<divclass="trippeople"><u>Lydia Clare Leather</u>, Mike Butcher, Michael Holliday</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Fisch Gesicht- pushing to liquid luck</div>
<p>
Pushed past survey station 14C, found the phreatic tube lead to a small chamber (pissing pot) then continued left to a big pitch. Bolted, Rigged. Michael nearly killed Lydia --> called liquid luck.
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Lydia Clare Leather</u>, Mike Butcher, Michael Holliday</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Fisch Gesicht -Pushing Urinal and fettling rope/rigging</div>
<p>
Mike and Michael did more dry stone walling. More gardening. Followed the free attic opposite liquid luck ledge ti findthe Urinal. Bolted and rigged to an awkward body sized squeezing, thatr smelt of pee, having pissed down B. Boulavard. But possible free attic continuation.
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Lydia Clare Leather</u>, Mike Butcher, Tom Crossley</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Fisch Gesicht - Pushed to Toto and surveyed free attic frys and Urinal</div>
Tom joined Mike and Lydia, surveyed free attic frys and Urinal, found thgat Urinal has a high cieling (40m). Possible connects to Happy Butterfly above. Surveyed to chamber with boulders in the shape of Africa.
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Lydia Clare Leather</u>, Mike Butcher, Michael Holliday, Tom Crossley</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Fisch Gesicht - Found Ulysses</div>
<p>Took photos, Mike and Michael go down to crystal crumble, found stalactites, pretty. Tom bolted coral corner, pretty formations. Traversed round Toto chamber on a false floor to the continuation into conintuation of free attic flys called phreatic becomes meander rift, (bolted) and dind a large opening with left and right junction (very false floor) called odious odium. Taking a right turn along the false floor leads to a vast floor now called Ulysses (after the Frans Ferdinand song Michael was singing). Yet to be dropped due to its very unstable nature. Did some gardening but a lot of work needs doing. Left turn at odium, leads to a true floor, leads to multiple boulder chokes and meander in approximately the direction of Ulysses with short pitches not dropped. More photos on the way out. Michael gets ill. Wees a lot.
<p> lots of pee, very loose, less ice than last year, lots of key-hole passage.
<p>Still to do (by Mike Butcher):
<p>- Drop pitch from entrance chamber to bypass ramp and climb of ice plug pitch = more direct.
<p>- Investigate meander at end of windy tube (?c)
<p>- Possible alternate route opposite pendulum pitch (?c)
<p>- B. Boulavard rope needs changing (40m)
<p>- Leads in Benign Bubble Baby Bypass needs looking into
<p>Spent over an hour trying to calibrate top Camp's collection of distox's (my two, CHECC and ULSA). I won with 0.35 and 0.5. Luke at 0.65 was way off and two Distox's refused to pair with George's PDA. Eventually underground and swiftly to Kathedral Kazam. 2 traverses were still in but short pitch needed rigging. Luke then rigged Wild Honeycomb shaft. Ash has - audaciously - rigged this off naturals last year but it hadn't been surveyed, leaving George and Rachel's Nature Calls surveys at the base floating. George and I followed Luke down surveying, with Luke concerned he'd taken the wrong route, but all was well.
<p>At the base, there's a sort of horizontal level which we rigged a short pitch down (7m) and then what George and Rachel had done as a 13m chimney down which Luke and I declared a pitch. This led to a ledge with a vast, perched boulder next to it. The Hangman.
<p> the pitch had a massive echo and stone rattle. We drilled the pitch head spits but were out of hangers, so headed out.
<p>Luke was off-colour so George and I returned to the Hnagman and I rigged down the pitch then we surveyed it to a spacious ledge, from here the shaft continued (offset) but it looked damp and we were keener on the horizontal otions - a window visable part way down The Hangman's Pitch and, from the base, a climb up on the left and a traverse to the right to s vhossy climb.
<p>George went for the latter option, and got up via some shonky bolts, boulder balancing and clambering. The entered what we've called Hangman's daughter. I followed and we surveyed into what initially looked really unpromising: narrow, catchy, little passage.
<p>However, it took a draft. We surveyed a loop round (given that George had scooped it) then got to the only proper lead, a small pitchead topped with mostly nasty perched boulders. George heed kicked quite a few down leaving a small hole. We only had one hanger and I dithered about whether to use the massive flake as a backup but used it in the end. The ~15m pitch led to a small chamber. I climbed to the bottom where a ?c crappy hole led down and then -!!!-
<p>noticed a survey station! WHat the hell? I shouted to George who bombed down, forgetting to bring the Dostox so I had to go up the hideous rubby pitch to fetch it. After some searching, George found another station, 7, and we finished the survey. Then tried to work out where the survey had come from. Som2018-07-19e shreds of an oversuit on a tiny tube 3m above the floor of the chamber gave it away. The draft through had coated it in catchy popcorn. We took our SRT kits and tried to crawl through, but George didn't want to commit to going headfirst (I told him I couldn't be able to fish him out). He couldn't get through feet first so we gave up and headed out, finishing off the survey of the traverse on the way. At the top section of the Hnagman's Pitch 1 realived the rope had got hooked over a hideously sharp flake of rock and crystal. I wailed at George and down [prossiked until I could un-weight the rope and he could free it. Argh.
