Homecoming - Foray into the Second Coming
Fri 07 Jul 2023
Christian Kuhlmann
In the beginning
The day started with deeply unpleasent rising from our nice warm beds after a long day prior. Despite the lethargy, a resonaby efficient departure from Top Camp was acheived. Heavily laden bags containing metalwork, emergency kit, and rope were dragged by Wassil and I to the enterance of Homecoming. Upon reaching the enterance much faff ensued, during which, we were greeted by the arrival of Harry, Emily, and Charlotte who had a similar aim of rigging and pushing within Homecoming.
The descent
Following behind our companions, we descended the enterance series with relative ease. Descending Radogast was very pleasent and we soon reached Definitely Not the Dachstein. Following normal procedure, everyone had their turn to curse at the awkward traverse and we eventually reached the pitchhead of Wallace via a set of small pitches. This was descended to reach Gromit. Gromit has been described as a "sizzly" pitch. After bottoming Gromit, a fun traverse is found and descending this took us to the divergence of the 3 known A leads within homecoming.
Unknown Territory
Setting off down the phreatic rift, we quickly entered the beginning of The Second Coming, where a truly massive gust can be felt. A brief, pleasent passage, was shortly followed by a number of both protected (traverse line), and unprotected traverses with varying degrees of exposure. A fall on any of these without a safety could be catastrophic. This is crossed to a calcited, blackened ledge at the end of a travese line an feels like an obvious end to the first section. Following this, the ante is uped and the traveses become more techinical, involving some harder climbing and some crossing of loose-ish collapses. Eventually, the end of the rift is reached and a sharp leftward bend is found. A number of sumps, puddles, and a few brilliant white formations can be seen on the journey. Immediately after this bend, a deep cross-rift is found and a swiss-cheese like maze of passage is entered upon crossing the rift (this needs properly surveying and is the end of the currently surveyed passage, we have named this "Swiss Cheese"). Passing through this and trending left (following the draught) leads to a pre-rigged traverse line which continues again in a high-level passage which followed to a Y-hang. Descending this leads to an upward-trending wall traverse which terminates in a 2/3 bolt Y/tri-hang. This hangs over The Lizard King and is descended over something like 50m via a 1-bolt rebelay, a deviation, and two further 2-bolt rebelays, eventually either reaching the floor (we had a good look around here and it didn't appear to be very useful) or a higher level muddy ledge facing away from the rebelay and on the right. This was already bolted and leads to the start of another deep rift.
It begins
Following a new set of bolts placed by myself (the first bolt is at a funky angle and could be replaced but is likely fine), a new traverse line is followed up the roof of the rift along steep-walls. This is easy with a traverse line but is more thought provoking to bolt, rig, and de-rig. Much like the top of The Lizard King, a Y-hang is reached (there is another bolt further used for exploring but was deemed to be useless) and is descended into War of Attrition. A 95m rope was used to righ from the the top of The Salamander Queen 2 (previously named "The Lizard King") to the Y-hang dropping into War of Attrition. A 1-bolt rebelay is reached and a deviation is used on the opposite wall. This is finally descended to a ledge with another 1-bolt rebelay. Here the intention is to continue down to reach a to-be-bolted Y-hang in the right in an attempt to decrease rope-rub. This would be descended about 7m to a vague ledge system and followed further into the large phreatic tube via a traverse line (later called The Salamander Queen).
Christian Kuhlmann
Ropes used:
- 95m (new)
- 25m (new)
- 27m
In the beginning
The day started with deeply unpleasent rising from our nice warm beds after a long day prior. Despite the lethargy, a resonaby efficient departure from Top Camp was acheived. Heavily laden bags containing metalwork, emergency kit, and rope were dragged by Wassil and I to the enterance of Homecoming. Upon reaching the enterance much faff ensued, during which, we were greeted by the arrival of Harry, Emily, and Charlotte who had a similar aim of rigging and pushing within Homecoming.
The descent
Following behind our companions, we descended the enterance series with relative ease. Descending Radogast was very pleasent and we soon reached Definitely Not the Dachstein. Following normal procedure, everyone had their turn to curse at the awkward traverse and we eventually reached the pitchhead of Wallace via a set of small pitches. This was descended to reach Gromit. Gromit has been described as a "sizzly" pitch. After bottoming Gromit, a fun traverse is found and descending this took us to the divergence of the 3 known A leads within homecoming.
Unknown Territory
Setting off down the phreatic rift, we quickly entered the beginning of The Second Coming, where a truly massive gust can be felt. A brief, pleasent passage, was shortly followed by a number of both protected (traverse line), and unprotected traverses with varying degrees of exposure. A fall on any of these without a safety could be catastrophic. This is crossed to a calcited, blackened ledge at the end of a travese line an feels like an obvious end to the first section. Following this, the ante is uped and the traveses become more techinical, involving some harder climbing and some crossing of loose-ish collapses. Eventually, the end of the rift is reached and a sharp leftward bend is found. A number of sumps, puddles, and a few brilliant white formations can be seen on the journey. Immediately after this bend, a deep cross-rift is found and a swiss-cheese like maze of passage is entered upon crossing the rift (this needs properly surveying and is the end of the currently surveyed passage, we have named this "Swiss Cheese"). Passing through this and trending left (following the draught) leads to a pre-rigged traverse line which continues again in a high-level passage which followed to a Y-hang. Descending this leads to an upward-trending wall traverse which terminates in a 2/3 bolt Y/tri-hang. This hangs over The Lizard King and is descended over something like 50m via a 1-bolt rebelay, a deviation, and two further 2-bolt rebelays, eventually either reaching the floor (we had a good look around here and it didn't appear to be very useful) or a higher level muddy ledge facing away from the rebelay and on the right. This was already bolted and leads to the start of another deep rift.
It begins
Following a new set of bolts placed by myself (the first bolt is at a funky angle and could be replaced but is likely fine), a new traverse line is followed up the roof of the rift along steep-walls. This is easy with a traverse line but is more thought provoking to bolt, rig, and de-rig. Much like the top of The Lizard King, a Y-hang is reached (there is another bolt further used for exploring but was deemed to be useless) and is descended into War of Attrition. A 95m rope was used to righ from the the top of The Salamander Queen 2 (previously named "The Lizard King") to the Y-hang dropping into War of Attrition. A 1-bolt rebelay is reached and a deviation is used on the opposite wall. This is finally descended to a ledge with another 1-bolt rebelay. Here the intention is to continue down to reach a to-be-bolted Y-hang in the right in an attempt to decrease rope-rub. This would be descended about 7m to a vague ledge system and followed further into the large phreatic tube via a traverse line (later called The Salamander Queen).