more logbook 2022

years/2022/logbook.html

@@ -1234,7 +1234,7 @@ been pre-bolted, and I joined him to confirm we were,as I had suspected the day
 <br /><br />We then followed the best available path towards Griesskogelschacht. We split up along the way to check out any potential holes. Most were already tagged or were mere alcoves or bridges. We were keeping a keen eye out for any horizontal leads, similar to the Balcony entrance, but found nothing of interest.
 <br /><br />Eventually we found Griesskogelschacht and spent some time exploring this area, not that we were expecting to find anything of interet, as it had clearly been explored by others before. Dinny found a stash of gear in one cave entrance, believed to belong to the Germans. We stopped for lunch after wandering around for an hour or so. While eating lunch we saw two holes at the opposite side of the valley. We decided to visit them on the return journey, but they turned out to be alcoves that went nowhere. 
 <br /><br />We took a slightly different route on the return to Balcony, but nothing of note was found. This area appears to have been fairly well explored by CUCC/the German cavers previously.
-<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
+<div class="timeug">T/U: hours</div>
 
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@@ -1522,6 +1522,58 @@ Tobias, Hannah, Charlotte and Jono left for the surface and I went 2 minutes bac
 
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+<div class="tripdate" id="t2022-08-16p">2022-08-18</div>
+<div class="trippeople"><u>Gwenllian Tawy</u>, Becka Lawson, Dinny Davies, </div>
+<div class="triptitle">Perseid Showers, Fischgesicht</div>
+
+Nat had convinced me it was a good idea to go on one pushing trip before the end of Expo seeing as all my other trips had been shit according to him. Then there was a plan to return to Perseid Showers to fix some of the rigging and venture further into its depth. I took a day off on the previous day to conserve my energy for the trip. I almost ended up using that energy on a rescue mission that evening when Dinny and I arrived at camp at 8 pm to find no cavers there. The 9 pm callouts arrived with no sign of anyone. Just as we were preparing to leave we saw lights on the horizon. For future reference please can we add columns to the callout form to say when a party left camp and how long they expect the trip to take!
+
+After the stress of the evening before I was worried I would be too tired for a long trip but I was committed now. We set off at a reasonable hour and were underground at 11.15am. Becka sent me in first, assuring me it was essentially a nylon highway all the way down and then I should be able to follow the reflectors. Despite being keen that I was leading, Becka would occasionally find herself in front of me at a pitch head (she later referred to Dinny and I as slugs).I was surprised by the number of pitches, some of which were practically steps but others that were considerable. When we reached the pitch prior to Perseid, Becka told me to drop my bag in the kitchen before looking at the pitch that I would be bolting. 
+
+After peering over the edge, I wasn't sure I would be able to do it. To calm my nerves I agreed to get water with Becka and Dinny. Becka then went down the pitch to collect some gear. Dinny and I ate some noodles and we cooked some for Becka when we heard her getting close. I was then kitted up with the drill and hammer. Becka gave me instructions on where to put in the deviation. Thankfully we had gone through the theory before arriving but I wasn't confident I would do a good job. My initial task was to put in a 2nd deviation to avoid rub on a nearby flake. This took me some time as I had to balance between the flake and wall whilst drilling, not as easy as it looked. I occasionally could hear muffled noises from above so I knew Becka and Dinny hadn't died of hypothermia yet. 
+
+After an eternity my deviation was complete. I initially told the others I was going to come back up and leave the Y hang to Becka as my right leg was dead from the weight of the hammer and drill. Once I put the hand jammer the blood returned to my leg and I decided I could continue. I descended to the rebelay below and dressed the rocks for a Y hang. It took me a long time to work out where to place it because the rock wasn't good. I eventually went for it but messed it up by initially dropping the nut. I then tried to screw another nut on but it wouldn't go. I used my spanner and found, to my dismay, that the thru bolt hadn't set properly. I lost confidence and called up to Dinny and Becka to say that I was coming back up, dejected. 
+
+At the pitch head we had a quick debrief then Becka took the gear to fix my mess (she later agreed it was tricky so I didn't feel so bad). After fixing my Y hang Becka placed an additional Y hang on the descent then called rope free. I was pleased to find my deviation worked. After leaving the new Y hang I was surprised to see how deep the shaft beneath my feet was. I had been so engrossed by bolting that I hadn't really thought about the depth.