<divclass="triptitle">plateau -Surface prospecting along "lookfutile.svx" route</div>
<p>Using Garmin eTrex Venture Cx GPS (WGS84)
<p>"lookfutile.svx" was <ahref="../1983/log.htm#lookfutile">surveyed by Chas and Planc</a> in 1983 following the discovery of the futility series in 1982.
<p>This entry includes recent emails which don't otherwise have a good place to record.
<p>[Discovered a photo on the website of <ahref="/piclinks/ssvypl.htm">Planc doing this survey</a>.]
<p>Much bunde going directly down from the p115x entrance. <u>Don't do that</u>,go back along the route to
Stoger Weg and go down gully at the tree with the small cairn on it (see 115 route 18th July 2018).
<p>Generally failed to find lookfutile.svx waypoints (not even the last one with all the red paint). Something
odd with GPS mismatch - needs nerding to resolve.
<p>Found ent. * (doesn't go) obvious above grassy slope. It is up a 2m climb in a cliff.
This is wpt A11 in gpslog: N 47.66629 E013.81128 alt.1407m.
This was looked at by Chas & Planc in 1983 and doesn't go:
"big phreatic entrance further east up the valley" from
We started the trip to Fischgesicht with 3 other people (Cat, Cat's Husband, Paul), but they decided to turn back before Liquid Luck because Paul was being slow.
<p>
Michael & I made it to the pushing front and bolted the small pitch at the front of the 45 degree slope (the hole in the wall was a dead end, see previous report).
We climbed down the slope, squeezed through boulders to the right and landed on a small, round passage leading off to the right, with sand covering the ground.
<p>
I followed the passage to a bend and saw that it continued - and it got bigger!
I screamed with excitement; Michael was pretty fucking pleased with our discovery.
Since we didn't have any surveying gear (Cat realised her disto wasn't calibrated as we were getting changed) we decided to scoop the fuck out of it (or rather, I ran off ahead screaming while Michael was trying to convince me to leave some for the surveyors).
<p>
The passage alternated between large phreatics and large rifts, branching off several times.
We covered maybe around 200m before we decided to turn around; the passage continued.
We had a little time before out turn-around time, so Michael started to bolt the huge pitch that is parallel to Rubble Rumble until we got bored and decided to go back to camp early, giving us enough time to brag about our findings to whoever was still awake.
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Michael Sargent</u>, Adam Henry, Cat Henry</div>
<divclass="triptitle">FGH - 3rd time</div>
<p>
Returning to Fischgesicht for the 3rd time, quickly descended to the pushing front.
Began by surveying large chamber leading to pitch.
Rock fall down the pitch timed to 3.8 seconds.
<p>
Then set off to see which routes Adelaide, Typhon, and Manfred had surveyed the previous day.
After following all their routes, we spotted a couple of ~100m linking passages had not been surveyed, so cleaned up all that.
Continued to Eldritch Eyeholes chamber and knocked off a few leads to ends.
<p>
Similar story for Coconut Chamber, where 1 lead was surveyed back round to link to previous passage, 2 other A leads were also joined together 15m beyond the chamber (rift + small hole in wall).
Small passage/rift ends as water falls from roof aven.
Draft continues to come from small passage soon leads to rift which would require protection!
Outcome of trip was a lot of tidying up work, consolidated into a few good leads.
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Becka</u>, Adam A, George</div>
<divclass="triptitle">Balkon - to Grand Prix -> Camp Kraken -> Radio Silence + Scum of the Earth + Octopus Garden ->derig)</div>
<p>
[Goal]: Derig Octopussy & Tentacle Traverse + camp to top of Kraken then derig out of Tunnocks to bottom of
Number of the Beast.
<p>Caved 12:00-22:00 on 3rd, 11:00-23:45 on 4th, 10:00-19:30 on 5th,
setting off from top of Kraken ~15:00 after ferrying camp to the top of it in 5 prussics.
<p>
"This is not a 3-man derig" was Geroge's plaintive assessment. We'll see.
<p><b>Day 1</b></p>
in Balkon, George finished off the traverse opposite Pitstop, disappointing Luke who'd bombed down to do it. We then
continued to the bottom of Mongol Rally + George put a couple more bolts in the Floodland pitch
that he, Jacob+ Olly had started int he previous tripbut it looked like a major job so he
derigged and we went down Grand Prix past Littleboy to the "à cheval" ridge
and dropped Suction Cup pitch (rigging topo on <ahref="#mr-rig3">previous page</a>).
This led to a rather confusing slopy area which we clambered up steeply until it ended in an aven.
We lost George for some stressful minutes - he'd dropped down a steep, muddy phreatic tube +
struggled to return. We then packed up + left the 53m rope + some hangers as own own bags
still seemed full + I thought we had a long way to go but in fact we were in camp Kraken
in under an hour.
<p><b>Day 2</b></p>
We took our long rope +14m rope to the muddy, drafty end of Radio Silence where the previous
(Anthony/Chris/Hydra) camping trip had got to + unenthusiastically started to rig (George) and
to shiver (Becka + Adam). After some time (we cracked and got into the bothy) George
shouted that he was past the worst of the drips
(we're haviung a drought, itwould probably be nasty in the rain)
+ we should come down.
