Arrived in the afternoon and got keys from gasthof. Fridge full of other people's beer sadly. Picked up Philip S from the station and set up outside tarp and bier tent. Bier tent missing it's door ATM with a tarp rigged instead??????? Where has it gone ? Who knows?????? Gas hose fell off burner whilst cooking dinner, large plume of flame in bier tent but crisis averted
I was walking into town from the station (from Vienna this morning) when I was intercepted by Charlotte and taken shopping at the big Billa, thence to [otato hut, nerding etc. Hot day, sunny,not rain.
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<divclass="triptitle">topcamp - First visit to top camp</div>
Charlotte, James W and Jacob C going for a first carry to top camp to look at amount of snow etc., departed Gasthof at 11:00 expected back about 20:00. They are not taking the new top camp tarp up this time - it weighs 21 kg.
Carried the new tarp up to top camp today (25KG bag) rigged the tarp reasonably well. Water collection is started but needs rain. Storage cave emptied and some bits dried out.
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<p>Image of the path to top camp from Homecoming</p>
<p>The walk from Homecoming to the col was actually surprisingly pleasant and easier than the one from top camp. It could definitely become a trade route in the future.</p>
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I got an early lift up with Charlotte and went off on my own to check out <ahref="/1623/228/228.html">1623-228</a> "Kleine Schnellzughoehle" where the survey looks suspiciously like <ahref="/1623/114/114.html">1623-114</a> (Lost Hole) which I know visually looks very much like a smaller version of Schnellzughoehle.<p>
I failed: the GPS position (fairly close to the Stoger Weg) is (2024) in completely impenetrable pine scrub. So either ArGE are incredibly hard, or the path has healed up since 2000, or they have recorded the wrong GPS position. I suspect that it is really the same as 114 and that they have the wrong GPS.
<p>
It was horrid: lower altitude and lots of curious cows meant lots of flies, cow flies, horse flies, humid scratchy larchen. Nasty. So I went on to the next target which was to check out some entrances lacking photos on the near part of the plateau.
I can say categorically that a GPS position is not sufficient to disambiguate entrances when there are 5 pits all within a few meters. One would need good photos and very clear descriptions. This is the case for 1623-81, 81b and 1623-82b. <ahref="/1623/82/82.html">1623-82</a> 82 and 85 was easily identified because the paint and tag were in place. Ditto 148, but I failed with 289 too.
<p>OK so lots of frustratingly similar photographs were take (with GPS coordinates in the EXIF data at least). My phone battery died with all the GPS work, and even with a spare battery pack it died again. So I took decided to get my exercise by walking up to top camp, having a coffee (nobody there). I left at about 14:00 and walked back.
<p>The Berg Restaurant was not serving food, but beer was extremely welcome. As was the Austrian trio of double-base, accordion and base guitar which was serenading the just-off-work seilbahn station workers, who were tucking into roast pig, sauerkraut and potatoes. Very, very Austrian.
<p>Got a lift back down the toll road to Alt Aussee with a multigenerational German family in a very small car: the granddaughter had to sit across Granny and my laps. This was a bit uncomfortable for all concerned s she was about 18.<p>
Walked back to Bad Aussee. Had coffee having missed last bus.
<p>Walked back to Gasthof. At which point I discovered Jono had driven down and if I had just stayed drinking beer I would have got a lift. Ho Hum.
We rigged the entrance to Homecoming and rigged ropes down to the up pitch. ropes after this were left insitu. wookey dissapeared behind us to play with his new toy (Sap6) he measured some pitches as far as the 4 bolt traverse at the bottom of radagast. We found the pile of rope at the bottom of the uprope to Propane Nightmares.
These ropes had been left in a diabolical, abhorrent and disgusting state. They were left vaguely piled around the passage with knots still tied and with tangled ends and random extra knots, twists and fucked bits. Lara spat on the knots to try and untie one of them. We spent an hour untangling, untying, unfucking and coiling ropes. The clean ones were left daisychained whilst the fucked ones were coiled. The longest 4 fucked ropes were dragged out without tackle sacks! grrrrrrrrrrrrr
we walked to garlic from top and fettled the tarps and kit. then thunder, lightning and lotsa of rain struck. we dealt with this by laying down and trying to sleep under the tarp. we ended up using a bivi bag as a duvet and had a book reading session until the rain had passed. was very warm and lovely.
