Plateau - Prospecting - NS-01, NS-13, NS-14

Tue 16 Aug 2022
Kristian Brook



I was fucked and coming down from cave-allergy. Alex had arrived at expo the night before so determined to get me out of my funk. After a quick shop for food and water we set off up the hill, Alex carrying all his gear and me and Tobias carrying a fuck ton of water as top camp was running low on water. I was personally carrying 17 litres. Arriving at camp we found the water situation was not as dire as predicted so that was a waste of single use plastics.

Camp sorted we set off to look at some orphaned caves, wrecking as much of the plateau as we go. Heading to the area of NS caves aiming to look at NS-01, NS-13 and NS-14.

NS-01 was found amongst a series of shafts on the side of a rubble-filled valley. This entrance is a free climb down to a couple of passages that link the shafts in the area. No clear way on.

NS-13 was upon a lump above the valley and simply a tube that led through a rocky outcrop. NS-15 was looked at but Wookey and Dinny had already done this. NS-14 was the last call of the day and appeared on the website as a dummy tag for March of the Penguins. This it was not and it was a rift leading to a small hole. A rock drop revealed that this hole was very deep and a visit was needed with a rope as we saw no sign of a previous drop.

Survex files on this date:
    caves-1623/2012-ns-01/2012-ns-01-2022
    caves-1623/264/lower_balkon/cerberus
Wallets on this date:
    2022#46 ['plan', 'notes2', 'notes1', 'elevation']
    2022#48 2012-ns-01, 2012-ns-13 ['plan', 'notes']
Logbook trips on this date:
    Balkonhöhle - 2 Camping trip at Pitstop pushing Southern & Northern Pitstop
    Balkonhöle - De-rigging Hiltiaplenty and sloppy seconds and nothing to see
    Plateau - Prospecting - NS-01, NS-13, NS-14
    Expo - snapshots of expedition japery
    Balkonhöhle - First and last of the 2022 Balkon camps – Part 2b