161 - Below Knossus
Julian Todd
Dave H <-Mr Sunburn
The intention was to go down and check out the ? part way down flapjack, but by the time we made it down to boulder alley today's team faff hadn't rigged Knossus yet. We sat there with all our rope, poked at the 9m diameter hole to the side of the passage that noone had ever descended and Jeremy ("Oh dear, I seam to have left my dangly bag above the squeeze, could you pass it down?") agreed that it had better be sorted out. 3 tapes, a small maillon, two natural belays & 2 rope protectors, one with knackered velco got us started. then there was a textbook Dave bolt taking us to the floor of a rift. walking up one of the false floors leads up to Knossus, 3m above a loose hole in its floor no-one has gone down either. Bolting from a false floor, through 4 inch crack, then squeezing down in a different place to next layer down to gain access to rope met upon a 30m pitch. We were by now using Ernie the Earthworm (the 9mm rope)... Ok, well he's easy to carry and tie knots in. Pile of rocks at the bottom 4m in diameter, cheap little crawl which I shuffled down. By shaking the floor I packed the cracked rocks in tighter to produce more room. Fell down a dust pit at the far end. There was a slot on the floor with fist sized rocks spilling through. I dug them out. Skull sized rocks began rolling through. Crawled through carefully when there was enough space, took one glance at boulder choke beyond it and retreated. Call it Rabbit Curry. I sent Dave 5m up the pitch to investigate large hole in wall. He climbed it quite a way. Then I had to cower as the sky began chucking down rocks and Dave followed them. Fortunately still attached. He didn't enjoy it. Call it The Pit and the Pendulum. We surveyed & derigged out, dumped ropes and beat it for the surface in a shower of sweat.
T/U 9½ hours
Previous trip / The trip that caused the delay / The trip that actually went to the Flapjack QM