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Wassil and I wandered over to top camp to meet Marie in the early hours of the Saturday morning. The weather was unassuming and I felt brimming with eagerness to get underground having spent one day too many days festering at base camp.
<p>
Having allocated half an hour at top camp we naturally faffed for an hour and a half before beginning the hopefully-not-too-painful walk to homecoming, bags heavily laden with rope, metalwork and caving gear galore.
<p>
We arrived at the cave a little past one, Wassil went to gather more equipment from Garlic while we began packing rope at the entrance. We continued to faff till our hearts were content and weren't underground till gone three. The whole cave was rigged to the bottom of Gromit so, besides some futile arguing with our heavy tackle sacks on the traverses(oh and passing Charlotte, James and Lara on their way out), the descent went fairly quickly.
<p>
Stopping for a quick snack break at the end of the Gromit traverse, it became clear that Marie was quite worn out from all the awkward SRT and so it was decided that we should turn around after ten more minutes.
<p>
We stopped a short ways into "second coming"(just before the first traveres) and while I got the stove out to cook some noodles, Marie got a lesson in bolting. As the drill whirred away in the background I eagerly unpacked the cooking equipment: pan, lid, noodles, stove top and lighters what else would I need ... hmm ... the gas must just be hiding somewhere in this tackle bag ... hmmm ... must be a very small cylinder. Well, it turns out that EXPO hadn't invested in microscopic gas cans but rather I couldn't see it because it was still sitting comfortably somewhere at top camp, forgotten. This news hit Marie particularly badly who immediately began feeling nauseous and requested we leave the cave sooner rather than later.
<p>
The plan put into action was that Marie and I would begin prusiking out while Wassil finished bolting the traverse Marie that had started. I packed up to leave of course taking just the essentials: first aid kit, snacks, water and the spare drill batteries ... oops. By the time Wassil caught up to inform us that we had run of with his much needed spare batteries, Marie had taken a turn for the worse.
<p>
She had stopped at the top of Wallace to begin emptying the contents of her stomach onto the traverse below(luckily not directly onto Wassil's head) and was feeling very apprehensive about some of the pitches to come. We waited until she was finished retching to offer water and discuss plans, but with options limited the only thing left to do was to start the long arduous journey back to the surface.
<p>
Several more chunder stops were required on the way out, during which I also began to take a turn for the worse, but we eventually made it to the surface around 11pm. Outside a thick mist had enveloped the plateau casting doubt onto our ability to find our way across it. We got changed as fast as we could and at midnight made the admittedly dubious decision to set off for stoney bridge instead of the currently-max-capacity-but-much-(much!)-closer garlic cave.
<p>
After around ten minutes of walking it became glaringly obvious we were not going to make it back to top camp. Marie was still throwing up and her balance had gotten worse with her state. Since Wassil was still feeling ok we decided on the very unappealing option that he would walk back to top camp, alone, and return with our sleeping gear so that we could wait out the night on the plateau.
<p>
Marie and I sat uncomfortably inside the bothy we had with us for around 2 hours, Marie regularly purging her stomach contents into a nearby grike, after which I grew worried that Wassil had not yet returned. Stumbling round the location of our camping spot(which I lovingly name "patient's retreat") I finally found a spot where my phone had signal. Chatting with Jono, We learned that Wassil had made it to top camp but was too worn out from the day to return to us so instead Wookey was on his way with food and bags.
<p>
around three in the morning we were greeted by the very welcome sight of a surprisingly cheery(considering the circumstances) Wookey strolling down the plateau towards us. He dropped off what we needed for the night, made sure we were ok and then headed back up to top camp. We each found relatively less spiky bits of rock to lie down on and tried to get some rest.
<p>
In the morning, the warmth of the sun forced us out of from the dozy comfort of our sleeping bags and back into the reality of getting off this horrible lump of angry rocks. I dumped my sleeping bag in my bivvy outside homecoming and we began to make our way back to the Col at quarter to ten in the morning.
<p>
The Usually 1 hour Homecoming to Col walk was inflated to over 2 by the requirement for regular breaks, general sluggishness expected from two considerably unwell people and difficult nav on the currently un-reflectored route.
<p>
We eventually made it back to the Col and then dragged ourselves down to the carpark arriving promtly at half one to be met by a relieved looking Jono and Phil B, who supplied us with energy tablets and chocolate.
<p>
Moral of the story - EXPO should invest in microscopic gas cylinder technology, there's some smart people here I'm sure they could figure something out.
