After a rather eventful walk up the plateau summiting a mountain on my travels. I arrived to a concerned Becka and James about to come looking for me. On a side note would not recommend carrying caving kit and camping kit in one go it sucks. The next few hours were spent waiting for the previous trip to exit the cave so we knew what to take and do once underground. The other group arrived at top camp at around 18:30 where we discussed their progress. Apparently it involved lots of swearing at far to many tackle bags on the way down the various pitches. Opting to eat dinner at top camp we continued to faff getting underground for 20:00. This would be our last daylight for 65 hours.
Due to James and I not knowing the way to camp we had a guided tour of Balkonholle by Becka which slightly slowed progress taking 4hrs to reach camp. I was using my rack much to James's entertainment. I proceeded to drink half a litre of very cold water causing me to shiver, this would be the coldest I was all trip. when in our sleeping bags I apparently fell asleep far to quickly in comparison to a jealous Becka who was still cold. I was very warm and had a great nights sleep.
The tour of Balkonholle continued on the first day after a slow start. We found a couple of draughty A leads near camp which would be good for another team to look at if they're down for a short day. Once at Northern powerhouse we dropped the big chamber as someone had to do it resulting in a lovely 50m pitch which went nowhere. Becka nearly had a big rock land in her head when it fell out the wall luckily the big rock went nowhere and only a little one went down. This would become a trend of our trip. having used up all our bolts to actually push anything and being a little late we decided to scope our leads for the next day. This involved digging a boulder choke to bypass a pitch once we realised it was going we left and James squashed his knee behind a rock. Becka was very concerned thinking James had seriously either squashed or trapped his arm. I rammed myself into a very tight, horizontal, sharp and rifty squeeze where I bailed out of due to rescue being impossible. We then looked at some other leads which needed killing. We went Back to camp for an early night in preparation for a big pushing day the next day. The gas stove required much love to actually work at cooking our dinner. On another side note the gas stove could do with being replaced with a stove with a prewarming gas loop other wise you have no chance of cooking anything quickly.
<p>
An earlier start than the previous day left us with plenty of time to kill many leads. We set of to our dig to put in the pitch, now we have bolts to bypass the sketchy boulder choke. Here I learnt to bolt under observation from James. 2 more pitches were found and bolted. At the bottom of the second pitch I had to return to the top, while James and Becka surveyed our new found shafts, I was sent to collect the 50m rope for the 3rd pitch and some more flapjack. on the way back to the others 2 false floors collapsed underneath me while on a traverse line resulting in a disgruntled Becka, appropriately so. The 3rd pitch had some slightly more inventive rigging due to a low amount of bolts left. Here I had a conversation while bolting which was not a good idea, resulting in unset bolts which I had to be reminded to set. The 3rd pitch was a muddy tube which ended rather depressingly at the end. After having de-rigged we had no bolts to rig anything we pushed a couple of ramps on the way to Tartrus which all connected into themselves quite entertainingly. there seems to be a big wet boulder choke where all the leads crap out. We then headed further in to a QMB? which was lovely wide chamber until it again died while on top of a boulder false floor on top of a big drop. We all got very scared and ran away. On the way back to camp we removed an old rope from northern powerhouse and added a new one and also surveyed a short side passage. I ran away to camp to make a start on dinner while the surveying was done. An inventory was taken and an early night was had.
<p>
A very early morning and a relatively faff-less start was achieved. Mongol rally was started, quickly passed by Becka. I tried to make my life easier by abseiling out of the window on an Italian hitch with my jammers on the up rope. the plan failed when the carabinier failed to open resulting in untying the natural to feed it through my carabinier to then try again. much to James's horror, he made sure to hold onto the rope. once the first obstacle was passed I was off being chased by James and trying to keep up with Becka which didn't happen. My pantin and croll weren't being helpful making my life very unpleasant. much suffering was gone through trying to exit much to everyone else's entertainment. The exhaustion caught up at the bottom of the entrance series much flapjack was consumed giving me a second wind. I exited to a Becka going we're behind schedule cracking the whip.
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
Set off with the intention of rigging as far as Hangmans if time permitted. I felt a bit ropey, and this sensation did not subside once we started caving. Ruairidh attempted to fettle the entrance rig a bit, and we extended the existing handline on the approach to Natural Highs. At the pitch by Natural Highs I was still feeling nauseous, so elected to turn round. This was a good move as I was even slower than usual on the way out, finding myself sitting gazing into space for minutes on end at various points. Ruairidh and Sieds got as far as rigging the traverse to the head of Honeycomb before heading out.
