I had a wonderful meeting with Roy Bergstrom (USFS), and he has guided me on the process of obtaining a Special Use Permit for the Cave Next Door project. I believe there was encouragement in that direction from Vicki Schnitzler of the NPS ORCA. So, from a world of boulder uncertainly and haphazardly wedged in plugged cave-passage that I had to put together into one solid wall that will conceivably even withstand an average earthquake, I go into a world of organizations, agencies, interest groups--both special and community--and try to gather as much interest and support as I can for the CND project. My hope is to encourage the USFS to issue that Special Use Permit!
This is such an opportunity! --To discover and explore an unknown pristine cave in real time with a WWW connection. --To learn to apply 21st century technology to the process of cave discovery while maintaining the natural pristine environment of the cave for future generations. --To teach and learn more about caves and how to care for them.
My mind races with such possibilities. If I can make a phone call from inside the cave, what other information can be sent from there too? How fast? Virtual tours made from 3-D lidar technology. Temporary trails that are taken out when the video mapping is done. Exhaustive inventory from the beginning of biota and minerals. Careful observations from an undisturbed environment that might yield clues to the past. The story of the caves history.
And these are just general questions and goals! What I'm thinking about are the actual physical processes and infrastructure necessary to achieve these aims. Materials, power, safety, Procedures, timing, safety. Absolutes, limitations, safety. All the time with maximum respect for the cave, each foot downward into the unexplored carrying its own surprises and challenges... Sounds like fun sitting here beside the fire, sipping on a hot buttered rum.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
another oldie
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Opening the lid
Opening the lid
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
November 18, 2011 - The Rainy Season is Here.
Over two months later and the Mistress dig is stabilized. In fact, it never showed any signs of being unstable as the wall was being built down to dig level, but then the main plug boulder had always been securely cross-braced. As it turned out, the large boulder was sitting on another immoveable. This was apparent once it was possible to dig all loose dirt from around the boulders so I could cement them all together. It also turned out as I built the East wall down that there were three other half ton boulders buried beneath the talc from the north and wedged under the intrusive hanging wall on the south, making a total of six major boulders. These are all now concreted together with steel around them. When the wall-and-steps complex reached the dig level there were twelve steps descending a distance of 17 feet.
What do I remember about those weeks of digging? Every day after work, any day of the week. Working 'til dark, sitting around a little campfire to dry gloves and warm hands before driving down the mountain for a late dinner. Remove the collapsed clays back to rocks and boulders, often with airspace underneath where the collapsed material didn't make it. Wash rocks, many coming back down from the surface. Measure for stee and wire it together. Lower buckets of mixed concrete and build wall and steps. Lower the scaffolding platform and begin again. As I lowered the scaffolding I washed the walls, exposing all the intricacies of the marble's crystal structure and boxworks of chert and micro-intrusives (I believe).
I remember one night when Charlie and I were walking down our forest path on our way back to the truck, when we passed two giant Pacific Salamanders going the opposite direction! I almost stepped on one, then a few feet farther on the other one, not seeing them with my weak LEDs, but Charlie's light showed them well, walking up the trail through the night, keeping a promise.
Day by day, the sun slowly moved behind the south ridge for the winter; the first snows came, probably to stay 'til spring. We kept concreting down until all exposed boulderage was cemented together down to the dig level. Interesting notes here: I mentioned above the air spaces under the rock piles. When the mud and clays from the collapsed sink are removed from the boulder pile there was always airspace, no airflow, underneath. This is due of course to the fact that the sinkhole formed from the inside out and the boulders were lying there in the void when the talc above them collapsed, covering but not totally penetrating the rock pile.
When I prepped for the last and lowest step, there was at least three feet of air space down between the boulders it was built on. Mud still filled the area to the south that led down. Along the South ceiling-wall a foot of airspace (slight airflow) led on down where the dig will eventually go. Very promising. I have started laying the stone floor around the top of the shaft, but it will take more dirt from the dig to finish it and my rock pile is now covered with snow. We keep the gate locked at the 30-foot level.
I have decided that from now on I will try to build the wall down before I dig. Darve out a channel in the mud, fill it with concrete, then dig down. I don't know how this will wor with the dig wet. All my concrete work has been in a dry hole, whereas most of the actual digging was with the hole wet and the shoring was cedar beams. At this point I am very comfortable with the dig remaining stable throughout the wet season, although there is still concrete work that could be done even before more digging occurs, and I am anxious to finish up with the materials that have already been packed in.
Another item of note: At last my own and Steve Knutsen's persistence with the NPS and the Forest Service has resulted in these wonderful, helpful giants taking notice of the project (my "passion", to quote another individual familar with the dig), and I am earnestly and anxiously hoping that they are taking us seriously and even will help us and work with us in any capacity they can. Some kind of memorandum of understanding with our administrative friends might go far in helping us achieve our goal of discovering this cave in real time with an internet connection. I will soon have the opportunity to meet with Roy Bergstrom of the Wild Rivers Ranger District and find out after over 10 years of talking with them where I and the Cave Next Door dig stand.
What do I remember about those weeks of digging? Every day after work, any day of the week. Working 'til dark, sitting around a little campfire to dry gloves and warm hands before driving down the mountain for a late dinner. Remove the collapsed clays back to rocks and boulders, often with airspace underneath where the collapsed material didn't make it. Wash rocks, many coming back down from the surface. Measure for stee and wire it together. Lower buckets of mixed concrete and build wall and steps. Lower the scaffolding platform and begin again. As I lowered the scaffolding I washed the walls, exposing all the intricacies of the marble's crystal structure and boxworks of chert and micro-intrusives (I believe).
