Got underground nice and early - 9:10 am! Whizzed down to where the two old routes diverge and headed towards the p67. Turns out you traverse over the p67 to get to the p5. We did this using 1978 spits just to have a look. There is a trickle of water down the back wall, and a rift heading west. We traversed along this, it was the sort of rift with no visible floor and of unknown depth. After a short while the rift got wider, and I became incredibly scared and refused to continue. We surveyed back to the head of the p67. On typing in the data, it seems that my pitch detecting radar knew we were about to traverse over the p100, and hence made me stop. Olly rigged down the p67 directly (ie. not via the p5) and got a Y-hang that made a lovely free hang, despite a complex pitch head. Sadly it got wet and the rope was fast so Olly had it wrapped round his leg. This gave him 2 options, abseil [illegible], or torniquet his leg. He took the first option.
+Got underground nice and early - 9:10 am! Whizzed down to where the two old routes diverge and headed towards the p67. Turns out you traverse over the p67 to get to the p5. We did this using 1978 spits just to have a look. There is a trickle of water down the back wall, and a rift heading west. We traversed along this, it was the sort of rift with no visible floor and of unknown depth. After a short while the rift got wider, and I became incredibly scared and refused to continue. We surveyed back to the head of the p67. On typing in the data, it seems that my pitch detecting radar knew we were about to traverse over the p100, and hence made me stop. Olly rigged down the p67 directly (ie. not via the p5) and got a Y-hang that made a lovely free hang, despite a complex pitch head. Sadly it got wet and the rope was fast so Olly had it wrapped round his leg. This gave him 2 options, abseil indelicately, or torniquet his leg. He took the first option.
Olly shouts up "I'm down, the pitch is wet". I wonder how wet, is he telling me that he will come back up and add some rigging, or that I should come down but make sure the survey box is closed first. After a few iterations of Olly shouting 'the hang is wet' and me shouting 'can I descend?', Olly eventually shouts that he is coming up.
This would be the perfect time to sit in my lovely new bothy bag, except that I am the wrong side of the pitch wedged in a rift. After a while I see Olly putting in a bolt, and I can follow down. We end up in a side rift via a couple of rebelays and a comedy deviation. We survey up this and down to the bottom of the main hang. Then have a quick wander down to the next short pitch.
We survey back out derigging up to the Y-hang so the rig can be made drier for next time. Uneventful exit, to get out just as the thunderstorm started.
@@ -247,7 +247,7 @@A return trip was needed to survey and derig the disastour of the previous day. I managed to persuade (cous-cous) Rob into helping me, believing it would crap out and thus be an easy job and being able to move the rope to other areas of the cave. This was not to be. The rift continued so needed surveying. After a couple of sketchy freeclimbs we made it to another big hole. This was wet and it did not look like a suitable way to rig from (could shorten the wetness of the rigging from the top). This was likely to be a thing which was going to be done when all the excellent A leads had been killed off. Rob derigged. By the time we set off, Rachel and Frank were already exitting the area to more warmer leads. We continued so as to give Julian's team the rope. We found them in a massive surveying fuck up but were directed along the passage to where there was a dead bat. By the time Julian caught up the batt was flat and no longer well preserved. Since 5 people were planning to exit the cave, me and Rob head off into the extremeties of the Turtle Head to access the leads. This proved quite interesting and managed to kill off an A lead (92a) by just sticking my head into it (confirmed the following day).
1st expo trip for Sarah, 1st trip to BH for Wook.
Carried gear over after sorting survey stuff so only just underground before midday. Luke showed us the route to the far end + gear dump & the various leads.
Friendly cave, but a fair way to the end. Had a look at the near (wet) side of the pitch to consider rigging. Could be done from this side but prob better from the other.
-<>Decided to start beyond 94a lead. Surveyed rift off to left: short passage to dead end with scroffing below. Sarah got to drive DistoX2. -<>Next looked at climb at the end. Dubious-looking pile of boulders with hole at top. Wook shinned up & found it was in fact quite solid. Largish rift at top with ice formations ! Big draught through small hole. -Surveyed up & others followed then explored. Matt shinned up to R on ledge - looks like a lead. Sarah went round corner to find [illegible] aven-base with more ice. Very impressive. Called 'Ice cock'.
+Decided to start beyond 94a lead. Surveyed rift off to left: short passage to dead end with scroffing below. Sarah got to drive DistoX2.
+Next looked at climb at the end. Dubious-looking pile of boulders with hole at top. Wook shinned up & found it was in fact quite solid. Largish rift at top with ice formations ! Big draught through small hole.
+Surveyed up & others followed then explored. Matt shinned up to R on ledge - looks like a lead. Sarah went round corner to find massive aven-base with more ice. Very impressive. Called 'Ice cock'.
