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...
- Details
- Written by: Luke Cafferty
- Hits: 179
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!
- Details
- Written by: Rob Eavis
- Hits: 224
Mechanics' Tapas- Details
- Written by: Joe Buck
- Hits: 463
Jon and Joe
The previous week French Jeff had once again graced LWS with his presence, and remained very optimistic, stating that one more trip and we would be through to victory. With that, Jon and I returned to claim what lay beyond, being the glory grabbers that we are.
There had been a staggering volume of rain in the week since Rob and Jeff had been in and so we were anticipating the water in the shakehole would have overflowed into the dig and caused backfill and standing water in the bottom of the 1st Reich. On the way down it was clear that this had indeed occurred as there were green leaves which had been washed in. However, the u-bend at the bottom was clear with only a small amount of sludge having been washed in, which was a bit grim but passable.
Jeff reckoned there was only a few caps to get through into a tight squeeze over a flake, which I quickly took care of, albeit awkwardly in the narrow passage. The passage tightens at the bottom so I hoisted myself up and began to squeeze through the constriction with my feet above my head and trying not to let myself fall down. I managed to get my torso through but soon realised I was putting myself in a position I would probably struggle to reverse - I thought it better to widen it further.
The capping was incredibly awkward with Jon and I doing a ridiculous shuffling about of drills and equipment with Jon just getting cold and miserable in the muddy u-bend. I offered to swap but Jon respectfully declined, probably because of all the grunting and moaning I was doing. I proceeded to take two big flakes of rock away, which allowed enough room to manoeuvre myself into the now larger constriction and squeeze into the passage over the flakes. From here it is possible to see the continuation of the rift which appears to close down ahead in a too tight section. In the floor beyond the flakes is a hole which is where the water obviously pours down. This drops around 1-2m to a muddy bouldery ledge and appears to continue ahead off a further drop, unfortunately out of sight.
Having hogged all the digging, Jon joined for some photos and to inspect my work. There is at least another two trips required to get to the ledge as more widening is required, and potentially all while lying with your feet above your head. Might just pay for Jeff’s flights and get him to come and do it…
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Wade
- Hits: 598
Rob et Jeff
Une équipe réduite pour ce soir mais suffisamment nombreux pour les tâches qu'il fallait faire dans la faille au fond. J'étais très touché que personne n'est revenue depuis mon dernier visite en juillet, en laissant tout prêt à creuser pour mon retour automnal.
Le travail devant nous, Rob et moi, était simple, agrandir la taille et avance vers le courant d'air. Rob a fait la première étape du soir dans la faille pendant que j'ai agrandi l'étroiture pour avoir un accès moins pénible à passer. Clairement le largueur de la faille créait quelques difficultés en creusant car c'était dur à manipuler les outils.
Après une heure nous avons changé nos lieux de travail, et pour ma part, j'ai bien profité des faiblesses créées par Rob dans la roche. Plusieurs plaques ont tombé facilement. Je m'enfonçais un mètre dedans et maintenant j'étais debout avec l'espace pour mon bide en gros confort. Devant il avait une colonne tout fine de roche qu'avec la fonctionne marteaux piquer du perforateur et quelques coupes de masse est partie en plusieurs morceaux.
Actuellement on voit bien devant, mais il faut enlever 10 à 15cm par le côté droite pour gagner la suite qui a l'air d'agrandir très bientôt. Heureusement la faille est un peu profonde donc on peut laisser tomber tous que nous creusons sans avoir besoin de les stocker au derrière. C'est très prometteur à mon avis, mais pas le goût de tout le monde !
On a fini la soirée avec une verre dans l'Anchor au carrefour de Tideswell avec l'équipe de Bull Pit avant un retour chez nous dans un brouillard épais.
- Details
- Written by: Jeff Wade
- Hits: 627
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.
- The Uprising - 29/05/2024
- Reich digs progressing well - 13/06/2024
- The end is where we start - 22/05/2024
- Tough times ahead - 09/05/2024
- Potential Weight Loss Journey Through A German With Bang - 02/05/24
- How to be a glory grabbing, self serving wanker - 25/04/2024
- Project V – NCA 2 (If you know, You Know!) - 18/04/2024
- Project V - 11/04/2024
- Are we there yet? - 14/12/2023
- Project V Thursday 23rd November
- Project V - 16/11/2023
- Project V - Ein Bericht in einer vernünftigeren Sprache - 14/09/2023
- Projekt V – Nun auch als “Das kleine Wasserfall-Erdloch” bekannt - 17/08/2023
- New dig on the block - 10/08/2023