Freesteel Blog » The Large Dig Had Broken Through

The Large Dig Had Broken Through

Friday, May 24th, 2013 at 9:26 am Written by:

I have a confession to make. The digging trip in April wasn’t quite as boring as said.

In fact, we broke through. But since it would be about a month before the digging team could get back together and do all the stuff we needed to get done before the teeming hoards went in, we kept it secret.

To recap, the dig started in the dry mud floor in this terribly obvious place here:

I’ve documented the digging trips here of March 2013, January 2013 and November 2012. No report of the trip when we began it, but there’s an edited video of us surveying parts of this cave in January 2011.

Unfortunately, the dig began filling with water at around the same time as we got a chink of darkness into it with a draft. The picture on the left is from the near end, and the one on the right is at the far end where the gap between the mud bank and the ceiling was finally wide enough for me to put down the spade and wriggle through.

This lead to a boulder choke into a continuation of the huge trunk route. Yesterday we were down there surveying it (map to follow), photoing it, exploring some leads up into the ceiling, and taping off the pristine rock formations so they don’t get stepped on by the second person to go through. That way there will be a chance for more people to see them before they inevitably get trashed.

Oh, and take a wetsuit if you intend to be the surveyor who is wallowing in water for an hour reading instruments — unlike Becka who got hypothermia. For some reason, I was designated the photographic model, even though Becka says I look weird.

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