Jedexertus
Well-known member
Update from 16th / 18th January 2026 and a day trip 24th January 2026
Weekend first Team of 6 myself / Coleman Sam / Paul Stacey / Adrian Fawcett / Ben Sumpter all in on friday out on Sunday. Joined by Mathilde Feral day trip Saturday.
Friday evening myself / Coleman and Ben went to the bunker to collect some aluminium scaffolding and plastic pipe and took it to sick parrot chamber, the ducting was originally used from the bellows to pump air down the southernly bunker dig in the 90s, the plan to re use the ducting for our dig to keep the dig face a little fresher as it can get a bit stuffy after a few hours working and isn't going to get any better the further we progress forward unless we hit some sort of draught gap in the clay boulder infill ?
Saturday we got to the dig around lunch time the plan with the team we had was to clear the lower areas of spoil , vertical choke / and a couple of other small stacking areas near the face and get it all back to sick parrot aswell as install the ducting and continue digging at the face time permitting, the team cleaned all of the spoil from the lower areas plug n feathering larger boulders to big for the drag trays and parts of the approach that had just been moved and rolled out of the way but taking up a fair bit of the lower temporary stacking space, approximately 16m of ducting was connected and installed between trays of spoil everyone was very busy, unfortunately no forward progress was made at the face this camp due to team numbers and the importance of completely clearing the lower stacking areas for future digs, in situations where we have lower team numbers and need to use this stacking space, although this not ideal or most productive to be stacking lower down and unstacking again when we get a larger team it does seem that it is probably the most effective way of utilising the man power efficiently, as the general current progress at the dig face of 0.5m / 1m per session isn't producing enough spoil to keep the hauling team 100% now we have the hauling system deviations all in place and the people in the correct positions it is working pretty well with interchangeable trays one loaded / empty down change tray over loaded hauled up whilst empty is loaded etc. We can get a full tray up from vertical choke every few mins. So it seems that having a smaller team of 4 or so for 1 or 2 digging sessions to fill the lower areas and then getting a bigger team of at least 7 or more when these areas are full to clear the spoil all the way to sick parrot aswell as digging the face simultaneously. A team of 5 is the minimum number that spoil can be moved from the vertical choke to sick parrot. This is with no digging at the face! that requires 2 more people that will likely be 3 people as we progress further forward. There is still room for improvement on the dig approach though especially near the bottom position 4 it is quite steep and the tray / rope drags and cuts into the clay walls adding alot of extra friction requiring a person to guide the tray. As most of the haul weight is on and to much for person position 5. We are hoping we can possibly eliminate a person at position 4 with improvements to the gradient and low friction boards ? Or similar on the walls and floor etc, though a person may still be required here
will add diagram.Total work time Saturday was 11 hours
When we first got down to the dig this camp a large boulder approx 110kg / 120 kg ? another about 1/4 the size had came down aswell as some smaller stuff clay and rocks etc . The stuff had come down at some point between this camp and the previous one. Thank God not when we were down there. The large boulder was behind clay and smaller stuff in the more open area just before the dig face and was undetected by us as not visible, fortunately I had installed a 45degree piece of scaff the previous trip for another questionable boulder that is pinched probably not likely to move ? this scaff had caught the larger boulder and stopped it going to ground. The area in question is directly behind the dig face where the 2nd person after the digger is constantly situated Feeding trays to the next person position 3 at the vertical choke. The bigger boulder would have blocked the exit from the dig without the scaff and not worth thinking about if someone was under it when it came down, this area behind the face has never been great , damp and loose between larger boulders, smaller stuff coming away here and there over the time we have been down there, probably alot to do with us and our heat moisture. We have always said safely first and with this bit of a wake up call myself and Adrian Fawcett went down on a day trip the next weekend 24th January to install some more scaffolding in this area as we currently had a fair ammout in the cave we spent about 3.5 hours working out and installing sections to this area in the hopes of stopping anything else moving of coming down etc. The main left into the dig and to face seems more stable and self supporting though it is getting damper with our presence, when dug the clay is dry when progressing forward it gets damper the longer it's exposed. So its something we are keeping an eye on and extra scaff etc will be places under things in question. Again what actually came down was never in question as it wasn't seen behind the clay 
the main dig progression isn't as large and open as the area behind we are hoping to keep it that way small enough but big enough to actually work.
Next camp the plan is to Dig the face fully finish and test the ducting out with a fan blower. A couple of stainless pins and 2 more scaff sections Lickly less than an hours work, try and improve the approach if numbers allow ? we should be getting a full day session on the face
Current situation at the dig face
The large boulder caught by scaff. Exit crawl from dig to vertical choke to the right underneath the red arrow , green marked boulder is pinched and has scaff underneath aswell.
Before where boulder was behind this .
After
Above images of the new scaff installed and some of the air ducting.
Special thanks to these guys n gals from the BEC that found Sam Colemans phone that he lost on the way down to camp on the friday evening,
Weekend first Team of 6 myself / Coleman Sam / Paul Stacey / Adrian Fawcett / Ben Sumpter all in on friday out on Sunday. Joined by Mathilde Feral day trip Saturday.