I remember one night when Charlie and I were walking down our forest path on our way back to the truck, when we passed two giant Pacific Salamanders going the opposite direction! I almost stepped on one, then a few feet farther on the other one, not seeing them with my weak LEDs, but Charlie's light showed them well, walking up the trail through the night, keeping a promise.
Day by day, the sun slowly moved behind the south ridge for the winter; the first snows came, probably to stay 'til spring. We kept concreting down until all exposed boulderage was cemented together down to the dig level. Interesting notes here: I mentioned above the air spaces under the rock piles. When the mud and clays from the collapsed sink are removed from the boulder pile there was always airspace, no airflow, underneath. This is due of course to the fact that the sinkhole formed from the inside out and the boulders were lying there in the void when the talc above them collapsed, covering but not totally penetrating the rock pile.
When I prepped for the last and lowest step, there was at least three feet of air space down between the boulders it was built on. Mud still filled the area to the south that led down. Along the South ceiling-wall a foot of airspace (slight airflow) led on down where the dig will eventually go. Very promising. I have started laying the stone floor around the top of the shaft, but it will take more dirt from the dig to finish it and my rock pile is now covered with snow. We keep the gate locked at the 30-foot level.
I have decided that from now on I will try to build the wall down before I dig. Darve out a channel in the mud, fill it with concrete, then dig down. I don't know how this will wor with the dig wet. All my concrete work has been in a dry hole, whereas most of the actual digging was with the hole wet and the shoring was cedar beams. At this point I am very comfortable with the dig remaining stable throughout the wet season, although there is still concrete work that could be done even before more digging occurs, and I am anxious to finish up with the materials that have already been packed in.
Another item of note: At last my own and Steve Knutsen's persistence with the NPS and the Forest Service has resulted in these wonderful, helpful giants taking notice of the project (my "passion", to quote another individual familar with the dig), and I am earnestly and anxiously hoping that they are taking us seriously and even will help us and work with us in any capacity they can. Some kind of memorandum of understanding with our administrative friends might go far in helping us achieve our goal of discovering this cave in real time with an internet connection. I will soon have the opportunity to meet with Roy Bergstrom of the Wild Rivers Ranger District and find out after over 10 years of talking with them where I and the Cave Next Door dig stand.
Friday, September 30, 2011
From the Archives: the very beginnings of the CND
September 16th.
A Saturday morning. Hot languid August is sobering up after summer's careless dissolution and pure laziness (boy, was she ever stingy with tomatoes this year!), and I am realizing that it's the middle of September!
Oh my gosh! I think that was a shiver running down my spine...Off with the green dress of Summer and on with the yellow and brown cloak! Personally, I hope she goofs off a little more. She came late to the party and ought to be the last to leave. I say phooey on sober Autumn and let's all celebrate and encourage a fickle pretentious Summer (easy to say if you've got a large pile of firewood). And there is nothing like a tinder-dry, leaf-crackly hunting season to hone the skills of the hunter who can always use more patience. Be patient, Summer.
I am digging and building wall as fast as I can. Most of the dirt was removed this winter, but it still takes 30 buckets of dirt out to prep for the next wall section. This work will be impossible once the rainy season comes as the water soaks the talc.
In the past 12 days we have extended the concrete wall we are building down another two feet, making six feet in all, plus another step on the North wall. We have also built a two-foot high secvtion of wall on the West side. This wall completes the concrete work done last winter under a hanging rock and brings that earlier wall down to where it sits on immoveables and is joined to two steps cemented to the same.
Last night I worked until dark, prepping these steps for cement work this afternoon when Charlie is available. I surely am thankful for Charlie. He has been the best helper I've had. He has been my sole surface support and second man on the dig for the last year.
Last year at this time we had not even begun installing the upper half of the culvert. I was still building its rock foundation at the 30 foot level. Now we are just two feet from the top with backfilling. Electrical conduit with 110V, 12V, and 2 camera lines are installed with lights. We have the capability of recording everything digitally onto a laptop. Now we are ust a dozen or so digs short of having everything shored up down to almost 80 feet deep. One thousand buckets out this year. That's 200 climbs up the shaft for me and almost three miles of lifting buckets for Charlie.
We got a real treat last Sunday when a young fellow James from the Cascade Grotto (he was down helping Hester Mallone with some cave restoration she is doing fo the Park Service) gave us a helping hand. Boy, was it ever nice to have young blood escorting buckets up and down the shaft while these two old boys do our work. I ust built wall, didn't have to climb for buckets. Those buckets go up nicely, but not down without help.
A construction note: The East wall, five feet down from the present cedar shoring--that is, five feet below the ledge--is cemented to and around a quite large boulder that was behind the muds. There was air space behind it against the South wall and the mud looked to be what was washed in there during the Veteran's Day slump, three years back. This boulder seemed not to have moved during the slumping but had muds flow past it. Seems though, like I said, the same thing about some other rocks ten feet below that I have yet to deal finally with! You know, maybe the big jam-up at the pinch point...
A Saturday morning. Hot languid August is sobering up after summer's careless dissolution and pure laziness (boy, was she ever stingy with tomatoes this year!), and I am realizing that it's the middle of September!
