From 0a9bfa3178aacb52e0c2aa482745081a43804370 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: julian Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2008 23:11:28 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] [svn r8045] with cave orders at front --- years/2007/logbook/2007logbook.txt | 191 +++++++++++++++-------------- years/2008/logbook/2008logbook.txt | 88 ++++++------- 2 files changed, 141 insertions(+), 138 deletions(-) diff --git a/years/2007/logbook/2007logbook.txt b/years/2007/logbook/2007logbook.txt index 7f56f2eae..548a1c3a4 100644 --- a/years/2007/logbook/2007logbook.txt +++ b/years/2007/logbook/2007logbook.txt @@ -1,18 +1,18 @@ -===2007-07-10|Rigging Entrance to 204-E| Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Ollie Stevens, Richard Mundy=== +===2007-07-10|204 - Rigging Entrance to 204-E| Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Ollie Stevens, Richard Mundy=== Nial put some extra bolts (3) into the entrance pitch then showed us some of the high level horizontal stuff and the top of the main Gaffered pitch. T/U: 5 hours -===2007-07-10|Djuke's Bedtime Story| Djuke=== +===2007-07-10|Top Camp - Djuke's Bedtime Story| Djuke=== Snow greeted us on a snowy cold, misty damp bivy morning. Most of us (except Aaron - who kept emphasising how great his sleeping bag was) had spent the night shivering away and Nial in his 20 Argos sleeping bag was up at 6.30am preparing the stove and everyone slowly emerged. As was I, unfortunately discovered (after mustering all the courage in me - and counter my instinct - crawling out of my sleeping bag) that I didn't have my furry. Great! :( had left it at base camp in the tent where I'd used it as a pillow. So Aaron and I spent a cold day taking turns rigging the tarps (intermittantly taking turns to rewarm our fingers). I was soooo annoyed not to be caving and having to spend my time in the cold bivy - am glad to be back at basecamp - am glad to be back at basecamp in warm hut after having shower :) -===2007-07-12|It's raining - again|Djuke Veldhuis, Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Ollie Stevens=== +===2007-07-12|Top Camp - It's raining - again|Djuke Veldhuis, Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Ollie Stevens=== It's raining... AGAIN! We are about to walk up the hill ==2007-07-10|204e ‚New Rigging Guide| == [rigging diagram] -==2007-07-10|Germknodel== +==2007-07-10|Base Camp - Germknodel== Makes 8 large/12 small or 4 superlarge plate sized 500g flour @@ -33,7 +33,7 @@ Pour melted butter over then icing sugar and poppy seeds. Those who know their expo lore will be aware of the fun and games I endured whilst attempting to tow a decrepit trailer accorss Europe in 1995. Since then I've been pouring money into various European breakdown schemes without further incident - so I was about due for a return on my investment. Somewhere north of Hamburg I noticed that my bonnet seemed to be flapping around quite a lot. Having established that it was actually shut, I ignored the problem for 5 hours until it had clearly got worse. It turns out that the corrosion on the bit of bonnet that the catch was attached to had got so bad that it was in danger of completely unattaching itself - in which case the bonnet could spring open. At this point, I decided to make use of my breakdown cover. To make this a trad. style breakdown I didn't have a mobile with me, so I spent a nostalgic 2 hours sitting in a Gasthof - completely unaware of what (if anything) was happening reminiscing about similar experience at the side of various European motorways all those years ago. Eventually the mechanic turned up, laughed at the state of my bonnet, bolted it together through the remaining bits of good metal and gaffered it shut. Overall I was only delayed by about 2.5 hours, and made it to Austria without further incident. -===2007-07-11|MarkD & Anthony install a radon detector in 115| Mark Dougherty, Anthony Day=== +===2007-07-11|115 - MarkD & Anthony install a radon detector in 115| Mark Dougherty, Anthony Day=== Tramped along the [Shagway?] armed with a GPS location for 115. Neither of us had been there before, but I recalled seeing a marking showing the way to the cave from the main 204 path. This we duly found and wandered off in the direction of the arrow. Spotted a small entrance which we (erroneously) took as a sign that we were very close to the main entrance. Spent 30 mins thrashing around in bunde and teetering down cliffs whilst the distance to the cave remained stuck at around 30m according to the GPS. We suspected we were too high, and eventually got low enough down that we could see the entrance. @@ -44,22 +44,22 @@ Went