Not the Rabanel....

Carmen Smith descending the
Abime de Rabanel in 2002

Tuesday is something of a disaster….

I was quite looking forward to the Abime de Rabanel which is a 120m ish deep pothole in thick scrubland, not far from the campsite. I last did this cave in 2002 and was looking forward to rigging it.

Rich was still feeling unwell so we left the trip until the afternoon, but he still wasn’t up to joining us. Oz and Joe meanwhile went to the showcave ‘Grotte de Demoiselles’ and when they returned, we set off to the cave.

It was a long time since I’d been here but Clive had been more recently so he seemed the choice to follow up the path. After 30 minutes of walking in blistering heat with heavy rope bags and camera gear, I had a feeling it was wrong and we had gone too far. I remembered it being only 10 minutes walk and I turned everyone round to take a different path. This one immediately looked familiar and in 5 minutes we were at the entrance.

Vis Gorge

I had been told that the cave was all P-hung (Wrong!) thus not taking any hangers with me and that 40m was enough rope for the first pitch (wrong again!) - so I scared myself silly on Noel’s 9.5mm ‘rope’ whilst hanging from a tree stump over the edge of a cliff with 120m space between my heels, only to abseil onto the knot 6m off the floor!!
Furious, I changed over and prusiked up the rope and thumbed the trip – and headed back for wine and to see if Rich was OK.

It was down on the beach that I discovered that my camera, which had been in a tackle bag that got thrown onto the floor (and not by me) had broken and was spouting ‘lens error’. Knowing that canon G9s don’t like being knocked at all, we asked around about temporary repairs and the result is that it is beyond economical repair. So, the photos you see for the next day or two are the last from this great little camera. RIP canon G9 :-(