136 - More in Chile
Wookey
Co-incident with Becka, Julian, Julian trip
Trundled on down 136. At last pitch before Theatre Y-hang (below new deviation added on previous bit a day or two before) Wook noticed that annoying rub had become serious - rope was deeply shagged with core starting to show. As we had a drill handy, put in a hole, before realising I had no spit or hanger. Andy came back to foot of pitch & I descended (after tying knot round dodgy bit & another for clip-in loop). Stole hanger from rigging & spit from Andy & went back up. Then realised I had setting tool, but no hammer - sigh ! gave up & left spare rope, explaining to others that it needed fettling.
At bottom, collected hammer & hangers & went along Overshoot. At point where Undershoot goes off right, noticed climb up to L. Andy A shinned up with aid of sling & short gibber. Beyond was 15m pitch back down. Bolted and descended. We only had one rope so took it off climb up to go down here.
At bottom narrow rift led to narrow shaft, with breeze descending. Apart from the breeze it would be pretty unpromising. Wooks started shinning down before andy pointed out that it looked rather too much like a pitch for that to be sensible, so rigged from a bolt. It soon belled out into big space (Andy was right!) After a couple of rubs put in rebelay. Looked like rope didn't quite reach bottom, so Andy went back to Overshoot to yell at Becka from top of climb to go find some more rope. She duly obliged. In fact rope was only a couple of feet off floor (= OK). Now in large rift which took some time to explore (up climb to chamber, then down climbable rift to big, wet aven, then back down other way out of chamber to 15m pitch). Spare rope again - just reached bottom. Fortunately this stopped so we only had a really long survey to do. Part-way through Haines & Co. arrived high at far end of rift, having descended next QM along Overshoot. Surveys were duly connected. Eventually finished and went to Lost in Space to join up Pit of Damnation survey properly. Then checked QM at end (looks good) & wended weary way out.
Both teams forgot a setter on the way out, so Julian had to put in a crap hand spit instead (on the deviation on 2nd pitch below the eyehole).