161 - Surveying in Henri's Cat - 161d

Wed 17 Jul 1996
Julian Todd



I avoided other trip to avoid some surveying. And I don't like heights. Walked down with ten other people. In the cave my stinky gave the feeblest of flames and caught fire around the base whenever I lit it off someone elses light. The drill battery short circuited and smoked. Dave hand bolted and rigged loose chossy pitch into Knossos. The ceiling + wall there looked no different to the floor in large boulders at odd angles defying gravity. We wandered around, went up and then to Bugger (?) for Dave's big pitch. The lights at the bottom were _really_ small when I swung out onto the rope. It was horrible. I got sore hips from my harness just from the abseil. Then a bastard deviation you had to prussik your way towards. Meanwhile they (D&A) rigged another 60m pitch with full complement of rub points (one for every hang) and down a last drop onto a white shelf above a 3.5 second drop. It was attractive, but a bit too deep. Oh dear I had the survey book and Becca was surveying. D&A cleared off to reset our callout date. And Becca sweet-talked (more like kick-in-the-kneecaps-talked) me into continuing to survey when I was cold, wet and petrified by the immensity of the shaft down which I had to look while writing with a pencil and note pad neither of which had a string attached. I can't rememeber anything of the next hour or so. Then we got back. The notes are a ball of mud with some paper in it. Why do I always do what Becca tells me to?

TU8A&D
TU12hrsJ&B


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Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/142/142
    caves-1623/161/triassic/triassic
    caves-1623/161/triassic/intrview
    caves-1623/161/triassic/henricat
    caves-1623/161/phumour/deadbats
    caves-1623/41/e142
No wallets files found for this date.
Logbook trips on this date:
    161 - Qmark extermination trip
    161 - Puerile Humour
    161 - Surveying in Henri's Cat - 161d
    161 - Interview Blues
    161 - 161d
    142 - Wooks goes to Stellerweg