Tunnocks - Stone Monkey

Sun 03 Aug 2008
Martin

On a previous trip with frank and Serena (30/7/08) we had noticed that QM 06-17C, a sharply sloping up tube, looked promising. We returned to that QM and pushed it up the slope and into a small maze of loose boudery passage. the walls are shattered, so it is likely close to the surface. At the top of the tube network a snow slope leads up to an icy rift. Martin J was able to see the main entrance pitch but the ice was too thick to reach it. With more persistance this could be pushed through to close the loop.

At the bottom of the snow slope another tube leads into Stone monkey, popping out at a missed QM. We assumed this was virgin passage because it did not appear to match our survey, so we pushed up to a climb up then down. Djuke lead the climb down (originally marked as a pitch) and we reached very pretty sandy/muddy crawling passage. Exploration ended at a true ~10m pitch. As we surveyed out I happened to notice some nail varnish just beyond the 'dodgy' climb so there was luckily no overlap of survey thanks to the good marking of stations on the survey (once we had worked out where we were). Conclusions: ponies are good, distos are rubbish.

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Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/204/midlevel/pussyprance
    caves-1623/258/stonemonkey/stonemonkey3
    caves-1623/258/bouldersurfer
    caves-1623/258/rockyroad
    caves-1623/258/sleepingbeauty
Wallets on this date:
    2008#16 ['elevation', 'notes2', 'notes1', 'notes3', 'plan2', 'plan1']
    2008#17 ['notes4', 'notes2', 'notes1', 'elev2', 'notes3', 'plan2', 'elev1', 'plan1']
    2008#22 []
    2008#25 ['plan2', 'plan4', 'plan3', 'plan1', 'plan5']
Logbook trips on this date:
    204 - Merry Fucking Christmas and beyond
    Base Camp
    Tunnocks - Pantin Sales pitch
    Tunnocks - lead in hedonism highway
    Tunnocks - Stone Monkey