<p>
TU is a guess - two hours less for me
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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.
<p>I did spot, I think, (on the opposite slope of the Loser above/beside the Weisse Wand) the steep grassy field with an entrance at the top end which Chas and Planc found in 1983 and which I revisited in 2017.
<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>
<imgsrc="/expofiles/photos/2024/AnthonyDay/mysterious-crash-wreckage.jpg"style="transform:rotate(270deg); object-fit:contain; object-position: left top;"width=400pxheight=400px>
<p>Our first target was to find the entrance to 1623/261. This is a fairly insignificant cave: <100m long, <50m deep. The interesting feature is that the cave is aligned with development in deep Balkonhöhle, specifically Charon, so I was interested to discover if there were any obvious similarly aligned surface features. Sure enough, the 1623/261 entrance was found to be in the side of a chossy gully. We didn't have a compass, so cannot confirm the alignment, but it seems highly probable that this surface feature is related to development of 1623/261 and deep Balkonhöhle. (There is another similarly aligned ARGE cave - Haldenloch (appears not to have a number) - that is further away to the northeast that we didn't visit.)</p>
<p>We also found the campsite used by ARGE some years ago, identified as the flat area of limestone complete with hangers that they used to fasten their tents to. Immediately above this campsite, we found the entrance to Griesskogelschacht (1623/232).</p>
<p>On our way home, we stopped off at 2012-ns-07 (tagged as 2016#01). Ruairidh headed down in dry grots while 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, Ruairidh made it to the bottom which appears to be choked with boulders (though someone in an oversuit may prove more willing to absolutely confirm that). There is also an upgoing unexplored passage (QM B). Not super promising, but probably worth a return visit. If the cave goes anywhere, it is likely to connect to the upper levels of Balkonhöhle.</p>
<p>In the course of our wanderings we took photos of 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 photos have been added to the relevant cave page (except where an existing entrance photo could be resurrected). With the exception of 2012-dd-01, all other caves should now have sufficient information to be added to the Kataster. There is a 2022 survey of 2012-ns-05 and 2012-ns-06 that is not in the dataset; the survex file is very sparse and contains no clues as to where the connecting points should be.</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..
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 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.
Tess arrived, and cooked the evening slop + rice (with Lara) for the canyoning [Strubklamm] team. A fine evening with much conviviality. ABout a dozen people down at base.
<divclass="triptitle">homecoming - There and there and there and back again</div>
When I emerged from homecoming and realised the stars were only just still visible because it was dawn I seriously considered if I'd left some of my sanity down by the pushing front. We had finished faffing and started descending around midday the day before, a solid 16 and a half hours ago.
<p>
I had cleverly left my undersuit and thermals down the hill (where i had tried and failed to wash them) so before we left I had an emergency call with Issac, who was on Plateau Porter duties. For the actual trip I borrowed Marie's oversuit, conveniently left outside and Charlotte's leggings. Thanks everyone. The undersuit was very thick which although I was boiling all the way to Radagast was very welcome later in the day.
<p>
After a pretty slow descent (fixing lights, faffing with ropes e.t.c) we got to the split off to watershed where James and I continued ahead while Charlotte waited for Jacob. We headed all the way to the end of the sandy traverses and the beginning of flowstone canyon, noting on the way at the water-filling-drip that the water levels must be very low. I also reflected on how much bigger Strained by Gravity was than I remembered, 70 metres back up didn't sound so fun.
<p>
The mood was a little down at this point because both James and I had realised that the late start and faff meant we were in for a very long trip if we wanted to reach the pushing front which slightly scrapped the plan of two days in a row down homecoming. Still, we poked around the top of Flowstone canyon to pass the time; into the rift we'd surveyed a few days before (still not traversable without bolts) and up to the higher level passage. Jacob and Charlotte showed up around 4:30 so we offered to survey this higher level passage in the rift to see where it went while they rigged Sound of Water.
