161 Old Men bolting trip
Olaf Kahler
We joined Becka, Julian, Wookey and Nial for a long trip to the far end of KH. Wookey and Anthony had discovered a large phreatic passage at a pitch bolt climbed up by Andrew A two years ago, the 'Country for Old Men'. All six of us scrambled along for 3hrs in a long tour through Iceland, Roast Beef, Knosses, Block Towers, Yapate, Chicken Flied Nice, and finally to Repton, where the newly climbed passage started. After a short rifty bit, we turned left into a wider passage and after a short bit of passage came to 'the junction'. There were we split into groups of two, with Wookey and Nial rigging a tyrolean at Strange Acrossfall, Becka and Julian placing conservation tape and surveying a side passage, and Olly and Olaf went north to a pitch at the end of what Wookey had surveyed a few days before. Olly started drilling his way down but quickly ran out of rope. Olaf placed a handbolt for a top traverse of the pitch and later Olly placed two more bolts up there. We ran out of time though, and left two unfinished rigs behind. It was still a looooong way back to the entrance, which we did between the two of us, and we almost did not get lost at all. On the way back to the bivy we were racing the flashes and thunder, and eventually got home dry.