Brains
Well-known member
Hi Peeps
Back in the 80's there was an enamel bowl here for clearing debris from the crawl, which was both dry and roomy. Much debris had been pulled back and stacked on ledges, or dragged through and tipped down the pitch. Over the years this dish has disappeared, but the crawl has been occasionally dug out. After the last clearing it seems people decided it was more cave than mine, and dragged all the tailings down to fill the crawl to a squeeze because it is "sporting" to worm up a coffin level. The fines have choked the soakaway, leaving a pool that gets close to sumping in wet weather. I suspect if the soakaway is dug out it may lead to currently unknown mine passages. This area is exclusively mined, although there is natural elsewhere in the mine.
Being a caving rather than a mine forum I appreciate the readers may be biased, but how do you feel about the soakaway being dug out and the crawl being cleared of debris down to the flowstone floor? After previous clearings a dry step up to the crawl was created, but the dig was never pushed...
Back in the 80's there was an enamel bowl here for clearing debris from the crawl, which was both dry and roomy. Much debris had been pulled back and stacked on ledges, or dragged through and tipped down the pitch. Over the years this dish has disappeared, but the crawl has been occasionally dug out. After the last clearing it seems people decided it was more cave than mine, and dragged all the tailings down to fill the crawl to a squeeze because it is "sporting" to worm up a coffin level. The fines have choked the soakaway, leaving a pool that gets close to sumping in wet weather. I suspect if the soakaway is dug out it may lead to currently unknown mine passages. This area is exclusively mined, although there is natural elsewhere in the mine.
Being a caving rather than a mine forum I appreciate the readers may be biased, but how do you feel about the soakaway being dug out and the crawl being cleared of debris down to the flowstone floor? After previous clearings a dry step up to the crawl was created, but the dig was never pushed...