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<h2 align=center>Pre-expo trip 27 May- 3 July 2000</h2>

<P>This trip was an Arge-organised trip to which CUCC were invited.
Wookey was the only CUCC member able and willing to attend, so he spent
the week <strike>surrounded by Germans,</strike> sorry, cementing
international relations</p>

<p>There were 16 people, 15 trips and almost 1km surveyed</p>

<p>There was a great deal of chopping and changing of travel arrangements
as various people changed plans. I flew to <span lang="de">Thilo
(M&uuml;ller)'s</span> house in <span lang="de">Stuttgart</span> and was
going to go with him to <span lang="de-at">Loser,</span> but <span
lang="de">Thilo</span> found he had to do three days work so couldn't come
till Wednesday which meant I had to go in someone else's car. However the
allotted one broke down the day before so I ended up getting taken to a
service station somewhere in Germany by <span lang="de">Thilo</span> to get a
lift from <span lang="de">Jens (Freigang).</span> None of this was actually
my problem so that was OK :-), but I think <span lang="de">Thilo</span> had a
rather frazzled few days. On Sat morning <span lang="de">Thilo</span> and I
took the opportunity to sort out the dataset somewhat in the 115/41 area.</P>

<p>The drive was uneventful, with a bit of German practice, but by the end
<span lang="de">Jens'</span> English was doing much better than my German. By
about midweek almost everyone's English had improved to (or was already at)
the point where there was no point me murdering their language and nearly all
comms was done in English. Oh well, - I tried.</P>

<p>On Saturday evening we arrived in a miserably foggy, damp, windy, freezing
cold <span lang="de-at">Loser</span> carpark with a 10m high snow wall
looming out of the murk! Most of the far end of the car park was full of snow
and the cavers were huddled miserably in the lee of the <span
lang="de">Bergrestaurant.</span> There was a rapid jack to the <span
lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte</span> after introductions, apart from MarkM and
Flo who had a nice camper van to hide in.</P>

<p>The rest of us ate and drank well and kipped in the warm. Nice, but still
a tenner a night; twenty-odd by the time you've had dinner and a couple
of beers. Sunday dawned hot and lovely and I had to get my shit
together. Having no particular abode was a bit of a problem and my gear
rapidly became distributed between the <span
lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte</span> back room, Mark's van and Jens' car,
whilst my food was in Fritz and Tobi's car. Less than ideal, but there you
go.</P>

<p>On the first day Flo and <span lang="de">J&ouml;rg</span> did a 20-hour
trip into 115 with the <b lang="de">Benzinbohrmachine</b> (petrol drill)
re-rigging the big shaft out of the water and finding 300m of passage off the
big stuff <span lang="de">(Zweistromland)</span> at the bottom: <b
lang="de">Nebudkanezar,</b> which headed right out to the side of the hill -
they found dead moths, but no exit. They also pushed <span
lang="de">Zweistromland</span> a bit following the mental draught but were
stopped by a pitch after ~60m.</P>

<p>After putting in the data from this and poring over GPS correction
offsets, I got my stuff together on a small patch of carpark that wasn't
running with meltwater and we traipsed over over the snow.
<span lang="de-at">Loser</span> is very different in May compared to July,
and on the whole the going is much easier with most of the holes filled with
snow. However the rapid melting means you have to be very careful of big
holes (and small holes), and it gets less easy each day as more rock is
uncovered.</P>

<p>Much peering at the GPS runes led to working out some co-ordinates,
re-referenced at the actual 115 entrance and Jens and Flo finding a new
entrance in the right place which draughts but needs digging.</P>

<P>2000.05.28 (Sunday): <span lang="de">Fritz Mammel,</span> Wookey, Mark
Morgan, <span lang="de">Richie Gesserer</span></P>

