161 - Silent Fellow
Ian Walker
Trip back to the Silent Fellow QM to continue exploration of the pitch beneath. Mike and Holly went off to snoop around in SF whilst leaving the shaft to me. Rigged a 60m rope from last trip's bolt and a rebelay from small spike at floor level. Dropped down shaft to find many recent scars from all the loose rocks we'd been humping down. The sloper to the pitch head is composed of sand and boulders and isn't very stable. The subsequent hours dangling below these confidene saping bad boys lead to the naming of the shaft - Solid Rock. A minor rub necessitated a rebelay or deviation, found by large wondow into a parallel shaft at -15m (sling thred). Shaft bottom is rubble blocks, with large perched (?) boulders overlooking a continuation of the shaft (further 10m drop?) just under one wall. Had enough of cacking my pants on my lonesome and returned to SF. Derigged the 60 and got Mike to measure with a tape: shaft is 32m lip to floor. Parallel shaft wan't as deep or as high but was clean and had a small gully in the solid rock floor which lead away under the far wall.
Mike and Holly found something too...
Holly and Mike looked at the small passage underneath the climb to Mostly Mud. Took rope and tapes and bolting kit. Opened spits spot: wrong types of anchors :( Holly went back and Ian gave us one spit. Rigged rope via taped thread at end of passage at start of descent; Mike demo'd bolting, then demo'd what not to do by realising we had no hangers. Returned to Silent Fellow and Holly went back to Satan's Sitting Room to get some Mike tested Steve's bothy - excellent gear. Then decided that time was getting on so surveyed from carbide mark on r/h wall thoguh to tape thread (last station is pendant just beyond thread). Then back to Silent Fellow to meet Ian coming back up.
T/U 10.5 hrs