Author: mendipgeoarch

29th August 2016: With Nick Hawkes, Pete Bolt and Snablet.

L to R: Pete, Nick, Vince and Snablet almost ready to venture underground.

A great trip ably summed up by Nick in his report below:

“The trip was arranged amidst a birthday drinking session, partly as it was long overdue, but also as a one- off opportunity to get Snablet back into Wigmore during his brief visit ‘home’ to Mendip from his new abode in New Zealand. Apologies were received from Pete, Claire, Brockers and Duncan all of whom were unable to join in.

A jovial reunion crew of 4, Vince, Pete Bolt, Pete Mcnab (Snablet) and Myself met at 11am(ish) with Tony coming along to the entrance as official gate master. Vince brought the Hilti capping kit and drill which was shared between us for carrying down. Its inaugural run into HCH/Wigmore to prove its worth!

An uneventful trip straight to the Terminal Boulder Choke was interspersed with occasional grunts of appreciation of the ‘fine’ passages from both Snablet and Pete Bolt.

Once in the choke, debris from the previous ‘snapper’ set by Chris Jewel and myself several moons back was quickly cleared before unleashing the capping tool. Approximately 6 caps were set off over a period of 30 minutes to one hour or so with rocks being passed back gingerly. With each capping the boulders had a tendancy to shake more than felt comfortable so a tick box list of risk assessment was undertaken by those waiting at the back….The overwhelming conclusion being that there was no better way to spend a sunny bank holiday weekend than sitting underground inside a funnel of large loose muddy boulders with a group of old friends, a couple of crowbars, hammers and small explosive devices….this therefore equated to full mitigation of all risks to irrelevant status.

On reaching this conclusion Vince’s head disappeared through boulders in the floor. After a while a message was relayed from the lost head that another opinion was needed as to what to do next. It sounded tight. The way on drops and follows in the stream with a solid roof!….but after ~8m of low wet grovel turned left. A change of water noise levels was noted, as was a fair sized black hole, but a small rock lip prevented progress. After struggling to pass through and temporarily being stuck I extricated myself and tried hammering past. This failed and another Hilti cap was used which successfully opened up the way ahead. Vince’s head disappeared again but was soon heard making loud happy yelping noises …..something about a pitch….we all followed and looked in awe down a large open Pitch with a stream tumbling down and a walking passage heading off to the left below . We quickly realised we could free-climb down and that now there were no loose boulders!

“Crap” was the next cry….the adrenalin rush suddenly dashed as the first of us reached the passage at the bottom. It’s a sump!

Walking into the brown sump to brush away the foam and find an airspace revealed none, but did establish that the sump is deeper than a person over 1.5m wide and ~3m long. A fossil coral was noted in in the stream gravel.

Excitement over, we had had a good trip, and returned to surface and to the QVic. We think this may be the turnaround of the stream to head now towards Cheddar….if it wasn’t for that bloody sump!

Two glimmers of hope remain….a passage high up possibly bypassing the sump or the possibility that it’s just a short duck….

Ready for you Claire…..”

Snablet, Pete and Nick washing kit after a fine caving and exploration trip!

27th August 2016: with Duncan Price, Rick Stanton and Karen Dealy.

Trip to assist Duncan who was going to dive the sump at the end of the dig [not quite] to Wookey 24.

I hadn’t seen the passage beyond the inclined bedding as this had been opened while I was recovering from surgery on elbow. It is very Eastwater like, reminds of the West End but with a liberal coating of mud ending in a deep clear pool of water.

Duncan kitted up while balancing on some precariously wedged boulders and was soon in the water. Rick had come down to the sump while Karen waited at the top of Wookey 20, when DP had gone Rick went back up to join Karen. I waited for DP who wasn’t too long. De-briefed and de-kitted, it was time for us to head out, then you realise how steep the climb back up is and just how slippery, it is not a journey that can be rushed and slow progress was made. Then there is still the climb back up the rift I was glad when I had reached the top of Wookey 20.

There is still more to do in the sump but fresh bottles are required.

25th August 2016: with Nick and Peter ‘Snablet’ MacNab.

Snablet is over from New Zealand to visit for a week before heading onto China to meet up with Mad Phil Rowsell to go caving there, so I gave him a call at his parent’s to invite on this evening’s trip.

We headed up to the top of Chamber 20 and along to the high route in the rift to clear the bang I had placed a fortnight ago. As we intend to put this dig on hold for a while I wanted to retrieve the wire as well. Snablet and Nick cleared the debris while I sorted out the wire, a good pile of rock was shifted and there is a decent face to continue the widening process when we return in the future.

That job done we headed back up to Chamber 20 and on to the area where the UBSS had been looking some while ago and there we did some furtling about.

Before deciding to have a poke at a different site in the same area. We cleared a large pile of loose rock from the spot until we were left with a number of much larger boulders that will require capping to reduce them into more manageable pieces.

We then had reached a natural pause and it was time to depart. A steady trip out of the cave, got changed and headed up to the Hunter’s Lodge Inn.

A fine way to spend my 60th birthday – caving with my friends!

23rd August: Dolebury Camp. NGR ST 4500 5895

The hill fort is dated to the Iron Age and is bivallate on three sides but here on the south side there is a single rampart protected by the steep slope.

Heading up the eastern rampart. There are extensive views from the top of the rampart.

The original entrance is suggested to be from the west side. The ramparts define an interior c.20 acres. There are a number of pillow mounds (medieval rabbit warrens) that overlie a pre-Medieval field system.