<P>Wook's first trip in <b lang="de">Stellerweg.</b> Entrance is a 5m
snow-tunnel slide which was entertaining. Went along upper ramps to <b
lang="de">Megaloschlinger</b> then down <b lang="de">Warm Dusche Rampe</b> to
<b lang="de">Neues Gl&uuml;ck.</b> Took 1st QM on left, which proved to be
200-odd m of very complicated interconnecting passages, connecting to known
cave in 3 places, and having a few more QMs. It's ridiculously easy to find
loads of new cave here, 40 minutes from the entrance. CUCC really were a bit
slack when we first explored this! Richie (who is 60-something) unfortunately
jacked on the way in, feeling he would slow us down (I blame Mark for not
waiting for him). Bumped into Goldie's trip towards the end of our trip as
they were coming out. 41 has lots of nice easy caving in it if you want some,
although I also guarantee you lots of surveying. I also got to try out my new
fluorescent lamp which was 'quite good', but resulted in rather too much crap
on one helmet (fluorescent, Oldham, carbide, fluorescent electronics and a
6-12V converter box!)</P>

<P>TU 5hrs (Richie 45mins)</P>

<p><STRONG>Cave description:</STRONG><br>
From Start of <span lang="de">Neues Gl&uuml;ck,</span> up ramp on careful
traverse past damp ~15m shaft (QMB). Ahead is a 3m wall. Water falls from an
aven and down a hole at the foot of the wall. This hole appears to connect
back to the shaft just passed. The wall is passed by climbing up under and
around a boulder on the right. Here a small hole in the floor goes back to
join the other water. Here, and 2m higher, a pair of passages head off (and
join after ~4m) connecting to the 'Coffin Level' rift after 10m. The Jade
ramp continues steeply until it splits at the top. Left joins back into WDR
after 5m. Right closes down to a steeply ascending ~1m diameter tube accessed
by a 3m climb. (A choked tube goes off left for 4m at the bottom of this).
The tube goes sharp right and then left into a joint-developed passage. 3m
along here a stream comes in from above and goes down a small 7m pitch.
(QMB). At the end the roof rises and there are several holes through to a
damp 3m diameter, 7m deep shaft. This is the same shaft reached at the end of
<span lang="de">Schnick Schnack Schabernack.</span> Someone could usefully
connect the surveys...</P>

<P>In WDR, 5m after the way off to Jade on the left, is another wide way on
to the left. This leads into a high, wide area (not properly
surveyed/explored?). At the lower end of this the 'Coffin Level' rift goes
off on 040&deg;. And 2m above at the same point is another passage on
070&deg;, <b lang="de">Altes Pech.</b> This ascends for 9m to come into a 7m
drippy shaft on the joint. There is a continuation opposite that may be
accessible (QMB) and it clearly goes at the bottom (QMA). Just before this
shaft you can climb up 3m on the left wall. It goes up another few to a small
chamber. There are three crappy QMs here (up, left and right). All 'C'.</P>

<P>Coffin level starts over some boulders. You can climb back
under these boulders to arrive by a stream in the ceiling, probably where
the water comes in from the roof in Jade. The rift descends steeply to
where a hole in the floor connects to the roof of Jade, and 3m below the
passage from Jade joins. Ahead a c3 up leads into gently descending passage
which goes for 20m to a nice dry p10 (QMA), with a continuation opposite
which can probably reached with a lined traverse (QMB).</P>

<hr />
<p>The evening was OK whilst we had dinner, but then it started raining
again and most decamped to the <span lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte</span>
again. I got out my bivi bag and kipped under the
<span lang="de">Bergrestaurant</span> eaves. This proved to be poor cover
from the rain and I was rather too hot so had to leave the zip open, which
meant the water got in. It wasn't particularly miserable, but it was very
handy to be able to dry gear out in the hut - more than one night in a row
like that would be rubbish.</p>

<p><EM>Monday</EM>

In the morning the rain held off enough to have breakfast out the side of
Mark's excellently converted-for-camping van. As he's Welsh (and therefore
speaks perfect English, and understands sarcasm) and seemed to have a
proper attitude to outdoor camping I attached myself to his van for the
next couple of days (until he went home).</p>

