North Passage in Water Icicle Close Mine is a walking size phreatic passage about 100m long. Towards the end it's been extensively dug to remove mud/clay/rock fill. The present end is a reasonable-sized aven followed by a descent into a short damp crawl to where the roof changes from rock to mud. It seems this site was abandoned a few years back by OCC diggers. So far one digging trip has been done, prodding the ceiling with a crowbar whilst cowering under the rock section of the roof. 1-2' of progress were made with a team of two, but there is a danger of roof or wall collapse so it has been decided to set up a tipping bucket or similar system to use water from the aven - thus relocating mud from the roof to the floor when no-one is under it - good, eh! - whence it can be removed. This will be done in a few weeks when University exams become less of an issue.
The site is very promising - going apparently vertically up through mud fill, heading downstream in an abandoned stream passage in the general direction of the Lathkill Dale systems, about 1500m away. There is a rope in the aven just before the dig, apparently going up into a higher-level dig, there is no draught in N passage but we plan to look at this rope on the next trip.
3/3/02 saw Ben Stevens, the Brendans and Steve Jones make our second digging trip into WICM, equipped with 'the fearsome tool' - broom handle with a hand-fork screwed to the end, with which it should be possible to cower under rock at the end of the crawl to the dig and prod the ceiling with relative impunity. Ben and BrendanM went to the face to dig whilst Steve and BrendanS went for a look at the otehr leads. BS prussiked to the top of the aven immediately before the dig to report no evident way on but that the shaft continued up, fluted but blocked by boulders. A tube heading off abovethe dig sounded pretty hopeless.
The other lead was a tube down in the floor of NW passage which leads to a restricted rift, with a duck in one direction and a rubble-filled gurgle in the other when water from the duck is thrown down it. The duck was bailed almost dry and passed by Steve who found it went into a possible continuation ofthe rift, choked above and in front with mud. Digging this would be pretty pointless, and highly tedious with nowhere handy for the spoil.
At the dig, the fearsome tool and the ferocious Brendan had been busily removing mud and rocks, causing Ben - hauling - to worry as the dig face periodically went 'boom' rather loudly. BrendanS and Steve returned to hear a particularly good series of crashes, the immortal words 'it's getting a bit exciting in here' and Brendan emerged. Bits of mud he had not been disturbing had started coming away unpleasantly close to the cowering spot. It was decided o leave the site to stabilise over lunch. Returning after lunch Brendan and Steve went for a look at the face. Over lunch a considerable amount of mud and rocks had detached itself from a calcited patch of rock in the dig, but everything had now stopped moving. Some boulders were hauled back to the aven and Steve started poking. A small amount of roof was shifted, revealing that the calcited patch of rock may be a section of wall, or just a pretty big boulder. Steve got a headache and called Ben through to have a go, who immediately declared the air bad so we called it a day, showed BrendanM the rest of the cave and went to the pub via a surface inspect of Lathkill Dale - enough to motivate any digger!
In all the fearsome tool proved extremely succesful, a large amount of fill was shifted and some upwards progress made. Unless airspace or solid roof/wall is hit soon, even the fearsome tool will have inadequate reach and something else will need to be dreamed up - it was noted that the aven was less drippy than before, so a tipping bucket may not be a practical solution. New skips were also found in teh aven before the dig (though no digging had been done) and at the end of NW passage. We will try to establish whose this kit is.