I'm going to bed now,
good night.
Jacob
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<divclass="triptitle">basecamp - Heute ist Domstag</div>
Delayed Onset Muscle Stiffness my walk up to StoneBridge a couple of days ago.
<p>
A bit of a disturbance last night as Marie was a bit ill after coming out of a cave and could not make the walk back to camp and had to bivvy on the plateau with Jacob. Wookey took her a sleeping bag.
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<divclass="triptitle">basecamp - A stroll from afar</div>
Today, I got to sit on my seat, relaxing outside, munching on chips, and sipping a Gösser, while Balister hiked up the Tressensteinwarte to see if we could get a signal on our new Meshtastic systems.
This is the first step to enabling me to run the expo from the Tatty Hut 24/7. This is truly "Ultimate Power."
Let's see if he gets a parking ticket as he sprints back down the hill...
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<p>In the evening Phil B and Jono went up to play with radios and to find Isaac (who apparently had been taking more than 5 hours to get to Garlic with Sieds), Anthony & Ruairidh went up to stay at top camp. All in PB's car.
<divclass="triptitle">homecoming - Failed pushing but excellent sidequests</div>
We set off from Garlic Camp to homecoming vaguely early in the morning which was a very welcome change, 20 minutes downhill walking which was lovely as long as you didn't think about the walk back up. Isaac had joined our motley crew the night before and was <em>very</em> excited for a big trip (read: scared to be beasted by Charlotte and James).
<p>
While we were faffing at the entrance we ran into Wassil. The plan had been to use some of the rope we'd taken out of the cave from last year's leads and Wassil and co. had washed and brought back out the hill. Wassil told Charlotte they needed all the rope for second coming which put a bit of a dampener on the trip as we were pretty sure we didn't have enough to reach the watershed pushing front. Ah well, might as well get as far as we could.
<p> Nothing very eventful happened in the entrance series; I shat myself mildly less on the traverse at the bottom of Grommit that the two previous times (progress!) and rewarded myself with a piss in the streamway. It was to be the first of many.
<p>
We sadly continued on past the nice pile of rope and up the dodgy muddy rope that led to watershed. The best event in this section was that James refound my breaking-crab which I was extremely happy -and vaguely sentimental- about. James rebolted a scary corner traverse which made it 10% less scary. It went sandy crawl, sandy crawl, muddy crawl, muddy puddles interspersed with a few pitches till the top of Strained by Gravity.
<p> Here Isaac, Charlotte and I waited for James to rig what we haden't got to two days before. James made some strange grunts and groans which we elected to ignore. In the meantime Charlotte read another chapter of our bedtime story (Into Thin Air) and Isaac told us about the trials and tribulations of his job. We eventually got the all clear and descended to find James annoyed as the pitch lengths and rope lengths aligned unsatisfactorily and he'd had to turn back for several missed deviations. His mood was not improved by having missed a chapter of story-time.
<p> After another piss for bravery we continued to the many many metres of traverses. I was pleasantly surprised by how not scary it was, the mud was slippy but they weren't very exposed and sliding over on my knees eventually became fun.
Many slidy sandy bits through flow-stone canyon led to the top of The Sound of Water which Isaac offered to re-bolt and rig. James and I took a group piss then cuddled to keep warm and made up verses to Hard Caver:
<p><em> We rigged in Homecoming for many a day
<p> pirates stole our rope and for that they will pay
<p> we slid down traverses, got covered in sand
<p> then ran out of rope so the pushing got canned </em>
<p> At this point we decided to turn around. Isaac produced the first iconic quote of the day, not three metres into prussicing: 'I want to kill myself'. I took another piss (at this point questioning how much water i must have drunk) and we let him get a head start out the traverses. We spent a faffy time surverying a side lead (a traverse leading off flowstone canyon). James got sketched out after 4 or so points and we headed off.
<p> I realised i still had my jacket and hat on half way up Strained by Gravity and nearly expired of heat. At the top we met up with Isaac, collected the brew kit and headed on to the top of Sump Bypass where we ate some moderately sandy noodles with a spanner. I took a piss to celebrate. Isaac really seemed like he needed them and produced iconic quote no. 2: 'I feel like fried chicken before it's fried; covered in mud then breaded in sand'.
