Since summer is near, we wanted to see how things look in the mountains. So we picked one of the smaller caves
for this trip (but
one which I haven't been to yet).
Not very high up, just about right for the first visit after such a long winter...
At the start of the track it was quite nice, although a bit cold (about 4 degrees centigrade). But after we stared going up,
rain started falling (pretty heavy). A bit higher and we got hail (first quite small, then pretty large)...
The entrance to the cave is not very far from the track. And we could see that there's still a lot of snow near it.
But we didn't suspect that we would have to climb between that snow and the wall to get to the entrance.
Fortunately, the entrance itself wasn't blocked by the snow, so we could get in.
And how wet it was inside! I remember from the course that this cave and the whole valley was quite dry, but not this time!
This time there was quite a strong stream going down the Boulder Gully...
After a short crawl there's a 5-6 meter pitch (10m of rope needed, 3 bolts) that lands you in quite a big chamber (Sleeping Knights' Chamber).
But since we got pretty wet outside and inside, we didn't spend much time exploring it - we just had a short look into
some of the tight crawls. Going out, I climbed the pitch - a pretty easy climb.
After we got out, it turned out that for a change snow started falling. And the mountains around are much whiter
(that night 20cm of snow fell). So the whole trip back was in snow, snow with rain, rain, and then a bit more rain...
The next day, without dry clothes, we decided to go home and wait for some dry weather before we come back. :)
And my first go at technical plans:
Warning: I hope I got this right! :)