in for about 5 mins, through a crawl which enlarges to a small chamber befo T/U: 15 mins -===2007-07-11|Julia's journey out| Julia Bradshaw=== +===2007-07-11|Journey to Austria - Julia's journey out| Julia Bradshaw=== After quite a few trains and 6 days cycling in Italy I ended up in Venice. Pottered around for a day and a half, then got a sleeper train. Only covering was a sheet, which meant sleeping on the actual bed without anything separating you from the carpet-like covering on the bed. Very comfortable and cooling ... Got up at 5am to be greeted by the guard bearing my breakfast tray (only two Semmel and a cuppa but still - service!). Train from Attnang Puchheim to Bad Aussee, where Dour was waiting next to a Citroen van which was looking significantly more battered than a week ago ... -===2007-07-16|On obtaining alcohol at top camp - password protect| Aaron Curtis === +===2007-07-16|Top Camp - On obtaining alcohol at top camp - password protect| Aaron Curtis === For the past 3 days, four friendly Hungarians who got in touch with us through Stuart Bennett have visited us. Thery accomplished a tourist trip dopwn to Kiwi Suit, and carried enough gear to camp self sufficiently. More notably, they carried a substantial volume of intoxicating liquids - enough to keep top camp happy for a night or two. In the interest of maintaining contact with these amiable cavers and discovering a potential future source of life-sustaining fluid, their contact emails are: gabor dot losonci at gmail dot com and adam dot panker at gmail dot com. tel. 00-36-20-5200-665. -===2007-07-12|Setting up 76 bivi| Jenny Black, Olly Betts=== +===2007-07-12|Top Camp - Setting up 76 bivi| Jenny Black, Olly Betts=== We left a bag of stuff stored at the bivi cave, most of it survived intact. A mouse appeared to have had a nibble at the food box but failed to get through the gaffer tape, let alone open the lid. It also nibbled the Tunnocks that we accidentally left. We left a tent and lilo in a drybag. The elastic in the tent poles is no longer very stretchy, presumably due to the cold? -===2007-07-13|Prospecting Beyond 97| Jenny Black, Olly Betts === +===2007-07-13|97 - Prospecting Beyond 97| Jenny Black, Olly Betts === We went looking for a 'back door' into 97. Olly found a promising looking shaft (2007-70) which he descended. 2007-70 is located on a slight rise on the edge of a stretch of pavement just beyond 97. The entrance is a approximately 1.5m diameter shaft with a horizontal connection to an adjacent (larger) shaft a few metres down. At the base, an icy snow slope drops away before the roof comes down - possibly passable with less ice/snow. Above this end, and ice fall comes in from a small passage up which I couldn't easily get to. The larger adjacent shaft doesn't have any leads. While walking back Olly noticed a low entrance (2007-71) in a slope. We took it in turns moving rocks out of the way, and Olly went in. It drafts out a fair amount, though not as much as Draft Bitter. I went back to the bivy (twice because I was forgettful in my excitement at finding a new cave) to get my caving gear and we went underground. @@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ After the low wriggly start it improved to walking/stooping/crawling passage. T T/U 2hrs ish. -===2007-07-14|148; Marylin Monroe Hoehle| Jenny Black, Olly Betts === +===2007-07-14|148 - Marylin Monroe Hoehle| Jenny Black, Olly Betts === Went back to look at 148, 20 years after it was last explored. Crawling entrance to a squeeze and climb into a larger passage, so far the same as the old description and similar to the old survey if you rotate it by about 56 degrees. Then at the junction right doesn't actually choke - there is a way on doubling back that ends at a diggable sandy crawl. Left at the previous junction was missing the snow from 1987 and led to a pitch which you could reach either approximately 10m from the bottom of 20m up. Daylight just about comes in from above along with lots of drips presumably a snow plug on the surface above a big pitch very close to the 204 path. @@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ I got really cold cos it drafted a lot and I was only wearing one lot of thermal T/U 4.5hrs. -===2007-07-15|2006-70 (Cairn Cave) and Marilyn Monroe Hoehle| Jenny Black & Olly Betts === +===2007-07-15|Cairn Cave - 2006-70 (Cairn Cave) and Marilyn Monroe Hoehle| Jenny Black & Olly Betts === Jenny was (uncharacteristically) not feeling well so she sat in what little shade there was, while I went underground. First, at Cairn cave I put in a tag spit, then used that plus a thread backup and two protectors to descend. The pitch head is