Walk to 204 via 161d
John Billings
Given light rucksacks and a nice day decided to investigate doing 161
from 204 and thus check out the practicality of route. Walked to 161d
without much faffing. Decided to have a tourist in cags and headtorches
and to show John fine passage off triassic park. Nice trip for about 50
mins, including some photos.
Then continued along traverse to 161 e and f. Found a large entrance
sloping in, untagged and unmarked. Assumed it was 161e but later
research showed that it was further north than 161f which we came across
a few mins later. The entrance must be known? Later marked bivi site
cave list to say 161e is not tagged/marked, but seems that is confusion
not fact.
Continued following traverse which was generally easy to follow. Bit
of bunde cutting would make it lovely. Got out from below cliff after
45 mins but then got into complex area of shelves. Not sure best route
to take as we had no GPS. Ridge looks completely different from the
back side. Very hard to tell which peak is which and a hole load of
extra peaks appear. ridge is not really a ridge at all and is about 500m
wide. Eventually struck due west and came out 300m North of the
bivi.
Found a couple of caves en-route. 1st explored enthusiastically by
John B despite not being good in Tshirts and shorts (low, crawly).
Slight draft. Unfortunately due to no GPS we won't find it again for
years.
Also found large hole 200m from bivi, described in 'slippery hole'
entry.
With all the aving and sub-optimal walk whole walk from car park took
about 5 1/2 hrs. From 161d it is probably about 2hrs to 204 by sensible
route. 1 1/2 to nearer entrance. Route needs some serious honing to
make practical for trips, but we confirmed that cliff traverse part is
not a problem (in fact its the nicest bit).