Oh my gosh! I think that was a shiver running down my spine...Off with the green dress of Summer and on with the yellow and brown cloak! Personally, I hope she goofs off a little more. She came late to the party and ought to be the last to leave. I say phooey on sober Autumn and let's all celebrate and encourage a fickle pretentious Summer (easy to say if you've got a large pile of firewood). And there is nothing like a tinder-dry, leaf-crackly hunting season to hone the skills of the hunter who can always use more patience. Be patient, Summer.
I am digging and building wall as fast as I can. Most of the dirt was removed this winter, but it still takes 30 buckets of dirt out to prep for the next wall section. This work will be impossible once the rainy season comes as the water soaks the talc.
In the past 12 days we have extended the concrete wall we are building down another two feet, making six feet in all, plus another step on the North wall. We have also built a two-foot high secvtion of wall on the West side. This wall completes the concrete work done last winter under a hanging rock and brings that earlier wall down to where it sits on immoveables and is joined to two steps cemented to the same.
Last night I worked until dark, prepping these steps for cement work this afternoon when Charlie is available. I surely am thankful for Charlie. He has been the best helper I've had. He has been my sole surface support and second man on the dig for the last year.
Last year at this time we had not even begun installing the upper half of the culvert. I was still building its rock foundation at the 30 foot level. Now we are just two feet from the top with backfilling. Electrical conduit with 110V, 12V, and 2 camera lines are installed with lights. We have the capability of recording everything digitally onto a laptop. Now we are ust a dozen or so digs short of having everything shored up down to almost 80 feet deep. One thousand buckets out this year. That's 200 climbs up the shaft for me and almost three miles of lifting buckets for Charlie.
We got a real treat last Sunday when a young fellow James from the Cascade Grotto (he was down helping Hester Mallone with some cave restoration she is doing fo the Park Service) gave us a helping hand. Boy, was it ever nice to have young blood escorting buckets up and down the shaft while these two old boys do our work. I ust built wall, didn't have to climb for buckets. Those buckets go up nicely, but not down without help.
A construction note: The East wall, five feet down from the present cedar shoring--that is, five feet below the ledge--is cemented to and around a quite large boulder that was behind the muds. There was air space behind it against the South wall and the mud looked to be what was washed in there during the Veteran's Day slump, three years back. This boulder seemed not to have moved during the slumping but had muds flow past it. Seems though, like I said, the same thing about some other rocks ten feet below that I have yet to deal finally with! You know, maybe the big jam-up at the pinch point...
Sunday, September 11, 2011
September 4, 2011.
A good dig yesterday -- Saturday. I got there early and got started with the last prep work. Charlie was picking up free food in Grants Pass for food give-aways and churches in the Valley. We got started with the actual mixing, moving, and construction after 5pm and worked until after 10pm. There was twice as much wall to build and the wall on the north needed two steps on it.
Thinking about it now, after they are built, I wonder why I didn't make them wider, so I would still have room to work back on the East Wall. I'm having a hard time visualizing what I'm doing now (building a concrete wall) -- or I should say, visualizing the effect that the work I'm doing now is going to have when I get down to the depth of that compromising boulder. You know, that one that hangs over you like a sinister plotting Lord, trying to figure out when it would be most to its advantage to crush you like a bug. Yes, that one. The one I can't dig under until it is either broken up and hauled out of the hole in pieces or securely cemented into a permanent trail wall.
The other possibility I need to keep in mind is the chance that the way into the cave is over towards the East, and that I am currently digging down alongside the cave and will come in at the floor level. Think about the air coming out of the dissolved joint fractures in the marble in the side tunnel (the adit) almost twenty feet above my current position -- twenty feet above the deepest I've dug. Or Chamber A that had been ten feet from the shaft for years and wasn't found until we dug down and found a break in its intrusive walls and looked upwards into it.
To the east is where I've never found bedrock. Chamber A was found behind the bedrock (igneous) wall of the SW corner. The South wall being igneous plutonic I believe and the North some kind of talc and the West an igneous basalt or very altered and mixed chert. I have felt bedrock by probing to the East from 60 feet down, but what is a wall at 60 feet might be a ceiling at 70 feet. Once I'm cemented out, though, it would be hard to go back and look. My tendency is to follow the mud down, and the water that comes in from the NE corner.
Thinking about it now, after they are built, I wonder why I didn't make them wider, so I would still have room to work back on the East Wall. I'm having a hard time visualizing what I'm doing now (building a concrete wall) -- or I should say, visualizing the effect that the work I'm doing now is going to have when I get down to the depth of that compromising boulder. You know, that one that hangs over you like a sinister plotting Lord, trying to figure out when it would be most to its advantage to crush you like a bug. Yes, that one. The one I can't dig under until it is either broken up and hauled out of the hole in pieces or securely cemented into a permanent trail wall.
The other possibility I need to keep in mind is the chance that the way into the cave is over towards the East, and that I am currently digging down alongside the cave and will come in at the floor level. Think about the air coming out of the dissolved joint fractures in the marble in the side tunnel (the adit) almost twenty feet above my current position -- twenty feet above the deepest I've dug. Or Chamber A that had been ten feet from the shaft for years and wasn't found until we dug down and found a break in its intrusive walls and looked upwards into it.