Surveyed it all till it was 5:30 & time to go home.
W+S got a bit lost on way out, & Matt overtook, so confusion for a few mins. Soon back together, then in familiar territory, so Matt could get us home. 80m of entrance felt quite long. 500m tomorrow is going to be super-long.
A more successful attempt to get to 161, got to China in 1hr45 having relocated the Double Beep rope back to Coldest on the way in. Slowed down a bit owing to not really knowing the way and Jenny being slow especially on all the tedious little climbs, but got ourselves to the Runnelstone, and Holy Cow 56. Wookey started bolting down while I went round Welly Popper Passage to (a) keep warm and (b) check that Wookey wasn't about to bolt into known passage. Got to a junction, headed left and got to a climb I was too wussy to descend (it turns out that this connects with station 56), then followed right before realising I was in previously unvisited passage, so headed back to 56. Wookey was some way down but had run out of rope, so we rigged with the longer rope. Wookey got to the bottom, said it ended and started to reascend. He thoroughly checked out the rift on the way up and found a window in to a few awkward oxbows which we followed down via a lovely hang, to the floor. A short way on, the water flows down a short small drop with a bigger (wider) pitch likely beyond.
-This looked small + wet, so Wookey climbed up to some ledges to follow the rift at a higher level. Part way up he placed a very fast bolt, hence the passage name Fastest Bolt in the West. Followed these rising ledges to a quality natural. We'd hoped to traverse to a widening above the pitch for a nice easy descent. Unfortunately this didn't happen - the traverse continues, drafty[?] bit small, but no easy way down. Surveyed out. Decided to leave it rigged, but to take the drill out.
+A more successful attempt to get to 161, got to China in 1hr45 having relocated the Double Beep rope back to Coldest on the way in. Slowed down a bit owing to not really knowing the way and Jenny being slow especially on all the tedious little climbs, but got ourselves to the Runnelstone, and Holey Cow 56. Wookey started bolting down while I went round Welly Popper Passage to (a) keep warm and (b) check that Wookey wasn't about to bolt into known passage. Got to a junction, headed left and got to a climb I was too wussy to descend (it turns out that this connects with station 56), then followed right before realising I was in previously unvisited passage, so headed back to 56. Wookey was some way down but had run out of rope, so we rigged with the longer rope. Wookey got to the bottom, said it ended and started to reascend. He thoroughly checked out the rift on the way up and found a window in to a few awkward oxbows which we followed down via a lovely hang, to the floor. A short way on, the water flows down a short small drop with a bigger (wider) pitch likely beyond.
+This looked small + wet, so Wookey climbed up to some ledges to follow the rift at a higher level. Part way up he placed a very fast bolt, hence the passage name Fastest Bolt in the West. Followed these rising ledges to a quality natural. We'd hoped to traverse to a widening above the pitch for a nice easy descent. Unfortunately this didn't happen - the traverse continues, drafty, bit small, but no easy way down. Surveyed out. Decided to leave it rigged, but to take the drill out.
Surveyed the side passage from wellypopper.7 that I had scooped earlier. Named Falling Spike after a lovely spike handhold that Wookey removed from the wall near Wellypopper. Nice walking passage with draft to an aven with water (and a good place for a wee!) After this the passage split into two - small way on with the water on the right, and small dry way straight on. We think that the draft got lost on a window part way up on the right (needs gear to get in to). Headed out, took a bit over an hour to China (with some faffing), then 2 hours out from there. The pitch out of China is nicely long enough to mean you don't hold people up on the way out. The drill bag was much less bad than I expected on the Restless rifts. Happy to get out and find it not raining - had time to walk home and have dinner before it rained.
[there's a sketch plan on the left of the above paragraph to scan and insert here]
We then climbed ~2m up to right of chamber to enter a walking/stooping tube with a nice river of ice on floor. We thought it would soon crap out - but we were rewarded with a nice view into a chamber/rift. Huzzah!
We first survey a tube that looped to NW, ending with a view into the chamber. Pete scrambled round wall, and may be a high lead here.
-With a 1h40min [?] book, we wombled back out to camp
+With a 1160mm book, we wombled back out to camp
Underground by 10am. George's 1st proper 107 trip so he gets to see the delights of pushing the -envelope, lots of rifty shinning and traversing, China and the comedy connetion pitch, then more +envelope, lots of rifty shinning and traversing, China and the comedy connection pitch, then more shinning in 161 and blown out. On the way down wook checked land of confusion and derigged the 12m -CUCC rope there. matt had arrivwed at the entrance to collect his pantin whilst we were getting -ready so we quizzed him on lost SSB rope. thus we were able to find that too. (slightly _downhill_ +CUCC rope there. Matt had arrived at the entrance to collect his pantin whilst we were getting +ready so we quizzed him on lost SSB rope. Thus we were able to find that too. (slightly _downhill_ from SSB). Got back to pushing front in 3.5. Bringing 38m and 12m bits. Should be enough.