<p>
I was really in the mood to jack it off - it was sharp, wet cold and vertical -
but George perked up after spotting what loooked like a floor down a c2 gwt(?)
after the end of Scum of the Earth. We'd finished the long rope so put the 14m on the
final drop end - hurrah - it first revealed a floor and we were in a big complex chamber.
<p>
We set off surveying , trying to cheer up a chilly Adam. There were lovely marked - and nippled - and streaked -
mud slopes and a <b>proper stream</b> with sandy then muddy banks leading to a small
sump. Just before, on the mud bank, I spotted a tiny seedling - "there's a sprout!"
<p>
"A what?" We all stared at it, bathing it with light for the first time in its hopeless life, then surveyed
the upper sections + finally, down the boulder slope, we got into the upstream canyon.
We followed this to a c2 then ate & I suggested it was time to head home but I was overruled
by George ripping up the c2 +roving about a beuatiful pool. We followed and there was,
indeed, a gorgeous green and blue poollike a weird eye. We took photos then surveyed further
until the passage narrowed to a tall rift.
<p>
I pursuaded a reluctant George that it was really time to go. We then headed out with George
derigging Scum of Earth (big swing on the second rebelay) then me derigging Radio
Silence + Beckoning Silence then back to camp with George getting the short straw of
derigging Tentacle Traverse which was apparently a struggle given his stature.
Worryingly no water had collected duringt he day but I worked out a system using
a bin bag tocollect and funnel drips in to the Daren drum + that worked well.
<p><b>Day 3</b></p>
<p>
"Are we going to do this?" We started with relays up Kraken as we had only 4 tackle sacks. George first
with a monster rope bag + drill then me with another monster rope bag + hangers then Adam with another
monster rope bag + a bag with the gear we needed to take out of camp
including a full to bursting shit drum - George was the last to dump and he grumbled that he'd been
set up as he had to squish in the final bag.
<p>
At this point we realised that we hadn't nearly enough tackle sacks so Large Marge made an
appearance - the massive orange survival bag filled with 3x sleeping bags and 3x Alpinexes and 4x karrimats.
George was skeptical + I was racked with the giggles (she was nearly as tall as he was but considerably fatter)
but in fact he shot up Kraken with her, leaving me to regret letting him off taking a normal tackle sack
as well.
That left me to bring up the rest of the camp in two tackle sacks, aDaren drum, + some claptrap,
derigging <i>en route</i>.
At the top we sorted the pile of gear whilst Adam headed up + out of Tunnocks.
<p>
There was a moderate-sized expedition's worth of gear left there - at least 400m of rope, over 100 hangers, drill, hand-bolting kit, slings, tent, sleeping + cooking gear etc.
<p>
Adam had the bag own(?) kit then I went and George derigged. I pursuaded him we should take 3
tackle sacks between us onthe derig. Mistake. I broke George. He ended up at the top of Window Twankey's
with a fulltackle sack and most of Big Bertha full of disgustingly muddy rope _ got, erm, cross.
<p>
By then I'd dumped my bag at the bottom of Procrastination + I'd headed back down to fetch another bag
but when I met Adam at the top of Number of the Beast he said I needed to be nice to George so
I took Adam's bag & G+A went bag-free then we stopped order(?) and let George escape. Less burdened,
we slogged out.I gave the bag to Adam on the entrance pitch then was nearly humiliated as, on a flapjack high,
he powered up + nearly caught me up. George was sunbathing on the surface + led us on a forced march
back to camp which was ... deserted.
[This trip also desribed in UK Caving blog <ahref="https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=23424.msg299287#msg299287">https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=23424.msg299287#msg299287</a>] text below by Adam Aldridge:
This will be a summary of the last Kraken camp of 2018, and maybe ever.
<p>
The trip was partaken by George, Becka, and myself (Adam). We went underground in Balcony on Friday the 3rd of August around mid day and surfaced from Tunnocks around 8pm on Sunday.
<p>
Following a generous helping of faff resulting in an irate Becka we set of towards Balcony with optimism. This would be my first ever underground camp trip, so there was a pinch of excited apprehension in my mood.
<p>
After the necessary commute in balcony we made it to the Mongol Rally, this 200m shaft, sloping slightly from the vertical, was by far the biggest i've ever seen. The decent, seemingly endless, is mostly experienced with blackness above and below.
After a short journey from the base of The Mongol Rally feeling suitably far from home, we started work at the pushing front.
Day one was finished with around 250m surveyed; George had dropped a pitch which led into large airy passages. Throughout the day George had been commenting on invasive smells. Most of these instances were a result of Becka taking out her pet mouldy cheese. I quietly found this rather amusing.
<p>
George and I awoke after a night at camp to find Becka doing lots of productive things, she had checked the radio (unfortunately without success) and was well on the way to making breakfast. Led by Becka's enthusiasm, day two was begun with less faff than the previous. We set of along Tentacle Traverse and down Octo Pussy towards the front.