To the east is where I've never found bedrock. Chamber A was found behind the bedrock (igneous) wall of the SW corner. The South wall being igneous plutonic I believe and the North some kind of talc and the West an igneous basalt or very altered and mixed chert. I have felt bedrock by probing to the East from 60 feet down, but what is a wall at 60 feet might be a ceiling at 70 feet. Once I'm cemented out, though, it would be hard to go back and look. My tendency is to follow the mud down, and the water that comes in from the NE corner.
August 31, Two Digs Later.
Sunday -- prepared the wall for concrete.
This amounted to removing the rock pile that was in front of and above the clay-talc East Wall, which needed concrete and steel and rock shoring. The rock had originally been just backfill to keep the clay from sloughing, when I moved the wall to the west to find an end-hold that would hold the south end of my shoring up without it slipping out. Hard to do when my nice vertical wall wants to become a sloped ceiling.
Now, by using concrete, I can attach it to the rock -- that's bedrock, no matter what the shape. And remember there is almost no side pressure because a sinkhole operates vertically and all material wants to go down. In digging at the bottom, when you drive a tool into the clay, it feels hollow and wants to sink down by just agitation. Put it in a bucket with a bottom and the clay becomes like cement!
So I am building a concrete wall. Twenty-five buckets of boulders, broken up with a sledge, while standing on an 18" ledge overlooking the hole that has been dug since last October. Ten steep tall steps leading down into the unknown chambers below. Also removed two layers of cedar shoring, exposing enough clay and making enough room to start building wall which happened on Tuesday evening when Charlie and I put in another 5 hour work session and managed to get enough concrete mixed, sent down the hole, and put together with iron and rock to build the top two feet of the wall.
I built a scaffolding platform to hold and wash rocks on and stand on safely while doing the concrete work. All went well; the mix was thick and sticky and now it needs a few days to set up so I can dig under it and build more wall down. I hope this works. It was dark when I got to the surface.
I talked to Steve K. about the dig. He has found and will deliver a vertical stretcher that could lift an injured person (i.e., me) out of the hole. He also said the Forest Service is concerned about Resource Impact (which is, in fact, very negligible) and about my safety. Not as much as I am I'll bet! I am overjoyed that someone, anyone, somewhere is interested and I do hope it will be a positive step in the direction I have always dreamt this project can go. And I know I will soon be to where I can stop digging and proceed to the next phase.
This amounted to removing the rock pile that was in front of and above the clay-talc East Wall, which needed concrete and steel and rock shoring. The rock had originally been just backfill to keep the clay from sloughing, when I moved the wall to the west to find an end-hold that would hold the south end of my shoring up without it slipping out. Hard to do when my nice vertical wall wants to become a sloped ceiling.
Now, by using concrete, I can attach it to the rock -- that's bedrock, no matter what the shape. And remember there is almost no side pressure because a sinkhole operates vertically and all material wants to go down. In digging at the bottom, when you drive a tool into the clay, it feels hollow and wants to sink down by just agitation. Put it in a bucket with a bottom and the clay becomes like cement!
So I am building a concrete wall. Twenty-five buckets of boulders, broken up with a sledge, while standing on an 18" ledge overlooking the hole that has been dug since last October. Ten steep tall steps leading down into the unknown chambers below. Also removed two layers of cedar shoring, exposing enough clay and making enough room to start building wall which happened on Tuesday evening when Charlie and I put in another 5 hour work session and managed to get enough concrete mixed, sent down the hole, and put together with iron and rock to build the top two feet of the wall.
I built a scaffolding platform to hold and wash rocks on and stand on safely while doing the concrete work. All went well; the mix was thick and sticky and now it needs a few days to set up so I can dig under it and build more wall down. I hope this works. It was dark when I got to the surface.
I talked to Steve K. about the dig. He has found and will deliver a vertical stretcher that could lift an injured person (i.e., me) out of the hole. He also said the Forest Service is concerned about Resource Impact (which is, in fact, very negligible) and about my safety. Not as much as I am I'll bet! I am overjoyed that someone, anyone, somewhere is interested and I do hope it will be a positive step in the direction I have always dreamt this project can go. And I know I will soon be to where I can stop digging and proceed to the next phase.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
August, One Week Later.
TOOK A WEEK OFF from digging while the youngest grandchild, Ruby, was down with her mom. It was great to see Sarah and read her some poems. Ruby wasn't too sure of me unless I had food; then there was no doubt her grandpa was all right. Sarah helped us with putting videos on the internet and wants to help with the blog-site.
I need to do a little more choreography and get some more interesting video. It is hard to make one dig look different from the other. I can change light and change camera position.
Charlie and I had one more dig. Now I know why I didn't mind too much not to dig for a week. More problems in the SE corner, behind the large wall rock. I thought I had filled the gap between the south end of the big wall rock and the South Wall by wedging that basketball-sized rock in there, but when I removed the mud from the south wall the rock I wedged there moved. Now this was a chair-sized rock and looked like it was holding back a lot of mud and rubble and I was stacking a rock wall on top of it to hold up backfill. I had my 25 buckets sent up the shaft and had just my four extra to fill. So I got down in the hole below the rock pile for four more buckets and gouged out a depression for it to fall into. I then removed all tools from the hole and, climbing as far up as I could, I kind of started poking blind with a seven-foot piece of rebar to see what wanted to fall down into the hole from behind the rocked and shored East Wall.
It makes a person a little nervous being 75 feet deep and trying to start a slide at the bottom... The rule is, though, that I don't leave anything loose about me as I dig down. All muds must be removed to determine the foundation of any rock. Any wall in question must be shored and cross-braced or a cement and steel support wall be built under and in front with 100% back-fill.
