Alex said:
Nice. I assume however this it not an all weather route like the big 40 is, with all the deviations in?
I cannot agree that Aquamole is an all-weather route. The two free-hanging rebelays on the entrance pitch can be too wet to see what you're doing, and trying to rig there under such circumstances is a cold, miserable, and not very safe procedure.
Nevertheless, you are absolutely right in that there is always a stream going down the Alternative, but I haven't been down in very wet conditions to know what it is like. I don't think the first pitch will get too unpleasant, although there is an deviation hanger on the opposite wall about 10 metres down which presumably is designed to keep the rope away from the spray when necessary. You can reach it from the new hang (which is a little further away from the water), but we haven't used it.
It will be impossible to avoid the water on the bottom pitch, despite the hang taking the driest route possible. There is a hanger for a deviation a few metres down which is a relic of the previous rigging, but it will now only pull you over a few centimetres. However, the pitch is close to the wall so one can rope-walk up the damp section very quickly with the aid of a Pantin.
As a matter of interest, the old rigging on the first pitch involved the use of a scaffold pole laid across the shaft resting on the passage bedrock floor, which we used to clove-hitch to. When one of us was coming up on one occasion, the bedrock on which the pole rested started to move. It took very little effort to persuade it to slide down the pitch. It turned out that although it was a proper chunk of floor, it was also a completely detached slab resting on a muddy slope!