<p>
We had a pretty fun time doing this, and got some nice 10 metre legs. It felt entertainingly sketchy because the floor had a changing rift in it with piles of sand, gravel and dust on top of it so wherever you stepped seemed to send avalanches of floor onto the passage below. James declared it was like murder holes in castles so it was promptly named 'portcullis passage'. After passing some nice helictites, James, who was ahead with the disto shouted back that it ended in a wet chamber with a tackle sack in it. Very strange. We realised pretty much simultaneously that we were actually looking down onto the chamber we had sat in (and pissed in) the last trip while waiting for the pitch to be rebolted and Charlotte had left the bag in it this time as well. I dashed round the long way into the chamber and James shot a leg down from the window he had emerged in 5 metres above me, closing the loop.
<p>
After this entertainment was over we sat pretty cosily in a bothy bag, had a cuddle, listened to James' music and waited for the all clear. This also gave us plenty of time to come up with another half Hard Caver verse, this time:
<palign=center><em/>When caving with Charlotte it's prussic galore
<palign=center>You won't leave the cave till it's gone half past four
<p></em> the second half would be written later during noodles:
<palign=center><em>We dropped a few pitches and surveyed the lot
<palign=center> By the time we get out we will wish we'd be shot
<p> When the pitch was rigged we zoomed down it, did a bit of spikey rift waling/traversing, rigged Alpine Showers and finally reached the pushing front. Unfortunately the mood was a little down. Charlotte was very cold and we all were aware it was 8, the time we'd agreed to turn around. I was also trying not to think about the fact my whole leg had got splashed descending Alpine Showers which meant I really should turn around rather than get hypothermia.
James declared he would put in a few traverse bolts along a ledge while we began turning round. Surprise, surprise that's not what happened. We chatted and made the executive decision it would be stupid late anyway so we might as well push the cave and make it an even later trip. The next day's caving would be sacked off unless we fancied an evening all night trip (that did not happen). Charlotte had also put on her spare layers so we all got up and got excited again.
The water shot off from where we were standing down a rift in the floor but it was easy to walk round the side for 4 or 5 metres. James put in a traverse line and then much discussion was had at the best place for a y-hang, as all the rock was a bit shit. Eventually he put one on the same wall and a deviation on a lovely huge flake that went from the left wall to the centre of the rift. we descended and added in another traverse following above the stream where it kept dropping. All the time I was swearing at the waterproof paper but getting very excited at how big the passage was and the general concept of treading on ground that had never been stepped on before.
James dropped another pitch and, having run out of bolts, drilled a thread for the deviation: very Yorkshire. The stream became very lovely and shallow here at a very gently angle so we walked along the bottom. This nice passage led to me later naming it 'My Favourite Things' following the Sound of Music theme. (James added that it was also a good name because he was caving with his favourite people: awww).
The roof of the rift dropped till it was right above us and the stream plummeted into the floor. It we felt like we were in the Gods, dropping rocks 25 metres into the stream below. Here, having ran out of bolts and rope we sadly had to turn back, with the slightly alarming realisation it was already 11.
The way out was a little hellish. Starting off well, I dropped an apple sized rock directly on Charlotte's helmet. Earlier I'd realised that Jacob's leg loop was not only not doubled over but was about 2mm from coming out. Excellent safety practices all round.
Flowstone canyon with a big bag, caving alone was I'm pretty sure somewhere close to a lot of peoples idea of torture. I had to repeatedly toss the bag up squeezy climbs then do them myself with shot legs. Charlotte caught up with me and cajoled me over the traverses, with chocolate and patience. She also offered to carry the bag up Strained by Gravity and the other small pitches. What a legend. The scent of noodles and promise of water pushed me on to the bottom of Sump Bypass where James and Jacob waited. Here the second half of the Hard Caver verse was written.
It now being 1am we were a bit delirious. Jacob went the wrong way and took a detour down Heiffer and Charlotte and James decided to try rerigging and rebolting Wallace and Grommit. It seriously needed doing but you could not have paid me. After a long slow prussic I emerged at 4:30, Jacob before 5. James looked shattered but pulled himself out 20 minutes later and Charlotte a bit after that around 6.
<p> The sun shone off the mountain and through the wild flowers as we walked up the hill to Garlic Camp. Despite how my legs felt, at that moment I was extremely happy.
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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In 2023, I was poking around the area around dm-04 while Ash surveyed it with possibly Eli from Cardiff. There are several interesting shafts in the area, including the one I dropped today. This shaft was under a fissure with a few boulders in the roof. Rocks dropped in create an impressive BOOM.