So sure enough, little by little by little, the boulder rolled out of the SE corner and plopped down into the hole, even rolling over and giving a tap to the bottom foundational rock that sent a shudder up the rocks I was standing on. I could hear more mud and rock plopping down and peered around the corner to see my stacked wall hanging in mid-air. I kept poking blind because I didn't want to get down in there. If there was going to be a disastrous slide I would definitely be better off above it... I heard a few more rocks fall but nothing that I hadn't stacked. So I left the dig to do whatever it was going to do.
Now, two days later, I will go down and see what there is to see. I need to get that boulder out of there. Will it break up with the sledge? I would have to be below the slide, swinging the hammer. Is it too big to lift? And even if I can lift it, where do I put it? it's too big to go up the shaft, much less through the collar. I have to find some way to building a reinforced cement wall to keep the rock-pile stable and get the wall built before any major movement occurs.
~SIX HOURS LATER~
That's not going to work. The whole rock pile below the shoring is unstable. All visible rocks and boulders are loose. The big wall rock is just hanging there, still cross-braced but with nothing underneath. This is a complication of the worst sort.
~CONTINUED~
I had gone down there and examined the boulder and rocks that had slid down, having given it a couple of days to do whatever it was going to do. It didn't look too bad; nothing much came down, more than I had stacked up as backfill. I could even possibly roll the largest boulder into a hole on the west side if I could break a point off and make it smaller.
So I kneel down under that 1/2-ton wall rock like an offering to the stone god and roll away and pick up all loose rocks out of the mud, manage to get the 300-pounder iron-barred around so I can get some kind of swing with the sledge.
That's me: the hammer, the bar, and some boulders stuffed into a 5'x4'x4' cranny in the SW corner at the bottom of an undercut boulder pile, whaling away on the biggest rock, trying to make it small enough so I can wrestle it around and park it on the west side up the shaft, and then something above me moved.
Now this digging at the bottom of an active sinkhole is always an adrenaline charged work. If I don't feel it, I know I'm being way too casual. In fact, I'll charge myself up any way I can, even raise my debt limit, to keep myself from being casual about even one step! So, with zero thought process my hand was planted on what had moved (which was the 400-pound rods under the 1000-pound wall rock) and hardly before it stopped moving I had catapulted myself 5 feet up the shaft and was ready to climb the next seventy. All was loose below me. Charlie was parked above the collar, keeping an eye on things that he could see.
All was still, except my heart and any other body part that could vibrate from the adrenaline rush. I sat, stood, or squatted on the step above, perched on a bedrock ledge. Hmm. Wow! Gosh! What now? Yep -- the big one's hanging. Oh my! I am so little and they are so big, but here we all are. It was obvious by the second or third thought through my head that I was not going back down into the hole to dig until the wall rock was 100% stablized [Editor's Note: VERY GOOD IDEA.]
How to do it? fill the space around it with concrete and rock -- maybe. Drill, and blast, and fire? Can I get down in there to brace to the South wall? If it slipped would I be safe in that cranny? Could I get there fast enough? What would happen if I lassoed the nose of that rock with a sling and rolled it back with a hard winch? What do I pull from? How can there be such a large rockpile at the bottom of a 4'x4' hole and where am I going to put them so they won't just keep fallowing me down as I dig? ...Like monstrous gravitationally-enslaved beings dogging my elbows... All these questions need answers that only I can find. I pulled myself back up the culvert to the surface, following Charlie to talk and think it over and find the next thing to do.
Eventually, it becomes obvious that, since the shored wall above the large wall rock was mostly just a rock cairn, I could build another wall behind it that would be two to three feet further East. I would start back up at the ledge level, 10 feet below the collar, and tier by tier with concrete, steel, and stone build the wall down until I was entirely behind the whole rock pile and hopefully have a place big enough to get the boulders out of the way for good. Of course I don't know what other rock I may find that is equally precarious, but the hole is as dry as it ever gets right now and the wall will have to be built sooner or later. I was hoping to build it from the bottom up, but that isn't going to happen.
So the next dig found Charlie and David packing in more concrete mix. Twenty bags on the pallet, ready to mix.
I need to do a little more choreography and get some more interesting video. It is hard to make one dig look different from the other. I can change light and change camera position.
Charlie and I had one more dig. Now I know why I didn't mind too much not to dig for a week. More problems in the SE corner, behind the large wall rock. I thought I had filled the gap between the south end of the big wall rock and the South Wall by wedging that basketball-sized rock in there, but when I removed the mud from the south wall the rock I wedged there moved. Now this was a chair-sized rock and looked like it was holding back a lot of mud and rubble and I was stacking a rock wall on top of it to hold up backfill. I had my 25 buckets sent up the shaft and had just my four extra to fill. So I got down in the hole below the rock pile for four more buckets and gouged out a depression for it to fall into. I then removed all tools from the hole and, climbing as far up as I could, I kind of started poking blind with a seven-foot piece of rebar to see what wanted to fall down into the hole from behind the rocked and shored East Wall.
It makes a person a little nervous being 75 feet deep and trying to start a slide at the bottom... The rule is, though, that I don't leave anything loose about me as I dig down. All muds must be removed to determine the foundation of any rock. Any wall in question must be shored and cross-braced or a cement and steel support wall be built under and in front with 100% back-fill.
