<p>An early 7:00am start resulted in a marginally cooler walk up to the entrance of 107 after dropping off first load we returned immediately down making good progress, we collected another rucksack worth of rope and returned to the entrance entering the cave at 12:00. The first pitch had a precariously hanging 2 tonnes of snow hanging on the side of the wall, (this was ignored!) trip continued the first 5 ropes where rigged. A quick return to the surface to warm up, and then re-entered with more rope making it all the way to Twin Pitches at which point all the rope had been exhausted, returning out the trick was to ignore the fact that the block of snow/ice was disintegrating above you showering pieces on you (this would have to be sorted).</p>
<p>A return with the rope required and drill to sort out the sketchy rigging resulted in the arrival at the top at 12:00 after a more relaxed start. The first task was to destroy the ever melting snow which was achieved in 30 mins. The down trip involved sorting out multiple rigging issues and everything was made much safer. Water flow had increased dramatically since yesterday. Making it to Too Bold For This Spit, we halted, rigged it but had to turn round because of lack of hangers and quantity of water flowing down. Exitting the cave was much more pleasant without the looming iceberg.</p>
<p>Lucky Luke had been persuaded to go down 107 again with the promise of large cave to be seen. Rigging 'Too Bold For This Spit' wasn't so wet but still not nice! Some new bolts were put in and then we set off for China. We went into 161 searching for the mysterious missing rope - didn't find it but enjoyed 161 which has a very different character to 107. Thedre are some lovely "stone mushrooms" down there (take a camera next time). We had a look down a 'C' lead on the west wall of China ..... Will have to go down and survey tomorrow (Luke).</p>
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Anthony</u>& Mark D</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Tunnocks Entrance Rig</div>
<p>Headed up to Tunnocks with enough rope for the entrance pitch and maybe Caramel Catharsis as well, plus drill in case entrance rig fettling was required. I rigged down following the trail of reflectors which made finding the bolts easy, making only minimal changes to the 2014 rig. There was a substantial pile of snow at the first choss slope (completely bare last year as I recall) and also at other points lower down. At the second choss slope, I spent a while swinging around with skyhooks to see if I could find a way to avoid it completely, eventually concluding that it would be very acrobatic for little gain. I put in an extra bolt for the next descent to replace the Y-hang with bolts miles up in the air on the far wall with a Y-hang on the near side of the drop with an immediate deviation off the far wall. Continued down until the trail of reflectors seemed to indicate an airy-fairy route across the wall. I elected to descend directly to the floor which was covered in relatively fresh snow. There is still some very old ice down there which would make the original route very tedious. Ducks on Ice is open, however, albeit with a higher snow level than I recall from last year. Mark descended the snow slope and discovered an enormous ice stal hanging like the Sword of Damocles right above the way on. Something needed to be done about this, so we retreated to plan our next move.</p>
<p>At Ducks on Ice we had discovered an enormous ice stal. While not blocking the way on physically, it was judged to be a serious hazard. The first job of the day was therefore de-icing. Something that two blokes who live in Scandinavia ought to be well qualified for, right ?</p>
<p>[illustration to scan and insert]</p>
<p>[caption for illustration:] 6:1 mechanical advantage system<br/>Specially designed ice-lassoo, brought from Scandinavia and usually used to catch reindeer!</p>
<p>Anyway, the ice stal broke into 1 million pieces, leaving the way on clear of danger. Using the formula for the volume of a cone we calculated the volume of ice and hence the weight of the stal.</p>
<p>V = 1/3 pi r<sup>2</sup> h<br/>r ~ 0.3m, h ~ 5m<br/>V ~ 0.5 m<sup>3</sup><br/>density of ice is 0.8 kg/l<br/>=> weight ~ 400kg. Not good if that landed on yhour toe!!!</p>
<p>After the de-ice, we carried on. Rigged traverse & handline down to start of Caramel Catharsis, then the long traverse & pitch itself. Rope was too short but we "borrowed" a small rope from a handline. Then on to String Theory. Mark didn't like the traverse round "Usual Suspects" but we made it to the top of String Theory after Anthony's fine words of encouragement. Most of String Theory was rigged by Anthony and we exitted feeling pleased with ourselves. Just madde it back to the Stone Bridge before a big storm broke.</p>
<p>[full page rigging diagram to scan and insert]</p>
<p>[there is an arrow captioned "more info" but no clue as to where it is pointing...]</p>
<p>Returned to C lead in China with Matt, to survey the pitch that we dropped the previous trip. Unfortunately only compass/clino so a depressingly small amount of passage was surveyed despite 4½ hours spent surveying. We didn't get cold and "much fun" was had.</p>
