Originally Karen and I had planned to have a practice abseiling and prusiking up Whalf Pipe Engine Shaft and arranged with Pete and Keith for them to bring an 80m rope and meet at Monyash Cafe at 9:30. They eventually turned up at nearly 10:00! After breakfast we decided to join Pete and Keith down Water Icicle Close Cavern anyway.
After driving to the end of Derby Lane and getting changed, Pete abseiled down and Keith lowered some pre-cut scaffolding tubes down. Then the three of us abseiled down. We got the scaffolding to the dig and Keith pulled them up to the top. Karen and I left Pete and Keith to their scaffold installation and while Karen tidied up some of the deads in the passage, I prusiked up the entrance shaft and then abseiled down again. Karen arrived and she also prusiked up and abseiled back down. I went up for a second time thinking that would be enough and opened the lid and sat in the sun after shouting down "rope free". As Karen came up, I decided on a third prusik so told Karen and she went straight down again. When she had shouted "rope free" I abseiled back down and set off again as Karen was still hot from her prusik. As I was getting to the narrow, top section of the shaft, Keith and Pete arrived and were on their way out. So Karen and I ended up prusiking up the entrance shaft three times.
After changing it was only 13:20 so we stopped off at Monyash Cafe again for ice creams.
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