A small pitch had been dropped and then a short section of meandering passage led to an apparently huge largening of the rift ahead, which would eat all of our pushing rope. Luke had rigged the pitch very nicely with lots of y-hang rebelays, making the SRT very easy. We soon arrived at the end of the ropes on a drippy ledge, where delicate scuttling around the edge of a big hole led to a further continuation of the rift. Luke flicked a small rock over the edge and we waited around 4 seconds till it hit a ledge and then a further second until it clattered to the floor.
Hopped down a traverse then down a very impressive 50-60m shaft to a very bouldery collapse chamber from which a muddy meander passage was heading nearly due south. We surveyed dilligently along this until we reached a watery impasse (3m drop, (illegible) without getting soaked) just beyond a drippy inlet (suspect this passage is not ideal in wetter conditions, considering we are in a drought it would appear this is probably wet often especially as we expereinced much drippier conditions in 'clap my pitch up' during its exploration eariler in the week which we disliked). However it was only just 6pm at this point and we felt it premature to leave, so I lashed some dyneema around a thread then attached some slings to that and we made a highly japist descent, only to discover that just around the corner the water plunged down a further 10m pitch. -Back to the big pitch for the drill then Nathan had his first go on the bolts to drop the climb of pitch on the last of the nice 8.8mm rope which we cut from the base of the big pitch (felt bad). This done we rounded another courner, with the passage becoming ever more meandery and shit, only to discover that a further ~10m pitch lay just ahead. With no further drill batteries, rope or enthusiasm we decided it was time to head out, derigging the lead as we went. + Back to the big pitch for the drill then Nathan had his first go on the bolts to drop the climb of pitch on the last of the nice 8.8mm rope which we cut from the base of the big pitch (felt bad). This done we rounded another courner, with the passage becoming ever more meandery and shit, only to discover that a further ~10m pitch lay just ahead. With no further drill batteries, rope or enthusiasm we decided it was time to head out, derigging the lead as we went.
Surveys in this area (by .svx name)
@@ -332,7 +332,7 @@ Back to the big pitch for the drill then Nathan had his first go on the bolts tosome?