And whilst Andrew is in Camelot recovering from his WUG trip, Nooty and I are sitting on an overnight bus to Cologne. Which is the perfect opportunity for me to post the promised cave photos!
UK Caving generously donated some Spanset 9mm rope to the expedition, and a bit of that made its way down Thundergasm. These photos show where it got used for
First things first, "Paranoia Pitch". This was last year's limit of exploration, and was named when the first explorers heard voices in the water trickling down it. Whilst it was dropped last year the shortage of rope meant that it was rigged on 2 threads and a single bolt rebelay, and even then two slings and a foot-loop had to be tied to the bottom for the explorers to be able to get close enough to the floor to free climb down.
As mentioned in my last post, the bottom of this pitch led to a long and deep alpine meander, which also needed bolting and rigging. Having learned to bolt in the very same cave last year, Nooty put his new skills to good use to enable this meander to be passed.
Meanwhile, Olly investigated some leads at the top of the pitch. These phreatic inlets, previously overlooked whilst the pitches were explored, became keyhole shaped rifts as they ascended, eventually becoming uncomfortably tight.
So instead he headed further up in the cave to "Mad Junction", where a drippy pitch drops into a sharp and tight rift. Here he placed his first bolts, and dropped the pitch into yet more vertical rift passage. He later returned with Krystal, where she also placed her own first bolts, to pursue the lead.
Whilst initially promising, the final pitch in this rift was completely blind save only for a tiny stream. In desperation Nooty attempted to worm his way into a tight muddy tube from a 2ft ledge nearly 10m off the floor. Being a Devon caver at heart he took remarkable enjoyment in this, but alas after 15 or 20m "Crawl of the Mountain Gimp" too became impassable even for him.
This leaves the Thundergasm team with fewer promising leads than they might like, but a survey full of question marks and a lot more to do. Perhaps Wolfo's enthusiastic capping can be put to good use to widen the rift at the deepest point in the cave? Or maybe the maze of rifts leading off from Paranoia Pitch will eventually relent after more determined efforts.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see!