204a
Wed 15 Aug 2012
Stu W
Cave pre-rigged. Descended entrance, King Carbide, Brian's Phat Shaft uneventfully and proceeded to Dog Days near top of Fat Cat to examine possible leads and survey with distoX + PDA. Dog Days contains many steep, unstable sandy slopes and a boulder choke with some unstable parts. A quick search of the boulder choke revealed no worthwhile leads - StuW found a narrow rift and what was thought to be a pitch but turned out to be the chamber floor. Andrew found an area with scary unstable boulders. The area was then surveyed, as was another area at the other end of the chamber which contained ground that turned white when walked on. StuW operated the disto but sometimes had trouble with shaking arms. Disto ran out of power half way through and was recalibrated by Andrew. A section of cave was surveyed yielding some leads. Cave was then exited with Andrew rebolting a Y hang on the traverse before Dog Days (Fat Cat?) and Stuw finding some slack and moving it along to make the Y hang descendable. StuW got exhausted during the exit and became slow at prussiking, (due to equipment config and strength) leaving Andrew to take cover in the bothy bag below Fat Cat. StuW's route finding was bad - cave exited by Andrew followed by StuW (somewhat later) at around 10 pm. Mike TA took photos then exited prior to Fat Cat traverse.
Stu W
T/U: 12hrs?
Cave pre-rigged. Descended entrance, King Carbide, Brian's Phat Shaft uneventfully and proceeded to Dog Days near top of Fat Cat to examine possible leads and survey with distoX + PDA. Dog Days contains many steep, unstable sandy slopes and a boulder choke with some unstable parts. A quick search of the boulder choke revealed no worthwhile leads - StuW found a narrow rift and what was thought to be a pitch but turned out to be the chamber floor. Andrew found an area with scary unstable boulders. The area was then surveyed, as was another area at the other end of the chamber which contained ground that turned white when walked on. StuW operated the disto but sometimes had trouble with shaking arms. Disto ran out of power half way through and was recalibrated by Andrew. A section of cave was surveyed yielding some leads. Cave was then exited with Andrew rebolting a Y hang on the traverse before Dog Days (Fat Cat?) and Stuw finding some slack and moving it along to make the Y hang descendable. StuW got exhausted during the exit and became slow at prussiking, (due to equipment config and strength) leaving Andrew to take cover in the bothy bag below Fat Cat. StuW's route finding was bad - cave exited by Andrew followed by StuW (somewhat later) at around 10 pm. Mike TA took photos then exited prior to Fat Cat traverse.