76 - Boiling Tubes

Fri 03 Aug 2007
Jenny Black



It had rained a lot overnight + was still raining so decided the pitch in 148 might be unpleasant, so decided on 76 instead. Went to the end of the Boiling Tubes where we left 3 leads in 2004. None of the leads looked great, but we started with 04-62B, the straight-on lead. This was crawling then wiggling to a boulder which was followed shortly by a stal blockage - unusual for Austria. The stals weren't huge, but neither was the passage. I surveyed back while Olly took notes, and sadly my promising lead heading straight for 2007-71 was no more. (There was a small red spider there).

Olly removed some soil from the RH lead 04-63C and discovered that the soil continued for quite some way, so we left off that and looked at the final crap lead (04-04C). After moving some rocks I crawled down, slightly downhill and over rocks. I was really hoping that I would be able to turn around at some point as I wasn't looking forward to reversing back.

Then I noticed the passage was echoing. In my experience so far, small crawls tend not to make large echos. This made me excited and optimistic that I might be able to turn round. After a few more metres the crawl enlarged enough that I could just turn round, yay! Rocks dropped down the pitch went for ~2.5s then bounced a bit more. Shame it would be a crap place to carry gear.

Returned to BNW and looked at 04-25C, surveyed down to where it got small - is very easy to move rocks though. It looks like it connects with Loopy so probably easier to get through from the south.

Finally looked at 04-26B, scramble in (easily) [something] - the A+ pitch ledges into a narrow walking height passage followed this up to a T junction, left is low crawling and right a bit larger - both are C grade leads. The RH one may join 04-41C perhaps. Surveyed this and left, removing the radon detectors on route.

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Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/76/boil2
    caves-1623/76/boil3
    caves-1623/76/choss
    caves-1623/76/brave9
Wallets on this date:
    2007#94 Brave NW 9 ['1623-76-bnwext']
    2007#95 Boiling tubes ['1623-76-boilext']
Logbook trips on this date:
    204 - John Billing's account of Razor Dance derigging trip
    204 - Razordance Finish derigging
    76 - Boiling Tubes
    BS17 - 'Quest to BS17'
    Top Camp - VERMIN