76 - 76
Jenny
Woke up to find just how un-waterproof the tent was – lots of leaks through the ceiling and 3 puddles a couple of inches deep,
wet sleeping bags and other wet stuff which wasn't nice at all. Eventually got going after a short delay to dry out the lighter before we
could make breakfast. We walked back to 76 carrying lots of gear to re-look at the bivvy with a view to actually using it – and it
looked a whole better [sic] than the tent. We carried another load from TC adding more cairns as we went.
Olly taught me how to bolt by demonstrating to drill a tag spit for 97, then I put ones in for
tags for 76 and 76b (76a was already tagged). Then I went underground in the 76a entrance, it goes
approximately horizontally for about 15m over a step on the way, there was quite a lot of soft snow
on the floor but no ice visible till near the pitch, where there was a small ice-shell. The pitch
continues down below where the 76 entrance shaft comes in (but this looked too loose to be worth
using). I placed my first two underground bolts, then looked round the corner and saw an old spit
which suggested that in the 70s the snow level was higher. I carried on down the sloping gully with
snow on the floor, the gully flattened out to a ledge with loose rocks. Just round the corner was a
nice looking 10-20m pitch which looked to land on a big snow ledge. Time was running out so I came
back up and added a bolt to the top to make the rope hang in a nicer place. Then we got changed and
walked back to the car via TC to collect our wet sleeping bags to dry them. On the way back we
realised that Olly's GPS was still getting a fix by the bivvy... Oh, whilst I was caving Olly
cairned a path from the bivvy to the 204 path.