+At the bottom of the streamway and along about 10m we found a small sledge with a 10m pitch down to another ledge and a seemingly bottomless space below. Colin bolted the way down while James and I surveyed. We joined Colin on a ledge with a prow of rock sticking out into a seemingly bottomless hole. My torch's light on boost mode couldn't make out the bottom! I was incredibly psyched about this find - we were in a massive vertical hypogenic phreatic tube!! This could surely only mean there was a massive lead waiting for us down at the bottom! +
+Unfortunately, when we lowered the rest of our 40m rope down from the pitchead we could see the end dangling in space, looking not even halfway down! It was very very scary looking down such a void from such a small prow of rock! +
+We decided that we certainly needed more drill battery, bolts, and rope to push this and that would require us leaving the cave. That and James wanted a lift down the hill that evening, which we'd already arranged. Colin set off first on the way out, with the goal of heading straight to GC to get the needed resources while James and I followed him out. We left all the bolts, rope and kit at the bottomless hole so speed our ascent out, but not before James and I tried to survey it - but we were thwarted by endless 'Laser Reading Failed' error messages when we fired down the hole. +
+James and I made our way out and within a few minutes of James surfacing, Colin had arrived with more kit and some more food!! I started packing the rope bags and bolts while James dekitted and Colin rekitted up. We check James knew what he was doing before we parted ways and he started to walk across the plateau and Colin and I descended back down. When we got back to what we would later name The Eye of Sauron, we re rigged the traverse into the pitchhead using the 11m rope, I placed a second bolt for the pitchhead (being quite nervous of the drop by me all the while) we rigged it and again hand over hand lowered the rope down to see how far it got. 38m of hanging rope and still no end in sight. I rechecked the rigging, armed with a 30m rope in a tacklebag, and after a lot of whimpering/complaining and some bullying from Colin I descended down. It should be noted I had no bolting kit on me because I knew for a certainty I couldn't reach a wall tom place a rebelay and I didn't want the extra weight on me if for whatever reason I had to changeover and head back up. +
+When I got close to the knots in the end, with a locked off simple and not much joy in what I was doing (only fear and trepidation) did I join the ropes together to form a knot pass and hand-over-hand lower the end of the 30m rope down to the bottom. It was hard to figure out if the rope touched the bottom. Committed to the pitch I abbed down to the bottom and called rope free. To my dismay I had landed on a rocky floor with only a tiny C-lead style rift ahead. Nevertheless I let Colin head down because if I had to reascend this, he had too! +
+As I was waiting I realised the big boulder I had spotted on the way down was only a few metres above me and I thought I had seen a big space beyond, so with some spotting from Colin as I made some moves up the snappy rock to the boulder and was relieved to see that there was large passage that continued on. We bolted as a team here - me with the hammer and bolts, Colin with the drill and tube and we got 3 bolts in 5 minutes ready for the short descent onto the boulder-y false floor below us. In the same style we placed a bolted for a descending traverse line to a pitchhead at a narrow rift with a clear load of space below. Since I had the honours of descending the big pitch we agreed Colin would do the next pitch. +
+To both our dismay, when Colin was roughly 20m down he shouted he could see bolts! and then had a small tantrum when he realised this was the bolt traverse he had belayed Dickon across the other day!! +
+A little disheartened we decided to keep dropping the canyon, using the bolts from the traverse to make a very wide rebelay, and to see where we ended up. This ended on a big old rock wedged in the canyon, forming a nice ledge. With it being late and our bags now significantly lighter with many less bolts and metres of rope, we made our way out. Colin being a trooper took out most of the bolting kit. I believe, being pretty lightweight, it took me only about half an hour from here to get to the surface. +
+Before I had left I'd told Colin I'd wait 45 mins for him at the surface before I got concerned. Well Cutting-it-close Colin lived up to the name and with 7 minutes to spare! We both dekitted and in silent, tired awe at what we had found that day walked up to GC where we stargazed and enjoyed some mobile data before disturbing Fiona and Adam in bed around midnight in the camp - we were too tired to manage being remotely quiet so we just tried to be loud for as little time as possible. +
+What. A. Day. +