James Hall to Titan exchange, Saturday 22nd of October 2016

James Hall to Titan exchange, Saturday 22nd of October 2016

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  • #4324
    Scaife
    Participant

    James Hall to Titan exchange
    Saturday 22nd of October 2016
    Chris Scaife, Alex Ritchie, Tom Howard, Laurel Smith, Olly King, Andy Farrow

    Our Berger reunion weekend was planned meticulously. We stayed at the TSG on the Friday and had the key for Titan for Saturday. We had also booked the YSS for Saturday night and had a Gaping Gill permit for Sunday, planning a Dihedral to Flood Entrance exchange.

    Olly and Andy went down Titan and up JH; I was with Tom, Laurel and Xaaaaaaaaaaaaaandah, down JH and out Titan.

    The first pitch in JH is a mine shaft of about 50m with a rebelay half way down. There is then a bit of traversing through the mine to the unfairly named Bitch Pitch. I don’t remember hearing any bitching from anyone. The 80m Leviathan follows very shortly afterwards and we were all down quite quickly.

    The connection from here to Titan is mostly fun, with some easy crawls and traverses and just a tiny bit of horrible mud. We passed the other two in this passage.

    Prusiking up Titan was much more pleasant than I expected and before long I sat at the head of the biggest pitch in the UK thinking the day’s travails were more or less over.

    Our Princess is in another castle

    There was more to the day, but that can be discussed elsewhere.

    #4326
    Xandar
    Moderator

    Yeh it was an interesting day. I won’t mention what happened later here. But me and Chris did some hard graft de-rigging Titan, hauling all that rope even with my pulley is not easy. This was after the fun (with me swearing of course) when the rope got tangled around the traverse line. Someone must had abseiled that rope on a fig 8 or something as it was twisted like spaghetti. In the end I had to temporality de-rig the event horizon traverse line to untangle the ropes but I could not undo the mallon so I shouted for a spanner. Chris 80m above me thought I wanted him to come down! Logic prevailed eventually and I realised I can simply untie the traverse line knot, so I did not need the spanner to remove the rope.

    I don’t know why sometimes I am not more logical underground. Also on big pitches like that walkie talkies or pitch phones would not go-amiss.

    #4327
    Xandar
    Moderator

    Top tip I think if you are ever on your own and have to de-rig Titan, rig a z-rig, or take one of the bags with you.

    #4328
    Chris Sharman
    Moderator

    Yes, I’ve detackled it solo – went down with a bunch of people (not BRCC), and not only did they leave me to it, they even left me 60m of rope bagged up at the bottom!
    Hauling 3 bags up was bloody hard work: did it by hauling to event horizon first, then hauling the rope through my jammers with a prusiking action.

    #4329
    Xandar
    Moderator

    Yeh I hauled to event horizon first, that bit was relatively easy. It was sorting out the other bag and then hauling the whole lot (the top rope being 10.5 mil) that was the tougth part. But 3 bags that must had been hard.

    How did you get them all up the ent pitch, there are no suitable hauling points. I used the walk across the field technique.

    #4330
    Xandar
    Moderator

    Oh and my pantin snapped on the big pitch, but unfortunately that was not the worst thing to happen that day.

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