Balcony - Sloppy Seconds: Second Wind and Dog End Series
Becka Lawson
Batteries were in very short supply (three total at Top Camp, ) so we headed off with our allocation (one) plus three ropes and lots of metalware down some seriously slippy rope to the ‘ramp’ at the pushing front from yesterday’s Second Wind trip.
We arrived, Rob kitted up and set to on the first bolt. Drzzzzzzzzzz… went the drill. Grrrrrrrr went Rob. He managed to wheedle a single bolt out of the battery, put in a deathly dodgy deviation from a perched boulder and abseiled down a bit. The ‘ramp’ rapidly switched from steep to vertical with not a hope of naturals so sense prevailed and we gave up there, leaving the rope for a better equipped party.
We returned to the top of the Second Wind pitches and dropped the pitch opposite the horizontal passage at the bottom of Sloppy Seconds (straight on rather than through the mud tube to the left leading to the start of Second Wind). My ‘pitch head’ natural was a monster but the next one immediately cracked off when I weighted it. However, some mud excavation gave a convincing thread for a rebelay down to confusing bridge area. Rob came down and we spent some time digging mud out to give a second decent thread anchor to descend to one way to a dead end and then a second way which continued as a pitch/climb down. We had nothing to rig this but Rob clambered down on shitty rock (later regretting his boldness) and it continued (QMA, pretty drafty and cold but shit cave). We finished the survey, getting very muddy, then headed out.