Caving Projects

Nixon's aven was first dug back in the 1980’s by Dave (Moose ) Nixon and team. They left a low aquatic crawl heading east that was full of glacier fill but with a slight draught blowing over the top of the fill. The passage appears to be heading towards the joint that has Perseverance Pot developed on it.

Digging commenced in 2011 on a weekly basis, part of the sessions involved trying to syphon out the water to making digging comfortable, which worked initially and good progress was made. After a while we couldn't get the syphon to work so digging usually involved four people, a digger laying flat out in the water, digging the spoil and loading a bucket. The 2nd person had to crawl into the water to drag the bucket out and pass to the 3rd person on the home straight to the aven where the fourth person was sat to chuck the spoil down the shaft. The digger had to wear a wet suit but even though, they could only manage about ten buckets before they had to swap so they could warm up. The air at the end also showed signs of CO2 build up so only 30 buckets could be done in a session.

After about twenty sessions, the end has been extended about 10 m but the end is really miserable, and mainly rabbit holing but the gap remains above the fill so it must go somewhere. The digging team gradually moved on to other sites and a progress report apperead in TSG Journal 19, published in 2018.

Recently a new team from TSG has taken an interest in this, they have managed to get a pump to drain the passage, and they have been working on the dig at the end, slowly extending it.