<p>Jens and Fritz when back to the 'new 115 entrance-to-be' (in the rain,
whilst everyone else skived at the <span lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte)</span>
to do a couple more hours very soggy digging, but still didn't get in. A
very interesting spot - as a new entrance into the bottom of 115 would avoid
the 100m pitch and rather a lot of caving. There is one short surface abseil
needed to get to the spot on the surface, despite it being in the very steep
area on the side of the Vord.</p>

<p>Monday is the <span lang="de-at">Loser</span> Hut's day off, so we had the
key and slacked about there all day, sorting out data and looking at the
rain. They were remarkably tolerant of us taking up the place so long as we
bought some beer and at least some of us were staying there.</p>

<p>I kept having to borrow clothes and money as I had lost my yellow
fleece in someone's car and didn't have any Austrian dosh, and couldn't
find my wallet to go and get any Austrian dosh. I didn't have a spare
sweatshirt as I had been trying hard to keep the weight of gear down due
to flying by plane (I still had ~34Kg and 41 on the way back (wet stuff +
donated surveys and journals)). Eventually (Wednesday) I worked
out that on the first morning when I was all disorganised having just
arrived and people wanted data processing on computers and it had been
hot I must have taken my fleece off (containing my wallet) and put it
in/on <span lang="de">J&ouml;rg</span>'s van, who had then gone home. A phone
call determined that this had been spotted and was under control; the next
arrival on pre-expo (Thursday) was bringing it back; it would have fixed
itself without me having even worked out what went wrong :-).</p>

<p>Being based at the <span lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte</span> I found an
excellent bivi spot under the front balcony, with a marvelous view of <span
lang="de-at">Altaussee,</span> and almost complete shelter from the rain.
Some handy logs made a good flat shelf above the nettles - recommended.</p>

<p><EM>Tuesday</EM>

Finally the rain cleared so we could go caving. I was keen to go to <span
lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle</span> so everyone went there, splitting into two
teams. </p>

<p>The first lot <span lang="de">(Jens Freigang, Winni Wichmann, Florian
Gruner)</span> were supposed to be going down the 50m shaft near the entrance
to <span lang="de">Schotterland,</span> but instead got distracted by the
last big entrance before you get to 40e (70m along from 40e). We thought this
was the one that goes in to SVH via the <span lang="de">Eisgang</span>
(normally blocked by ice), but it turned out not to be. They found about a
50m cave going over <span lang="de">Elephantengang</span> and dropping down
above <span lang="de">Wahnsinsch&auml;chte</span> but choked. This was duly
called <b lang="de">Nichts 50.</b></p>

<P>2000.05.30 (Tuesday). <span lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle.</span> 6hrs. Uncle
Tom Cobbly and all go to <span lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle</span> for a poke.</P>

<P>Wook, <span lang="de">Fritz Mammel,</span> Mark Morgan, <span
lang="de">Tobi Tr&auml;nkler.</span> Went in 40e to check out the QM by <span
lang="de">Kalter Gang</span> entrance A1998-40-05&nbsp;B.</P>

<P>Summary: Wook abbed down off an ice screw and 'welded-on lump of
ice' belay. QM was indeed as described down edge of ice and
<span lang="de">Kalter Gang</span> is <u>definitely</u> not currently
enterable without some digging. Something, presumably water, must have moved
crap back in to the hole since the mid-80s. We went in for a look between the
clear ice wall (you can see several feet into it in places) and the rock.
Crawling though a few boulders gets into a huge high space with a big ice
wall at the top and sloping down to a large (in May at least) waterfall at
the bottom end coming out of a passage 15-20m up. The area seems to just be a
huge boulder choke below the floor level of <span
lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle</span> with one side being the solid wall of
<span lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle</span> continuing down. Our geologist
(MarkM) siad this was definitely a fault. We spent a while wandering through
all the boulders following faint draughts but finding everything choked or
too tight, so then we surveyed about 100m and boogied out. I confirmed that
SV69 is not the station that the <span lang="de">Kalter Gang</span> survey
starts at (they are a few metres apart), but forgot that we needed to survey
between them - bum).</P>

