Balkonhöhle - Balkonhöhle Fanny by Gaslight?
Chris Densham
It was great to be equipped with laminated surveys and a system expert in the form of Luke to show us the way forward, as I hadn't been further in the cave since
first rigging natural highs and Leeds Bypass years ago. Luke demonstrated impressive recall by pointing out a tiny pocket in the wall on the far side of Honeycomb as a
necesssary deviation thread, then he and Hannah left me and Alice to it. One of the pitch head Hiltis was rusty and sticking outa few mm so I put in a new thru bolt
and descended to Luke's thread. Having stuffed string down the hole, I abbed down a metre to look up and see it was indeed a long thread with my string stuffed in the
top. Looking below I couldn't help but notice the floor about 2m below. Hmm. I derigged the string and popped down a neighbouring pit, to so encounter the floor at
about 6m. Back up at the pitch head, there was an obvious traverse level with a pit beyond where rocks (all about 50m. Could this be the actual Honeycomb?) I could
only spot 1 bolt a yard above my reach and didn't fancy waltzing across without a better grasp of the situation so we headed out to mutter a lot about our written and
verbal instructions about what must be "Fanny by Gaslight" traverse.