Fischgesicht - Connecting fishface to happy butterfly
Mon 15 Aug 2022
Amelia Oliver
Amelia Oliver
Connecting fishface to happy butterfly
At the end of week 2 the kresh set out with the plan to connect fishface to happy butterfly. After looking at the surveys we (with much help from Mike) highlighted 4 possible areas in fishface that we thought we could connect from. On Monday morning Mealy, Joel, Andreas and Lucy set off from base camp slightly slower then intended. Andreas should be thanked for his tolerance of the youth on this morning. Opting to try the shallowest of possibilities first. Mealy and Andreas at the front bolting and rigging from captain crunch with Lucy and Joel behind surveying as we went. After only a few hours Mealy dropped a pitch and landed at survey point rejoicing at this point we felt we may have already done it! Lucy however was sceptical which she was not shy to voice. Arriving at a very large seemingly floating boulder we descended down the “floating cottage” pitch. Arriving at another survey station. Carrying along the rift we found some hilti bolts which we did not have hangers for. It was in this rift that mealy managed to get lost having spun around and gone up and down so many times, Andreas came to the rescue. Not having any more bolts with us and being unsure of exactly where we’d ended up we decided we would survey where we were; connecting to the old survey stations and go back to top camp and ring the nerds.
Calling the nerds we discovered no record of any of these survey stations in either caves.
Puzzled we decided the next day that Lucy would get a team together to go down happy butterfly and make some noise (a particular talent of the now formed “kresh”). Whilst Joel and Mealy would go back with bolts to fishface recruiting Eric to employ his excellent American nerd survey skills. Now on this fishface trip we were unsure of which way along the rift we should be heading. So we chose one way which became particularly narrow meaning we had to hammer and chisel Joel out, who felt Mealy chose science over fun. We then found some ropes which turned out to be one of our previous pitches. Reaching a dead end we turned and tried the other side of rift. We surveyed all dead ends - please tell Becca!! Eric noting that the problem with these caves is that all cross sections look Phallic. Going back to the Hilti bolts we descended that pitch with the remaining rope. At this point we begun to hear something that sounded a lot like the kresh! Getting very excited Mealy continued down the rope. Unfortunately the rope was about 20m too short. sitting on the end of the rope 30m below Joel and Eric, the other team was spotted! Thus kresh connections was formed! Realising all teams had no more rope we shouted, sung and waved and all then returned to the surface. Due to the large gap in space and Joel having lobbed the nail varnish down the rift we could not survey the connection. Much to Becca’s displeasure.
Day 3: Mealy and Joel still very keen to make this connection and this time dragging Rachel and Charlotte along for the fun set out once again with the plan to come out of happy butterfly and de-rig that. With a small team behind them to de-rig the fish face side of kresh connections. The trip started quite poorly with a failed donkey’s dicks resulting in mealy lobbing the tacklesack down a 40m pitch. The drill and batteries did not survive. Frustrated Mealy and Joel returned to the surface, ran back to camp and after nearly 3 hours made way back to the pushing point with a working drill. Meeting an unimpressed Nathaniel on the way. Mealy was then banned from carrying the drill which was actually quite nice. Drills are heavy. Now back at kresh connections Joel put on a good shift bolting quite a tricky traverse. The team were now in happy butterfly and the two caves successfully connected! This final trip taking about 11hrs was not the short day 1 expo trip we had marketed to Rachel who without curry went straight to sleep waking up the next morning to complain the day had been too long and kresh-ey.
At the end of week 2 the kresh set out with the plan to connect fishface to happy butterfly. After looking at the surveys we (with much help from Mike) highlighted 4 possible areas in fishface that we thought we could connect from. On Monday morning Mealy, Joel, Andreas and Lucy set off from base camp slightly slower then intended. Andreas should be thanked for his tolerance of the youth on this morning. Opting to try the shallowest of possibilities first. Mealy and Andreas at the front bolting and rigging from captain crunch with Lucy and Joel behind surveying as we went. After only a few hours Mealy dropped a pitch and landed at survey point rejoicing at this point we felt we may have already done it! Lucy however was sceptical which she was not shy to voice. Arriving at a very large seemingly floating boulder we descended down the “floating cottage” pitch. Arriving at another survey station. Carrying along the rift we found some hilti bolts which we did not have hangers for. It was in this rift that mealy managed to get lost having spun around and gone up and down so many times, Andreas came to the rescue. Not having any more bolts with us and being unsure of exactly where we’d ended up we decided we would survey where we were; connecting to the old survey stations and go back to top camp and ring the nerds.
Calling the nerds we discovered no record of any of these survey stations in either caves.
Puzzled we decided the next day that Lucy would get a team together to go down happy butterfly and make some noise (a particular talent of the now formed “kresh”). Whilst Joel and Mealy would go back with bolts to fishface recruiting Eric to employ his excellent American nerd survey skills. Now on this fishface trip we were unsure of which way along the rift we should be heading. So we chose one way which became particularly narrow meaning we had to hammer and chisel Joel out, who felt Mealy chose science over fun. We then found some ropes which turned out to be one of our previous pitches. Reaching a dead end we turned and tried the other side of rift. We surveyed all dead ends - please tell Becca!! Eric noting that the problem with these caves is that all cross sections look Phallic. Going back to the Hilti bolts we descended that pitch with the remaining rope. At this point we begun to hear something that sounded a lot like the kresh! Getting very excited Mealy continued down the rope. Unfortunately the rope was about 20m too short. sitting on the end of the rope 30m below Joel and Eric, the other team was spotted! Thus kresh connections was formed! Realising all teams had no more rope we shouted, sung and waved and all then returned to the surface. Due to the large gap in space and Joel having lobbed the nail varnish down the rift we could not survey the connection. Much to Becca’s displeasure.
Day 3: Mealy and Joel still very keen to make this connection and this time dragging Rachel and Charlotte along for the fun set out once again with the plan to come out of happy butterfly and de-rig that. With a small team behind them to de-rig the fish face side of kresh connections. The trip started quite poorly with a failed donkey’s dicks resulting in mealy lobbing the tacklesack down a 40m pitch. The drill and batteries did not survive. Frustrated Mealy and Joel returned to the surface, ran back to camp and after nearly 3 hours made way back to the pushing point with a working drill. Meeting an unimpressed Nathaniel on the way. Mealy was then banned from carrying the drill which was actually quite nice. Drills are heavy. Now back at kresh connections Joel put on a good shift bolting quite a tricky traverse. The team were now in happy butterfly and the two caves successfully connected! This final trip taking about 11hrs was not the short day 1 expo trip we had marketed to Rachel who without curry went straight to sleep waking up the next morning to complain the day had been too long and kresh-ey.