Waking up a brumating beardie

Hi all,

We have an 11 month old Beardie that decided to brumate two months ago, and we have not seen him since. Yes - I know a youngling brumating is not a good idea - not here to debate the how and why; it's a lesson learned, he's our first after all.

We have a 120 gallon tank that has a sunrise/sunset heating with a basking spot at ~104 or so - so it's always warm during the day. But we also have about 4-6" of soil mix (peatmoss, topsoil and playsand) - we THINK we know where the beardie is and we also know the ingress point he used to dig himself a burrow... but as i said, he hasn't made an appearance in two months.

So - gonna try to excavate him this weekend and looking for some guidance on how to best achieve it. I am thinking slowly remove soil layer by layer until we see him (hopefully alive but fully prepared for... not alive), unless someone has a different idea?

For what its worth, there are no funny smells, no maggots or other bugs - maybe that's a good sign that the beardie is alive? Anywho - any feedback/suggestion appreciated.