<p>
On the trip back from Garlic, Isaac and I visited the shaft with actual vertical gear and some Petzl Pulses. While Isaac nipped down to Homecoming to find a drill bit, I scouted the rigging. The rock at the top was a bit funky due to frost etc. After a bit of beating, I identified places to set some pulses. Isaac returned with the drill and I quickly drilled a few holes and placed the pulses.
<p>
I expected to drop into a large chamber, but instead found myself in 2.5 meter diameter shaft that went down at 15 meters. The result was very disappointing, but my rigging and the pulses exceeded expectations, so we called it a win for the day.
<p>
Isaac went to drop the drill and rope back at Garlic while I did a quick survey of the cave. I tied to the dm04 tag, but that leg is a bit estimated since it was too bright to use the disto effectively.
<divclass="triptitle">basecamp - Cheese banned from expo shopping?</div>
A breach of our human rights!
<p>
I feel I speak for all when I say we are flabbergasted, dismayed and in some cases angered by the decision to bar cheese from further expedition shopping...
<p>
The simple coagulated dairy product has been a mainstay of our expedition goers diet since we first arrived. The morale boost acquired by placing a luscious, creamy strip of Gouda into one's mouth cannot be overstated.
<p>
By relegating cheese to being a so-called "personal item" it forces expedition goers to balance their own need for a morale boost with their personal financial circumstances, creating potentially, a delicate class divide between those on the frontier. It also calls into question if the expedition command truly have the attendees best interests at heart.
<p>
An army marches on it's stomach. Expedition caving is no different. Happy cavers are effective cavers and by removing access to our most favorite food I believe the expedition command has actively damaged the lengths and depth prospects for exploration going forward.
<p>
I implore expedition command to reconsider their decision. I sympathize that it may be awkward in the short term, however I hope they would agree with me that it is better to loose face than to loose life.
<p>
In the event of inaction on this issue, I am afraid we will be forced to consider further action.
<p>
Signed: The people of the plateau.
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Got a paynefully early start up the hill with Charlotte and team, then she set a blistering pace for a payneful trog up to the col, arriving at 09:25, where I thankfully left the party and headed off leftwards behind the Braüning wall at a more reasonable pace.
My aim was to explore the possibilities of the Geschwandalm area as a potential forward base for bringing gear up to the plateau in case the new cable car system proves difficult, and longer term as a possible partial replacement for the Gasthof campsite when property values eventually force our squalid encampment further away from the gentile tourist areas.
There is no roadhead at Geschwandalm, but the meadow above it on the path just below the lip of the edge of the plateau would make a fine campsite. (We would need to bring our own electric fence though, the cows were friendly enough but one of them was very big and I wouldn't fancy getting stepped on while in my pit.) No flies to speak of and no horseflies.
The path along the bottom of the Braüning wall is not well marked at all at the col end, but mostly is well cairned and the cuts through the pine scrub are well maintained. It could be a useful route for a stretcher party if that was needed in this area. I lost the path again around the Geshwandalm huts (alt. ~1540m) in the multitude of cow tracks but found it again at the stream just below the main grassy area.
<imgwidth=20%href="/years/2024/images/path-through-woods.jpg"src="/years/2024/images/path-through-woods.jpg"><br>The path from there to where it intersects the driveable track is narrow and not motorable (unless on a scrambler bike). It is an easy gradient and was a 50 minute easy amble to the track.
At the track there is a wider area a hundred metres or so away (southwards) which could be a gear trans-shipment area and campsite if necessary (alt. ~1380m). There is a busy stream (~ 0.5 litres a second) a couple of hundred metres away. It is clearly a forestry road (blocked by cut trunks in places) and we would need to talk to the forestry people. The track joins the ski-lift tracks below the Löser Hütte and then into the toll road. The other way along the track connects to Bla Alm (signposted, and confirmed by Mark Shinwell) so could be an alternative if we can't use the toll road.
Track online at <ahref="/expofiles/gpslogs/2024/PhilipSargent/2024-07-21_geschwandalm.gpx">/expofiles/gpslogs/2024/PhilipSargent/2024-07-21_geschwandalm.gpx</a>.
