift. The survey suggests that the westerly end of this is in a nice location potentially bypassing the main rift digs, but unfortunately no way on was found.
Joe in the big rift in the Far Left
We then headed back to the other, where the big noises of capping and banging had finished and the pitch rope now hung beautifully. We checked out the #1, 2 and 3 Reich digs but nobody was very excited about them. The rift just gets tight. The draughts prove there will be a way on, but most people would simply call this the end. We’ll see what happens…
Joe climbing up to 3rd Reich
Whilst the others climbed out I had a freeclimb up into another passage even higher up, now a good 14m off the floor, using the deviation to swing in. This rift passage actually starts off quite wide and enticing but soon ends properly in a solutional pocket. I survey back and we all head out. Tough times ahead for V1…
Chris on the pitch with it's now lovely hang
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