So sure enough, little by little by little, the boulder rolled out of the SE corner and plopped down into the hole, even rolling over and giving a tap to the bottom foundational rock that sent a shudder up the rocks I was standing on. I could hear more mud and rock plopping down and peered around the corner to see my stacked wall hanging in mid-air. I kept poking blind because I didn't want to get down in there. If there was going to be a disastrous slide I would definitely be better off above it... I heard a few more rocks fall but nothing that I hadn't stacked. So I left the dig to do whatever it was going to do.
Now, two days later, I will go down and see what there is to see. I need to get that boulder out of there. Will it break up with the sledge? I would have to be below the slide, swinging the hammer. Is it too big to lift? And even if I can lift it, where do I put it? it's too big to go up the shaft, much less through the collar. I have to find some way to building a reinforced cement wall to keep the rock-pile stable and get the wall built before any major movement occurs.
~SIX HOURS LATER~
That's not going to work. The whole rock pile below the shoring is unstable. All visible rocks and boulders are loose. The big wall rock is just hanging there, still cross-braced but with nothing underneath. This is a complication of the worst sort.
~CONTINUED~
I had gone down there and examined the boulder and rocks that had slid down, having given it a couple of days to do whatever it was going to do. It didn't look too bad; nothing much came down, more than I had stacked up as backfill. I could even possibly roll the largest boulder into a hole on the west side if I could break a point off and make it smaller.
So I kneel down under that 1/2-ton wall rock like an offering to the stone god and roll away and pick up all loose rocks out of the mud, manage to get the 300-pounder iron-barred around so I can get some kind of swing with the sledge.
That's me: the hammer, the bar, and some boulders stuffed into a 5'x4'x4' cranny in the SW corner at the bottom of an undercut boulder pile, whaling away on the biggest rock, trying to make it small enough so I can wrestle it around and park it on the west side up the shaft, and then something above me moved.
Now this digging at the bottom of an active sinkhole is always an adrenaline charged work. If I don't feel it, I know I'm being way too casual. In fact, I'll charge myself up any way I can, even raise my debt limit, to keep myself from being casual about even one step! So, with zero thought process my hand was planted on what had moved (which was the 400-pound rods under the 1000-pound wall rock) and hardly before it stopped moving I had catapulted myself 5 feet up the shaft and was ready to climb the next seventy. All was loose below me. Charlie was parked above the collar, keeping an eye on things that he could see.
All was still, except my heart and any other body part that could vibrate from the adrenaline rush. I sat, stood, or squatted on the step above, perched on a bedrock ledge. Hmm. Wow! Gosh! What now? Yep -- the big one's hanging. Oh my! I am so little and they are so big, but here we all are. It was obvious by the second or third thought through my head that I was not going back down into the hole to dig until the wall rock was 100% stablized [Editor's Note: VERY GOOD IDEA.]
How to do it? fill the space around it with concrete and rock -- maybe. Drill, and blast, and fire? Can I get down in there to brace to the South wall? If it slipped would I be safe in that cranny? Could I get there fast enough? What would happen if I lassoed the nose of that rock with a sling and rolled it back with a hard winch? What do I pull from? How can there be such a large rockpile at the bottom of a 4'x4' hole and where am I going to put them so they won't just keep fallowing me down as I dig? ...Like monstrous gravitationally-enslaved beings dogging my elbows... All these questions need answers that only I can find. I pulled myself back up the culvert to the surface, following Charlie to talk and think it over and find the next thing to do.
Eventually, it becomes obvious that, since the shored wall above the large wall rock was mostly just a rock cairn, I could build another wall behind it that would be two to three feet further East. I would start back up at the ledge level, 10 feet below the collar, and tier by tier with concrete, steel, and stone build the wall down until I was entirely behind the whole rock pile and hopefully have a place big enough to get the boulders out of the way for good. Of course I don't know what other rock I may find that is equally precarious, but the hole is as dry as it ever gets right now and the wall will have to be built sooner or later. I was hoping to build it from the bottom up, but that isn't going to happen.
So the next dig found Charlie and David packing in more concrete mix. Twenty bags on the pallet, ready to mix.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Going Deeper
August 14, 2011
Eight digs later and somewhere around 200 buckets deeper. I cross-braced the wall boulder, found another one under it with a long, peaked top sitting perpendicular under the big one, and that one sat nicely on a good block that was sitting on bedrock that appears to be an igneous wall, and so on for another two rocks. There was a mud pocket in the SE corner behind the large wall boulder, that a basketball sized boulder rolled out of starting a mud slide and sending me scurrying back up the shaft today. It turned out well. I was able to use the rock to wedge brace a gap in the rock pile between the large wall boulder and the south wall. I added another step by dropping a peaked rock with a flat bottom up, into the air hole beneath the steps along the descending marble west wall.
Boulder by boulder I descend, never knowing when I dig the mud away if I will really find the rock pile still sitting on something stable. Now I seem to be headed down into a mud pit. Found air space in the SW corner but no air-flow. Did a temperature gradient from top to bottom? 65 degrees above the shaft under the roof. 41 degrees at the 30 foot level and 40 degrees below the collar. This winter the same readings were: 35 degrees above the shaft below the roof, 38 degrees at the 30’ level, and 39 degrees below the collar. I believe these temperatures indicate air going into the shaft in the winter and coming out now in the summer. There was always air-flow through the dissolution cracks in the marble of the adit and it also seems to be weeping through ceiling spaces below the collar. I have been filled with doubts this week that I have somehow missed the way in. The adit air-flow is almost 30’ above me! Yet the mud and rock I’m digging in is still soft and hollow and filling in a void that existed before the collapse of the sinkhole covered the boulder pile I’m digging down alongside. Nothing to do but to dig on. No direction to go but down.