I was feeling remarkably weary on this second day. There was point, as George and Becka shot off, where I was nearly defeated by a section of upward sloping mud.
<p>
An arduous (for me) and increasingly muddy commute later, we reached the pushing front: a muddy wet pitch, great! Feeling a touch despondent at this point, we pushed on; George started bolting the pitch while Becka and I waited at the top. Waiting very quickly got cold so in an attempt to alleviate this situation we started jumping about. The nature of this was quite comical, it was a fusion between a Zumba class routine and the irregular movements of telly tubies who have just been exited by the sun baby.
To our surprise and elation, the muddy gryke of a lead dropped into a dry spacious expanse with multiple ways on. We began surveying down a railway tunnel passage sloping slightly down. This, to our bewilderment, led to a gentle meandering river banked by sloped volumes of mud. All of a sudden, Becka became exited, George and I rushed over, she had found a sprout in the mud! A surreal occurrence at ~700m below. The sapling drank in our light deeply as we admired it's lone perseverance.
<p>
A few pictures later, we moved on, only to find a sump. This would have been annoying if not for the alternative upstream continuation.
<p>
Half an hour or so up this lead, much to my relief, we stopped on a muddy bank for a lunch break. The only way on was a 3m climb into a relic inlet. Becka argued that we should turn back as it was getting late (a sensible idea to be fair). Despite Becka's standpoint, George and I were up for going on. With Irate protest from Becka, George began the climb. Out of sight, George began talking in awe of an interesting blue lake. With more protesting from Becka, I climbed up as well.
The pool in question was like something out of a sci fi film, Its colour and complexity was preternatural. I could explain it to you by a picture able to convey more than words.
<p>
With rekindled enthusiasm for exploration we continued deeper into a truly surreal environment, the vast relic stream passage was littered with artefacts of its past; here and there, pools of immaculate water lay undisturbed for presumably quite a while; marbled fractal mud formations encrusted the lower surfaces; bizarre spiky rock formations en-habited the walls, formed by a vigorous torrent, long forgotten.
<p>
With over 400m on the PDA, we returned to camp. The commute seemed friendlier, for me at least, with a sense of accomplishment under the belt.
<p>
Waking up for the second time in absence of sunlight, the task for the 'day' was to de-rig and prusik out.
The camp was packed up and raised to the top of Kraken in five caries up the pitch (one by me two each by George and Becka). George competed a particularly obscene carry: a huge orange survival bag tied at the top with cord, he looked like a surreal speleo version of Santa Claus.
<p>
Once camp was sorted, we began the long ascent to the surface. Becka and I set of with some bags of rope while the machine that is George began to de-rig the pitches.
<p>
This was my first trip to Kraken camp, but it might also be the last. However as one good thing comes to an end, the next is on the horizon: with the persistent efforts of this year (especially by George and Becka) a new region of Balkony has proved promising, and so, the camp will be reformed there with new opportunities awaiting.
<p>
« Last Edit: August 09, 2018, 08:58:29 am by adam74aldridge »
<divclass="triptitle">Balkonhöhle - to Tunnocks</div>
<p>As well as being my first caving trop of the expo, this was also the first Balkon-Tunnock's through trip made. George changed the hang at the top of Mongol Rally, added a rebelay and fixed another at the bottom of MR. Olly began to bolt the right hand wall of Floodland. He got so far down the pitch but didn't bottom due to time constraints.
<p>The connection between Balkon and Tunnocks is very impressive. Large chamber after large chamber.
<p>The Prusik out was a laugh! It was an introduction and a half to Austrian caving. 10/10 would do it again.</p>
<p>Arrived at Pitstop to find George who was in the group in front to have finished bolting the traverse around to the other side. Passage was large walking passage with nice mud formations in floor. Passage ends at a pitch with a dodgy bridge. Half way-ish between the traverse and pitch was a flatout crawl on right. Crawl was unpleasant and sharp (I forgot kneepads!!) and was sloped upwards. Passage (including crawl unitil become too tight) was surveyed. <p>Pitch wasn't dropped. <p>We then head back to Pitstop and then attempt to bolt a rift but then the floor fell beath and scared me and we decided to call it a day.</p>
<divclass="triptitle">FGH - Finishing Fish Face beyond Gardening School, discovering Private Pineapple Pitch</div>
<p>Accompanied by Pi and Andt (two German cavers).
