Cindy's Dig

[jonsdigs]

Last weekend eight cavers were supposed to show up to dig in Huccacove Cave in Williams Cañon. Only four actually showed up. We were lucky Cindy’s Dig was designed for three.

A couple of years ago Chas, Jim Braswell, and I were digging up in the top secret section. We brought Jim’s girlfriend Six-Foot Cindy along. The climb up was too exposed for her. Instead of joining us she stayed below. She started a new dig which was soon abandoned then ignored.

We have been digging on Cindy’s Dig for four weekends now. We are following a series of small domes lining up along a fracture on the ceiling. The dirt is layered sand and clay. There is enough clay in the sand to make sculpture. We dig six to eight feet a weekend. We fill a bucket at the face. Then we dump two bucket-loads into a plastic sled. We pull the sled out with a rope. The empty sled is then pulled back in.

We have been looking for the ceiling to go up into other than a tiny dome. Not all drainage comes down to the Huccies Secret room. We think the passage will go on because of this lost drainage. We think we found the up-go at the end of the day Sunday (See drawing.) We look forward to returning next Sunday.

[Brad Tipton]

You guys really like to dig out there. How many caves are in your state?

[jonsdigs]

We have thousands but we dig on a bunch close to town in the winter when most are inaccessible.

[Brad Tipton]

I guess most are inaccessible due to high altitude and many feet of snow?

[L Roebuck]

Good trip report! And the diagram added a lot to clarify the cave story!

I do not know about the clay in your state but.....urf personally I hate digging Tennessee clay!

[Brian Roebuck]

pretzlgirl said:

Good trip report! And the diagram added a lot to clarify the cave story!

I do not know about the clay in your state but.....urf personally I hate digging Tennessee clay!

Yep I'll second that! I've tried to dig some of the clay fills in caves here and gotten very frustrated at having it stick to everything! It's slow going. I have a few sandy digs I need to try soon though and they aren't too bad.

[jonsdigs]

Most of our climate out west is dry. Our caves are generally much dryer than back east. We find the best digging leads had high hydraulic energy levels. From this we get coarser sediments. Mountains supply a lot of insoluble clastics as well. (A clast is a piece of rock. Clastics are made from pieces of rock.)

[Brian Roebuck]

Lucky you! Our clay is typically very thick, sticky, and heavy. I'd rather pound rocks to dust than dig in clay fill here. Keep up the good digging and your great reports. I am enjoying them even though I am too far away to come help out.

[jonsdigs]

Here's a map of Cindy's Dig. I put it together for dig proposal documents for the Williams Canon Project.