<p>Having looked for the bag of rope for over a year, I was happily surprised to find it ...... ! It is now residing at (in a tackle sack) "Too Bold For This Spit". The technical and intellectual info for this trip will now be supplied by Olly (or perhaps Jenny) [continued]</p>
<p>We went through the connection from China into Blown Away / Out and round to Bundestrasse, finding (as Joe said) the errant tackle sack at the junction into the Runnelstone. A small rift on from the last survey station in Bundestrasse had clearly been explored already (by Anthony, Rob + Rob, it seems) but they hadn't realised the big pitch at the end was Korea. Jenny & Joe were able to lean out enough to recognise the pitch head at the end of Land of Confusion, and Disto an approx connection.</p>
<divclass="timeug">T/U: 11:45 Olly & Jenny<br/>9 Luke & Joe</div>
<p>Continued entrance rigging and showed Frank around the bottom. At the bottom of the big hang there is a traverse to move the last pitch away from potential rock falls</p>
<p>[big diagram of 2015 rigging needs scanning and inserting]
<divclass="trippeople"><u>David</u>, Frank & Rachel</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Balcony</div>
<p>Rachel rigged the 'Natural High' traverse. This is getting slippy so a rope should be left in place. We then pushed the A lead at the end of Dark Arts. After ~20m of passage we hit a large shaft. It looked like the phreatic passage continued requiring an easy traverse...</p>
<p>We returned to traverse the shaft. It appeared that the shaft intersected some large horizontal passage ~15m down, so we dropped the pitch only to find a deceptive alcove! A small body-sized tube led to another drippy chamber with a deep hole in the floor. After this disappointment I bolted the traverse only to find the phreatic passage became too small with no draft. There is a second, much deeper pitch, which is likely where the howling gale in Dark Arts disappears to. This is worth dropping but is drippy in dry weather and may be deadly in wet weather.</p>
<p>We tied in the surveys from the 2 previous trips in Dark Arts and pulled the gear back to the main passage. Oh, and I retrievedc the hanger I dropped.</p>
<divclass="triptitle">107 - Wonderland: Wild West + Dire Straits</div>
<p>Decided on a short trip for Joe's final day so that we could head down the hill afterwards. We gave Joe a (slightly too long) head start so that he could retrieve his gear from Restless, and then we all headed through the Sea of Fudge and into Wonderland. Gotot the Wildwest lead (last seen in 2013 when the drill battery died and attempts at lassooing a spike as a belay resulted in rockfall).</p>
<p>Joe placed 2 bolts and clambered up before placing a final bolt at the top. We joined him up there. Almost immediately the passage hit a T junction, right went to a soil/gravel dig. We followed left along a lovely phreatic passage with a few formations which got photoed (badly) by me, and also dead insects and oddly some animal droppings. We followed along to a short climb up and down again to the bottom of an aven. Joe climbed this (being very careful of the loose flakes), and we sent the rope + drill up for him to rig for us.</p>
<p>Followed this to another aven. Main way on appears to be 18m up - would almost certainly need a bolt or two. There was also a small tube only a few metres up, which didn't draft. Joe removed his SRT kit and explored, after a bit I followed. A low crawl led to a rift and then left bent then another badly sized crawl to a widening. Joe climbed down to a lower level which was small but may go. Straight on led to another aven.</p>
<p>We surveyed back to Olly, despite being small passage and horrible to have to wriggle backwards while survey was lovely and straight so didn't require too many legs. We named this <u>Dire Straits</u>. Once we got back to Olly, Joe headed out to start carrying his gear down and we finished the survey.</p>
<divclass="timeug">T/U: Joe 7½ hrs Jenny+Olly 6 hrs</div>
<divclass="trippeople">Mark, Dan, <u>Anthony</u></div>
<divclass="triptitle">Tunnocks Rigging ctd.</div>
<p>A wet night at the bivi meant that plans for a long rigging trip were put on hold in favour of a shorter trip that would allow us to bolt down the hill. Ferried Big Bertha Mk II containing 200m of 10mm (intended for Procrastination and Number of the Beast) as far as the top of String Theory. Mark and Dan put in some bolts to protect the chossy traverse round the 80m deep wet hole on the approach to String Theory. I completed the String Theory rig. With that we headed out.</p>
<divclass="triptitle">Team Fiasco go surface prospecting</div>
<p>The plan was to go and find Organhöhle (located by Wookey and Olaf in 2012) plus swing by some of the holes Duncan and I found in the same area in the same year. Since expo was quite sparsely populated, we decided to take advantage of drill availability to drop some of the short pitches we had found. We decided to take two oversuits, two helmets and one SRT kit between us and also some surveying gear to give ourselves the option of verifying that we really had found Organhöhle.</p>
<p>Things did not go entirely according to plan.</p>
