We made our way to Pickering's Rise and climbed up in to the first
stope area 6m above Smallcleugh. From here we climbed up into the first
sublevel and then into a stope that is intersected by the most eastern cross
cut between the two veins.
Here we surveyed the northern branch of the
cross cut, and then followed the dog leg cross cut to a stope where a hopper
was climbed - this enabled us to reach the other side of a stope that we had
climbed up into on the last trip to this area (see Part 2). We
explored this stope and followed an air pipe into a cross cut that took us into
another stope. The stope had heavy white calcification and we could see the
pipe going up a rise into what looked like a wooden box, was this an air
reservoir? From this stope we could see where we had been standing before when
surveying the north end of the dog leg cross cut. This area was on the MCSSV.
We returned to the main stope that we had climbed into and had
lunch.
After a bite to eat, we came down from the stope top and made our
way to the Longcleugh Vein via the middle cross cut. We headed for Graham's
Vein in an attempt to climb the rise into the high flat. After assembling the
maypole (a total of 7m) we discovered it to be short by about 2 or 3m of the
rise top, lots of cursing just like the other day! We had a look around for
rails that maybe could have been used to gain extra height, but it was all in
vein (not a pun).
Rather naffed off about not being able to get up, we
proceeded back to the Longcleugh Vein and headed for the sublevel with the
manway and ore shoot. We used two sections of the poles to make anchor points
across the passage and a 20m rope was rigged up. The top of the manway was
heavily calcified. Karli started to make his way down and discovered that the
manway was laddered almost all the way to the bottom with the last 3-4m being a
drop. The state of the ladders seemed sound enough, but to have the rope backup
was a good thing - just in case, and it did come in handy for the last part.
Shortly we heard details from the bottom, and I proceeded to follow him down. I
came down onto some planks and stepped into the water some 14m below the first
sublevel, a total of 24m from the horse level. The water was only knee deep and
the passage looked inviting with the water having a thin crust of calcite on
it. We took a bearing and it showed the passage heading off in an easterly
direction. We followed it for approximately 30m and then Karli shouted out that
he could see arching, we reached this and then saw two sumps in the floor. One
did not go anywhere, but the other had two levels of ladders in it, the second
level disappearing into a flooded sump. The sump was interesting as it had
large diameter pipe work in it and some considerable effort had been spent in
building the stone arching. A few metres past the sumps the passage floor
became totally covered in a think calcite crust with striking patterns. It was
so tempting to go on, but since Pete was waiting in the sublevel and we had
already been over half an hour it was time to turn back.
Apart from the
maypole short comings, the trip was good, especially on discovering the 24m
sublevel. It will be interesting to see if the sublevel goes on and to try and
find out what the sumps linked into, if anything. On reflection, despite the
pipe work in the sump, we did not see any in the sublevel, was this
installation never completed? We had hoped that this third visit would finish
this area off, but as always Smallcleugh throws a spanner in the
works. |