Too much work,
Not enough rest;
Too much chocolate,
Not enough sex;
Way too much of not knowing
What comes next.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
info
Just want you to know that several pictures in the bottom scroll line are not us, but interesting nonetheless.
More buckets--August 2011 begins
Aug 2, 2011
I wasn’t 74 buckets from getting in but I’m 74 buckets closer to being in. Not just buckets of mud either..We took out ten buckets of just rock from the replenished cairn. Replenished after the mud slump from behind the east wall ten (?) weeks ago. It allowed the rock pile to settle down replacing the mud as backfill. We moved the rocks up to the surface to make room for two boulders from the dig ten feet below. My bedrock floor, marble, is dropping straight down instead of the 70degrees East incline of the geologic strata. The boulders were my steps to get me out of the hole as each bucket was moved up to the lifting cable. The boulders had to be replaced by steps. I was blessed with 2 small anomalies on the west wall that allowed me, with some strategic shaping with the pruning saw, to hold the west end of the steps. The east end fit into cracks in the rock pile on the east side. Rearrange the rocks a little bit, cut everything just the right length and just the right shape, and, presto!, 2 more steps fit into the rocks as we descend down this sink-hole into the unknown chambers waiting below. The upper step wasn’t quite perfectly horizontal, but it will have to do. If it’s a slipping problem I can put a slight wedge on it.
Now in touching on safety, my chief concern this season has been shoring up the west wall from what started out as shored rock and clay, but is now boulders too big to move on the north end. I need to shore over to the southward sloping wall. The south wall not only slopes angling down to the south but also slopes down to the west, striking SE to NW, and so I can lock the south end. I can lock the south end of the shoring from coming out but not down. Without backwards pressure, the shoring planks want to settle down and lose their tight grip on their north end. Creative cross-bracing over to the rough marble of the west side that keeps upward pressure on the east wall has helped. The only back-pressure I’ve gotten is when thirty buckets of mud flowed out from behind the wall one day, and my rock cairn settled down until a big rock wedged itself somewhere behind the wall. The rest of the rocks slowly (over weeks) settled into place and things seem to have stopped moving.
Now I have come down to this big boulder, 4’ long. My wall is now sitting on that, I am digging down alongside, about 2’ so far, and have to ask myself what is this rock sitting on. The one above is sitting on it, and the one above that is sitting on that one, and there are two or three more up to the bedrock of the NW corner, twenty feet above, just below the collar where the culvert to the surface is attached. (Wow! What a wonderful poetic sentence!)Could this rock just tip over, falling out of the east wall onto the west side, loosened by my digging, opening up a huge gap at the bottom of the east wall, and activating the sink-hole? Now, I have had to ask this about every rock above this one and the answer so far has been, “No, it’s sitting on a bigger one.” But, this one is the biggest, so if something goes wrong it’s a bigger wrong. What these boulders appear to be are pieces of a dike broken by faulting. They seem to fit together and are not much moved from the original placement in relation to the marble. The dissolution of the marble alongside the dike allowed the fault fractured rocks to fall down into the descending passageway, and opened up a hole for the North side talc seam to wash and slump down over the rock rubble, leaving the larger pieces of the dike practically in situ. Which all may be true but it still doesn’t tell me what it is sitting on, and if it is al all inclined to stay put.
At this point, the upper corner of the south end is locked behind the sloped ceiling (south wall), chinked with a wedge rock. The north end at dig level is pointed with mud back under the point. I haven’t found the bottom in the middle. I am encouraged by the fact that the rock seems to be right where it has always been during the whole process of cave and sinkhole formation, and collapse to the surface. If it went through all that and stayed put, perhaps it will suffer my shoveling in the same spirit. I think I’ll add a cross brace anyway, a sturdy one. Here’s hoping my Mistress will be kind to me!!
The last day of July was a great dig. Laptop and cameras up and running and we got some video on the hard-drive. Hole ddrying out and I can even stand and dig. I can’t wait to see what the next 100 buckets will result in!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Please--Permit Me
Where're you going with those buckets of mud, boy?
Where'd you get that mud?
You got a permit to move that dirt, son?
I got it form my Mistress, sir.
Yes, sir! Yes, sir!
Twenty-five buckets, one-third full,
And no permit but a hope and a dream.
Where're you going with that boulder, boy?
Where'd you get that rock?
You got a permit to roll that stone, son?
I got it from my Mistress, sir.
It was stuck in the mud.
I thought I could use it to stem the flood.
No permit but the sweat and the blood.
Where're you going with that log on your back, boy?
Where'd you get that wood?
You got a permit, son, to tote that load?
Got it from an old clear-cut, sir.
Somehting that was left behind.
Gonna take it to my Mistress, keep her kind.
Where're you going with that shovel, boy?
What're you going to dig now?
You got a permit to use that thing?
Going to dig a hole, sir.
Going to see what's there.
No permit, sir.
Why? Do you care?
By David
Where'd you get that mud?
You got a permit to move that dirt, son?
I got it form my Mistress, sir.
Yes, sir! Yes, sir!