<p><STRONG>Cave Description:</STRONG>
<br>It follows the wall round in a narrow gap between wall and ice, then
through a few boulders into a large space at least 20m high, <b>Express
Finish.</b> It is the bottom of a deep canyon, partly infilled by rocks and
ice from the south. The upper wall is steep ice, presumably from <span
lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle</span> above, but perhaps there is passage up
there? The ice is about 60-70 degrees and thus could be climbed, but it's a
long way off the floor! The floor consists of boulders and descends steeply
to the towards the large (in may) waterfall at the end. A 3m climb at the
bottom reaches the foot of the waterfall. Progress can be made beyond the
canyon at various levels. All of this seems to be scrotting about in the gaps
between the ice and boulders against the solid northern wall. No ways on were
found in a thorough search. At the top, next to the ice you can climb up and
round for about 15m until the ice closes down against the wall.</P>

<P>There are two holes at the foot of the north wall, the upper one pleasant,
the smaller rather scrotty. These lead to two large levelish spaces,
connected by a 2m icy climb (down only!). You can climb up from the top level
to the left, and down from the bottom to the left (all choked). At the left
end of the lower level is a far too tight blowing hole and a marginally
desperate tight canyon, just too small even for Wook (due to a corner - you
can physically get in the first metre or so). This has a draught - its
smallness is frustrating! To the right of this a climb down leads to a small
(0.8m) icy canyon. After two 2m downclimbs in succession it closes down. At
the right hand end of this level you can climb up back to the huge canyon via
the scrotty hole, or down into more interstices. The water from the waterfall
can be heard through the wall here. There seems to be a draught but after
climbing down about 10m through the choke against the wall it is lost.</P>

<p><em>Wednesday</em>

Wednesday was another slack day. Almost everyone jacked as it was raining
again. Me, Tobi and Fritz went into town to get money and buy sweeties,
ask about expo mobile phones, visit <span lang="de-at">Toplitzsee</span>
(Tobi's uncle was the Jewish printer who did the Nazi's forged-note printing,
so he was interested to see the place and read the history). Cooked tea in a
handy Autrian bus-stop. These Germans don't really seem to do tea at every
available opportunity - very odd!</p>

<p><em>Thursday</em>

Wook got to take a couple of volunteers to see the joys of <b>Persistence of
Vision</b> - by far the closest point of approach between
<span lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle</span> and
<span lang="de">Kaninchenh&ouml;hle,</span> found last year, but a bit of an
Atkinson/Wook special. On the whole they thought it was hard work, the bolt
traverse was really rather scary and the 'expo rigging' was pretty poor too.
Tobi promised that 'he would like it tomorrow, once he had got out'.</p>

<P>2000.06.01 Wookey, <span lang="de">Fritz Mammel, Tobi
Tr&auml;nkler.</span> 7hrs <span lang="de">(Tobi &amp; Fritz,</span> 6.5
Wook). Looked at low passage in <span lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle</span> -
but the 1-2 inch deep pool of icy water and the very low roof, and no
draught, meant that we left it for another trip - it looked fairly
horrid.</P>

