+Z Digging Group

The +Z Highway digging crew is a group formed around late 2016/early 2017. The group started because of the influence of the trend of completing the major Axis highways, created by the +X highway group in late 2016. Many players set out to complete the highway and began to help gRiNdLoRd, DC91, and BobRock who took out to dig the +Z highway in the summer of 2016. The group has currently reached the border on June 9th, 2017.

History
This was a Reddit post by gRiNdLoRd who posted the entire history of the +Z highway expedition:

"Due to the recent interest in nether highways I thought I would share what I know about the +Z highway. I started playing on 2b2t June 4th 2016, and the first thing I did after getting out of spawn was to collect supplies to go to 1 million. The closest highway to me at the time was +Z so that's the direction I headed. This was before the new queue system had been implemented so there were constant server restarts and the queue was sometimes over 800.

After getting to the 1 million overworld marker I camped out for a week and using a pig farm and carrot farm I stocked up on supplies and continued to head further out (here is what it looked like before and after it was greifed ). I eventually found a quad spawner (3 spiders and a zombie) and settled down to gear up and building something. Around July/Aug a player by the name of DC91 (previously DarrylC91) found my build randomly (while I happened to be logged in) and we started talking. He told me that he had been playing on 2b2t since 2014, and at that time the +Z highway had been dug to just over 1 million overworld (about 145k nether). He and another player by the name of BobRock had started to dig the highway further and by the summer 2016 they had gotten it to just past 3 million.

About a month or two later DC91 decided to quit 2b2t because he said it had become broken due to the influx of new players and I haven't seen him on since. With as much as I was using the highway, I wanted to pitch in and help improve it. So I decided I was going to expand the highway from 1x2 to 2x3 for horse travel. During the months of Sept/Oct I dug out the highway from 125k all the way to 350k using only the 12-15 mending/eff5 picks I had made. I would dig the highway, /kill to get back home, and then use my gold farm to repair the picks. After that project I decided to make a few hundred blocks of iron highway since I had built 12 iron farms. Eventually with the help of a few others, I dug the highway out to 2x3 from spawn all the way out past 350k nether. Keep in mind that this was before the Nov dupe so all of my tools and gear were made from scratch.

But back to BobRock who had continued to dig the +Z highway. I would check in on him randomly to hear about progress. It was around this time that I started talking to a player named Nations and invited him to come to my base. I told him about BobRock and how I was going to head out to help with the highway digging. Nations would eventually take an alt out to the end of the highway to help BobRock dig further. BobRock and Nations over the next few months were responsible for digging most of the nether highway from around 3 or 4 million all the way out to 14 or 15 million (which is around the time that Byrnsy finished his +X world border journey).

A few other players came out to join the +Z team (dotsoa, NickHasCancer, Sunwukon, and Gsmack) I want to give full credit to BobRock and Nations as they have dug most of what is now considered to be the +Z nether highway. Also, BobRock is responsible for all of the million markers that can be seen along the way and Nations is responsible for all of the rest stop builds along the way. My favorite is at 14 million where he re-created spawn with lavacasts and withers. I apologize if I've left anyone out."

Completion
This was a reddit post by Gsmack upon the completion of the highway:

"Finally the Z+ highway has been completed. Around a little over a month ago I headed down the Z+ highway because I always wondered how far it went. I had never heard much about it so I headed down. I also figured It would be a great contribution to 2b2t to go down the highway and come back with it stretching all the way to border. So I went to my stash and grabbed 6 shulkers of pickaxes, pearls, totems etc and headed on my way. I traveled for a few days of overall time when I finally made it to 16 million overworld. There I met Nations who was working on the 16 million milestone. He gave me 4 shulkers full of even more pickaxes and said he would catch up. Apparently he had more stuff than he would ever need so he also gave me 3 shulkers of pig spawners and some stacked armor. So I headed farther down the highway. It wasn't until 22 million when I finally caught up with dotsoa. He was building the 22 million milestone when I got there. I took a look around and then went on my way.

I dug to 23 million then finally we were at 24. 3 million nether. We stopped to build a base for a couple weeks, I built a gold farm and fixed my 2 shulkers of picks I was down then went to go dig the final stretch. I dug from 3 million to 3.5 million in a matter of a few days. Everyone was catching up and other diggers dug for a little. I flew ahead to build the 29 million monument because I knew no one would want to stop, too eager for border. It wasn't until last night June 9th, 2017 that me and NapkinTheBatDad finally finished the dig. Some of the other diggers were Netnei, kekkekkek1, Sun_wukon, NickHasCancer, gRiNdLoRd, Nations, BobRock, and Pyroyetti420. Sorry if I did miss anyone but I'm not positive on who mainly did the first 250k nether. Here are all the screenshots I collected along my journey plus some of my netherrack mining stats."

Notable Members

 * gRiNdLoRd
 * DC91(Quit due to Rusher Lag)
 * BobRock
 * Nations
 * Sun_Wukon
 * NickHasCancer
 * Pyroyetti420
 * Netnei
 * kekkekkek1
 * NapkinTheBatDad
 * Gsmack10
 * dotsoa
 * SepticPLEXUS