dighalloween

dighalloween

Hallowe'en Rift, Mendip Hills

Excursions [and other notes] involved in the exploration of Hallowe'en Rift; a cave, so far, formed within Triassic Dolomitic Conglomerate.

The exploration of Hallowe'en Rift was started in 1982 by Trevor Hughes with other members of the Bristol Exploration Club, then during the early 1990's Vince Simmonds and other, mostly, local diggers were active at a number of locations within the cave, including the start of the present dig with Graham Johnson in December 1991. The current phase of exploration was commenced in 2009, with the majority of the early work being carried out by Vince Simmonds and Alex Gee, now the regular team includes Rob 'Tav' Taviner, Graham 'Jake' Johnson, Nick Hawkes, Matt Tuck, Jonathon Riley, Paul 'Brockers' Brock, Roz Simmonds, Duncan Price and Mike Moxon. There has been occasional help from others including Mike Willett, John 'Tangent' Williams, Pete Bolt, Bob Smith, Callum and Hazel Simmonds, with regular guest appearances by that well-known antipodean, Ray Deasy.

9th February 2019

digging 2019Posted by Vince Simmonds Sun, February 10, 2019 08:36:32

With Nick, Jonathon, Tav and a massive welcome back to Jake

A jovial group of diggers ventured up the hill from the farm to the cave entrance. The loose bags, left-out to dry at the end of the last digging session, were packed-up and dispatched to below ground. I descended the entrance and headed to the north-west passage followed by Jon. Nick and Tav followed on too. Jake, still recovering from knee surgery, remained on the surface to begin constructing another spoil retaining wall.

Underground, Jon got to the pinch-point but not quite through it. After turning around to have a look, and a discussion I could now see what needed to be removed to make it passable for all. I will have to arrange with the supplier, a Sunday morning collection soon. At present, work commitments rule out a mid-week evening trip.

It was then decided that Nick go to the end and dig because he would be happier there. And he needed to confirm his thoughts last session that he was digging a pond. This, indeed, turned out to be the case. There was a lot of water and some hasty improvisation of equipment was required to remove it. The removal of the water ensured that the passage was now well lubricated, some might have suggested, squalid. Eventually, it was almost dry enough to dig and spoil removal could commence. To supplement Nick’s endeavours, I filled some bags with loose sediment from the position I was lying in, made a little more space for myself too. Strangely, lying in the squalor of liquid slurry, I find the passage to be rather aesthetically pleasing, lights reflecting off the glimmering slurry and constantly dripping water. It was cold though now that I was completely soaked, glad that I had decided to wear a fleece undersuit today. There were some grumbles from the entrance, where Tav was stacking the filled bags, regarding the weight of some bags, unfortunately, this fell on deaf ears and Nick carried on regardless.

Soon it was time to move back and deal with the products of today’s effort. Some bags were easier to empty than others. Thirty-nine bags and three skip-loads of rock were disposed off on the surface. During our time underground, Jake had constructed a fine wall and had used most of the available rock. We will have to create some more very soon.



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