<p>We first swung by Tunnocks to pick up an SRT kit. It was at this point that I realised that I hadn't seen any rope being packed. It was hot and fairly late so we pressed on to Balconhöhle from where we took a somewhat roundabout route towards Organhöhle via a subsidiary summit of the Hohes Augsteck. Coming off the back of this, Dan spotted a cave. There is a hole in the side of the cliff leading onto a rift pitch, with another couple of surface shafts above that go to the same place - definitely worth a tag. Since we had a drill, this should have been a quick job. However, a lack of drill bits was going to make it a lot harder. Fortunately, we had a hand bolting kit, so I made up a tag (2015-DL-01) and Dan set about placing a hand bolt for it.</p>
<p>Whilst Dan was drilling, I set off in the direction where Mark's GPS said Organhöhle was supposed to be. Found a hole in the right place, and headed back to Dan who had by now stopped drilling - not because the bolt was complete but because the head of the bolt driver had sheared off.</p>
<p>We all trooped over to the Organhöhle candidate entrance, where we could have started surveying.... if we had brought a tape measure. I donned oversuit and helmet and set off to verify that we had the right cave. After a bit of walking / crawling I found a decent sized pitch with two spits for a Y-hang at the top (one of which looks good, and one is shagged) - so I'm pretty sure we've got the right cave. It looks a bit like this:</p>
<p>[sketch plan to scan and insert]</p>
<p>With that we headed back towards Top Camp via a more direct route, placing cairns as we went. Eventually we picked up a cairned path that I suspect goes to Bullet's 2nd Höhle. This route is fairly direct and the terrain reasonable, but it is going to takae a while - likely over an hour from Balconyhöhle.</p>
<p>Our final act was to take a look at Ants in Pants schlucht. The snow level looks pretty low, so this might be worth revisiting later on expo.
<p>Headed into Tunnocks to rig the 200m of rope we had carted in earlier. Mark sorted out the rebelay at the bottom of String Theory, making it less of a twat to pass. I made a start on Procrastination. Unfortunately I didn't find the right bolts for the Y-hang, so there is a rub - needs fixing on the next trip. I rigged down using Chris' 2013 thrubolts for the first hang to (hopefully) avoid the worst of the water. Discovered that the traverse and shitty little pitch at the bottom had been derigged, so Mark rigged these using the 200 of 9mm kindly ferried in by Dan and David. Up Bring on the Clowns, then I rigged Number of the Beast with remainder of the 10mm. Out in 3 hrs - a pretty efficient trip.</p>
<divclass="trippeople">George, David Walker, <u>Julian</u></div>
<divclass="triptitle">Balcony - 90b</div>
<p>Trip to look at Frank's hole eas of itchfork towards 75c, left. Dave to start work while George & me visited other end. (We'd looked at QMs on route, amended maps, posted George into holes that weren't drawn for him to come out 20m back out of another unknown hole). We looked at the boulder choke in a loose passage and spied a slot up. On the way back to Dave I said "How about I give you a leg up?" "Sure", said George. He reported a big chamber up there. I didn'tbelieve him coz there was no echo, but checked it. Yep. Back at Frank's hole, Dave had already knocked a lid over it and couldn't do anything, so took no time to convert to our lead. eorge & I surveyed while he investigated pitch opposite. We borrowed him briefly to rig a traverse in the northern passage. It being latre and with a callout of 8 pm, we had to rush on out and join the queue at the entrance pitch. NB I'd walked up from base camp with George and Rob that morning, so quite a long day. Also recalibrated 8W-poney 3 times underground with no success.</p>
<divclass="trippeople">George, David Walker, <u>Julian</u></div>
<divclass="triptitle">Balcony 90b</div>
<p>Same place, same time. Took compass and clino this time and surveyed up south end to a pitch. George went back to chamber and furtled through a passage to a place where he came out of the bottom. Also climbed up the rift through high wet bit. Meanwhile Dave had done his pitch and balcony ledge traverse to big passage. We surveyed into it, plumbed down, then across hole. At this point I got suspicious of how fast George was taking notes/ Turned out he had drawn no diagrams at all. I went to sleep while Gorge got coached by David. Down the end under a low bit, David pushed a rock off a sandy slope. Sounded like the whole world as ending. Even George lost his cool. We cowered against the wall for 20 secs. The reverberating echo on the ceiling made it appear from above. Detackled, Luke and Rob joined us, went and trampled the dead bat in the north end, while George & I bodged a survey drawing in this chamber.</p>
<divclass="triptitle"><u>107 - Old Route</u></div>
<p>Got a lift up the hill in the morning and after a bit of faffing headed down 107 with a view to looking at the old route beyond the entrance pitch. Used the backup bolt I'd placed in 2012, and Olly traversed along to get a Y-hang at the end. This got us nicely to the bottom of the old p23, and I noticed that upon the right was the window through from the rampy bit above Ropeless. (We'd been down from there in 2013, but gone right not left, so seen this pitch but not known for sure that this was the original route).</p>
