161 - The bitter end (KH, Far Too Far)
Julian Todd
Very slow. So much faffing we did not enter till 1.30pm. Plonder down to Yapate (trying to explain route to Lummat so he can explore the cave without us from now on because he's keen). Lummat picks ammo box drill battery and its hinges come off and everything apart from the lid thumped down Staircase 39 after he prussiked up it. Box was a bit mangled and I couldn't get the batteries to work on the drill so we abandoned it. We froze in Chicken Flied Nice while Wook rigged next pitch and 4 ring bolts and lots of knitting at rebelay for the tyrolean. Abbed down, prussiked up fixed rope at other side, then constructed the tyrolean with 1 SRT rope and 2 climbing rope backups. Lummat and I were slightly concerned by the fact that this was now our only way back. On to the nonsense in Satan's Sitting Room with Wook pointing out all these undescended pitches on either side of the route. The place looks vicious. We put in a few more traverse lines. We faffed a lot in the walking passage beyond until it was suddenly 11:15 pm and I was dog tired and sick of sucking on fudge having missed about 4 meals now. Wook explored some horizontal passage at the farthest far end. Was too tired to get scared on tyrolean back. Not entirely convinced of its effectiveness in shortening the trip. Can we rename Boulder Alley as Shit Alley now ? It was dawn when we got out.