<divclass="triptitle">Homecoming - A satisfying but not very useful result</div>
Slavedriver Payne woke us up early and we got up the hill vaguely fast (despite Chi's moderate faff). Unfortunately further faff then occurred at the entrance to Homecoming. This included further effort towards the Gordian Knot from the first Homecoming trip, which concluded in Chi doing an Alexander the Great. We ended up with two ropes. Chi also spent <em> some </em> time reconstructing a pantin from two broken ones (it didn't work). Clearly one person was the issue here. *editorial note: it would transpire that Lara concluded faffing a good 20 mins after the futile pantin was birthed*
<p>
Harry and Charlotte entered early to rerig and apparently faffed for an ungodly amount of time. Chi and I got underground at 12:40 collecting Charlotte's Pantin, which she had ironically managed to forget after it had been used as a model for the Frankenpantin. Much faff followed this as well: we raced down to the top of Wallace where we met Harry coming up the pitch. He had somehow managed some mess involving a dropped drill bag, a random pitch and disgustingly twisty rope. All was retrieved and the rope was replaced.
<p>
Chi zoomed down to join Charlotte and de-rig Heifer for rope while I coiled the old shit 2013 11mil (it was not a pretty job). Harry and I sat kindly waiting for each other to finish 5 minutes after both of us had, without saying anything.
<p>
On the way to the pushing front only one eventful thing happened. Harry got entertainingly stuck on a pitch-head after descending into the traverse line. He attempted to climb over it at the risk of falling backwards, again, much to my entertainment, before giving up.
<p>
We decided to push the QMA aven at the start of Flowstone Canyon. Chi and I pushed a lovely big rock down it first. Nice stuff. <b>EDITORIAL NOTE it was at the end of Watershed, the aven isn't in Flowstone Canyon </b>. Chi spent 20 slow minutes putting in bolts while we layered up. He was frustrated at how slow the drill was until it was pointed out to him that it was in reverse. Chi blamed DeWalt. He then claimed that some strange mineral vein had fucked his drill bit, which turned out to be entirely flat at the tip. With the drill bit swapped, he tried to put it in the same hole and fucked the second bit a little too. We eventually dropped the pitch.
<p>
The bottom had a potential camping place (whooo). It was drippy on the pitch side of the pot but dry on the other with a flat rocky area you could potentially fit four sleepers in. Chi also realised I had left his down jacket at the top of the pitch thinking it was the emergency shelter. In my defence they were in identical orange bags.
<p>
After lots and lots of discussion Chi called the chamber 'Peculiar Pot' after the strange large boulders surrounding the camp. I surveyed, Harry drilled and we dropped a pitch down the rift on the other side. What followed was a lot of wiggly rift with a pitch at the end. Due to the strange pitch/traverse Harry rigged which you had to stand in it was dubbed Perverse Pitch which proved itself accurate.
<p>
We agreed to finally turn around once it was dropped, it already being 9pm. Annoyingly, (or not) at the bottom we found the side of the Sound of Water pitch. Loop closure! This of course meant closing the survey loop and derigging what we'd just dropped, making the whole exercise interesting but a little pointless.
<p>
I forgot that Harry's water bottle was in the bottom of my bag, and may have slightly convinced them they were wrong. Harry, desperate for a drink took a sip from a streamway before realising it was a little frothy a few feet upstream. Chi and I had indeed pissed there five minutes before. The dehydration continued as all the other water was used for noodles and Harry had never found his, how mysterious. I was in trouble when I emptied my tackle sack on the surface but on the plus side denying Harry basic human necessities slowed him down behind me on the entrance series.
<p>
Harry and Charlotte slowed themselves down by doing some more Wallace fettling. Chi and I got out at the lovely hour of 3am and napped for the 15 minutes before they caught up. I got deja vu as we headed up to Garlic and immediately passed out. A very long, very fun day.
<divclass="triptitle">basecamp - Arrival and rain</div>
Mark Shinwell arrived in an electric van (hired) and in the early evening Jono's new huge tap at the end of the hut (put up yesterday) got tested by a downpour.
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<divclass="triptitle">Basecamp - Festering and computers at the end of time</div>
Isaac and I were tasked with writing up 2023's unfinished logbook writeups. After overwhelming Philip with website bugs and general stress we each decided to go on missions of self discovery to stave off a complete mental break.
<p>
Isaac went for a swim in the lake, he will have to edit this post to share how that went but if this text remains we can oblly assume that he wishes for his experience to remain between him and the waters of grundlesee (should this be the case please respect his privacy and do not harass him for details of his experience).
