161 - KH/KH connection Back to the future
Wookey
Underground by 10am. George's 1st proper 107 trip so he gets to see the delights of Pushing The Envelope, lots of rifty shinning and traversing, China and the comedy connection pitch, then more shinning in 161 and Blown Out. On the way down wook checked Land of Confusion and derigged the 12m CUCC rope there. Matt had arrived at the entrance to collect his pantin whilst we were getting ready so we quizzed him on lost SSB rope. Thus we were able to find that too. (slightly _downhill_ from SSB). Got back to pushing front in 3.5h. Bringing 38m and 12m bits. Should be enough.
Took good look at lay of land and decided that traverse round RH wall from bouldery ledge between the 2 pitches we did last time looked like something that was do-able and should let us drop down in the dry to connect. Wook went a-rigging with a lot of faffing and muttering about having 2.5 slings amongst lots of threads (hundreds in balcony, allegedly :-). . 2nd bolt split but pressed on anyway. Eventually got across and into rift. Another bolt cracked: re-did. Could see down short pitch the other side with definite carbide mark at what looked like spits for rebelay. Woo!
Rigged Y-hang then delicate traverse round corner. Turned round to see red rope hanging down, and recognised spot as the foot of starcase 36 at the end of YAPATE. yay, perfect: that was where we actually wanted to get to. This is a place with more potential: there are holes in the roof and maybe passage above CFN. I wonder if the hole we just dropped in through was noted at all? I.e Runnelstone area was always v. close to yapate but up a couple of short pitches.
Went on a quick tourist to Knossos to show George some proper big cave. Added 2015 to the writing rock. Then surveyed back over traverse (now 'back to the future'). Pulled extra rope through and rerigged horrid traverse rigging into something that could be used for transport. 11 bolts in total. Got into a right mess with the string going back and forth. Pity we didn't have a camera. George put in his first HKD. Wook redid the cracked one (but didn't smash it as in good place - maybe OK to use backed-up if need be?).
Once all that was done we went back to 'quality belays' traverse. Wook derigged rope whilst george started rigging a sensible pitch into Wellypopper instead. Gardened part of the massive pile of boulders round the edge of the hole. He had trouble with cratering and one bolt cracking and it was getting late so Wook put in last 2 (only 2 hiltis left!). Then we packed up all the (unused!) rope and drill and staggered out with 3 bags. Eventually got out (leaving one rope bag in China tied to rope, and drill plus other rope bag at Coldest PIE. Forgot (and out of time) to derig connection pitch.
In total Back To The Future traverse and Quality Belays pitches have 20 hangers and one sling on them. Details in survey notes. None of the ropes are labelled. BTTF has the one left for a year in KH. 2014 10mm? ~55m? The top is an 11mm 12m-ish bit. The Quality Belays pitch is ~18m. Could be Joe's rope?