Balkonhöhle - A Room With a View

Thu 07 Aug 2014
Chris



Fleur polished up the entrance pitches after the previous day of gardening. We followed the howling gale to reach the 40m pitch reached by Mike & Andrea on 05/08. Pete rigged over the top, "Natural Highs",with his rigging butler providing an ever-increasing rope length (10m replaced by 20m replaced by 40m).

After traversing over 3 pitches we were on terra firma, in substantial passage with leads all around & the sound of drilling above. I shinned up the RH wall into large phreas going up & downstream, which I ambled along upstream until I was able to wave cheerily at Noel & Holly who were dangling on the far side, wondering how to reach the balcony I was beaming out from. We settled for a DistoX "handshake" across the gulf.

Fleur & Pete surveyed the 'Leeds Bypass' while I put some "Unnatural Highs" bolts in (Pete's battery had died hence excessive use of natural protection). Then we surveyed on down-sip along the windy phreas. It just got bigger and bigger - while Pete & Fleur followed the biggest windiest passage I took the frill to a draft phreatic pitch off to the left, left 15m down with a 'Y' hang waiting for someone to come along with another 30m or so of rope to descend it - 'Gardeners Question Time' due to the usual issue of just how much gardening to do. Fleur & Pete returned having reached a traverse that needed rigging. So we took the drill along to the end, passing a dried up stream trench in the floor. The remaining 10m rope took us 2/3 along the traverse in 3 bolts + 1 natural, so a splendid lead for someone to continue into the phreas beyond. 230m in book.

We had a bit of a queue on the ent pitches, meeting up with Mike & Elaine & then Holly & Noel, so we all compared our finds - all going, so smiles all round.

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Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/264/lemonsnout
    caves-1623/264/leedsbypass
    caves-1623/264/pitpot2
Wallets on this date:
    2014#19 LemonSnout ['notes2', 'notes1', 'elev1', 'plan1']
    2014#20 Leeds Bypass ['notes2', 'notes1', 'elev2', 'notes3', 'plan2', 'elev1', 'plan1']
    2014#22 Pitpot2 ['notes1', 'plan2', 'elev1', 'plan1']
Logbook trips on this date:
    Balcony - 2005-05 Balcony Höhle
    Balkonhöhle - A Room With a View
    Balcony Höhle: Traversing + dropping Pit Pot
    Balcony Höhle