The Eldon have been a bit quiet of late, its not that nowt's happening, folk have been busy on their own little projects, Eavis and friends in Oxlow, Bog and his buddies in Bagshawe and myself, well generally just hanging around.
It was at the Eldon AGM a few weeks ago that subject of some sort of project to pull the club together came up, and the possibility of a concerted effort of the abandoned Lloyds Shaft project started by the EPC in the late ninties was muted. After all, it was named after us ;-).
Dan Hibberts began drumming up interest and after a few post AGM pints with Mark Wright, a plan was starting to form involving a coalition with the Buttered Badgers. A few weeks have passed and a regular pattern is beginning to emerge, EPC on Tuesdays, Badgers on Thursdays and a mix on the weekend.
After a few preparatory trips, MarkR and the Badgers installed the first stage of their patented 'Very Very Square' timbered shaft last week. At the weekend, Mark Wright, along with 3 EPC members Paz Vale, Bob Toogood and Sam Pemberton, shifted a lot of rock and pushed the timbers home.
Last night, The EPC team made up of Dan Hibberts, Bog Bergmann, Dave Cowley, Jon Pemberton and myself, continued hauling the rock out and making space for the next 'ring'. Reckon we shifted about a ton of rock. The general slope in the main chamber has also begun to be stabalised with drystone walling.
Another bonus is that the place is getting a bit of a spring clean on along the way. I've always found Eldon hole to be a bit of a depressing shit heap to be honest. Its only looks impressive if your looking up. However, gradually, all the bits of rotting timber, bones, wire, tin cans, combs (yes combs), sheets of tin, broken glass, gloves etc etc are getting gathered up and tidied away.
I was surprised to learn from Moose last week that it had never, to his knowledge, been surveyed properly. To that end, this weekend, Rob and Katie Eavis have said they'll do the deed and get busy with a distoX.
So far, I make it 9 Eldon members that have been on trips and I'm sure a few more will be down before long to help out. Not least Stick and Jase Rider, who started the dig in the late ninties and whom I'm sure wont be able to resist a trip down to see how things are progressing.
All in all, it has been very successful in pulling the club together and at the rate its moving, it'll not be long before we are pushing down into unknown territory.
Sam Townsend