Fishface - Camping without utensils
Rob
Did a bit of packing the night before but it was too chilly to want to really to the past. So that had to be done on the following morning, when it was equally cold. Which made us all a bit grumpy. Plan for day 1was for Kai and i to visit the European Federalists area to see if we could work out what was going on there while Like was also there rigging CMPU. After an uneventful commute we arrived at the traverse above red light. This was very much the return of Balcony's Arse. Disgusting sticky mud everywhere and they had used the 8.5mm rope to rig it. Thus making the rope really nasty. One part of the traverse was pretty strenuous and muddy, no one needed that. I feel bad for whoever had to wait while it got bolted. Anyway, got to the end and it was a total minger. Super chossy pitch combined with a mud festival. No thanks. Got a voice connection with Becka at the top of CMPU but couldn't see her light. Decided to fuck off as it was almost certainly just the top of Apis Medicus. Left it rigged for now. A visual connection can be made later. Then we headed back along the traverse to the head of CMPU to try and traverse across the 'free arse' that Luke and I had spotted the year previously. It quickly became apparent that traversing at the level of the 'free arse' would be very difficult, so I decided instead to traverse above and then drop in from the top. Some very muddy and naughty traversing ensured with a handy dose of choss. But a short while later and I was bolting at a rather nice phreatic passage with two junctions visible immediately. Very promising! Kai came over and we begun the survey. Not wanting to steal all the thunder I asked Kai if he would like to be on book. He enthusiastically said YES. (when has Kai not been enthusiastically??)So we headed back across the traverse above the ~ 70m drop surveying as we went. [NB: after getting down the hill and going to put the data into the computer I realised I had forgotten that Kai is very dyslexic and had managed to write a lot of the numbers the wrong way round ie a clino reading of 07 instead of 70. And no reward of numbers was retained in the disto. So it will have to be resurveyed]. Then back to camp where we discovered the lack of utensils. Ate some gnocchi/curry soup with a spanner. The fairy lights made the situation far nicer though. Kai proceeded to throw Botch's spanner down the rift after I washed it and the bowl at the tap. Next day we struggled to find motivation to leave sleeping bags but eventuallu made it back towards CMPU and the 'free arse'. Nadia, Botch and Kai began surveying the nice horizontal passage across the traverse while I rigged Apis Medicus. Remembered how poorly/quickly I rigged the traverse last year, resolved to fix it later. Pitch rigged to bottom, I looked at water levels quickly, seemed the same as last year in the rift. Looked at what the others were up to at the top, Really nice horizontal passage outgoing. On the way down earlier rocks were rained on me by the traversers alone so I hid and in the process noticed a canyon passage just before the top of Apis Medicus. So stole Botch and went to survey this. A nice passage that ended at a window onto Apis Medicus. Then Botch headed out while I improved the rigging of the traverse between CMPU and Apis. Much better now, headed out in a big trail of cavers, gettinbg out just before 10pm