We had planned to accomplish a few jobs tonight, tidying up the dig site at LWS to keep the landowners happy, have a dig at the end and survey a mine that has opened up a few fields over. As the saying goes, 'no plan survives first contact' Rob got stuck at work so had to drop out and everyone else was quiet on the chat about coming out to help so it ended with just Joe, Chris and I.
Not knowing where the freshly opened mine was we decided that we would just concentrate on LWS. After we'd all moaned about how cold it was we quickly got changed and headed over to the shakehole. We first tackled the mounds of spoil that had accumulated over the project. Laying it out flat and spreading lots of leaves over the fresh mud and now you wouldn't even be able to tell that a dig has taken place. We stacked up all the remaining debris and planned on dragging it up to top on way out. Not being able to put if off any longer we headed down the cave.
Truth be told I'm not really a fan of this dig, it's tight and awkward and any gain in distance is such a battle so I wasn't exactly keen to be back at the end but here I found myself so I might as well do something productive. After crawling over the two boulders wedged in the rift I could see the rift continuing, it's quite hard to move your head to have a good look but I thought I could see a mud wall up ahead. Joe came through the squeeze to join me and we had a talk about the best way forward. Joe suggesting that we head down. There looks to be a bit of a drop, which you could possibly fit in.
I crawled back to the wider bit of the rift and managed to trap my balls on a perfectly placed gap in some flakey rock on the side of the wall, that was now going to be my first place to attack. It's a super awkward dig having to do everything one handed and try to pass things around your body. I managed to drill my hole and after Joe passing me through everything I needed I capped the offending rock. It's super flakey so caps really do a lot of damage. Pulling out big lumps of rock you can actually feel the place getting wider. I set off another cap which was so loud, with my ears ringing I just about heard Joe shout through that he had some ear defenders, bit late for that.
Having made a bit of progress with the caps, hammer and crowbar I decided I'd had enough of not being able to stand up straight so I retreated and let Joe have a go. He set off 4 more caps clearing most of the side wall away, it's massive in there now! Unsure of the time we decided to try a bit more chemical persuasion so Chris crawled through and did his bit. I was at the top of the pitch when he set it off, they do go with a bang! The smoke filling the bottom and not really clearing that well to the point I struggled to see Joe coming up the rope. He made a comment about nothing will beat caps, in this place I definitely agree with him. Time will tell if it actually did anything worthwhile.
Back on the surface we did a few shuttles up the hill dragging all the rubbish to the top to be taken away.
All in all it was a good trip and I'm happy to say I feel a lot more optimistic about the place now!