<p>The trip was to push Fish Face further following a low-level lead in Gardening School. An exchange was agreed with German cavers whereby they would offer us a trip if we offered them a trip (an agreement arranged by Alex and Jacob during the bottom base camp BBQ). The trip also allowed the German's to experience top camp, both who were incredibly impressed by the arrangement, declaring, "You English are mad!" The international caving group encounted a language barrier in the especilly crumbly and loose passages of the Fish Face entrance pitch and traverse. WHile descending Alex had one of the Germans (Pi) shout "stein!", somewhat confussed he looked up to find the German caver was not offering him a beer, insted a number of rocks had been kicked down. A system was then proposed by the Germans to overcome the language barrier. The sylable count of words would indicate the cave command, therefore the language used would be rendered pointless.</p>
<imgsrc="2018-08-13-table.jpg"><br/>Image of the syllable system table</img>
<p>It was also agreed during the trip that signiifciant space woudl be left berween cavers on th epitch/traverse series leading on from another due to the daners of very loose rock and the potential of injury. The gardening school passage was pushed beyond the unnamed and unknown pitch that offered a lead. Originally we believed that a shaft 3/4m down would be best for a rebelay, however on investigation this appeared to be a large boulder wedged between a large rift. Furthermore, the placement of the boulder, nicknamed 'coffin lid', appeared to be only secured by small boulders. The decision was made to drop the Y hang down through a squeezy pitch, although tight, the pitch is easily accessible. The newly found Pirate Pineapple Pitch (PPP) ~50m and decends down further into the rift. Multiple passages can be seen coming of this pitch which may be worth future exploration. The pitch bottoms out in a small chamber ~10m^3. A smaller interesting chamber is to the right, nicknamed 'mud hole', here a variety of interesting geological features are found. ALso at this point a small pool of water has forned. Directly in front of the dropped pitch after a smooth step the rift can be seen to bottom out. However, at this point, we had ran out of rope. An additional 15/20m (unreadble word) have allowed us to reach the bottom. We assume this amy be the bottom as its the collection point for many of the smaller dropped rocks. The rift appears to curve around the corner offering a potential easy lead for those who are willing to push this further.</p>
<p>NB: the pitch was named Pirate Pineapple Pitch due to the consumption of a pineapple by some rugged looking cavers at the bottom of the pitch. The carrying of pineapples to inappropriate places is a tradition upheld by Alex Sterling (sp?) of Nottingham University Caving Club in reference to the Pineapple on Tour (sp?) - a society at Nottingham University which took pineapples up munrows in Scotland. The society was dispelled by the university and folded into other outdoor societies.</p>
<p>Accompanied by Pi and Andt (two German cavers).
<p>While drunk and making friends with some Germans, one of them, Andt, gave me a proposition: "You take me caving and I'll take you caving in an ice cave... with a snow volcano." I liked this idea! Despite the cave being less than 1k from top camp, due to Losser's 'I'm going to kill you with every steo you take' nature we had to walk accross the plateau toward Applehaus and then take that path. After negotiating some traverse, beating some bunde and safely avoiding the caver grinding we arrive at some dead larch... and a misty cave entrance! THis was to be our exit point. Pi headed up the hill to start rigging the top entrance while Andt gave me a quick lesson on how to walk with crampons. When crampon school was over, we too head to the top entrance. An oblong entrance of 10m-ish by 4m wide entrance pitch to the top of the snow volcano was probably 40/50m. When on top of volcano, daylight can still be seen. 'Tis quite impressive. When on top of volcano the size of the chamber starts to become apparent. In the distance ice stalls can be seen glistening through the mist. We continue the descent, this time down the side of the snow volcano for ~3-m until we reach the bottom.
<p>Ice is hit.
<p>Rope free.
<p>Wow!
<p>This chamber would be impressive even without all the ice. We wander around for a bit and I amazingly manage to remain standing I literally cannot stop smiling. Some of the ice pillars were easily 15m high! Eventually, Im forced to live by the call of nature. We exit through what was once called the Elephant Arse - cos there was a formation that like an elephant but has sadly melted since. I emerge from the cave, breathe, appriciate life and then have a piss!</p>
<divclass="trippeople"><u>Natalie</u>, Neil Smith</div>
<divclass="triptitle">plateau - Tagging Surface Trip and Lightning Storm descent</div>
<p>Went 100m NW of top camp to put a tag on a possible cave (located previously on 8-9/08 by Nat and Paul) numbered 2018-NTU-01. We practiced hand bolting to install the tag and picked wild chives.
<p>As water was needed at camp, snow was collected for the bivy. While Ryan efficiently poured 5 tackle sacks of snow into the rain tarp, Nat and Alex and Ruairidh proceeded to practice drilling a Z-rig to try to haul an overfilled bag of snow vertically (see separate write up). While taking 2 ropes each down the mountain, we successfully crosses the plateau in fabulous perfect weather, only to be hit by a sudden bad storm at the col. An hour of super heavy rain and lightening was upon us. We were forced to emergency shelter in our double-bivy baf near a rock.
<p>Several very close lightening strikes (with 0 second gaps) reminded us how quickly the weather can turn against you on the mountain.
<p>Lost 1 and half hrs of time waiting for lightening to subside, so final hour of walk down was in darkness and driving rain and winds.</p>
<p><b>REMEMBER: Check the weather, kids!!!</b></p>
<p>We aimed to re-locate several caves that had been recored in 2004/5/6 and were within 300m of Top Camp. How hard can it be???
<p>Well, 8 hours later, lost and dehydrated, we managed to get back to Top Camp just 20 minutes before our callout!
<p>Entering the coordinates into the GPS and walking in a direct heading was met repeatedly by either thick bunde or sheer cliffs going up or down! While we were lost we found several new caves, which we duly recorded and surveyed. They are very close to the path to Tunnocks, so we suspect they were either ignored or not recorded when first explored. We left the big pitch for another time and surveyed the small free-climbable hole. Then we got lost again looking for 2004-18.