awkward, then bells out to land on a rubble floor with a dirty snowplug. A chink of light enters upslope from a nearby shaft, while downslope the roof lowers and chokes. This is the source of the outward draft noted at the entrance. @@ -86,21 +86,21 @@ Then onto 148- I entered in thermals plus oversuit and drilled and set two spits TU 1 hour (total). -===2007-07-13|Kiwi Suit Rig| Anthony Day, Mark Dougherty, and Andreas Forsberg === +===2007-07-13|204 - Kiwi Suit Rig| Anthony Day, Mark Dougherty, and Andreas Forsberg === Set off at 3pm following the first wave who had gone in to rig as far as the bottom of Ariston. Met James C in Wolpertinger Way, he was heading out because he was cold, and caught up with the others at the head of Steel Toe Cap. Mark D rigged the last Ariston pitch, I rigged the first Kiwi Suit pitch, then wibbled on the start of the traverse to the second for long enough that Mark D took over again - pausing only to spit in a pot at the head of the fourth Kiwi Suit pitch, i.e. the Brown Trouser Pitch head. Mission accomplished we headed out. TU 7 hours. -===2007-07-15|Razordance Rig| Anthony Day and Mark Dougherty === +===2007-07-15|204 - Razordance Rig| Anthony Day and Mark Dougherty === The previous day's team had rigged to GLAD (God Loves a Drunk). Our plan was to continue the rig as near to the pushing front as possible, so that a later team could come in and do a quick push. We also intended to install some radon detectors and tidy up various bits of rigging. I put in a higher bolt on the last hang in Ariston and was preparing to descend Kiwi Seat when Mark's bottom exploded. He elected to carry on and caught up with me at the bottom of the first Kiwi Suit pitch where I was installing an extra traverse bolt. Our next job was a bolt for a handline on Dave Dives. Mark drilled a hole, at which point we found that the Hilti pot was missing. It turned out that I had left them at the side of the previous bolts - fortunately they were retrieved by a later party - so the second wave could use the drill. Dumped the drill at GLAD, and continued rigging through Tun and Copper. Put in a handbolt for a deviation on Yeast which looks to have sorted out the rig a treat. At that pitch we called it a day and headed out, meeting the second wave at GLAD. Out at 19.30 and bolted down the hill. TU 10.5 hrs. -===2007-07-13|204-Rhino Rift| Richard Mundy , Ollie Stevens, Dave Loeffler === +===2007-07-13|204 - Rhino Rift| Richard Mundy , Ollie Stevens, Dave Loeffler === Dave introduced us novices to exploration in Rhino Rift. This began by exploring a few QM's, giving dull outcomes. 03-57C became too tight after 3 metres, 03-60C looped back into the passage (with a dead hole in the roof), and 03-70A connected to Grater. We then ventured into the seemingly maze-like Piccadilly Junction and tried 03-66B. This led on in a fairly tight phreatic manner, cutting back under itself and twisting into a more rifty character, before coming across a steep slope. This was all surveyed in record time thanks to Dr Phil Underwood's wonderful Shetland Attack Pony - a loveable device apart from its eyeburning laser. This "Shanks Pony Passage" led to "Shetland Incline", at which point Dave grew increasingly excited, rigging in an increasingly swift and worrying manner. We found a muddy rift passage to the right descending this pitch, complete with footprints! Holes in the floor prevented further access, but Dave suspected this to be a link with "Uncomformity" ... @@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ Leads uncovered by the trip included C at the bottom of pitch descended by Dave TU 11 hours -===2007-07-13 and 15 |204e Crowning Glory exploration| Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Aaron Curtis === +===2007-07-13 and 15 |204 - 204e Crowning Glory exploration| Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Aaron Curtis === On the 13th the three of us went pushing the end of Crowning Glory, an A grade lead. As a starry eyed novice, I was expecting a kilometre of passage leading either to Tunnockschacht, a new entrance or Kaninchenhoehle. Instead, the passage just fizzled out! It rapidly became too tight, although we did find an impressive aven on the left, which didn't lead anywhere. On the way back, we bolted and descended a new pitch. A 20 metre descent led to a squeeze down into a chamber that looked like it needed a handline. @@ -125,7 +125,7 @@ Andreas joined us, all the way from Sweden, hunting meteorites, in order to chec We progressed to explore 03-90A. This involved Dave cutting our old (2003) 11mm rope into lots of teeny bits. We dropped down a very satisfyingly shaped (rounded cross section) pitch