76 - Rigging
Jenny
Walked back up to 76 in the afternoon, discovered that the "80" found the previous day was 80, was tagged and is practically on the 204 path. Much sorting out of gear later we got underground about 3.30pm and Olly proceeded to rig the thick 112m down Plugged Shaft. I followed and took the bolting hammer to the ice in the entrance, which was quite satisfying but made ice water go in the holes in my gloves + gave me cold hands for most of the rest of the trip. Olly rigged down, adjusting the rigging a bit from last year (adding a rebelay instead of the guide line that didn't work), he then wanted to add a rebelay, so I prussiked back up to the entrance where I had left the pot of spits + the drill bit - oops... The new bolt definitely improves the rigging, as does one less snow plug (it seems to have alread melted and collapsed). Olly continued rigging down (probably one more bolt needed between rock bridge + epic deviation) past the ledge, down to the ledge below, and so down to the bottom of Plugged Shaft, where the rope ended (without much to spare) and we came back out.