40 - Eishöhle
Olly
Back to the top of MI to look at the continuation of the rift which Wook found last time. Siphon still siphoning the duck - still not empty. Realised that the pushing front we'd forgotten the drill bit (but had carried the drill + battery). Rigged off naturals with the 36m dynamic rope. Looks like the rift is continuing up at much the same angle, but is now somewhat wider - at least at higher levels. Pushed up to waterfall (i.e. floor of rift has risen to our level) and also traversed back to bypass our rigging and return to last ramp of 2001 series. Scaling rift looks hard. Might be possible to regain top by entering from higher window up ramp, but hard to be enthusiastic about yet more bolting up when we're already 100m above our target. Surveyed and derigged to ramp after pendule. Tried to take some photos of MI with Expo camera and also with Wook's digital. Only one digital one worked - hopefully film worked better! Emerged at 5.20am to glorious dawn.