+
+I eventually met Becka on a ledge. She suggested I bolt a Y hang here to avoid the Y hang Nat had bolted beneath the ledge in water. Before getting started I had to derig Nat's Y hang. This involved lying on my stomach on the ledge and posting my head and torso vertically below the ledge to remove the Y hang. Once this was done I could bolt the new Y hang hight from the ledge itself. This was much easier than the other two and having Becka right next to me gave me some confidence. 
+
+Becka then went ahead of me to descend to the next ledge where they previously had reached. There she bolted a new rebelay and Y hang and unfortunately there was not enough rope to go further so we only surveyed two new legs on they way back up. As I reached the top of Perseid I shouted to our chef to put on some curry for us. Dinny and I ate our curries together whilst waiting for Becka to finish surveying. When she returned she announced she needed to do an inventory so Dinny and I set off on the slow slog out. 
+
+I think my Expo fitness had increased by now though as I found myself flying up the pitches with Dinny hot on my heels. When nearing the entrance we started to wonder if Becka was OK as there was still no sign of her. Had she gone out a secret bottom entrance or had she got lost? 15-30 minutes later she emerged complaining that we had somehow evolved from slugs to butterflies. Great trip!
+
+<div class="timeug">T/U: 11.0 hours</div>
+<br /><br />
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+<hr />
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+<div class="tripdate" id="t2022-08-16p">2022-08-21</div>
+<div class="trippeople"><u>Becka Lawson</u>, Chris Holt, Jonno Lester, Alex Hannam </div>
+<div class="triptitle">Balkon rope wash</div>
+
+Walked up the hill in clag and up to Balkon. The water pool was perfect for rope washing using the small astroturf tube. Alex and I were about half way through when Jonno (sadly without his wetsuit) and Chris turned up. We chained the rope and left it on a washing line then took the metalwork out and I derigged the entrance pitch getting still damper in the process. Foolishly I'd sent Alex and Chris off with just the metalware so Jonno and I ended up with monster to stagger back with and we had to teeter around picking up the reflectors. Once we could see top camp on the way home I shouted "can you help us carry?". Unfortunately, this was heard as "help, help, help!". Alex and Kristian dashed up and helped us back in the rain.
+
+
+<div class="timeug">T/U: 5.0 hours</div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="tripdate" id="t2022-08-16p">2022-08-22</div>
+<div class="trippeople"><u>Becka Lawson</u>, Jonno Lester </div>
+<div class="triptitle">Fishface - Push Perseid Showers and derig</div>
+
+A fairly enthusiastic crack of noon start, 1h45 to the camp and picked up the pushing gear then set off down the ominously wet-sounding Perseid Showers. I got to where Hannah had turned back yesterday. It was splattery but OK. The ledge below with Gwen's rebelay on the far right took you far from the water which exited as a clean spout down the next section. I was worried this would get too wet but the right wall rig was OK and I got to the Y hang hangers that I placed on my previous trip with Gwen but hadn't had the rope to descend on. I rigged them with the ~70m and dropped cleanly about 30m to a large ledge. Fortunately, the main water spout disappeared into a hole behind the ledge so it was quite dry. The drop to the right had crap rock and looked to connect to the drop to the left so I put a bolt in mid-ledge then three to traverse to better rock on the wall then descended ~15m to another substantial ledge. 
+
+I dangled my remaining rope down and sadly it didn't the tantalisingly close (~20m down?) boulder floor ... though this looked like it might only extend around 30m before reaching another drop (I tried to throw rocks down but it was too far and the water meant it was hard loud to hear). From my ledge water entered at either end and further upstream.
+
+We started the survey and, 4 legs, had tied in to mine and Gwen's survey and I derigged the 70m then prussiked up with the kit whilst Jonno derigged. We then spend around 2 hours taking knots and metalware out of the Perseid Showers rope and leaving it at camp. Then we prussiked out with the excess metalware, drill, etc. En route I derigged the 4th pitch (so the rope could be cleaned) and I pulled up the third pitch and removed the metalware and left it coiled at the top. I derigged completely the first and second pitch with Jonno ferrying back and forth taking bags off me. We set off from camp at 9pm and emerged at 2pm, shattered, so we left 3 bags for Nat and Hannah in the morning and headed back for 3am curries. 
+
+<div class="timeug">T/U: 14.0 hours</div>
+<br /><br />
+
+<hr />
+
 <div class="tripdate" id="2022_s02_blog2">2022-08-17</div>
 <div class="trippeople"><u>Becka Lawson</u>, </div>
 <div class="triptitle">Fishgesichthoehle - The Final Push: Perseid Showers</div>