hartfield_estate
Member
My friends and I (Isaac, Ioan, me) were planning a Rhino Rift trip yesterday- a plan that was mildly derailed by our fearless leader forgetting that we would need a key for that (if someone knows how to get one do let me know..!) so we decided to jump down Hunter's Hole instead so as to not waste the day. Said day being well past noon now (morning was spent having a slow breakfast and trying to cut a rope in deeply unprofessional ways) we were not the first to get there, so we had a nap in the grass waiting for a group of five happy cavers to emerge.
We made our way down- I went last- and nothing of note seemed to occur until I reached the bottom and was confronted by exclamations of "argh, you missed the last deviation!" I exclaimed back that I did nothing of the sort, and Ioan before me must have forgotten to clip it back in, but he was very sure that he had not. Some confusion was felt all around until Isaac spotted the deviation in question by my feet, on the rope, on the floor. It appeared to have.. come off the wall between Ioan and I descending.
We had a slightly fearful laugh- mostly grateful it was just a deviation rather than a rebelay!! though it was still an issue, some bad rope rub had to be navigated. Upon inspection, the nut had come off the bolt. Bolt, hanger, and nut were all in perfect condition, it must have simply come undone with use. Therefore, upon ascent, Isaac took it upon himself to put the deviation back in place, and all was well. A nice little trip, I saw my first bat-in-cave of the season- a lesser horseshoe- and we look forward to reattempting rhino with proper planning soon. Moral of the story: checking that bolts are actually done up is never an excessive luxury!!!
We made our way down- I went last- and nothing of note seemed to occur until I reached the bottom and was confronted by exclamations of "argh, you missed the last deviation!" I exclaimed back that I did nothing of the sort, and Ioan before me must have forgotten to clip it back in, but he was very sure that he had not. Some confusion was felt all around until Isaac spotted the deviation in question by my feet, on the rope, on the floor. It appeared to have.. come off the wall between Ioan and I descending.
We had a slightly fearful laugh- mostly grateful it was just a deviation rather than a rebelay!! though it was still an issue, some bad rope rub had to be navigated. Upon inspection, the nut had come off the bolt. Bolt, hanger, and nut were all in perfect condition, it must have simply come undone with use. Therefore, upon ascent, Isaac took it upon himself to put the deviation back in place, and all was well. A nice little trip, I saw my first bat-in-cave of the season- a lesser horseshoe- and we look forward to reattempting rhino with proper planning soon. Moral of the story: checking that bolts are actually done up is never an excessive luxury!!!
