Hurnell Moss - 21 Jan 2007

Sunday January 21st 2007

Members present: Chris Ward,  Natasha Durham,  Oliver Bunting

Didn't think it was possible to break a trip, but I managed it.

Took us a while to find the cave due to Ollie taking a bearing from the wrong point on the map, got into SRT kits and realised I had a stop and none of us had much of an idea how to use one. Figured we'd give it a go anyway, it couldn't be that difficult.

Got onto the first pitch, attatched the stop, and stuck on my hand
jamber above (just in case the stop wasn't as simple as it looked).Grabbed the trailing rope as I would for a rack and slowly squeezed the brake handle, hoping to slowly start moving down the rope. Next thing I know, I've dropped two meters to be pulled up by the safety link of the hand jamber.

Tash was sitting at the top of the pitch and just saw my head disappear at speed, and was waiting for the thump as I hit the bottom of the pitch (she didn't know I'd put my hand jamber on). Needless to say, she was a bit worried.

Found out the safety link was incredibly long, used the clove-hitch-round-foot method to reach the bottom of the foot loop and put on my chest jamber. Prussiced up a bit, and decided to try the stop again. I could only get two speeds on it: stationary and freefall.

Neither Tash nor Ollie were comfortable using the stop, and we decided it wasn't the right cave to use an italian hitch descent, even though we had the necessary 6 mm cord for prussic safety knots to prevent freefall. Cave abandoned, decided it was too late to start another one, so off to the May Pole for a cuppa.

Needless to say, come Thursday I want to learn how to use a stop.