Elaine's camping story + format fix

years/2016/logbook.html

@@ -1493,5 +1493,60 @@ the top proved particularly difficult to de-rig, resulting in a slip and swing a
 <p>We met Elliott and Michael near the entrance pitch and left them to de-rig this as we headed out. Rob left 
 before Martin and I, dissappearing down the hill rather quickly. We were a bit slower, weighted down with 
 lots of gear. And after today all of Balcony was finally derigged and the derig was completed for this year.</p>
+<hr />
+<div class="tripdate" id="t2016-07-18z">2016-07-18</div>
+<div class="trippeople"><u>Elaine</u>, Katey, Fleur, Peachey</div>
+<div class="triptitle">Tunnocks - Camping in Tunnocksschacht - CHECC Grand Prize entry</div>
+
+<p>
+It was decided that this year, the CUCC expo would establish an underground camp in Kraken Chamber, 
+Tunnocksschacht, as pushing trips to the lower leads were getting to be around 18 hours, which was bordering on 
+the unsafe in terms of fatigue in combination with navigating the nylon highway required to get in and out.
+<p>
+Having arrived late at expo, I was to be on the last pushing trip of the season, after which we'd start to 
+derig. The plan had been to spend two nights underground, but heavy rain and flooding pitches meant we postponed 
+our start and would only spend one night down there. This would be by far the deepest I had ever been - my 
+previous record was a mere -280m, while the campsite here was at -600m, with the pushing front a further -300m 
+below that. I am also not a huge fan of massive pitches, so after spending the morning trying to think of ways I 
+could get out of the trip entirely, I made somewhat slow progress down the cave as I tried not to cry or have a 
+panic attack. Very much type 2 fun at this point. I really felt like I had reached the edge of my comfort zone 
+at -500m, but of course there were many more metres to go... at least I had avoided getting strung up on the 
+knot passes. Some noodles upon reaching the campsite briefly restored spirits before we descended further into 
+the bowels of the earth.
+<p>
+I became significantly happier upon reaching Song of the Earth, a massive steeply ramping railway tunnel of a 
+borehole discovered only a week or two previously. This was mainly because I was not dangling precariously on a 
+small bit of string. At this point we split into two teams: Katey and myself were to go on down and look at what 
+we thought was the deepest part of the cave so far, while Peachey wanted to do a bit of bolt climbing, so Fleur 
+agreed to belay him. Katie and I slithered for what seemed like miles across the muddy boulders and eventually 
+reached the previous limit of exploration, just on the far side of a sandy dig called "Don't Stop Me Now". We'd 
+been informed by the previous team that this had carried "a howling gale" -  the gentle breeze wasn't quite what 
+we expected, but it was blowing nonetheless - maybe the lower water levels had something to do with it. We 
+whipped out the survey book and instruments and off we set, getting in two really great legs... before turning a 
+corner... to find a climb of around 6m with no footholds and carrying a small stream. Katey volunteered to have 
+a look up there and reported back that it was very muddy and slippery. We decided that we would really need to 
+bolt this to make it safe - a small slip at this depth could have very serious consequences, but sadly, we'd not 
+been expecting to need bolting kit and the expedition was running out of rope anyway, so we shot a final survey 
+leg before reluctantly turning around.
+<p>
+We went to find Fleur and Peachey, who were on the far side of what Fleur described as "proper fucking horrible 
+bouldery death". There was a mysteriously fresh dead bat. Got a bit chilly waiting around, then headed back up 
+to camp for dinner and the newly invented camp cocktail, custard tea, before a nip of Kraken rum restored 
+feeling to my toes and I jumped into the welcoming embrace of the world's largest sleeping bag.
+<p>
+The next morning we broke camp, but decided to leave a lot of kit there as there were still some very plausible 
+leads for next year. I headed out first with a couple of tackle bags, including the giant sleeping bag (it had 
+done a sterling job of keeping me alive in the 0C cave...) while the others derigged a lot of the rope with the 
+PAELLA technique (Pulling An Extremely Long Length Alltogether, I think) ready for removal by hauling teams the 
+next day. Katey and Peachey stayed back to do even more derigging while Fleur caught me up, then we headed back 
+to the Top Camp bivi for some curry, which was the best meal of my life up to that point.
+<p>
+This trip (with many words of encouragement from Fleur in particular) showed me that I am actually capable of a 
+lot more than I think I am, and though I'm a long way from being as fluid and quick as the others on ropes, I 
+think I've moved past some mental barriers there. Right now I don't feel like I want to rush straight back to 
+the camp, but give it time - I'm sure that by next summer I'll be ready to break my Bottom Inspector record once 
+again.
+
+<hr />
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