<p>Finally we located it and 2004-16 and -17. <p>The next day we returned to 2004-18 with Wookey and descended it. Luckily the spits were in place so we just had to chuck a rope down and a rope protector. A huge snow cone met us half way down on a ledge we could walk around. Paul drilled two holes and installed 2 hiltis and rigged the way down. We climbed down the ice slope (with rope) and landed on the boulder floor at the base of the snow cone. My first ice climbing experience - and I hope my last! We got hypotherimc while rigging the cave (Eiskeller - Ice House) and we got heat exhaustion while on the plateau. Lovely day at expo! Wookey was very helpful while we located 2004-18 (on an easy path not far from Top Camp) and again while rigging the cave - always great to have an experienced oldie on the team!</p>
Derig was going to be a big job. Tonnes of rope still down several holes, and most people had already buggered off, and a fair few of those still around had buggered themselves in some fashion! So we had maybe 6 decent cavers to do maybe 20 bags worth of rope from 3 different entrances in two days. The real hard nuts had done most of Balkonhole on a camp/push/derig the day before, and half of that group were quite deservedly taking a day off. Ruaridh's broken arm had mysteriously 'Got better, honest' until we made him prove it by climbing into the Animal house, so he was out. Fishface/Fischgesicht was the next biggest project, with ~300m depth and vague rumours of a drill left at the bottom for the "unclimbable" leads.
<p>
I'd always known it was goin to be a little bit cheeky turning up just for the end of Expo and still hoping to get a chance to push something, but as it turned out I wasn't even the most jammy of the lot! I'd had a couple of days to acclimatise to camp life and reacquaint myself with the hypothermic delights of Alpine caving when Radost finally arrived (Actually, he had been there earlier, but was just showing his Dad around and wasn't caving), making two of us who hadn't pushed anything. So, the priorities for this trip were to be
<ul>
<li>Derig a metric tonne of rope.
<li> Retrieve the drill
<li> Check whether the sod who left the drill hadn't left other vital equipment too
<li> Show me (Christopher) and Rad how to bolt, and do a little bit of surveying
<li> Maybe do a rigging guide to speed things up next year
</ul>
<p>
Anyway, after the standard intrepid hike across the plateau, all looking super-cool if I don't say so myself, we change and Luke and Rad zip down while Max waited for me to get changed. Max and I had already been all the way to Ulysses earlier that week, so he assumed I remembered the way and shot ahead. I have a terrible memory for complex junctions and my light casts a very sharp throw-pattern, so I still got lost a couple of times and found them all taking a leisurely rest at that nice picnic spot, below the free-climb pitchy thing, where left goes to the way on and right to that disgusting traverse across Ulysses (which Max had derigged two days before and left 70m in a pile in case people wanted to bolt leads below).
<p>
There was a brief discussion of what we should expect, and we settled on the priorities listed above. Luke declared 4pm(?) to be our turnaround time. He wasn't keen on taking more rope deeper into the cave, but given Rad's and my keenness to push the two of us decided to pack it anyway once Luke and Max went ahead. It was only ten minutes later that the shout was relayed to us "Guys! There's more rope down here anyway! DEFINITELY don't bring that other rope!" I duly returned the bag to its original position and retrieved the survey gear, which I had of course forgotten to put back in the bag.
<p>
The lower shaft of Fischgesicht is a truly marvellous black hole - One of those can't-see-the-bottom, can't-see-the-top ones. In stark contrast to the rest of the cave above, it was extremely poorly rigged. Well, I suppose it could have been worse, but even on the way down I was thinking "Should I retie that knot? It really looks like it rubs. No, it's probably just me being a wuss and it's like that for a reason". This was looking at a lop-sided, 2-metre wide Y-hang that required a sort of acrobatic climb down to access. New rope, at least, though it was quite dry and required a lot of patience to avoid glazing. Plenty of time to look around the blackness and ponder the geological mysteries of metamorphosed Carboniferous sediments.
<p>
We needn't have brought in a drill battery, as together with the drill there were 3 high-capacity ones already there. Rad informed me that Luke and Max had gone up the slightly more obvious (right turn at both junctions) of the labyrinthine passages in this new horizontal level to check that the dead end really was one - apparently the small climb Max did crapped out very quickly. We met back at a junction, I picked up the survey gear from the previous junction, and we headed off (left at second junction) to check the other end of this slightly-larger passage. Everyone agreed that this was a cracking horizontal level. Very nice walking-sized!
<p>
The previous group (whose identity remains to me as nebulous and vague as their cave descriptions) had apparently concluded that "you'll need bolts and rope to push any of the leads". Total bollocks. We did find a quite sketchy looking climb overlooking the virgin passage floor, but there were two different crawling ways to bypass it! After this initial reccy we reconvened and distributed survey gear. I was to get to grips with the CHECC disto, entrusted to me by Luke that morning. Rad wanted to do the drawing. I had forgotten to pack any station-marking stuff, but luckily Luke had some nail varnish in his pocket. We reckonned we had an hour and a half to push, and with no bolting necessary, the excitement of potentially hundreds of metres of 3x3m phreatic tube became evident in everyone's voices.