<p>Olly put in his second Y-hang of the day, then got bored of rigging properly and stuck in a rope protector and headed down. This got us to the bottom of Red [?] - p18 and down the next (~3m) short drop as well. The p18 looks fine in terms of water (our rig is quite a bit across from the wet 1978 hang) but the next little drop was in the water.</p>
<p>Took off our SRT kit and headed off - there are several passages here, it is more complex than the 1978 survey implies, though that survey is corect in what it does show. Headed down a eastward passage, a mixture of crawling + sideways wriggling. After a bit the floor trench heads right then left - west. Followed this, past a pretty stal. On the way back (surveying) noticed that the other way on was the drafty route. Surveyed back to the bottom of the rope, then left the survey hanging for now and derigged out planning to come in using the Ropeless window tomorrow. Consequently surveyed the top pitch now, but failed to find the old station to tie into.</p>
<divclass="triptitle"><u>107 - Old Route</u></div>
<p>Failed to get an early start, and headed into the cave around noon. First finished derigging and sketching from yesterday. Olly rigged into where we were yesterday via the Window in Ropeless, to testerday's 2nd Y-hang. This time with a rebelay not a rope protector. For reasons I now forget, this semi-free hanging rebelay got rigged with a clown for added entertainment.</p>
<p>Got down into Old Rift via the 1978 route (climb doesn't need a bolt / rope etc.) Started surveying from the big boulder that all the surveys in the area seem to connect to. Then tied into the end of yesterday's tubular survey and then the start of yesterdsay's p18 survey (at the Y-hang bolt) then up to the 2015 station on the Ropeless window. Not sure how that took a whole trip, but it did somehow.</p>
<divclass="triptitle">Surface stuff around 107/83/laser05</div>
<p>Decided on a morning of surface work + afternoon of gear fettling ready for an early start tomorrow to avoid being on a wet pitch at thunderstorm time.</p>
<p>Walked up past 83 to look above Thunder Road. It is quite chossy and bouldery here. Found a few (not drafting) piles of rocks I could climb into, but nothing that went or was worth tgging sadly.</p>
<p>Headed over to laser05 for Olly to GPS - we suspect the old Austrian version of laser05 in the dataset is closer to reality than Nil's fix. Noticed that 1987-02 has a tag bolt but no tag - will try and fix that later on. Walked back via above 107.direstraits to look for entrances above the avens. Only found one possibility (not far above our tent) - plan to return with rope another day.</p>
<divclass="triptitle"><u>107 - Old Route</u></div>
<p>Got underground nice and early - 9:10 am! Whizzed down to where the two old routes diverge and headed towards the p67. Turns out you traverse over the p67 to get to the p5. We did this using 1978 spits just to have a look. There is a trickle of water down the back wall, and a rift heading west. We traversed along this, it was the sort of rift with no visible floor and of unknown depth. After a short while the rift got wider, and I became incredibly scared and refused to continue. We surveyed back to the head of the p67. On typing in the data, it seems that my pitch detecting radar knew we were about to traverse over the p100, and hence made me stop. Olly rigged down the p67 directly (ie. not via the p5) and got a Y-hang that made a lovely free hang, despite a complex pitch head. Sadly it got wet and the rope was fast so Olly had it wrapped round his leg. This gave him 2 options, abseil [illegible], or torniquet his leg. He took the first option.</p>
<p>Olly shouts up "I'm down, the pitch is wet". I wonder how wet, is he telling me that he will come back up and add some rigging, or that I should come down but make sure the survey box is closed first. After a few iterations of Olly shouting 'the hang is wet' and me shouting 'can I descend?', Olly eventually shouts that he is coming up.</p>
<p>This would be the perfect time to sit in my lovely new bothy bag, except that I am the wrong side of the pitch wedged in a rift. After a while I see Olly putting in a bolt, and I can follow down. We end up in a side rift via a couple of rebelays and a comedy deviation. We survey up this and down to the bottom of the main hang. Then have a quick wander down to the next short pitch.</p>
<p>We survey back out derigging up to the Y-hang so the rig can be made drier for next time. Uneventful exit, to get out just as the thunderstorm started.</p>
<p>PS. They were pretty hard core in 1978. 67m pitch on ladders !</p>
<p>We went in Balcony to push 94a and 95a. The passage continued under a boulder which could be climbed up from the far side to reach 95a by an easy 4m free climb. 95a is nice straight walking passage which led to a 3m climb into a chamber with numerous leads. A small pitch may lead to horizontal passage - or it could be another alcove. Traversing around the pitch would provide 2 further leads.</p>
<p>To the left of the climb a large rift can be followed until a climb down requiring a rope is encountered. Before this, a crawling passage was found to the right leading to a 4m pitch. It seems likely that severalof these leads are connected.</p>
<p>94a was pushed for about 10m where it turns a corner at a rocky slope. We left this as a walking lead.</p>