onto a stony floor. A climb led to a further pitch. Andreas and I were left here whilst Dave and Ollie went back to peer at some other QM's. As I became bored, I climbed up to watch Andreas rig. I observed that one natural in his Y-hang was not a solid column of rock, but instead two rocks entirely disconnected from anything. Dave had started rigging from it and now Andreas was rigging from it. Andreas later admitted feeling considerable fear when I wriggled the rock he was rigging off! After a change of plan we descended. The end was dull, but Andreas kicked some mud. This impromptu dig was hastened by the sound of water "a sump" Andreas claimed. In fact a tiny grim loose chamber with a 2cm squared puddle! We got out having discovered this "Spitters End". Less than the previous day's 200 metres of survey, but still satisfying. -===2007-07-19| Surface messing| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis === +===2007-07-19|Surface Prospecting - Surface messing| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis === After an 11 hour and a 9 hour trip, Ollie and I fancied a day off. We travelled to Rundereisehoehle with Aaron in order to wire and start some data loggers. We had installed thermistors 3 days before, Aaron and I not setting a call out and thus prompting a rescue to begin at nightfall! The weather was scorching (hence Ollie's radiation burns all over) in contrast to last week's snow. We did well, apart from Aaron falling and filling his USB cable with dirt, rendering it useless to start data loggers. @@ -134,7 +134,7 @@ Later in the day Ollie and I went surface prospecting. We found a promising hole TU 1.5 hrs. -===2007-07-16| 204:Underworld | Richard Mundy, Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins=== +===2007-07-16| 204 - Underworld | Richard Mundy, Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins=== Given previous Rhino Rift and surface prospecting exploits, I allowed myself to be tempted into a deeper expedition by Nial, despite wise seer Dave's protestations that I wouldn't find much onward in the Underworld. @@ -151,14 +151,14 @@ We surveyed a reasonable bit, but I resolve to charge Nial a 'shit cave tax' for TU 13 hours -===2007-07-13|Rigging Gaffered| Nial Peters, Djuke Veldhuis=== +===2007-07-13|204 - Rigging Gaffered| Nial Peters, Djuke Veldhuis=== The plan was to rig to the underworld in one trip, so with over 300m of rope between us (200m of 11mm in Big Bertha - which was a mistake!) we set off. The rigging went quite fast and several improvements over the old rig were found. However, we had accidentally left all the spits and cones on the surface. When we reached Trihang and decided it needed a new bolt therefore, we had no option but to turn back. The return trip was much easier given we no longer had any rope to carry! The round trip was 7.5hrs at an easy pace. TU 7.5 hours -===2007-07-14|The Gaffered rebolting project| Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Djuke Veldhuis, Sarah White=== +===2007-07-14|204 - The Gaffered rebolting project| Nial Peters, Edvin Deadman, Kathryn Hopkins, Djuke Veldhuis, Sarah White=== After the previous rigging trip I decided that the Gaffered rig could be greatly improved with a few extra bolts. With lots of novices keen to learn to bolt and an abundance of hand bolting gear (well, 3 sets) this seemed like the perfect opportunity to sort the rig out once and for all. Myself and Edvin went ahead to re-rig the Eyehole and Trihang leaving the others to practice some bolting and rigging by installing a traverse line between Gaffer Tape and Tape Worm. Edvin installed two new spits at the top of the Eyehole pitch meaning you no longer have to squeeze through the eyehole. This rig is perfect! Why was it not rigged like this in the first place!? While Edvin did this, I put in an additional spit at the top of Trihang in order to allow it to be rigged as a Trihang (how was this done before?). Further improvements to the rig include a deviation on Gaffer Tape just below the first re-belay (this looks a bit strange, but it stops the rope rubbing when you swing across for the second re-belay). A deviation on the Lx pitch also makes staying out of the slot above the re-belay easier. @@ -168,7 +168,7 @@ Meanwhile at the bottom of Gaffer Tape..... Kathryn Sarah and Djuke started to bolt the traverse between the bottom of Gaffer Tape and the Tape Worm pitch. The traverse had not previously been protected, but a slip there could be very serious, so it was decided that a rope was a good idea. None of the the three of us had much experience bolting, and so we had many aborted attempts. We only had one bolting kit between the