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< h1 > CUCC Austria Expeditions: Primer< / h1 >
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< p > The annual CUCC expedition to Austria lasts around five weeks each summer
and concentrates mainly on new exploration in the high alpine karst of the
< span lang = "de-at" > Loser< / span > plateau (about 80km E of < span
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lang="de-at">Salzburg).< / span > Recent large projects are:< / p >
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< ul >
< li > < b > Schwarzmooskogel< / b > system formed from the linkage of several caves into one system, 150km or so long, and 1033m deep,
of which around nine tenths of the length (and the highest and deepest points) were explored by CUCC. This now includes connections
with Kaninchenhö hle) and Steinbrü ckenhö hle.< / li >
< li > < b > Tunnocksschaht< / b > and < b > Balkonhö hle< / b > the focus of exploration since 2016.
< / li >
< li > < b > Steinbrü ckenhö hle< / b > the most major cave in the area and the principal focus of CUCC's work 2000-2008.
< / li >
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< li > < b > Eislufthö hle< / b > originally explored in the very early days of CUCC expeditions in the late seventies, to a depth estimated at 506m. The original explorers simply concentrated on getting to the bottom and were not unduly concerned with
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exploring side passages or with accurate surveying; hence a return and
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reexploration was began in 2004, and continued in 2005, 2006 and 2007.< / li >
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< / ul >
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< p > Over two hundred shorter caves have also been explored and
recorded over the forty year history of expo, and prospecting for new
entrances is still an important activity. Every year we discover more new entrances than we can explore.< / p >
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< / td > < / tr > < / tbody > < / table >
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< p > So much for the executive summary, but what does that mean for the new
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expo member? What is actually involved in going on expo?< / p >
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< p > Very few people, whether undergraduate or old lag, can afford the time
to go on expo for the full period. People come and go, and people pursue
their own particular interests within the larger context. But there has
to be some overall strategy and some degree of planning. It is no good
putting more resources into rigging than we have manpower to use, nor
concentrating on so few goals that the cave is always crowded. So it is
important that those doing the organising have a pretty good idea a few
weeks before expo of who is going, for how long, and how hard they expect
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to cave.< / p >
< p > But don't expect too much from that word "organising" – expedition is not a
boot camp! No one will kick you out of your pit and make you go caving (except
perhaps in an emergency, such as a call-out). Nor is it entirely a holiday -
once the effort has been put in to rig things, it is important that people get
in there and do the work exploring, surveying, photographing and eventually
derigging. The "organisation" is essentially a matter of pre-expo
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behind-the-scenes things like getting grants and sponsorship, buying tackle,
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coordinating transport and the like. On expo itself, it is a matter of judging
which projects can reasonably be tackled by the number of people present, and
suggesting the best lines of attack. This avoids rigging things which no one
has the time or will-power to push, and ensures that there is enough gear to
tackle the things which folk < em > are< / em > keen to explore.< / p >
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< p > There are important differences between expedition caving and a typical
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Yorkshire weekend. On a tourist trip in the UK, a party will rig in, bottom the
cave and rig out (or, at most, there may be a separate rigging in and rigging
out trip on the same day). In Austria, a project cave will be rigged at the
start of expo, and then numerous working trips will use that rigging until
either the cave or the expedition finishes, and derigging takes place. This
clearly places a lot more wear and tear on the ropes, which also tend to get
muddier, so quality rigging is essential. Of course, some of this rigging is
new exploration, not just "follow the P-hangers", so it is an exciting and
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challenging activity. Also, unlike a Yorkshire tourist trip, you must survey
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and describe what you find – logbook write-ups form part of a long-term record
of what has been done so are rather more important than on weekend meets at
home. Surveying may be an entirely new activity for first-time expo members,
but it is also a very important one, and one which it is worth making the
effort to get right from the start.< / p >
< p > The caves in Austria are as different from Yorkshire and Mendip as those two
areas are from each other. There are few sporting streamways and few
formations. The caves are colder (often not much above freezing, and sometimes
below). They are often much deeper than Yorkshire trips, though the entrances
we are currently using mean that even the remotest places are not at vast
depths. However, pitches may be big, and close together in deep shafts of up to
a couple of hundred metres. Though often dry in good weather, run-off is rapid
and a damp pitch can rapidly become a serious proposition with near-freezing
water pouring down it. Rigging will sometimes seem unnecessarily gymnastic
until you have seen the pitch after a thunderstorm! Set against this is a large
amount of huge stomping horizontal passage found in the last few years, with
many leads still to push not needing a lot of vertical work at all.< / p >
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< p > In Austria, expo is effectively split into "< a href = "bcamps.htm" > Base
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Camp< / a > " and various "< a href = "tcamps.htm" > plateau camps< / a > ". Base camp is in
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the valley, near the pub, shops, lake and other "R& R" facilities. It is
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here that we have the bulk of the documentation, computers, lamp charging, log
book and survey book. The plateau camps are right outside the cave entrances, and
are reached by a toll road (on which we have a deal which avoids paying each
time) which ascends 900m to a tourist car park from where it is around a 30
minute walk (on good paths) to the edge of the plateau. From here it is a
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one-and-a-half-hour slog across rough limestone pavements to the main < span
lang="de-at">Steinbrü ckenhö hle< / span > bivvy site.
