Balkonhöhle - 2 Camping trip at Pitstop pushing Southern & Northern Pitstop
Hannah Collings
[trip continues] We had a slightly slow morning on Tuesday, setting off from camp around 11:00 to head down Northern Pitstop. A little confusion was had finding the pushing front beyond Tartarus and Ichythes, in which Charlotte, as the smallest person, was sent first down a swiftly narrowing rift. A climb up out of the rift revealed the much roomier way on. The pushing front was very pretty with a wall of popcorned stals and calcite on the floor - photos were taken before carefully picking a route across the floor. The immediate way on promptly met an awkward thrutch up a bouldery climb which ended in a 20m pitch. We double backed and followed an A lead on the left which started in a exposed climb. Jono tackled this as an aided climb, bolting on his way up - a bold decision for his first time bolting. But with expert training and strong encouragement from moi success was had and Charlotte and I were able to safely follow up. Charlotte had a go at book for the first itme with me on Disto and Jono 3D scanning. Above the pitch nice passage was found with two pools in the floor and water could be heard nearby. Further on a rift intersected the passage with a large passage above heading off on the right - this would be potentially challenging traverse to persue. We continued down to junction with a lower and higher passage both coming into the same slanting rift - we ended our day here. We noticed bat bones at this junction. We headed back down the passage and Jono fettled his rigging before we all headed down the new pitch. This was left rigged with the crab removed from the deviation.
Rigging topo to be scanned and inserted here
I derigged Tartarus and the short pitch below it on the way out, leaving the ropes at the top of the pitch. Attempts to rescue seized crab on northern powerhouse up pitch were unsuccessful so maillon and crab were left on the y-hang - bigger plyers needed in future to get crab off. Next short pitch in northern pitstop was rerigged with rings and rope pulled up to top - deviation tat left in.
Back at camp we made a strong effort to eat as much camp food as possible to reduce the carry out tomorrow - struggles were had with consuming the vast quantities of smash. After a long day we got ot bed around 2:30am. A reasonably early start was had to pack up camp on Wednesday morning, with another meal of mass smash consumption.