Post date: Jan 12, 2010 9:52:26 PM
Stephen Macnamara, Eoghan Mullen, Robin Sheen, Shane McKinley, 3 hours
Just putting this short post in although it was an ICRO trip rather than a Shannon trip - part of the rock breaking, bolting and shoring course run over the weekend. Armed with a silly quantity of scaffolding we arrived at the pot with a view to doing a bit of training, and sorting the entrance out once and for all.
I rigged down and found to my surprise that the problem had almost solved itself - the loose entrance slope had already disappeared down the shaft and only the two big rocks and a bit of rubble remained. Where they had been holding up a large quantity of stuff before, now it was possible to actually crawl behind and under them!
We had some fun gardening with a scaffolding tube, knocked down one of the big rocks, and crowbarred/lump hammerred the biggest one into a more stable position in the rift. It's now sitting on a scaff bar and won't move any more.
Shane had a go at shoring on the second pitch, but it's very difficult to fit scaff there without bolting a bracket to the wall. It will be easier to simply knock most of the remaining rocks down rather than try to shore them. Next person - bring hammer and crowbar, remove the scaff (not doing anything at the moment) and bash away!
After that it will be simply a matter of rigging to the bottom and clearing away the rocks which have probably blocked the way on to our dig at this stage.
Steve.