<p>
So, on to the description itself. The phreatic tube trends uphill, with a vadose trench in the bottom taking the water gradually deeper and out of sight and earshot. Where the passage jumps up a dodgy climb, the safer way on is through one of two little holes down and to the left - the leftmost a low crawl, and slightly to the right of that a narrowish slot. After these, a small chamber with boulders on the floor
<p>
Crawl. We managed to shoot the lazer straight through a tiny window, avoiding the need to survey the crooked oxbow crawl round the right. Now in another small chamber, but open both forwards/left up a slope, and vertically/right into the big tube, where we were later able to survey the loop (seems to be a near-oxbow of the phreas, which was undercut to make this 3-way big junction with a fourth crawly way that we had just come through). We progressed forwards up the slope, and the 3x3m tube meanders around for m. The floor of the tube is covered with sandy mud that seems to have a darkened crust. Very easy to follow the path established by the first person. About halfway along Luke dropped his nail-varnish, so we resorted to scratching in the mud on the walls. There is a bit of a climb up before a steep slide down a sandy slope. Take care to avoid falling in the hole at the bottom - it looks like a soft landing because of the pile of sand, but I've no idea how you would get out of that chamber - it looks a bit like the whole tube has a false floor in that area. Anyway, the tube continues, eventually changing in profile to more of a tall 2x5m elipse. The noise of the stream can now be heard again - far below, but I suppose cascading more steeply and so making a louder sound. Eventually we reached a sloping-sided hole in the floor, obviously wet at the bottom, QMc, with the same old tube heading up to the right, QMa, and a bottomless traverse on the opposite side of the hole, QMb. All of these will require either bolting of a traverse across the hole or a spiderman-like grip and balls of steel. I would prefer the bolted traverse option.
<p>
We still had over half an hour to go, so we returned ot one of the side passages we had noticed earlier. Climbing back up that steep sandy slope was interesting - everyone had a different method; running full pelt, desperate scrambling, chimping up the wall, etc. Rad was about to zoom off when I called him back - "You do know I won't be able to do anything from up here, don't you?" he observed. "Yes, but I don't want to die alone!". Cautiously attempting to disturb the sand as little as possible, I delicately levitated myself to a position of safety.
<p>
It was only a couple of legs into the side passage that it started going crazy. A-leads to the left, A and B-leads to the right, leads below - way too much to do any justice to in the time we had left. Clearly the polite thing to do was to leave it for some lucky bastard next year. There's enough down there for two simultaneous survey groups.
<p>
Derig - I was to go up the big pitch with one bag of rope, Radost to follow with the drill and batteries, then pass it to me to put in the top of the 70m bag at Ulysses. I was so mentally beasted from prusiking with a palpable twang on every bounce, at least until I passed the rub-point, and then He-Manning it past that rebelay, that I completely forgot about Rad's bag until I was about to go past Ulysses. I backtracked and hauled his bag up the little pitch for him, packed it in the top of the rope bag there, and with two heavy bags proceded up the free-climb. I had a bit of a sense of humour failure at the top, and having overheard Max "so how many bags do you have, Rad?""At the moment, precisely zero!" I foisted the heavier one back onto him, selfishly thinking that it would be better for the first person to travel light and quick. Even one bag on that traverse was troublesome, and so when at the top of the next pitch I heard Rad swearing his way through with two, I decided to redeem myself and took back one of them.
<p>
It was slow progress up the rest of the cave, barely keeping ahead of the deriggers (Luke and Max). At another free-climb I reaslised after >10 minutes of struggling that it was much easier to just throw the bags up and then chimp up after them. At the surface, I debagged and lay looking at the stars for a couple of minutes, before returning to the first pitch to take Rad's bag. He was decidedly less talkative than usual, and had the look of a man who needs a break - "it's just quite a heavy bag for a first trip" - I was inclined to agree. I saw another 3 meteors in the space of 20 seconds before going back to sketch a rudimentary diagram of the entrance traverses and take one bag from Max, and then back again for another. Realistically, it was the easiest bit of the bag carry, but it was hard thinking of Luke and Max doing all that work and not rying to help out.
<p>
The decision to leave all the tackle sacks at the entrance was endorsed unanimously. I poured myself a large Schnapps and followed everyone in double-curry dinner and falling asleep immediately.</pre>
<p>On the way back from KH entrance, Chris and I detoured to 115 to get 6 litres of water as we were very thirsty. Also took out the museli and flapjack. Left ~4 litres of water and a orange polythene swirl (sp?) bag.</p>
We've already had posts from first timers so, to balance that out, here's my old-timer's perspective on this year's Expo. This summer I did a lot of my caving with George because, at the start of Expo, it was clear that he was lacking direction and, whilst not green (this was his third time out) that he'd benefit from my experience, constructive advice and tactful supervision.