<P>Went into Persistence of Vision and rigged the pitches with Arge rope and
hangers. Stole a couple from the rigging en-route in order to be able to
continue but by the time we got part way down the pitches (1st rope ran out)
we only had half an our before exit-time. Tobi and Fritz waited (somewhat
concerned by the rigging and the thought of returning through the crappy
rifts and epic traverses), but I was determined to have a look having come
this far. Got to the bottom and thrashed about in the annoying rift at the
end. Determined that it does go, without hammering (it's plenty wide enough),
but the pitch-head access is world-class annoying. You need to go down 1m,
and across 1m to get onto the rope. With my 3-light arrangement my hat was
far too awkward. Bolting it will be tedious, but a reasonable rig should be
possible. My light wouldn't reach the bottom of the pitch below, but then it
was only doing about 15m with my hammerited reflector. Pissed off out, with a
short faff to put rigging back and fettled Hooked on Classics to be slightly
less shit. Out at 8.15pm, walked back in 1hr 4mins, not quite needing a zoom
- perfect timing.</P>

<p></em>Friday</em>

Much narging and emailing between me and <span lang="de">Thilo</span> and
<span lang="de">Franz Lindenmayr,</span> one
of the stalwarts of the 1980's <span lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle</span> work, and
peering through old write-ups and survey data meant that we had managed to
'explore' a couple of QMs just sitting at the computer. One of the most
significant of these was a 50m pitch very close to the entrance (before
<span lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle)</span> which led into big passage,
apparently with an A-grade QM at one end. We resolved to go and check this
out and get a proper survey done.</p>

<P>2000.06.02 Wookey, <span lang="de">Gaspard Nagorkinos.
Schotterland.</span> 4 &frac34; hrs. Overlapped with earlier <span
lang="de">Schotterland</span> trip <span lang="de">(Jens, Gunter, Gitte,
Alois)</span> who did the mainline survey. We did the climbs and side
passages. 50m up the south-going side is a climb up a ramp for about 30m.
Cairn at the end shows someone has been there before. It closes down. At the
opposite end of the passage everything is thoroughly choked with glacial fill
except a hole in the roof out of which comes a spout of water. The nature of
this leads to the name <b lang="de">Pissen Schacht.</b> Wook shinned up the
hole with the aid of a few slings, carefully avoiding (most of) the water.
Above is canyon, dry to the west, and wet to the SE. The roof can be shinned
up to at various levels but it always choked with rocks - probably the floor
of SVH.</P>

<P>Checked out short passage that is 'third leg' from the pitch. Chokes after
about 30m. There is a strong draught from a hole in one corner but there it
is full of medium-sized rocks. It would be an ace dig in Britain :-). Finally
we surveyed the sopping wet pitch (my Oldham filled up - that's how wet it
was!), derigged and went out.</P>

<P>Outside I redid the VFHO survey legs at the entrance to work out where
their 'SV0' station must have been. It is neither of the other stations used,
so we connected them with a leg. From apparent position of SV0 to point in
cave that everyone else has used: 1.70m -16 356</P>

<P>Dinner in the <span lang="de-at">Loserh&uuml;tte)</span> again, on the
terrace, watching distant lightning, then back to <span
lang="de">parkplatz</span> for a bit of <span lang="de">schnapps</span> and
tea before bed. <span lang="de">Thilo</span> slacked around in the sunshine
all day, suffering from too much sun the day before (He had spent the day
trying to dig his way into <span lang="de">Gr&uuml;ner Eingang</span> which
was under several metres of snow. A great deal of effort had made a
remarkably small hole :-)</P>

<P>2000.06.03 Last trip. Much of team slacked off to the lake for the day,
leaving Wook, <span lang="de">Jens, Gaspard</span> and <span
lang="de">Gunter</span> keen. <span lang="de">Gaspard</span> wanted to take
photos but Wook wanted to survey connection to old <span
lang="de">Eish&ouml;hle,</span> so we ended up with two understaffed teams.
<span lang="de">Jens</span> 'quick-change' went to check out entrance above
where <span lang="de">Thilo</span> had been digging for <span
lang="de">Gruner Eingang.</span> It went about 30m with a 3m pitch before
choking. Needs surveying properly.</P>