three of us, and this meant we got quite cold, so Djuke decideded to find Edvin and Nial in the Underworld. Sarah and Kathryn eventually placed 4 bolts of varying quality and rigged the traverse, by which time it was too late to join the others pushing in the Underworld, and so they headed out. -===2007-07-15|204a ‚Äì The New Gaffered Rigging Guide| Nial Peters === +===2007-07-15|204 - 204a ‚Äì The New Gaffered Rigging Guide| Nial Peters === [rigging diagram] @@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ Notes - Possible QM above Trihang pitch head. Up and behind the pitch head appears to be a tube heading left. Requires bolting up to (although only a couple of metres). -===2007-07-15|204a - Razordance| Nial Peters, Sarah White, *Hungarian Cavers=== +===2007-07-15|204 - 204a - Razordance| Nial Peters, Sarah White, *Hungarian Cavers=== Tourist trip down 204a as far as Razordance to show our Hungarian visitors around Steinbrucken. They all seemed very impressed, especially with the pitches. However, one was overhead to say that there was too much prussiking! Trip took 6hrs. The temperature in Kiwi Suit was 0.4¬∞C. @@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ The Hungarians were very keen to see more of the cave so I took Dodo and Gabor o We are all invited to go caving in Hungary. If you fancy it then contact Gabor by email. -===2007-07-14|Surface prospecting northwest of 204e| Mark Dougherty, Mark Shinwell, Anthony Day, *Gabor (Hungarian)=== +===2007-07-14|Surface Prospecting - northwest of 204e| Mark Dougherty, Mark Shinwell, Anthony Day, *Gabor (Hungarian)=== Surface prospecting northwest of 204e. Descended surface shat ‚ÄúM5‚Äù which panned out as follows: @@ -205,7 +205,7 @@ The pitch lands in a largish chamber ‚ÄúProfessor Rushton‚Äôs Lecture Ha T/U: (MSD) 1/2 hour. -===2007-07-18|Razordance| Duncan Collis, Mark Dougherty, Anthony Day=== +===2007-07-18|204 - Razordance| Duncan Collis, Mark Dougherty, Anthony Day=== We got underground at 9:30 and made rapid progress down to God Loves a Drunk, Mark pausing en-route to swap his radon detectors. Regrouping at GLAD we brewed up a couple of packets of soup and a dehydrated meal to fuel us up for the push. @@ -220,7 +220,7 @@ T/U: Duncan 12.5, MarkD 12, Dour 14 [rigging diagram] ‚ÄúBattered Scones‚Äù -===2007-07-17|148 (Maralin Munroe)| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== +===2007-07-17|148 - (Maralin Munroe)| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== Went back to 148 witha drill and mroe rope. Went to the previous pitch and traversed over it to what was 'the pitch' in 1987 nice big aven & pitch Olly found a nice rig down and into a little rift -> thus avoiding the loose choss at the top. Looked at the Ice Castle foute first, this roughtly goes back under the higher shaft past some very cool ice formations (big icicles) and very old snow plugs -> one section the snow plug essentially filled the entire passage except for a small crawl underneath it which I found a bit unnerving. More ice & snow, including a snow plug with clear Summer / Winter layering, I saw at least 30 layers (and it continued high up as well, so the oldest snow was older than me!). This passage ended at an up pitch maybe 15m high. Surveyed back along this (noting that the hanging death in the ceiling was quite varied -- rocks, snow and ice. Back at the 20ish m pitch we took the continuation passage, initially promising -- a huge rift heading for 107, but soon turns a corner and chokes (as noted in 1987). I climbed up before the choke and over the top and sadly no continuation visable. Olly poked under the choke and you could see into the blackness inside... @@ -229,13 +229,13 @@ Surveyed this and left the cave. T/U 8.5h -===2007-07-18|Bath pot (2007-72)| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== +===2007-07-18|Cave 2007-72 - Bath pot (2007-72)| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== It was a bit cloudy so decided that surface shaft might be feasible. Went to look at an entrance Olly spotted in 2005 roughly above Pancake Chips aven. It draughts slightly out and is sloping down on the side of a shakehole. Needed to move some rocks out of the way to get in. Sadly it didn't go much more than 10m, the draught comes out of a 5-10cm wide rift, which appears after a few metres to open up. There is another route lower down which checked and didn't draught. Surveyed this and surface surveyed this to Ice Curtain cave and on to 99. Went out to look for 102 to tie it into the surface survey as the GPS fix is old and thought to be suspect. Sadly failed to find it so will have to return. T/U Jenny: -===2007-07-15|Continuation of