Team: Sam P, Bog, Jim T
With all efforts currently focused on Black Draught, the Cussey team have fragmented into pairs on different evenings to maximise time at the dig face which provides less-than-ample accommodation for one, with no home comforts laid on. We also have a brand new Eldon drill at our disposal to mitigate against any protest from the old one at being expected to operate in conditions that probably don’t feature in Makita’s design process.
Sam headed off to make a start whilst I accompanied Bog down the entrance pitch, at the bottom of which I left him to have a look at Timewarp and continued on to join Sam at the mucky end. Tonight would be our night, the one in which the breakthrough would happen, another piece of the jigsaw slotting into place.
A rapid descent was made, enjoying the solitude and singing my heart out the whole way. I got the digging tunes started and stood by for Sam to come out of the dig and give his assessment.
The up slope boulders had been prepared with the necessary encouragement so we quickly released the energy with a satisfying report, I donned balaclava and headtorch, left my helmet behind and plunged into the squelch of the bedding and slid, well lubricated by the six inches of mud, up to the 90 degree turn and wriggled to the face. The scene was one of success, little fragmentation – but with even less in the way of stacking space or places to move my arms, I shifted all the tools and wrestled the rock out of the way, got things ready and retreated backwards, feeling the way out with my feet.
Back in the chamber we tried and tried again to repeat the process to no avail, until eventually we heard a barely audible pop, so Sam gathered the necessary supplies, including the ‘well loved’ Eldon drill, and returned. A few seconds of that familiar sound of SDS+ into limestone later, I heard a new, never before encountered sound – angry shouting from Sam. He returned to inform me that not only was the drill stuck and unable to drill any more in the right direction, it wouldn’t reverse either and had let out a lot of smoke in the process of refusal. I had a look, and it was well and truly dead. Unfortunately the brand new drill was still at Rob’s, awaiting delivery of a lovely cover courtesy of Josh, one that the old drill would probably have appreciated at some point a long time ago.
So that was that. We packed away the kit, I stuck my helmet back on my head, closed the Pelicase on the speaker without turning the music off and set off back up the rope. The ever lovely prusik out of Inglorious flashed by, I climbed the Shattered Dreams pitch (why hadn’t I thought of this before?) and by the time I was at the foot of the squeeze, Sam was behind me again. At this point things got a bit ethereal and zen… The Orb’s ‘Star 6 & 7 8 9’ played on the speaker, semi-muffled by the Peli. I stood into the squeeze. It wasn’t a squeeze. My eyes were closed and I vaguely heard Sam exclaim something about having gone through without trying.
Unfortunately I didn’t quite manage to levitate up Coconut Airways but like last time it was just a climb and we were soon back on surface.
I’d been keeping my post-beer in the ice box of the van fridge all week and fate had a silver lining up her sleeve as it was just still at the point of being a liquid.