<p>
I went for a a quick walk up the nearby Gallhofkogel, lovely views(which I would put here were I an expereinced enough nerd) and a good few benches to sit enjoy a packed lunch.
Yesterday Jacob and Isaac got round a duplication problem with logbook entry by overwriting an existing entry - which meant that a dozen entries from 2023 were typed up, but all overwriting the same entry. (So these now need to be recovered from the git records).
<p>
One confusing problem was a corrupt entry elsewhere in 2023 which made it seem like a new entry was being edited, when it wasn't (which was only on the server and could not be reproduced on dev machine at base).
<p>
We now have a new <em>expoadmin</em> capability of easily deleting logbook entries online. Also troggle is not producing duplicate entries any more. Ridiculous amount of effort, sorry guys.
<divclass="triptitle">Homecoming - Swinging into the Tube</div>
Following the walk across the plateau with everyone and Isaac (who watched us go in before heading off to Garlic), and a lot of faff, we went down the entrance series. Lara lead the way, followed by Rosa, Tom, and then I. Tom had a battle with the entrance pitch - unaided by the 5om of rope I had given him to take down - which required teamwork and feeding him chocolate role like it's an apple to free him.
<p>
I found the entrance series' rigging a bit needlessly hard but when it was explained to me about the usual state of the snow plug it made a lot more sense.
<p>
When we got down to the top of Radogast I got all my bolting kit together and abbed down on the fixed rope with the rope for the pitch in the bag on my hip. (You can probably guess what's coming up!) When about 7m down there was a lovely flat as anything wall of rock where I put a rebelay in, but not before using a wide range of climbing moves to pull myself in and get my skyhook on. Annoyingly, the skyhook popped as I was getting a bolt out the bag so I had to do that very physical part twice. It was about here that I discovered that alpine caves didn't feel as cold as I believed they would be - owing to quite how dry they are. I was positively cooking!
<p>
Once I got the bolts in I threw the end of my rope up to Lara to rig on the pitch-head so I could rig the rebelay and come back up - my legs were going a bit too tingly for my liking! At the top I learnt the others were quite cold but I needed a moment to regain use of my legs because they'd become quite painful. With renewed blood flow to my lower limbs I abbed back down, got embarrassingly stuck on my rebelay (small cowstail crab got pinned and wouldn't come out), abbed down, did some swinging back and forth and then left and right so I was swinging round in a circle so I could grab another bit of rock, hook it and pull myself in. Placed one bolt and then did a fairly scary traverse out on my cowstails trying not to whip into the void of Radogast as I clambered into the tube and placed my final bolt.
<p>
Once all that was finished being rigged Lara came down to see (the first bolt of the traverse line spun a bit (It was being pulled in every direction), she joined me, we left the rope and the bag behind and made our way out (Lara tightened the bolt to perfection - I think a forgot to clean all the clay off first time round). I have absolutely no idea how they got into here in 2018 except maybe running off the top of the pitchhead and doing a massive rope rub pendulum into it!
<p>
The others had already started their own way out, having got cold and bored - sorry! We followed out and there I caught up with Tom who had had a scary moment with his D-ring spinning and the harness trying to open the triact lock! We made our way out and by the end I was peeling off clothes like I was in Spain!
<p>
A very cool bit of SRT bolted for me & setup for the future, but unfortunately a very different trip experience for everyone else. (Tom's space blanket shelter is apparently quite amazing though!)
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Zac did break the log book, while waiting around. But Phil got very grumpy about it so he replaced his awesome styling and text with this very boring message.
<divclass="triptitle">topcamp - Top camp bounce</div>
Sarah, Nat, Zac and Phil drove up the loser. We then hiked up to the Col. It being Sarah, Nat and Zac's first time up since the installation of the new cable car, we were quite taken unawares by the new path from the car park. From there it was plain hiking up to the col. Once at the Col, Phil s parted ways and headed off on his own adventures. Sarah, Nat and Zac, meanwhile hiked on to top camp. Once there we caught Becka as she was leaving and James W and Colin as they were thinking about leaving. After a little faffing and some noodles, we rang down to base camp to ask what kit we should carry down. We were told only some some roll mats and camp beds for Garlic. Packing these, alongside some tackle sacks from a recent Balkon trip (See report), we began to head down. Zac Lagged behind a lot of the way as his new shoes were wearing on his feet. But eventually we reached the loser car park where we all packed, tightly, into Sarah's car and drove down the hill.
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