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56 lines
4.6 KiB
HTML
<html><head><title>Stuff bought 2016</title></head><body>
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<h1>UK Caving Blogs 2016</h1>
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<h2>CHECC Grand Prize entry for Cambridge: camping in Tunnocksschacht, Austria</h2>
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<h4>Nov 25, 2016</h4>
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<p>by CavingPig (Elaine Oliver)
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<p>[to be added in to the logbook where appropriate.]
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<p>
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<b>2016-07-18</b><br />
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It was decided that this year, the CUCC expo would establish an underground camp in Kraken Chamber,
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Tunnocksschacht, as pushing trips to the lower leads were getting to be around 18 hours, which was bordering on
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the unsafe in terms of fatigue in combination with navigating the nylon highway required to get in and out.
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<p>
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Having arrived late at expo, I was to be on the last pushing trip of the season, after which we'd start to
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derig. The plan had been to spend two nights underground, but heavy rain and flooding pitches meant we postponed
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our start and would only spend one night down there. This would be by far the deepest I had ever been - my
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previous record was a mere -280m, while the campsite here was at -600m, with the pushing front a further -300m
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below that. I am also not a huge fan of massive pitches, so after spending the morning trying to think of ways I
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could get out of the trip entirely, I made somewhat slow progress down the cave as I tried not to cry or have a
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panic attack. Very much type 2 fun at this point. I really felt like I had reached the edge of my comfort zone
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at -500m, but of course there were many more metres to go... at least I had avoided getting strung up on the
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knot passes. Some noodles upon reaching the campsite briefly restored spirits before we descended further into
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the bowels of the earth.
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<p>
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I became significantly happier upon reaching Song of the Earth, a massive steeply ramping railway tunnel of a
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borehole discovered only a week or two previously. This was mainly because I was not dangling precariously on a
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small bit of string. At this point we split into two teams: Katey and myself were to go on down and look at what
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we thought was the deepest part of the cave so far, while Peachey wanted to do a bit of bolt climbing, so Fleur
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agreed to belay him. Katie and I slithered for what seemed like miles across the muddy boulders and eventually
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reached the previous limit of exploration, just on the far side of a sandy dig called "Don't Stop Me Now". We'd
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been informed by the previous team that this had carried "a howling gale" - the gentle breeze wasn't quite what
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we expected, but it was blowing nonetheless - maybe the lower water levels had something to do with it. We
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whipped out the survey book and instruments and off we set, getting in two really great legs... before turning a
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corner... to find a climb of around 6m with no footholds and carrying a small stream. Katey volunteered to have
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a look up there and reported back that it was very muddy and slippery. We decided that we would really need to
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bolt this to make it safe - a small slip at this depth could have very serious consequences, but sadly, we'd not
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been expecting to need bolting kit and the expedition was running out of rope anyway, so we shot a final survey
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leg before reluctantly turning around.
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<p>
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We went to find Fleur and Peachey, who were on the far side of what Fleur described as "proper fucking horrible
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bouldery death". There was a mysteriously fresh dead bat. Got a bit chilly waiting around, then headed back up
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to camp for dinner and the newly invented camp cocktail, custard tea, before a nip of Kraken rum restored
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feeling to my toes and I jumped into the welcoming embrace of the world's largest sleeping bag.
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<p>
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The next morning we broke camp, but decided to leave a lot of kit there as there were still some very plausible
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leads for next year. I headed out first with a couple of tackle bags, including the giant sleeping bag (it had
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done a sterling job of keeping me alive in the 0C cave...) while the others derigged a lot of the rope with the
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PAELLA technique (Pulling An Extremely Long Length Alltogether, I think) ready for removal by hauling teams the
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next day. Katey and Peachey stayed back to do even more derigging while Fleur caught me up, then we headed back
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to the Top Camp bivi for some curry, which was the best meal of my life up to that point.
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<p>
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This trip (with many words of encouragement from Fleur in particular) showed me that I am actually capable of a
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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
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think I've moved past some mental barriers there. Right now I don't feel like I want to rush straight back to
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the camp, but give it time - I'm sure that by next summer I'll be ready to break my Bottom Inspector record once
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again.</body></html> |