<p>
For the avoidance of doubt, and for those of you don't know us, that's utter bollocks. George is a far better caver than me at SRT, rigging, finding and sticking with a project, navigation (not hard), climbing, carrying heavy bags, derigging, patience, surveying, conservation and scooping (yup, it's out there, sue me for defamation if you dare!). Don't be running away with the idea that list is comprehensive though: I have the edge on him at squeezes (despite him being willing to try harder, sleep deprivation (my, don't young people sleep a lot?), I'm far bossier and, though I haven't tested this properly, I reckon I've a greater bloody-minded capacity for enduring misery (I suspect it would take around a week of 10 hour trips in small, cold, wet, muddy, boring caves to break him and you just wouldn't believe how full my diary is right now so that'll have to wait).
<p>
Anyway, we (us two, Luke, Olly, Adam, Rachel, Nadia, Jacob, Philip, Wookey and Max) had a series of fine trips including finding what we think is the deepest shaft in the SMK system (Mongol Rally at 200m deep), two connections between Balkonhöhle and Tunnockschact, a sprout and a sump at -720m, many, many bat bones and over 5km of passage including the monster Grand Prix (incidentally, I agree, what's with the names? My carefully crafted puns were all flat-out rejected so we're stuck with a notable chamber called Big Lad - it should have been Raisin' Hell - and both Hangryman Pitch and Hangeryman Pitch are still up for grabs). Also, after 5 weeks of training I've mastered an alternative way to the tie a stopper knot and learnt the industry standard way to tie knots in the end of a rope (thanks, guys, for that fine use of my strictly limited long term memory).
<p>
After 220 hours underground this summer with CUCC I've skipped derigging (obviously I'd have loved to have helped out but unfortunately the timing was against me) and I've decamped to spend a week with the local Austrian club (VHO http://vho-caving-news.blogspot.com/) on their Plankamira expedition. This made for quite a culture change - there's only 5 of us and we're all around a half century old. Now, at last, my rigging suggestions are listened to attentively (rather than being firmly squashed) and nobody passes comment about the volume of food I get through (George eats like a grasshopper). I've also escaped the unending put-downs - "if you're going to rig that pitch don't do a half-arsed job of it"; "that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't placed it in a flake"; "you and your slopy shoulders"; and "no, you can't lead us out, you're so bad it's just not funny" and so on. Also, it's relaxing not having to tell everyone what to do :-) Best of all, I'm now the fastest prussiker (yeah, yeah, of course it's not a competition).
<p>
On the down side VHO are agonisingly slow to get going (how can anyone spend more than 9 hours in a sleeping bag? It's mental torture when you're camping underground and you're too polite to start loudly crinkling plastic bags and accidentally shining your light in people's eyes. Not that that worked anyway, you idle sods). And then, once they're up, there's the coffee to drink then the second coffee then breakfast then herbal tea and a second herbal tea before anything might happen. Hmm, thinking about it, George would have done better here instead of me (his favourite thing: sleeping; his next most favourite thing: sitting around doing nothing).
<p>
I did struggle on skills transfer ... this summer I heard someone claim that thru-bolts (as VHO use) have fewer modes of failure than Hiltis (that CUCC uses). Well, not in my hands, I can tell you. Of my dozen none went in easily (I must have been given the wrong diameter drill bit, goddammit) and there was horrible flaking with several, whilst one cracked out altogether with the rock it was in (I blame the Petzl hammer they gave me, it made all the rock sound shit so, since the good-looking rock made the same sound I deduced that all the rock was good. Then it fell apart). Most distressingly, on three of them the sleeve thing split and refused to go into the hole, just rucking up on the outside. Please, can I give up and go home? VHO rigging is typically spare, no Y-hangs unless there's a big swing and no deviations (there wasn't a single sling on the expedition). However, I was so worried about my lousy thru-bolts that my section was backups and Y-hangs all the way.
<p>
On the first day we got out in the dark from a new cave with over an hour's walk back to camp and big bags. The other half of the team set off confidently but then, 30 minutes later, he pointed at least 90 degrees off when I asked him to show where he thought camp was. Foolishly I'd not saved it as a waypoint on my phone and he was struggling with a new app on his phone so all we had to go on was the outline of the peaks around us. I persuaded him I knew which one to aim for and, 15 minutes later, hurrah, someone at camp saw us and left their light on so we slogged towards it. But then the light went out and we were reduced to navigating towards the sound of the generator reverberating in the huge rock bowl we were lost in before it was switched off. Then my companion, dressed in the shortest of hip-hugging racing shorts, refused to follow me through some prickly dwarf pine. I'll go round and meet you, he says, then disappeared. So now I'm by myself, three hours walk from anyone bar us few cavers so I shout his name. Eventually he shouts back "Don't cry unless it's an emergency". Then silence. Grrrr. So I hang around looking for his light and eventually spot him beetling off towards camp without a backward glance. I'll be damned if he gets there first so I stumble off and we arrive together. Two hours on Karren karst on a moonless night and I barely glanced up once so I caught just the one shooting star on the best night of the year for the Perseid shower.
<p>
Now I'm back down the hill in time to fix my broken tooth (note to self: don't eat rock at underground camp). We (well, the Cambridge University Caring Club, which tickled me) have just been awarded a certificate for our 35 years of service by the Mayor of Bad Aussee, Hilde made us delicious doughnuts to celebrate and I'm signed up for a final top camp carry tomorrow so all's right with the world.
