Freesteel Blog » Still on expo

Still on expo

Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 5:27 am Written by:

I’ve done about 3 days of solid coding for managing the CUCC/Expo cave data to very little effect. What a waste of my time when I should be caving. But I’m too lazy. I did actually get underground last week to visit Satan’s Sitting Room, a section of passage discovered in 1992.

satanssittingrm

We found a carbide pig that had been left there during previous explorations. This is a length of inner tube stuffed with carbide lumps and sealed by snoopy loops to run your carbide generators for the caving lights on these long remote expeditions when batteries just won’t do.

Since that year, LED lights have been invented which are quite a lot brighter and use so little power you can recharge the whole expedition off one floppy solar power panel. Becka got me an amazing light for Xmas that’s bright enough to illuminate the biggest chambers and see the holes in the roof. Then you have the challenge of climbing up into them.

She came down the hill yesterday, but forgot to pack her survey notes, so there wasn’t anything to draw up. She phoned the measurements down in the evening while the Germans in the campsite were making a hell of a racket (they have some very big kegs of beer to get through in the weekend), but it’s not the same.

Hopefully I’ll get my head together, do some caving, and won’t feel too pissed off with myself when I get home next week.

1 Comment

  • 1. Freesteel&hellip replies at 15th June 2010, 8:32 am :

    […] pig (a sealed inner tube for storing carbide for your lights). This is the second one I have found this year. How unlikely? We took it out. No one uses carbide anymore since the advent of white […]

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