plateau - tagging and surface bashing to Fishgesicht
Michael Holliday
Setting off bright and early from the stone bridge (11:00), we took tagging and surface bashing kit to Fishgesicht with a firm belief that we would find a second access to the snowed-in cave.
Whilst Reuben charitably carried some gear to Homecoming (needlessly as they'd taken one of our ropes), me and Corin GPS tagged some likely entrances about the area. We should have written some more information to know which would need rope to access.
[Ed - all assumed to be area 1626 as near Homecoming, see previous log entry by this team.]
Upon Reuben's return we tagged the cave dropped the previous day (tag: CUCC-2019; RH-01) and drew a survey of the little shaft.
Regretting not bringing more lunch, we set off to visit the ~8 sites previously identified - we looked at 3.
The first didn't go beyond the initial horizontal and was not tagged. The second became 'Reuben's Folly' (tag: CUCC-2019; RH-02): Reuben first climbed down a tricky entrance vertical with Corin following close behind, to discovered ~50m of descent passage. After being rescued from an overally ambicious climb, the surface was regained and the directly adjacent shafts investigated. Upon dropping the 3rd shaft, which broke into passage, Reuben commented on the remarkable similarity this 'parrallel rift' bore to the original! Corin, upon following Reuben down, immediately made a climb up to the surface: to emerge laughing from the orignal climb. In hindsight, the similarity seemed more than similar. Corin and I were tickled, Reuben was not.
In dilligent submission, Reuben 'happily' dropped into the small, very orginal (sp?) hole (tag: CUCC-2019; MH-01). Here he was encouraged to diligently survey said cave and not allowed out until properly high-standard surveys were produced.
Encouraged by our day, we left out kit near by to return the next day. Much was learnt by all.