The high level traverse (for those who don't know) is an escape route that can be used if the cave is flooding. It's not a quick way out though, it's basically a horizontal, easyish rock climb for 100m or so and it takes a couple of hours to complete. If you only had half a dozen karabiners after doing Swinsto or Simpsons pull through it would take even longer but it would keep you warm and dry as you made your way out.
We did it for 'fun' and out of curiosity on 27th October 24. It also provided a bit of entertainment for the novice parties wandering up and down the streamway below us.
If your going down stream it starts on the right hand side at the last point where it's easy to climb up onto the bank. There a big, red, old school bolt marking the start. It's probably easy to traverse down the right hand bank to this point if the water is high enough to sweep you away but we didn't check that.
We rigged it as climbers would. We belayed the lead climber (Dave W) using the bolts as runners and for aid. Once he'd run out of crabs he belayed and brought the next climber along (me) who then belayed Lukasz, who derigged. We passed the karabiners forward and repeated - again and again. It was starting to get a bit tedious by the time the end was in sight.
After the first 40m or so there's a steel cable for a tyrolean traverse across the stream to the other bank. The climbing became a bit trickier after this and you need to use your cowstails quite often for aid. Especially the last few meters across to the window where you normally ab down into the streamway.
I'm told that occasionally KMC floods up to that window and down the passage towards Valley Entrance. The water even flows out of Valley Entrance on occasions. That must be a very worrying experience if you were on the traverse and your feet would be in the water but the fact that there's an overflow route for the water out of Valley Entrance presumably sets a maximum height for the water, so you would still have plenty of airspace even in the worst flood (hopefully).
Team: Dave W, Lukasz L, Paul M.
