Having woken up, eaten and checked the coming forecast at topcamp, Dan and I decided on an afternoon of prospecting. +
+Setting off at midday after a fair bit of faff, we headed along the path to KH towards a cave with a QM which I have been pestering people about. Along the way we passed a fat hole which Russel and I had dropped a rock down, taking 8 seconds to reach the bottom. Since we only had 60 odd meters of rope, we decided to sack off dropping the hole, opting to look around the same area for any other holes to drop, saving the other one for a different day. +
+Nearby, a (smaller) promising hole was found by Dan. I started rigging it, first, around a couple naturals to a bolt, then a Y hang. Looking for a place to pop the Y-hang proved difficult as anything suitable ended up with a significant amount of rope rub, so I decided to tackle it form a different angle. This time from 2 naturals, 2 rebelays down to a Y-hang which dropped straight into the shaft. +
+Descending the cave, I encountered a fair amount of rock-littered snow, which I had to kick through so as to have a drippy-free descent to the bottom. I ended up on a ledge, which I bolted with another rebelay as the shaft had transformed into a spiral shape, and to avoid a boulder which I had failed to jiggle out of place. After descending down snow slopes, I had reached the end, which had unfortunately bottomed out. +
+After I had ascended out, it was Dan’s turn to drop the cave whilst I fiddled with my SAP to calibrate it. Soon after he had descended the Y-hang, the tell-tale fog rolled over and it started chucking it down. I was content sitting at the top donned with my full waterproofs, until the sound of thunder and the crack of a (concerningly) nearby bolt of lightning knocked me off my feet. I scuttled into a nearby hole, as standing next to a pile metalwork was probably not the smartest idea, waiting for the storm to past. +
+Once Dan had emerged from the cave, it had cleared up significantly and we took a surface survey once my SAP was calibrated (I told you I would Becka ;)). Noticing the dark-coloured clouds overhead, I ushered Dan to start moving quickly as I did NOT want to endure another storm. Walking away from the newly-named
RainbowBargainsHöhle
, we could see the twilight fog starting to roll in, so we started bolting it back. Alas, we hadn’t escaped it fast enough as we were soon in the middle of the storm, which made us scamper back faster, in the process causing Dan to fall and injure his shin. +
+Eventually we made it! Arriving to the sounds of clapping and cheering as the group dropping kit off at KH had already made the round trip and were eagerly awaiting our return (we hadn’t died yay!).
+ +