106 - Overnight, Supercool and Supersmooth
Tue 08 Aug 1978
Julian Griffiths
Overnight trip by Supercool and Supersmooth
Just found the entrance before dark, Phew ! Got underground by 8pm. Blatted down to the Tap Room, then along traverse to pitch head amongst boulders. Placed new bolt at head and descended about 15m to microledge and placed a bolt rebelay. Next section was a "best pitch o'the pot" so far. 35m to a large ledge with inlet. As the water fell away, we made a bold step over to an opposite ledge. A couple of bolts later we descended 10m back to the streamway.
Then we followed an obvious traverse line to the next pitch. Plenty of black spaces about, so we rigged a traverse line from bolt above a rocking boulder (really swinging, man). Pitch head ('nother blot) was smallish but things got bigger further down. And bigger. And bigger ..... A superb (Even better pitch o'the pot) free hanging 55m job. Juniper Gulf eat shit !
This landed on blodders (good uns) and was followed by a quick 5m to the floor. Downhill the stream flowed into a lowish (wetsuitable) passage. Uphill quickly leads to balcony overlooking immense chamber (15m x 15m x 80m high). Stream could be heard around corner, but hadn't got enough rope to descend 12m pitch from balcony to reach it.
Exit was slower than expected due to :
1) Rope on 5m pitch vanishing upwards and coming back down through the boulders..... Aaaaaarrrrrgh ! JG came back down to give me the rope having prusiked the pitch once already. (A quick half litre for that man).
2) Falling asleep while prusiking !
Made the entrance again after 10.5 hour trip. Even Unox ham in a cold drizzle tastes superb after this ! Total depth so far c 280m (Club record depth) Nick
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Julian Griffiths
id1978-76-9 8-9th August
:
Overnight trip by Supercool and Supersmooth
Just found the entrance before dark, Phew ! Got underground by 8pm. Blatted down to the Tap Room, then along traverse to pitch head amongst boulders. Placed new bolt at head and descended about 15m to microledge and placed a bolt rebelay. Next section was a "best pitch o'the pot" so far. 35m to a large ledge with inlet. As the water fell away, we made a bold step over to an opposite ledge. A couple of bolts later we descended 10m back to the streamway.
Then we followed an obvious traverse line to the next pitch. Plenty of black spaces about, so we rigged a traverse line from bolt above a rocking boulder (really swinging, man). Pitch head ('nother blot) was smallish but things got bigger further down. And bigger. And bigger ..... A superb (Even better pitch o'the pot) free hanging 55m job. Juniper Gulf eat shit !
This landed on blodders (good uns) and was followed by a quick 5m to the floor. Downhill the stream flowed into a lowish (wetsuitable) passage. Uphill quickly leads to balcony overlooking immense chamber (15m x 15m x 80m high). Stream could be heard around corner, but hadn't got enough rope to descend 12m pitch from balcony to reach it.
Exit was slower than expected due to :
1) Rope on 5m pitch vanishing upwards and coming back down through the boulders..... Aaaaaarrrrrgh ! JG came back down to give me the rope having prusiked the pitch once already. (A quick half litre for that man).
2) Falling asleep while prusiking !
Made the entrance again after 10.5 hour trip. Even Unox ham in a cold drizzle tastes superb after this ! Total depth so far c 280m (Club record depth) Nick
10.5 hour
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