Online edit of logbookentry 2025-07-24d

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@@ -1600,10 +1600,28 @@ Together we all walked slow back getting to top camp around 4am* for a quick cur
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 <div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-24d">2025-07-24</div>
-<div class="trippeople"><u>Bier Tent</u>, all</div>
-<div class="triptitle">basecamp - return to base</div>
-relaxed basecamp night, minimal alcohol consumed and absolutely nothing to report in the morning
-<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
+<div class="trippeople"><u>Alice</u>, Chris D, Ella, Jonty</div>
+<div class="triptitle">Balkon - A Tale of Two Season Sleeping Bags</div>
+After several days of unprecedented rain and unprecedented festering, it was decided that we must brave the biblical conditions and venture up the hill. With a predicted weather window that afternoon and another on Friday, it was decided that we’d probably only be flooded in to Balcony for 2 nights so an attempted camp was entirely reasonable and sufficiently unlikely to end up as a 4 day extravaganza. Chris was the driving force behind this plan, Ella enthusiastically volunteered, and Jonty and I agreed following a little persuasion. 
+<p>
+Faff ensued. It was mid-afternoon by the time we departed top camp, but since this coincided with a lull in the rain, we deemed this ideal timing. We split into our two pairs almost immediately, with Chris and Ella heading in first to finish the bolting and rigging of Mongol Rally, with Jonty and I following behind to fettle the rigging and add an unreasonable amount of bolts.  First up was the entrance pitch, which needed re-rigging onto a rope of a more appropriate length. Other tasks for the way down included tightening the traverse lines on Natural Highs, adding an extra rebelay and deviation to Honeycomb, and finishing off our major alterations to the traverse at the base of Hangman from our previous trip. As a result, it was after midnight by the time we arrived at the top of Mongol Rally.
+<p>
+Assuming Chris and Ella would have long since reached camp, we set off down Mongol Rally. However, at the big ledge halfway down, we found 5 tackle sacks, including the 2 enormous camping bags that had been left there on our previous bolting/rigging trip. We whooped, and much to our dismay Chris and Ella whooped back. So much for having a bed ready for us when we arrived. Chris shouted up to us to bring the bags down. Jonty and I exchanged a look. We were already somewhat over-encumbered with 2 bags each. Reluctantly, Jonty selected one of the enormous camping bags, and another smaller tackle sack. He rigged his descender, then asked me to clip a fifth bag to him. He was very hung. Possibly the most hung person on this expedition. His bags also almost certainly weighed more than he did. He set off down the pitch. I sighed. After Jonty’s valiant efforts, I had no choice really but to take the final 2 bags down the pitch.
+<p>
+If Becka had been there to watch what happened next, I would probably have been described as the second most strung up person she had ever seen (beaten only by Joel in Devious Hole a few days earlier). The bags descended below me on either side of the rebelay and twisted and tangled beneath me. The mess could only be resolved by prussiking up to the previous rebelay and abandoning half my bags in anger. This move would see me re-ascending Mongol Rally almost immediately upon reaching the bottom to go back and collect them. 
+<p>
+It was 4am by the time we reached camp, but fortunately the tent was now set up. Chris made an excellent housewife, preparing us a delicious dinner of curry and couscous as we snuggled down in our sleeping bags. Most people slept well, apart from Jonty who shivered violently all night. We initially put this down to his location at the edge of the tent, in contact with the rock wall. However, further investigation in the morning determined that his sleeping bag was unexpectedly thin and apparently both “two season” and “base camp only”. This was quite an unfortunate discovery, as there wasn’t much that could be done about it at this point.
+<p>
+We finally left camp at 3pm, having enjoyed a leisurely morning and lots of couscous for breakfast. Our plan was to rig Tartarus, but upon arrival discovered the pitch to be running water. We also took one look at the rope that had been de-rigged from it last year and determined that it was more mud than rope. In need of an alternative plan, we decided to take the rope back to the water source to wash, and on the way back see if any particular leads took our fancy.
+  
+A bouldery slope did. Jonty and I set about bolting it to protect the climb, making what is normally a one person job into a two person job by passing every single item of bolting kit between the two of us at each bolt (“’ammer!””Spanner!”). I put in the second bolt in, at an impressive/terrifying angle, depending on how you think about it. Jonty clearly didn’t think about it too much as he nearly immediately clipped into it with his cowstails and hung his full weight off it. He did however do the rest of the bolting from then onwards and I returned to my role as kit passer. At the top, we climbed around on a bouldery slope for the best part of an hour before concluding that it went nowhere and there was nothing worthy of surveying, and so derigged the climb and headed back to camp.
+<p>
+The second night, I offered to take a turn in the two season bag. Jonty informed me that he generated more heat than me, an entirely unsupported claim. However, he did suggest that he should go in the middle for extra warmth. That night I discovered that the left side of the tent had a hole as deep as Tartarus down the side of the tent. Over the course of the night, I would struggle out of the hole, cling onto Jonty for dear life for a few hours before Jonty would shove me back down the hole to repeat the whole process. I guess I must have slept, but it certainly wasn't for long.
+<p>
+Once again our housewife Chris prepared us breakfast in bed. Unfortunately Ella convinced me to try the ASDA vegetable soup in my couscous, despite knowing full well it contained "scary bits" (Jonty informs me these are also known as croutons, I am unconvinced). Chris went to see a man about a dog, and returned with a concerning request for his emergency underwear. Ella went to see a woman about a cat instead, while Jonty convinced Chris to lend his compass to take a bearing of the cavelink, a far more difficult task than it would at first appear.
+<p>
+We headed out of Mongol Rallywith the assistance of a red bull or two and a pack of snakes. Jonty and I reaching the surface at 5.30pm, and Chris and Ella a few hours later. As we were leaving top camp for the chips and showers of base camp, we met Becka and Lara on the way up. I immediately launched into a description of the hole the size of Tartarus and how I came to find myself in it. Lara began to laugh, albeit somewhat sheepishly. It turns out she had taken our fourth 4 season sleeping bag to the KH camp as well as her own, living a life of luxury in her two sleeping bags. She told Jonty to have several Radlers on her.
+<div class="timeug">T/U: 51.0 hours</div>
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