Puffball
Mark McLean
We rigged in to the Navigational Limit and pushed the end. Abseiled past the last of Dokertee's ladder bolts and via a deviation to avoid water to the foot of the pitch. Then we walked down a length of rift (10m) to the head of another pitch. This remains to be rigged with the 200m of rope we now have at the pushing front.
The problems came on the boulder slope on the way out. There's a big boulder jammed across the entrance boulderslope, holding back a terrific weight of piled boulders. This boulder is resting on a pile of other shit that gets eroded with every person leaving the cave. As I was climbing over it some loose rock fell out from under it and this big (3' cube) boulder subsided slightly. This scared me a lot. Julian was behind me, he chimneyed up beside the boulder without touching it and then climbed up the boulder slope. As he climbed past me more rocks fell out from under the big boulder and it subsided by another 2".
Anyhow we got out okay and considered ourselves lucky. The entrance is now definitely unsafe and I will not be going down it until it changes. T/U 14 hours.