<p>Headed off to Tunnocks with 200m of 11mm, a substantial pile of hangers, slings, krabs, Hiltis, drill, drill battery... so it took a while. I headed down with the intention of fettling the rig so that we could have more than one person on the pitch at a time without kicking rubble on each others heads. Jess sat on the surface and sunbathed for a bit (apart from when it was hailing). I put in a new rebelay that neatly avoided the passing hailstones, then spent ages trying to work out where I was going to put bolts in for the next bit since it was clearly going to be scary and hard. Eventually found a way to put in a particularly airy rebelay (that Jess later enjoyed). Managed to wrap myself round the rope multiple times in the process, so spent 40 minutes untangling myself, then descended landing on the lower end of the first boulder slope as intended. Jess joined me and I proceeded to rig a traverse to the head of the next drop, making use of a pre-drilled Hilti hole and an existing Hilti. By this time we were running out of time so headed out. </p>
<p>Joe on his 3rd day of looking for 107. This time armed with a text message from Wookey at the computer, sent @ 3am, saying to find Wookey's caving gear stash and thus 148, then 107 was 120m away on 220(degrees). Unfortunately this was copied from an area diagram(?) <i>from 107</i>, not <i>to 107</i>, so was backwards. Thus Joe & Aled spent about 3 hrs looking in the wrong place untul Wookey arrived from base camp with a map. Armed with correct info 83 was quickly found (has apit but no tag) and thus 107.</p>
<p><b>TA-DAA!</b></p>
<p>Then it thunderstormed (hail) whilst Aled and Joe werer collecting rope from stash at edge of plateau. Aled had left cag at 148 so had to hide in bivvi bag (correction - survival bag) for 30 minutes - "toasty"</p>
<p>Finally got underground around 3pm. 107 is a nice cave & O+J get full marks for documentation (rigging guide + desc + QMs + survey). Rigging and route-finding went well. Joe shimmied the ropeless traverse without gear. Aled followed with T-sacks before realising that <b>a)</b> this was foolish &<b>b)</b> he needed to come back & give Wookey hangers for rigging. Short period of excitement was survived.</p>
<p>Rigged down to Ropefree before going home. Cave is v. cold due to strong draught throughout. Bring woolies!</p>
<p>Two days after our previous effort, the same team returned to continue the attempted re-rig of the Tunnocks entrance pitch. I swang around in the shaft putting in an airy-fairy rig to avoid the loosechoss while Jess sat on a rubble slope providing moral support. One deviation and two y-hangs later, team 2 arrived with the intention of putting in a quick `n' dirty rig to the bottom so they could start rigging the rest of the cave. After a few hours sitting with six of us strung out along the pitch with much shuffling of gear, it became clear that this plan was not going to work, so team 1 exited.</p>
<divclass="trippeople">Becka, Neil, Rob A, &<u>Michael S</u></div>
<divclass="triptitle">Team 2 into Tunnocks</div>
<p>Turned up hoping that Team 1 would have finished rigging the entrance series, found to be far from the truth. After a bit of umming and ah-ing on the surface, decided to rig past Team 1 to get to the bottom. Ice plug at the bottom was found to be significantly lower than previous years so existing bolts could not be used exclusively in quick & dirty rig. Inherited drill & bolting kit from Team 1 to rig the bottom, a traverse across the ice slope. From [here] split in two:</p>
<p>- Rob stayed on the entrance series to use the bolting kit to continue the re-bolting of the entrance to avoid the loose floor.</p>
<p>- Becka, Neil, and I continued on carrying rope to deeper parts of the cave.</p>
<p>Handline found in place at Ribs with Knoedel (?). Caramel Catharsis rigged then continued through Y KeyKey Beach & Max Pleasure. Back through Dubious Pleasure, where all 3 traverse lines were found in place. Reached String Theory top & deposited 100m rope & brew kit, then buggered off out again, picking up Rob on the way.</p>
<divclass="triptitle">Matt & Aled jolly in 107</div>
<p>Did a carry up to top camp with the newly arrived curries, then had a quick pootle round 107 so Matt could learn the way. Got as far as Too Bold for This Spit where met Sam David Jess and Andy. Dropped off bag of rigging gear for Aled's pushing project. Nice trip some of the rigging is a bit "rock and roll".</p>
<p>Came down hill after last trip as Joe needed to fettle phones. Wook kept getting asked nerding questions so didn't leave till 11ish. So underground by 2pm.</p>
<p>Lovely trip, partly as I had thick fleece furry instead of thin one so much warmer, but also [something, something] as 2 independent trips, with Joe rigging ahead & Wook following, sorting the `economical' rigging to ad backups to one-bolt-wonders & swap 51m rope on ropeless traverse(?) for 39m one.</p>
<p>Joe came back to report squeeze then ran off again to keep warm. Wook followed to be confused by implausibly tight crawl with rope for Austria.</p>
<p><u><b>Wookey's handwriting, at this point, is causing me incredible eyestrain :P. There are two more reports following this that need to be included in future.</b></u></p>
<divclass="triptitle">107: Alcove pop + Nipped down</div>
<p>Returned to the "Too bold for this spit" traverse. Andrew climbed up above the traverse to the lead spotted the previous day and put some bolts in so Jess could climb up and survey the small passage found - "Alcove pop", which split after a few meters with both ways ending in mud. Small roof tube ran back into the main rift split into many tiny holes. Meanwhile Sam + David retrieved the rope from Korea.</p>
<p>David replaced the bolt which popped out the previous day, and all returned to the passage and pitch found the previous day</p>
<p>Andrew then finished rigging "nipped down" and David and Jess surveyed it, linking it into Chine before heading out. Possible passage continuation across pitch - QMC. On the way back up the pitch, Andrew noticed the single bolt above the 30m hang and blow the dodgy sling rebelay was pulling out as he prussiked - when he got there, he could pull it out of the wall!</p>
<p>Everyone headed out, Sam having some tight trouble in the squeeze - this is easiest using the low route now most of the popcorn has gone. All out by 20:15, and all headed down to base camp.</p>
<p><b>QMC - Possible passage continuation of popped across on the opposite wall of nipped down - bolt traverse required.</b></p>
<divclass="triptitle">258 - Tunnocks - Rig String Theory + to Beast area</div>
<p>Used rope previously deposited to rig String Theory which was a breeze due to refelctor bolts placed on last year's derig - top gear! Continued on + I rigged Pidgeons in Flight but it needed further tweaking. Anthony + I then went for a [something] checking the in situ nasty red rope on the short climb up + traverse + to look at the Beast pitch + pitch below Bob Om.</p>
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Becka</u>, Neil, Rob A</div>
<divclass="triptitle">258 - Tunnocks - Pidgeons in Flight -> Pidgeon Droppings</div>
<p>Looked at the pitch beloe Bob On but decided to rig the one below the traverse just beyond Pidgeons in Flight. Neil rigged whilst Rob + I surveyed down. Neil's pitch ("Pidgeon Droppings") is nicely rigged in 3 short drops (bit loose at pitch head). This lands next to a wet, undescended pitch but we went for the blowing horizontal lead. It was crawly, past 2 fairly freshly dead bats to a bad step traverse. Neil put in a couple of bolts to drop below the traverse which was blind, + then to put a handline over the traverse, we wrapped up the survey here + headed out. En route I replaced the nasty, slippy red 9mm on the climb up to the Balcony (just beyond String Theory) with thicker rope + put the red 9mm as a handline up to that climb.</p>