Took good look at lay of land and decided that traverse round RH wall from bouldery ledge between the 2 pitches we did last time looked like something that was do-able and should let us dropl down in the dry to connect. Wook went a-rigging with a lot of faffing and muttering about having 2.5 slings amongst lots of threads (hundreds in balcony, allegedly :-). . 2nd bolt split but pressed on -anyway. Eventually got across and into rift. another bolt cracked. re-did. Could see down short +anyway. Eventually got across and into rift. Another bolt cracked: re-did. Could see down short pitch the other side with definite carbide mark at what looked like spits for rebelay. Woo!
Rigged Y-hang then delicate traverse round corner. Turned round to see red rope hanging down, and recognised spot as the foot of starcase 36 at the end of YAPATE. yay, perfect: that was where we -actually wanted to get to. This is place with more potential: there are holes in roof and maybe +actually wanted to get to. This is a place with more potential: there are holes in the roof and maybe passage above CFN. I wonder if the hole we just dropped in through was noted at all? I.e Runnelstone area was always v. close to yapate but up a couple of short pitches.
@@ -738,8 +738,8 @@ area was always v. close to yapate but up a couple of short pitches.Went on a quick tourist to Knossos to show george some proper big cave. Added 2015 to the writing rock. Then surveyed back over traverse (now 'back to the future'). Pulled extra rope through and rerigged horrid traverse rigging into something that could be used for transport. 11 bolts in -total. Got into a right mess with the string going back and forth. pity we didn't have a -camera. George put in his first HKD. Wook redid the cracked one (but didn't smahs it as in good +total. Got into a right mess with the string going back and forth. Pity we didn't have a +camera. George put in his first HKD. Wook redid the cracked one (but didn't smash it as in good place - maybe OK to use backed-up if need be?).
@@ -753,9 +753,9 @@ pitch.In total Back To The Future traverse and Quality Belays pitches have 20 hangers and one sling on -them. Details i n survey notes. None of the ropes are labelled. BTTF has the one left for a year in +them. Details in survey notes. None of the ropes are labelled. BTTF has the one left for a year in KH. 2014 10mm? ~55m? The top is an 11mm 12m-ish bit. The Quality Belays pitch is ~18m. Could be -joe's rope? +Joe's rope?
Pitch continuation is wet and quite narrow - looks like modern development, but there is a passage going - off where you land (2-3m high, 0.6-1m wide rift. Round corner is straight rift for 30m. 10m along - is very windy passage on L(draughting towards you (out of cave). Beyond rift seems draughtless, + off where you land (2-3m high, 0.6-1m wide rift). Round corner is straight rift for 30m. 10m along + is very windy passage on L(draughting towards you: out of cave). Beyond rift seems draughtless, but pitch-climb at the end was not descended. QM B. On R opposite draughting passage is smaller passage which also has a 10m drop after 5m. QMB.
Surveyed up windy passage (Heat Recovery Ventilation). It was bloody cold (and not very big), but kept going steadily uphill for a couple of hours of surveying (20 legs). We were hoping for it to - get to something (it clearly goes somewhere) but nothing happenend before we had to turn + get to something (it clearly goes somewhere) but nothing happened before we had to turn round to hit our callout, allowing for surveying up the pitch and derigging and dragging drill + rope out of cave. Interesting passage. QMA (and hole in the floor at last station, QMB)
@@ -797,9 +798,9 @@ noticed our SMS anyway so no need to worry much about missing callouts...We weren't quite sure how many tacklesacks derigging 107 would take, but almost certainly more than the number of deriggers available (3). So this might turn into a bit of a mission. Jenny set -off first due to being an early bird and set off to go down to china and derig the blown-out -connection rope, into the part-empty tacklesack at the bottom of the cina rope, then head up the -China pitch hoping for someone to turn up to relieve her of a baggie beforeit got ridiculous. Wook +off first due to being an early bird and set off to go down to China and derig the Blown-Out +connection rope, into the part-empty tacklesack at the bottom of the China rope, then head up the +China pitch hoping for someone to turn up to relieve her of a baggie before it got ridiculous. Wook arrived as she was nearing the top of the pitch, so that worked OK, reporting that the other half of the cavalry (George) was still asleep when he left camp, but would hopefully get sunned out of his tent and turn up in another hour or so.