Backdoor Work Report    (Click for Photo)

Saturday, January 25, 2003

Crew:   Bill Copeland, Matt Goska, Marty Griffin, Tim Harrison, Mike Hartley, Rick Hines, Ron Lather, Heather Levy, Ben Miller

We placed about two cubic yards of concrete at the base of the entrance shaft to anchor the cable that will be part of our ladder safety system. 

Mike, Ron, Heather and Ben rappelled in about 9:30 AM.  Heather (our army civil engineer) took charge and requested supplies and tools that the rest of us on the surface rounded up and sent down.  Using 2 by 4s and tarps the in-cave crew constructed a tent over the O. A. (that's operations area for you nonmilitary types).  The tent directed the water coming down the shaft away from the O. A. and funneled water into buckets for mixing cement.  Matt used the cutting torch to cut up old pipe that we bent and sent down to reinforce the concrete.  We also lowered 7 94 lb bags of concrete down on the elevator. 

The crews communicated with each other over the "phone" to verify when the shaft was clear and it was safe to work below.  As the fourth bag of concrete was going down on the elevator the base of the elevator caught on the shaft wall and tipped, dropping the bag of concrete the last 50 feet or so.  The phone was not needed to here the comments of the crew below.  I could tell from the torrent of four-letter words that they were quite rattled but not hurt.  After that there seemed to be at least three iterations of "clear, the shaft is clear" before the in-cave crew would approach the "fall zone".

The in-cave crew insisted on finishing the job without reinforcements, not allowing anyone else to participate in the in-cave fun.  On the surface we filled our time by using a transit to take elevation measurements of the area where the surface concrete pad will be poured for the floor of the silo.  The in-cave crew placed 3 L-anchor bolts to finish their work and started sending up tools and trash about 4:00 PM.  Greg Fry stopped by to pick up a Terry Sherman CCC calendar I had promised him.  Greg took a break form feeding cattle to help us pull rope and get tools, tarps and buckets out of the cave.  The last thing up on the elevator was our four cavers, still complaining about the exploding bag of concrete. 

By dark we had things cleaned up and most of us headed in to Camdenton for a Mexican dinner where by chance we ran into Greg Fry and family at Senor Pepper's.

The next work weekend will be 2/15/03 when we will start installing the ladder.  If you can help please let me know as soon as possible. 

Rick

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