<p> Isaac and Charlotte headed out whilst James and I took a detour to survey Heifer. We had to drain a bit of a static sump and tried not to contemplate falling in. the actual aven through the wet bit was extremely cool and James excitedly took disto points while I stood on a rock and tried to keep up on book. It seemed like it went up 40 metres! We christened it Cow-Lick (as it was drippy) and as a few hours had now past we headed out. I had one final piss, by this point even James was concerned.
the entrance series dragged on a bit, especially as James had to isolate a shagged section on Grommit and the Wallace rope was still 2013 (agh). By Radagast I was dreaming of Gosser, Chips and my book so the final pitch to the surface was very welcome.
<p> Outside Homecoming we met Charlotte and Issac who made one final iconic quote: 'being out of the cave feels better than loosing my virginity'. We headed back very tiredly to the sweet damp embrace of Garlic Camp. Great trip.
<divclass="triptitle">Surface - Looking for entrances from the Oberwasseralm path</div>
I cycled up to the far end of Altaussee lake and walked up the path towards Hochklapfsattel (towards Wildensee) to have a good look at the side of the Loser massif below the Stoger Weg. [I am still looking for the entrance making the Howling Draft in the Futility Series in 115, which is 60m from the surface.]
<p>
The cycle path along the south side of the lake is now stopped after half way, and bicycles have to trog up the hill and go along the track, which is
<ul>
<li>A worse surface
<li>in the full sun, not in the nice shade
<li>A totally unnecessary extra 80m of ascent which I really did not like
</ul>
They really don't like cyclists I feel.
<p>
Anyway I parked the bike at the "No Cycling" notice at the bottom of the track up (where going left would go to Stummern Alm) and walked up 3km (+400m) to Oberwasseralm.
<p>It is mostrously dramatic: not only are you right underneath the Trisselwand but the Loser massif (Vor.SMK) Weisse Wand is huge and very steep.
<divclass="triptitle">Surface - Entrance hunting towards Griesskogel</div>
<p>The objective for today was to head over towards the Griesskogel camp used by ARGE some years ago to find a few of their caves that are in interesting places given what we have recently found in deep Balkonhöhle. We also planned to swing by a few caves that were lacking entrance photos to rectify the shortfall. Ruairidh was also keen to drop an undescended pitch in 2012-ns-07 (aka 2016#01), so we took drill, rope SRT kit etc.</p>
<p>In the course of our wanderings, we came across an interesting rusty artefact. The base camp brains trust reckons this to be a reserve fuel tank likely jettisoned from a second world war era plane.</p>
<p>Our first target was to find the entrance to 1623/261. This is a fairly insignificant cave: <100mlong,<50mdeep.TheinterestingfeatureisthatthecaveisalignedwithdevelopmentindeepBalkonhöhle,specificallyCharon,soIwasinterestedtodiscoveriftherewereanyobvioussimilarlyalignedsurfacefeatures.Sureenough,the1623/261entrancewasfoundtobeinthesideofachossygully.Wedidn'thaveacompass,socannotconfirmthealignment,butitseemshighlyprobablethatthissurfacefeatureisrelatedtodevelopmentof1623/261anddeepBalkonhöhle.(ThereisanothersimilarlyalignedARGEcave-Haldenloch(appearsnottohaveanumber)-thatisfurtherawaytothenortheastthatwedidn'tvisit.)</p>
<p>We also found the campsite used by ARGE on a flat piece of limestone, complete with hangers that they used to anchor their tents to the ground. This is right next to the entrance to Griesskogelshcacht (1623/232)</p>
<p>On the way back we stopped off at 2012-ns-07 (tagged as 2016#01) reported to have an undescended 20m pitch. Ruairidh went down in dry grots with the drill whilst I sat in the sun offering advice on thrubolt placement technique and rock quality from a vantage point 15m away where I couldn't actually see what was going on. Two bolts later, Ruaridh got to the bottom where the main downward way on is blocked with rocks (though someone in an oversuit might be motivated to look a bit harder) and there as an upgoing unexplored passage (QM B). Worth a return trip though not amazingly promising. If it goes anywhere, it is likely to connect to the upper levels of Balkonhöhle.</p>
<p>During the course of the day, we photographed the following entrances:</p>
<ul>
<li>2012-dd-01</li>
<li>2012-ns-05</li>
<li>2012-ns-06</li>
<li>2012-ns-07 (aka 2016#01)</li>
<li>2012-ns-09</li>
<li>2012-ns-10</li>
<li>2012-ns-12</li>
</ul>
<p>All except 2012-dd-01 should now have enough information to go in the Kataster. 2012-ns-05 and 2012-ns-06 were surveyed in 2022, but the survey has not made it into the dataset (the survex file appears entirely devoid of information that could help to link it in). There are two possible shaft entrances near the GPS location for 2012-ns-08, neither of which have a tag.</p>
Due to circumstances I would love to describe as 'out of my control', but alas cannot, I ended up wearing the same pair of underwear for a walk up to the plateau, for a night at garlic, down homecoming the next day, another night in garlic, and a walk back down to base camp. Unsurprisingly to some (and by "some" I here mean "everyone but student cavers") they ended up carrying a rather pungent odour into the following day. In the absence of someone inventing a way to send scents through the medium of text, I'll leave you with James Waite's thoughts on the smell as 'ohh that's rather like a strong camembert'.
