Finally the planets aligned and we could get together again to
have a go at opening up the debris pile to look down stream and into the
incline. Karli had made up some angle brackets and a square section of steel to
use as a anchor point inside the shaft top chamber. We had a good supply of
materials from the Haggs dig last year, therefore not much foraging was needed.
Scaffold tubes, clamps and timber all in stock.
We started loading up
the landy mid afternoon and then made our way down to Wellgill Shaft. Materials
and gear were unloaded and thrown over the fence. Karli proceeded then to mark
out and drill the angel brackets for mounting inside the shaft top chamber.
Once this was done, we rigged up a haulage system. For the haulage line we used
an old climbing rope and 20m of static as the climbing rope wasn't long enough.
Bit of a pain having a join in the rope, but needs must. Karli arranged a
system were the static line was controlled via a Italian hitch, which when
reaching its end automatically transferred the load to the rig descender, with
that being used to control the second rope. First down was a bag of short
scaffold tubes and clamps, followed down by Karli. Then the abseil rope was
brought up, and a second batch of scaffold poles was lowered down - however we
had a slight hitch with that load - I got it into my head that the climbing
rope was long enough, so with a metre or so left before it passed through the
rig descender the poles where still no where near the bottom. Karli was
shouting up asking what the hold up was, and Sal and I where wondering how to
sort this out. It was too heavy to lift up even with two of us, in the end I
attached a croll to the rope, which had the additional rope clipped in and Sal
took up the slack. I undid the end knot and allowed the climbing rope to pass
through the rig descender until the full weight passed to Sal (the rope was
being run over the edge of the manhole cover so there was enough friction for
her to belay it without too much effort). I quickly attached the two ropes
together so that the rest of the lowering did not rely on a croll holding the
ropes together.
Finally we lowered four large timbers down, all going
smoothly until they reached the level further down, then they spread out and
jammed. It was already getting late and this was the icing on the cake. We
could not managed to ge this back up, it was either too heavy or had jammed. We
tried to give them a bounce around, but no joy. Whilst trying a bit of rigging
out so I could use my weight to haul a bit of it up, my shoulder twisted rather
painfully - first thoughts into my head, expletives and then oh no, what if I
can't abseil down tomorrow. Only one thing for it, Sal kitted up and abseiled
down to release the timbers - it turned out that they had jammed between a
stemple and the lip of the level further down. Once free I lowered them down to
the bottom (thankfully the stabbing pain in my shoulder had settled down)
whilst she hanged around to make sure no more hiccups occurred. I took up the
haulage ropes, and Sal started prussiking back up. Pete arrived then (I had
supposed to have met him at the bunk house at 7.00 for a bite to eat, it was
now 7.45). Once Sal was up, Karli came back up, rather hungry and grumpy for
being down there for longer than he bargained for. We packed up, sealed the
shaft top and went home to get some much needed very late dinner. Then a meet
up in the Miners Arms, and as we came to the bar - what a great sight greeted
us - Hob Goblin ale on tap - many pints followed, interleaved with
crisps. |