Twenty-five buckets, one-third full,
And no permit but a hope and a dream.
Where're you going with that boulder, boy?
Where'd you get that rock?
You got a permit to roll that stone, son?
I got it from my Mistress, sir.
It was stuck in the mud.
I thought I could use it to stem the flood.
No permit but the sweat and the blood.
Where're you going with that log on your back, boy?
Where'd you get that wood?
You got a permit, son, to tote that load?
Got it from an old clear-cut, sir.
Somehting that was left behind.
Gonna take it to my Mistress, keep her kind.
Where're you going with that shovel, boy?
What're you going to dig now?
You got a permit to use that thing?
Going to dig a hole, sir.
Going to see what's there.
No permit, sir.
Why? Do you care?
By David
Friday, July 22, 2011
July 22, 2011
Generator up and running. Needed premium. Who knew? Another 25 buckets! Those guys are moving. 72'4"---deep. "After the big mud sulmp I had a couple of mnoths ago, I'm finally back to ceiling air space. That's cool." It's amazing how heavy a rock pice form down there weighs. Be sure to go to cavenextdoor.blogspot.com
June 2011
June 21, 2011
Since last writing, progress has been slow. Days of work few. But we have lights from the 12 volt turbine shining in the culvert, at the gate, and a light below the collar. Outlets and a panel have been installed in a fairly dry corner (NW). The turbine has been brought back on line with intake cleaned, lots of water so we have 17 amps. Nice bright lights. I have also been making lumber from old cedar with the axe, froe, and maul. Need to improve facilities a little bit. Add more rustic
On my way past Eugene, from the one year birthday party for granddaughter, Ruby, I stopped to see JD. He sent me home with 100’ of 1” PVC schedule 40 for conduit for the audio-visual feed from the digging face. We want the world to see it all happening. I have dug the ditches and bent the pipe, and am ready to run the lines through. There has been rodent damage to the wires and they need soldered and spliced, again. I am getting ready to move up to the dig until the job is done. I wonder how close I am.
May 2011
May 21, 2011
The Beginning of Judgement Day (according to an OLD, slightly cracked, fellow.
Charlie and David heading up. Still four foot snow drifts on the road so we get to hike a mile over patchy snow. The ground is flat and brown. The green is Oregon grape. We packed in more heavy copper wire—90’ of 6 gauge—for the 12 volt supply below the collar, nails, conduit elbows, garden hose, and a bottle of brandy. More buckets too, to replace unsafe worn and broken ones.
Before we could put the 6 gauge wire down the conduit, we had to pull the too short 12 gauge wire (that we had previously put in) out with a line attached to it so that we could use it to pull the 6 gauge back down the conduit. Four pulls threaded the wire into and down the upper culvert and around the gate. This left the last 40’ hanging down through the collar to the bottom of the dig. An elbow and three 10’ pieces were then threaded on from the bottom. Boy, is it ever wet down there!!
To top the day off, while Charlie and I were having lunch, he was sitting in the lawn chair in the sun between the snow drifts when a fresh butterfly came and lit on his hand. Stayed for 10 minutes while he was chording away on the guitar. Then it came over to my hand tickling with her tongue, and showing her beautiful, rusty serrated wings. I passed her back to Charlie. She grazed her fill and then fluttered down, and drank of melting snow water. So when you’ve overwhelmed, just figure out the next thing to do and do it.
May 2011 Log
May 2011
With the last piece of culvert installed at the top it is now possible to install wiring for lights below and above the collar. But, I can’t help digging. So one day in April, with the help of longer days and easier hiking (you can walk on the snow without snowshoes), Charlie and I got in a forty bucket day!! I told Charlie that was a record that might not ever be broken. The result was a lot of backfill at the top, of course—there were slumps to fill in outside the shaft, and the digging at the bottom proceeded faster than the shoring going up. This is the east wall. Slump muds oozing between he cracks. I think if I wasn’t careful this side could slump all the way to the top.
In fact, while installing the last piece of shoring and congratulating myself on digging a shaft right down an active sinkhole, mud started flowing out of the wall and slumping began immediately. I could hear rocks and cobbles rattling behind the walls and falling down. I went up—FAST, Climbed up into the culvert, pausing to listen before I shot to the surface. The noise of water dripping and running was all I could hear. I climbed back down to the bottom to check on damage. I tried to plug the hole (which was up against the ceiling), and that had the effect of starting the slumping again. So I climbed back up into the culvert again, and waited for the action to cease, if it was going to cease. After a short while, things quieted down while I was imagining everything I’d dug during the winter filling back up with med and clay from behind the walls. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Actually what did happen was probably good. The rocks I heard were rocks that I had stacked in a cairn alongside the east wall, and as the mud flowed out the bottom, the rocks settled down and eventually plugged the hole the mud was coming out of.
Oh well, there’s more to do than dig. We drug in some 2” electrical conduit, packed in fittings and sweeps, and started running the electrical wires. These will reduce the extension cords. There will be a line for 12 volt, 110 volt, a culvert light, and 2 phone lines for a video feed to the surface. The phone lines will run through separate conduit. We have had 2 digs working on the wiring where we only got five buckets out.
The boulders are getting bigger and every one has air under it. Yesterday I hammered a big one up and started barring it out of the mud under the east wall. It split longitudinally, a clean break right through the center, leaving two beautiful flat pancake rocks. They will be useful for something. Walls? Steps? I am overwhelmed.
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