204 - Cirque de Soleil
CONNECTION! 161-204
Thu 09 Aug 2012
Becka
Original plan was me, Andrew + Ollie finishing yesterday's traverse while Rob + Holly pushed leads in Cirque de Soleil but Holly discovered a hole in the bottom bobbin of her Stop at the top of Brian's Phat Shaft so she gave up and went out + Rob joined us. Ollie + I started my first ever PDA + DistoX survey - not a great location to practise on, a teetery traverse with Andrew bolting the next traverse, only just in earshot as I bawled out endless questions "How do I calibrate the screen?", "Why are some splays in dotted lines?" etc. There was only one point where I got a "Not now" which was shortly before a huge lump of rock fell off the traverse leaving a brown smear down the rock face. The survey caught up to Andrew just as he got finished and ..... da-narrr..... found the final survey station from last year's KH trip - whoo-hoo, made the connection. Rob then caught up with us + Andrew & I were going to look up the passage but he'd forgotten about the up pitch so I did the bad step traverse without protection for no reason + then was stuck there until Rob got some gear to give me a sling to get back. Then Rob + Andrew rigged a traverse to avoid the up pitch whilst Ollie + I went to the top of Fat Cat + surveyed the traverse - Dog Days - he'd done with Serena + then up the climb that Andrew had shinned up on the way down + left a skanky rope on it. This led to horizontal drafting passage, yippee + a chamber with several A-leads off ... having already had a very fine trip making the connection we decided to leave them for another day. Met Andrew + Rob on return. On Brian's Phat Shaft, Andrew went up first then as Ollie got about halfway a rock came whistling past me. "What was that from?" "Don't think it was me" says Ollie ... then another came down "Shit, the rebelays breaking up". Rob + I cowered as best we could + Ollie said there was only an inch of rock left on the nose the rebelay was on so we decided it was best if he took it out (the one at the bottom of the first long hang). Rob + I then teetered up past some razor sharp edges + the knot pass + the crab got wedged on Rob so the rope got incredibly tight but, hey, we survived. [Confirmed as Olly Modge not Olly Bets from looking at the Callout Book scan]
Becka
T/U: 10½
Original plan was me, Andrew + Ollie finishing yesterday's traverse while Rob + Holly pushed leads in Cirque de Soleil but Holly discovered a hole in the bottom bobbin of her Stop at the top of Brian's Phat Shaft so she gave up and went out + Rob joined us. Ollie + I started my first ever PDA + DistoX survey - not a great location to practise on, a teetery traverse with Andrew bolting the next traverse, only just in earshot as I bawled out endless questions "How do I calibrate the screen?", "Why are some splays in dotted lines?" etc. There was only one point where I got a "Not now" which was shortly before a huge lump of rock fell off the traverse leaving a brown smear down the rock face. The survey caught up to Andrew just as he got finished and ..... da-narrr..... found the final survey station from last year's KH trip - whoo-hoo, made the connection. Rob then caught up with us + Andrew & I were going to look up the passage but he'd forgotten about the up pitch so I did the bad step traverse without protection for no reason + then was stuck there until Rob got some gear to give me a sling to get back. Then Rob + Andrew rigged a traverse to avoid the up pitch whilst Ollie + I went to the top of Fat Cat + surveyed the traverse - Dog Days - he'd done with Serena + then up the climb that Andrew had shinned up on the way down + left a skanky rope on it. This led to horizontal drafting passage, yippee + a chamber with several A-leads off ... having already had a very fine trip making the connection we decided to leave them for another day. Met Andrew + Rob on return. On Brian's Phat Shaft, Andrew went up first then as Ollie got about halfway a rock came whistling past me. "What was that from?" "Don't think it was me" says Ollie ... then another came down "Shit, the rebelays breaking up". Rob + I cowered as best we could + Ollie said there was only an inch of rock left on the nose the rebelay was on so we decided it was best if he took it out (the one at the bottom of the first long hang). Rob + I then teetered up past some razor sharp edges + the knot pass + the crab got wedged on Rob so the rope got incredibly tight but, hey, we survived. [Confirmed as Olly Modge not Olly Bets from looking at the Callout Book scan]