<P>After that diversion we went in 40e and rigged
<span lang="de">Elephantengang</span> pitch, taking the better of the bits of
blue polyprop rope there with us. Got to the climb up to
<span lang="de">Gr&uuml;ner Eingang</span> passage and whilst Wook was
getting <span lang="fr">etriers</span> and ice axes ready
<span lang="de">Jens</span> shinned up the rock corner. I passed him up 3 ice
screws and the rope and he finished the climb without even using any
crampons, which seemed a bit keen. However this did mean I kept my promise to
Tess not to do anything silly :-). Rigged the ancient polyprop from a boulder
and went in to havalook. Wook followed wind to
<span lang="de">Gr&uuml;ner,</span> but it was indeed completely full of
snow. Then followed gale through ice-slush pond(!) down smallish canyon to
where you could look down 3 or 4m into big passage. Unfortunately it was too
overhanging to climb (presumably there was more ice here in 1938 for the
original explorers to get up here), and we had no more rope, nor time to go
back to <span lang="de">Schneevulkanhalle</span> for some even older
polyprop. So, we surveyed out getting <u>very</u> cold in the smallest,
windiest part. There are a couple of QMs in here (a very narrow shaft and a
climbable aven). Nice bit of cave. Wizzed out leaving the
<span lang="de">Gr&uuml;ner</span> climb rigged, although you need to be
careful to keep low at the top or the sling might come off its boulder, and
there's no back-up.. (apparently there is a spit up there somewhere).</P>

<P>Took a few photos on the snowslope and left. Total electric failure for
Wook on ice-slope - no idea why, but about as well-timed as such an event can
be. Entrance crawl even more tedious then usual with a carbide that goes out
when you knock it. Slogged back in sunshine with all our shit in 1&frac14;
hrs.</P>

<P>Then drove around <span lang="de-at">Grundlesee</span> in thunderstorm to
find others. Passed them in the rain but didn't recognise <span
lang="de">Thilo's (Heinz's)</span> car so ended up driving to <span
lang="de-at">Bad Mittendorf</span> to meet having found new clubhouse by
interrogating people in bars. Swapped journals and surveys and info with
<span lang="de-at">Robert Seebacher</span> <span lang="la">et al,</span> then
went for a pizza. Kipped in <span lang="de">Vereinsheim</span> and went home
on Sunday.</P>

<p>Members: <span lang="de">Markus B&ouml;lzle, G&uuml;nther Forstmaier, Jens
Freigang, Heinz Frey, Richard Geserer, Flo Gruner, J&ouml;rg Haussmann,
Gaspard Magarinos, Fritz Mammel, Mark Morgan, Thilo M&uuml;ller, Alois+Gitte
Sp&ouml;tzl, Tobias Tr&auml;nkle, Winni Wichmann,</span> Wookey</p>

<H2>Appendices</H2>

<p>GPS numbers for 115 entrance and end point near possible new entrance</p>

<P>115 entrance possible new entrance in <span lang="de">Nutzenlos.</span> If
co-ordinates of 115 <span lang="de">Eingang</span> are: 5411141 5281638 then
co-ords of end pt are 5411588 5281674 (but I don't think either of these are
right)</P>

<P>GPS, map, cave co-ordinate conversions, as confirmed for 115 entrance.</P>

<P>GPS (German grid, WGS84) -&gt; Map <span lang="de">(Alpenverein)</span>
-&gt; <span lang="de">H&ouml;hle</span></P>

<P>Easting (10,000GPS -&gt; 35000)</P>

<P>GPS -&gt; +306 -&gt; Map -&gt; -1326 -&gt; <span lang="de">H&ouml;hle</span></P>

<P>GPS -&gt; -1020 -&gt; <span lang="de">H&ouml;hle</span></P>

<P>Northing (82000GPS -&gt; 81000)</P>

<P>GPS -&gt; -379 -&gt; Map -&gt; +25529 -&gt; <span lang="de">H&ouml;hle</span></P>

<P>GPS -&gt; +25150 -&gt; <span lang="de">H&ouml;hle</span></P>

<hr />

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