Friday evening myself / Coleman and Ben went to the bunker to collect some aluminium scaffolding and plastic pipe and took it to sick parrot chamber, the ducting was originally used from the bellows to pump air down the southernly bunker dig in the 90s, the plan to re use the ducting for our dig to keep the dig face a little fresher as it can get a bit stuffy after a few hours working and isn't going to get any better the further we progress forward unless we hit some sort of draught gap in the clay boulder infill ?
Saturday we got to the dig around lunch time the plan with the team we had was to clear the lower areas of spoil , vertical choke / and a couple of other small stacking areas near the face and get it all back to sick parrot aswell as install the ducting and continue digging at the face time permitting, the team cleaned all of the spoil from the lower areas plug n feathering larger boulders to big for the drag trays and parts of the approach that had just been moved and rolled out of the way but taking up a fair bit of the lower temporary stacking space, approximately 16m of ducting was connected and installed between trays of spoil everyone was very busy, unfortunately no forward progress was made at the face this camp due to team numbers and the importance of completely clearing the lower stacking areas for future digs, in situations where we have lower team numbers and need to use this stacking space, although this not ideal or most productive to be stacking lower down and unstacking again when we get a larger team it does seem that it is probably the most effective way of utilising the man power efficiently, as the general current progress at the dig face of 0.5m / 1m per session isn't producing enough spoil to keep the hauling team 100% now we have the hauling system deviations all in place and the people in the correct positions it is working pretty well with interchangeable trays one loaded / empty down change tray over loaded hauled up whilst empty is loaded etc. We can get a full tray up from vertical choke every few mins. So it seems that having a smaller team of 4 or so for 1 or 2 digging sessions to fill the lower areas and then getting a bigger team of at least 7 or more when these areas are full to clear the spoil all the way to sick parrot aswell as digging the face simultaneously. A team of 5 is the minimum number that spoil can be moved from the vertical choke to sick parrot. This is with no digging at the face! that requires 2 more people that will likely be 3 people as we progress further forward. There is still room for improvement on the dig approach though especially near the bottom position 4 it is quite steep and the tray / rope drags and cuts into the clay walls adding alot of extra friction requiring a person to guide the tray. As most of the haul weight is on and to much for person position 5. We are hoping we can possibly eliminate a person at position 4 with improvements to the gradient and low friction boards ? Or similar on the walls and floor etc, though a person may still be required here
will add diagram.Total work time Saturday was 11 hours When we first got down to the dig this camp a large boulder approx 110kg / 120 kg ? another about 1/4 the size had came down aswell as some smaller stuff clay and rocks etc . The stuff had come down at some point between this camp and the previous one. Thank God not when we were down there. The large boulder was behind clay and smaller stuff in the more open area just before the dig face and was undetected by us as not visible, fortunately I had installed a 45degree piece of scaff the previous trip for another questionable boulder that is pinched probably not likely to move ?
this scaff had caught the larger boulder and stopped it going to ground. The area in question is directly behind the dig face where the 2nd person after the digger is constantly situated Feeding trays to the next person position 3 at the vertical choke. The bigger boulder would have blocked the exit from the dig without the scaff and not worth thinking about if someone was under it when it came down, this area behind the face has never been great , damp and loose between larger boulders, smaller stuff coming away here and there over the time we have been down there, probably alot to do with us and our heat moisture. We have always said safely first and with this bit of a wake up call myself and Adrian Fawcett went down on a day trip the next weekend 24th January to install some more scaffolding in this area as we currently had a fair ammout in the cave we spent about 3.5 hours working out and installing sections to this area in the hopes of stopping anything else moving of coming down etc. The main left into the dig and to face seems more stable and self supporting though it is getting damper with our presence, when dug the clay is dry when progressing forward it gets damper the longer it's exposed. So its something we are keeping an eye on and extra scaff etc will be places under things in question. Again what actually came down was never in question as it wasn't seen behind the clay the main dig progression isn't as large and open as the area behind we are hoping to keep it that way small enough but big enough to actually work.Next camp the plan is to Dig the face fully finish and test the ducting out with a fan blower. A couple of stainless pins and 2 more scaff sections Lickly less than an hours work, try and improve the approach if numbers allow ? we should be getting a full day session on the face
Current situation at the dig face
The large boulder caught by scaff. Exit crawl from dig to vertical choke to the right underneath the red arrow , green marked boulder is pinched and has scaff underneath aswell.
Before where boulder was behind this .
After
Above images of the new scaff installed and some of the air ducting.
Special thanks to these guys n gals from the BEC that found Sam Colemans phone that he lost on the way down to camp on the friday evening,
Attachments
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tea break at sick parrot chamber, chained boulder in birthday surprise chamber
this now has scaff underneath supporting, this boulder may have come down on it's own accord at some point anyway ? A wall will also be built underneath one of the long scaff bars over the coming digs as we get suitable flat rocks to use to further secure and stabilise this boulder and what is potentially above it ? Though I think the current situation is fine but no harm in adding extra support underneath even if not needed. At the same Sarah and Ben and Adrian dug and improved the approach to the dig, once we were happy that everything was secure and stabilised we started to dig the face. With only a team of 5 we had to stack the spoil at the vertical choke. 
we had second look at another potential Friday night dig along priory road slightly further along, another phreatic shaft blocked with boulders maybe possible to get down ?
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