We also have other shorter-lived high camps such as < span
lang="de-at">Organhö hle< / span > (from 2017).< / p >
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< p > The plateau camps and and Base camp are linked by mobile phone, which are much
better for coordinating and reporting activities than the radios we used
previously. However they should still be used sparingly to ensure that there is
plenty of battery power in an emergency. The result of this is that trips are
mostly organised by the people in top camp, and it is usual to spend periods of
three or four days or so at top camp, alternating with festering at base.< / p >
< p > On the other hand, the plateau a nature reserve where camping is
theoretically not allowed at all, so we need to keep it as low-profile and
undamaging as possible to avoid being banned. Camping is essential, not only
for caving convenience and efficiency, but also for safety. Meeting these needs
consistent with local politics is something of a balancing act which needs
everyone's cooperation.< / p >
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< p > If we have a spell of truly awful weather, usually everyone will come
down to Base Camp, and this is a good time for getting surveys drawn up,
passage descriptions written, log books up to date etc. It's also not
unknown for a certain amount of beer consumption to occur. This is also
the case at "expedition dinner" which is usually organised somewhere in
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the middle of expo, when the greatest number of people can attend.< / p >
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< h3 > What to read next?< / h3 >
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< p > Obviously, those coming on expedition will have a better and more
productive time if they know more about what goes on, what has been done
previously and what our particular caves are like. I'd love to think that
everyone would find time to read everything on the website. In reality,
however, not everyone wants to effectively memorise the guidebook, and
devour several books on the history, culture, geography, geology, food,
weather and other < span lang = "la" > minutiæ < / span > of their holiday area.
Even if you are that sort of person, it helps to have some idea of where to
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start – there's about three long novels' worth of stuff on the site and much
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of it is of mainly historical interest, concerned with caves whose
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exploration is considered complete.< / p >
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< p > We have attempted to condense the "how to do it" material into an
< a href = "handbook/index.htm" > Expedition Handbook< / a > , which covers topics
such as Surveying, Prospecting, Rigging and Rescue. There is also a rather
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embryonic section on photography, and some smaller sections that are also worth
reading. This is still a fairly big chunk of stuff to read, so an effort has
been made this year to provide a "primer" page for each section, which should
be read by < b > everyone< / b > new to expo. It is particularly important that you
understand the aims of each activity, since a job done badly is actually worse
than a job not done at all. This is especially true of cave survey and passage
description, or, for prospecting, the recording of locations.< / p >
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< p > To get a feel for what trips are like, it is perhaps worth dipping into
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one of the < a href = "years/2018/logbook.html" > logbooks< / a >
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< a href = "years/2001/log.htm" > for< / a > < a href = "years/2003/logbook.html" > recent
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< / a > < a href = "years/2017/logbook.html" > years< / a > . To
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get an idea of what expo will be trying to achieve, there is a "< a
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href="years/2018/index.html">mission statement< / a > " for the current year. And
to see how much potential there is, a glance at a recent < span
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lang="de">Steinbrü ckenhö hle< / span > < a
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href="1623/204/qm.html">Question Mark list< / a > is a revelation. Leads are
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numbered by year, with the oldest first. Following links from any of these
leads will get you into the relevant section of the < a
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href="1623/204/204.html">cave description< / a > , which gives an idea of the
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sort of caving.< / p >
< p > For the ambitious, there is a complete description of < a
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href="1623/161/top.htm">< span lang = "de-at" > Kaninchenhö hle< / span > < / a > ,
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which absorbed almost all of CUCC's expedition effort from 1989 to 1999 and now
forms the largest single component of the < span
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lang="de-at">Schwarzmooskogel< / span > system. The description runs to about 90 A4
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pages when printed, so is rather too much to digest in one go! We recommend
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looking at the printed survey to get an overall idea of the cave and which
parts have the most potential. However, as this is too big for a web page,
there are now useful survey fragments incorporated throughout the main
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descriptions.< / p >
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< p > If you want to delve deeper into the site, <!-- it's worth a quick look
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at the site < a href = "../rdmap.htm" > road map< / a > . This gives you an idea
of the structure of the site and where you can expect the graphical links
to lead. There are also plenty of textual links, as exemplified by the
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expo --> use the < a href = "infodx.htm" > site index< / a > .< / p >
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