This is a truly epic cache. I will try to keep my log less epic, but imagine I probably won't succeed. 

Our fellowship first formed to tackle its sister cache (Earnanæs, þæs wyrmes denn) around a year ago and we ended up being first to find Below Above Mega Breakfast into the bargain, as well as Los Juicios de la Inquisición and Below Above Multi 2. Another weekend saw us reuniting to tackle Below Above Gruidae and There and Back Again and the four new Browns Below Aboves. Always Il Nono has been on our list "to tackle if we have time" - I'm extremely glad that it was the sole aim of this reunion. The sheer physical effort to reach and return from GZ meant that we would have been foolish to try when tired from other caches and would almost certainly have failed. 

It is also a fitting culmination for my assault on abanazar's catalogue of caches. I am now the only person to have found every groundspeak and opencache the wizard has set and it was the icing on the cake to be able to thank the CO in person (more of that later)

And so...

We assembled at 6:00 and were entering the cave by 6:30. It was my third time heading towards Lasciate and collapsibletank’s second, so we were familiar with the route and how best to tackle the various obstacles in our path and so made good time. At Lasciate's cache chamber I inspected the onward route while 'tank and staticman went to find the coin. Both previous times I have stared down the abyss and seen that rope just hanging there I have questioned the sanity of anyone descending further and this time was no different, except I knew that today I was insane. We rigged up a rope and managed to squeeze through the gap to descend into the widening rift. It wasn't long before we reached somewhere that reminded me of 127 hours; a narrow rift with a large stone wedged in it - thankfully though, no extraneous body parts. This was too narrow so we had to bypass it. I headed up with another rope but I'm not sure it was really needed for this bit. It was then over and down through a disorienting spiral of boulders at a crossroads and then on through a decent passage. It was at this point that I glanced down and could have sworn I caught a glimpse of daylight through the floor - an extremely surreal experience and was only my head torch reflecting in a puddle. The last leg of the bypass was completed and here we decided to ditch most of our kit because the way ahead was incredibly narrow, and indeed at one point a tiring staticman, who was leading the way got stuck at a small chicane in the rift - I managed to wriggle up and over and help work out the best way through, like some weird blacksmith puzzle. We eventually emerged into the flowstone passage which was incredible and made our way along to the cache. We found the cache without the need for UV and can also state that new log has already gained its characteristic smell. The code was noted and then we headed for the coin. This was found fairly easily too and what a beauty it is, and well deserved. It was then the simple matter of retracing our steps!

Knowing how to solve the "human blacksmith puzzle" made it easier to negotiate it in reverse but some helmet doffing to allow head rotation was deemed appropriate and we were soon back at our kit store. We made it round the bypass back to the boulder spiral where we'd left a rope. I ascended and made it over the overhang but staticman struggled here following his draining struggle in the narrow chicane. Various alternate routes were explored before we decided to reposition the rope further up to make the overhang easier to negotiate. It was then back down to the main rift which I did first and it felt very unnatural to be braced at a 45 degree angle across the gap walking myself down. Then came the hardest part of the whole journey - the ascent to Lasciate's chamber. This was really difficult because (at least the way I did it) you have to ascend the rope up to the pinch point and then convert to rock climbing to get through but this means you have to somewhat abandon the rope and you know you're quite a long way up with a bit of slack in the rope and with tired limbs. It also didn't help that I went up facing the wrong way first. Anyway, with a bit of cursing and extreme physical exertion and I was up to the pitch just below Lasciate's chamber. It was then staticman’s turn; it was important for us to puzzle out precisely the best way for him to ascend because abortive attempts here would cost too much energy. I realised we were approaching my cut off time of 13:00 and I needed to check in with the boss, so I left 'tank and staticman to talk tactics while I popped out to phone home. It says a lot that it only took about 10-15 minutes for me to exit the cave and we'd been underground for 6 hours. I climbed up the hill to get a better signal and as I looked down I saw a note pinned to our rope - I'd just missed the CO by 10 minutes! I fired off an email to see if he was still around and up for lending a hand and headed back in to help having bought us a few more hours. 

It didn’t take long to get back to Lasciate's chamber and as I peered into the abyss there was staticman's head grinning back at me. A bit of manoeuvring later and he was back up at the bottom of the pitch by the hanging rope. Collapsibletank joined him and then with a bit more teamwork the slippery pitch was negotiated. We packed up our kit and started heading out and as we did we could hear someone coming our way. It was the CO himself, come to lend a hand, although I think he was pretty glad to find us where he did.

We managed the route back with relative ease and emerged into the sun with a kind of tired euphoria and relief. The time was around 2:30 - a total of 8 hours underground. 

It was great to be able to thank the CO in person for all of his caches. I've enjoyed them all and they'd certainly dominate my top 10. And to complete the set with this most physically challenging of caches was very fitting. A massive thank you to abanazar and to my caving buddies staticman1 and collapsibletank. I look forward to our next adventure.  

Pictures for this log entry:

Photo courtesy of CO ;o)