<p>
Lessons learnt: 1) Bring spare underwear for a multi-day trip. 2) Find time to change underwear on said multi-day trip.
<p>
Actions carried forward: Null.
<P>
Isaac
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James was shown how to scan survey notes, put them in a plastic wallet, and create the corresponding online wallet.
<p>Lara was shown how to type up a logbook entry online, but she (sensibly) bailed on typing up the survey data when faced with the full complexity of the survex system in troggle..
<divclass="triptitle">topcamp - Trip to top camp</div>
We had a lot of fun, walking up to Top Camp to deliver some supplies, including two Tofu Paneer curries intended for my consumption. Once at Top Camp, I reviewed the behavior of meshtastic nodes about the plateau. Chat performance is good, but some units are not updating positions consistently This needs more study. Jono ran the Stone Bridge fixed node to the top of Niederes augst-eck. This gives the mesh good coverage over Balkon area and much, much further,Jono was giggling like a radio amateur after working Scarborough Reef. I setup mqtt access to a node and packets where sighted in Virginia on a server operated by Phil Benchoff.
Future work: Rename channels so we can pass telemetry over an expo specific channel, test bridging the plateau to the potato hut via mqtt. Setup Anthony's cellular wifi at top camp to help support bridging. Figure out why the GPS is a pain on some units. And figure out why Meshtastic won't run on wookey's phone.
The tofu curries were consumed when a prospecting trip returned. I was sad.
The data logger had been extracted from Traungold where it had been all winter. Minimum temp -4.9 C which then went up to 0.1 C and was very stable for months when it was presumably buried in snow.
<p>
Created new folder as expofiles/datalogger/ where I have put the data, exported data (xls, txt) a .db3 file which was lurking and the 88MB Windows control software. There is also Apple s/w.
<p>You can extract the PDF file without software by just plugging the device into a USB port, where it appears as a disc drive containing just the pdf.
<divclass="triptitle">basecamp - Lots of basecamping</div>
Tess arrived, and cooked the evening slop + rice (with Lara) for the canyoning team. A fine evening with much conviviality. ABout a dozen people down at base.
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An impromptu canyoning trip was proposed late one rainy afternoon and in the hopes that I would be propelled out of a post illness blues,I tagged along. I would like to take the opportunity to emphasize my love for swimming and all things aquatic despite some slander from other logbook entries. In fact, the trip reminded all of us of the joys of canyoning. Jono in particular relished in a well earned break from his endless shepherding duties. <p> The gloomy weather, still pools of greenish water and dark rock which enclosed us created an eerie atmosphere. The water temperature was quite pleasant but at times could be much more frigid depending on the pool. There were plenty of opportunities for jumping which Charlotte, Jono, Wookey and Isaac bravely dared while I mostly avoided them (my outdoor enthusiasm was still not at 100%). At times the canyon threatened to keep us within its clutches the rocks were so slippery. Isaac remarked that he felt like he was experiencing an accelerated version of evolution as he slithered out of the water. A few long stretches of canal at the end led Wookey to comment that it was mostly a glorified nature swim, but one that was at least enjoyed by (pretty much) all until the very end.
Sieds has sorted out the printer properly. We have new Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black cartridges in today. The Blue cartridge is at 10% and there is a new Blue cartridge in an OPENED box and bag under the bench which should be used to replace it at the end of Expo 2024.
<p>
There is also a completely new OPENED Black cartridge under the bench in a box.
<p>There were several old cartridges in opened boxes and bags, but were unlabeled as to which were good (unused) and which were bad and empty. Sieds has sorted it all out.
<p> So we are probably good with this printer and have enough toner for expo 2025.
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