pillar holes, NCC extensions
Saturday, 24 July 2004
myself and Sam Allshorn met beardy and helen in the Brook house. beardy conceeded that the brookhouse breakfast was superior to the offering at the thief. another typical summer day as we toiled in the wind in weather that was more reminiscent of mid autumn. newby moss was successfully navigated, and the middle hole ddescended. this is a shite way into the cave with lots of loose rock and poorly positioned p anchors. the cave then chenges from vertical to misearbly horizontal. the original dig was descended and the mouse hole followed upstream to the awkward squeeze/climb into an aven. this is rigged with an in situ rope, and the NCC extensions continue from here in a descending pitch into a parallel shaft. a sqeeze at floor level then goes off, and a trench leads down to a pitchhead. beardy was attempting crab free rigging in this section of the cave, using washers on spectra. seemed to work quite well. a 30m pitch was thgen followed by narrow capped passage and an awkward squeeze to a pitch closely followed by a further pitch with a tight pitch head. The subsequent cave deteriorated into draughting, but largely mined rift that petered out into avens that pintched out. at the end of this passage we seemed to have changed from going in a downstream direction to being in an inlet. the way on wasback on the right in a low, aqueous passage, which looked uninviting. At this stage I blobbed, though I gather that the end was far from glorious.
Interesting, horrible, but probably worth the effeort.