22nd August 2016: Cheddar Gorge. NGR ST 475 543 [centre]

Perhaps one of the best known limestone karst features in the country with many excellent exposures of the Carboniferous Limestone, including Clifton Down Limestone, Cheddar Oolite, Cheddar Limestone, Burrington Oolite and Oxwich Head Limestone.

The cliffs have many valuable semi-natural habitats and are home to a wide range of plant species, many of them rare, for example the exclusive Cheddar Pink. There are, of course, lots of caves formed within the limestone during early interglacial periods.

Over the years the origins of Cheddar Gorge has been the subject of many debates and is now suggested to be a fine example of a gorge cut by a surface river, rather than a collapsed cavern. The gorge has long been left high and dry as the drainage went underground.

Although the gorge is dry now surface drainage occurred in the past particularly during the many cold periglacial periods over the last 1.2 million years. Meltwater floods during brief summers flowed on the surface carving out the gorge.

Reference:

Western Mendip: A walker’s guide to the geology and landscape of western Mendip. British Geological Survey, NERC 2008.

11th August 2016: with Roz Simmonds. Duncan Price and Tom Chapman were in the also cave surveying from Chambers 9 to 20.

Tried out the new camera – Olympus TG-4 – but only quick point and shoots, it really requires a dedicated photo trip to try it out properly.

At the dig with Roz we cleared enough of last weeks effort to enable more holes to be drilled. The rock is not good – there is too much calcite including flowstone, it’s fractured, there are voids and mud filled cracks. It was difficult to get 4 hole drilled and those weren’t brilliant, there were some failed attempts too. Charged the holes I had and the evenings task was completed from a safe distance.

Exited the cave and met up with DP and TC who were just leaving Chamber 9.

4th August 2016: with Tav (Duncan Price and Claire Cohen).

Tav and myself made our way quickly up to the high route along the rift that we had started to widen last week. Cleared the debris that had been created and drilled some more holes and charged ready to make some more work for the next session. Made our way along the traverse and didn’t have to wait too long for DP and Claire, who had been down the lower route to the sump to deliver some dive kit ready for the next push. Completed my task successfully and we all exited the cave.

3rd August 2016: Kingdown Unconformity. NGR ST 5007 5352.

Mercia Mudstone Group (Marginal Facies) – Conglomerate of Triassic Age approx. 200 to 251 million years ago overlies Oxwich Head Limestone Formation of Carboniferous Age approx. 326 to 335 million years ago. Scale = 1 metre.

28th July 2016: with Tav, Nick Hawkes and Matt Tuck.

After about a three month lay-off it was good to return to the explorations beyond Chamber 20. This was a relatively quick in and out trip to get things going.

We had followed the lead first pushed by divers, Tom Chapman and Keith Savory, and this had ended at another sump that Duncan Price is planning to dive in a few days time. The plan is to follow another potential lead at a higher level, unfortunately this is a little constricted, hence the purpose of this evening jaunt.

Drilling wasn’t good as there was a bit too much calcite to get through and some alterations were called for. Perseverance paid off, job done and a satisfying conclusion. We’ll see next trip how things worked.

As usual it was rather warm tonight and I was only wearing the lightest of caving gear, Matt, however suffered most in his nice warm fleece and heavy duty cordura oversuit.

To the Hunter’s for refreshments and debrief.

Haggs Brow Excavations, Lower Winskill, Yorkshire Dale National Park.

Just spent an enjoyable few days on this project at Lower Winskill in the Yorkshire Dales with a group of fine like minded individuals seeking to further their experience and knowledge of caves and environment in this area, me included. The attached pdf is a record of my personal account of proceedings.

It is hoped that this is an initial phase of a longer ongoing investigation of the Lower Winskill environs and could, perhaps, spread to other features within the wider landscape.

The pdf above provides some useful guidelines to the treatment of animal bones recovered during excavations. A whole lot of further information on cave archaeology can be found on the BCRA_Cave Archaeology Special Interest Group website.

9th May 2016: took a stroll from Blackrock Gate up to Longwood to admire the fine display of bluebells there.

28th April 2016: I’m out of action for a while following some surgery on a dodgy elbow. However, the quest off Chamber 20 continues and thanks go to Nick Hawkes for penning the latest instalment, as follows:

Duncan, Brockers, Sam, Nick and Gavin(Newman)

7pm start, with a trophy tourist / filmaker, Gavin who occupied himself trying to recreate photo scenes fom the past, identifying the precise locations from where the old shots had been captured.

Fortunately the rest of us had better things to do and quickly headed straight to the end. With the way remaining clear after last weeks efforts we all slid down through. Sam took up the task of heading forwards at the very base of the rift while the rest of us further cleaned out the ‘slut’ above. After a full session digging the muddy slut was much bigger with steps carved for ease of exit, meanwhile Sam had headed on headfirst to a slightly bigger area with a boulder blocking the way on….a long inclined rift was visible. Nick gave assistance and the boulder was removed. Sam was duly despatched to investigate the rift. He quickly reached a point near the end, perhaps 15 to 20m on, where the gently inclined rift turns sharply to a vertical inclined rift. Nick then came to look on beyond and it was quickly agreed that it was time for the pub and not wise to try and progress any more as it looked bloody tight.

It was significantly more knackering coming out than going in and it didnt help that Gavin was gleefully waiting to film and question us as we emerged from the dig….