Razordance rig| Dave Loeffler and Andreas Forsberg=== +===2007-07-15|204 - Continuation of Razordance rig| Dave Loeffler and Andreas Forsberg=== Headed in with 2 smallish bags of rope. Met Dour and MSD at God Loves A Drunk, where we heard the grim tales of Mark's loose bowels and Dour's missing hiltis which I had picked up at Kiwi Suit (thanks to Sarah for spotting the pot lying on a rock). @@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ Andreas did the drilling to improve the traverse at the 2004 limit. As luck woul T/U 15 hrs. -===2007-07-19|Useful Walkies| Julia Bradshaw and Dour=== +===2007-07-19|Surface Prospecting - Useful Walkies| Julia Bradshaw and Dour=== Thought I'd make myself useful by re-tagging and photoing some entrances. First stop was Skinny Festerers, which has now been tagged with its kataster number 244. We also photoed the entrance. Would make a reasonable shitting grike for those who don't mind a slightly longer walk. @@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ Found and photoed 2003-01, which doesn't seem to have been allocated a kataster Went and hid in the shade of the bridge for a bit then walked to 242 and took pics. Anthony set off in search of a hole near 204D that needed re-tagging then changed his mind. On the way down the hill he put the correct tag on Artischokenhoehle. All photos (with notes) on computer under photos/Julia. -===2007-07-19|161d| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== +===2007-07-19|161 - 161d| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== Went to 161d partly to place a radon detector for Mark D and because I wanted to see what KH was like. Walked up to the col to get onto the 161 path, it was really hot and horribly humid. The path was fairly clear up to where the Vord path goes up - perhaps this is used as a walkers path to the summit? Path was then less defined and many cairns had collapsed. I thought (wrongly it turned out) that we were too high up the Vord side and we could see a faint path with cairns leading up towards the Hinter. Followed this for a bit uphilll to the crest of the ridge and then down a bit to 161d. Already running out of water and it was so hot. Finally got to VD1 and the path down to 161d. This bit of the path wasn't as bad as I had feared but took a while as a lot of the carins had collapsed and Olly had only been here once before and me never. Finaly got to the entrance after hours. @@ -279,7 +279,7 @@ T/U: 7 hrs (3 of which were waiting for the storm to end) T/walking: lots ... -===2007-07-19|The 11 second rattle story| Ollie Stevens, Sarah White, Richard Mundy=== +===2007-07-19|204 - The 11 second rattle story| Ollie Stevens, Sarah White, Richard Mundy=== It all began with one rock, one pitch, a stopwatch and a certain lack of imagination on the part of those naming the pitch. It should at this point be noted that it actually rattles for longer than 11 seconds. But I digress. Armed with 105m of rope, Richard, Sarah and I began the arduous task of negotiating Chocolate Salty Balls on the way to the 11SR, with the minor detour of liberating 33m of rope from 'Taking the Piss.' This rope had clearly been affected by its opressor as it was the fastest rope I have ever witnessed. Still, I got my own back by using a full turn round my breaking krab and twisting the hell out of it. @@ -292,12 +292,12 @@ One and a half holes later the drill decided that all this changing direction wa We went all Old Skool on the hole's ass and cracked out the hand bolting gear. One perfectly placed spit later, and we continued on our journey. I abseiled down a few metres to place a survey station whilst Sarah and Richard admired my beautiful spit placement, awe-stricken at its poise, dedication and charm. One survey leg for good measure later, and it was time to go home. Nothing would prepare us for the following day's events. To be continued ... -===2007-07-19| Slimy Sludge Chute | Kathryn Hopkins, Djuke Veldhuis === +===2007-07-19|204 - Slimy Sludge Chute | Kathryn Hopkins, Djuke Veldhuis === We continued pushing the lead that Djuke, Edvin and Nial started on 14th July (03-14/C) armed with a little more rope. the lead is in steeply sloping tube - it starts as a scramble down and then quickly becomes too steep and a rope is needed. After this steep section, the gradient becomes shallower, and it is possible to get off the rope and scramble down again. Exploration ended when we reached the end of our rope (~50m) and the passage became too steep to be able to climb up. At this point we reached where the passage widened and split into multiple holes - "like cheese" according to Djuke. The hole was still strongly drafting - it was very cold surveying. -===2007-07-19|Rigging down to Fat worm blows a Sparky| Edvin Deadman, Nial Peters=== +===2007-07-19|204 - Rigging down to Fat worm blows a Sparky| Edvin Deadman, Nial Peters=== The plan was to rig down then push an A-grade lead for a bit on the Flat Worm level. So obviously things were never quite going to pan out that way. We got down to the Underworld without incident (although tacklesakcs are an absolute bastard to carry). Nial started rigging Gardener's World and Universally Challenged [sic - University Challenge] (who thinks of these names, seriously!) before realising we didn't have enough rope of the right length. After a bit of cheeky rebolting and jiggling of ropes we managed to get down. A few minutes scrambling around through some pretty passage brought us to the next pitch. It probably has a stupid name [Chalk and Cheese]. Nial rigged this on some 11mm rope so slow you could abseil down it without a stop, and you still wouldn't need a braking crab. The rope was kind of just about long enough. We got to Thin Rift and as far as the previous pushing front where a [lack of] handline had prevented the previous explorers getting any further. Unfortunately, 5m later we realised we needed either a traverse line over the top of the rift along a ledge or another handline down to the bottom. So we only rigged to do an extra 2 survey legs, but the rift was still going so we were keen to go back. Nial will now put the new Gardener's World rigging guide below .... @@ -307,7 +307,7 @@ damn you Mundy [Edvin's handwriting; note no rigging guide!] -===2007-07-20|Slimy Sludge Chute continued| Richard Mundy, Djuke Veldhuis=== +===2007-07-20|204 - Slimy Sludge Chute continued| Richard Mundy, Djuke Veldhuis=== Having forgotten the misery of my last trip down to the Underworld (cold, mud, tightness, nastiness), I allowed myself to be dragged down there by Djuke. Kathryn had wisely decided to abandon this lead. @@ -316,7 +316,7 @@ The chute itself is steep, tight and horrid. A cold wind blows up it and a wet m Surveying with the Pony I was becoming rapidly fed up, even given some interesting phreatic passage branching off. Eventually we were rewarded for our eforts when the shute tipped into the top of a chamber, The Happy Hippocampus". Some bolting warmed me nicely and I soon dangled onto a boulder floor set in mud slopes. Other passages led in to the chamber ceiling (circa 15m up) and other leads included a boulder choke and a steep mud and boulder climb down. The chamber is around 10m in diameter. We decided to leave further exploration for when we have courage, so beat an exhausting retreat. -===2007-07-20|Convenience Series| Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman, Nial Peters=== +===2007-07-20|204 - Convenience Series| Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman, Nial Peters=== We returned to the lead Edvin and Nial started on the 19th (Thin Rift off Dead Good Bat chamber in Fat Worm). At the pushing front there was the option of a pitch down or rigging a traverse across the rift. We opted for the pitch option, hoping it would drop into the bottom of the same rift as the traverse rift - unfortunately there was no way on at the bottom of the pitch, so we rigged the traverse instead: @@ -325,7 +325,7 @@ We returned to the lead Edvin and Nial started on the 19th (Thin Rift off Dead G After the traverse the passage continued and there was a side passage off to the right (returned to later). The rift continued upwards and to the right until it reached a "toilet bowl" shaped [undecipherable word - underrig?] where we climbed down and doubled back on ourselves to a shallow pool of water. Through the pool to the right led to a climb down into a rift (returned to later). At this point Edvin and Nial went to survey the side passage mentioned earlier (ended in a QM D) while I started to bolt the pitch down the hole that we previously traversed across. At the bottom of the pitch (Flush Pitch), to the right through a crawl (Ballcock Bypass), back to the bottom of the chamber with the pool (The Cistern). We then returned to the climb down across the other side of the pool - this dropped into a rift (Now Wash Your Hands) which went both ways. First we went left down the rift, which was a little awkward and tight - we passed a side pasage at floor level (QM B) and exploration ended at a pitch down (QM A). The passage appeared to continue across the other side of the pitch (QM A), but a traverse line is needed to get across safely. We then explored the rift in the other direction (right after the climb down from the Cistern). This also ended in a pitch and passed a small, upward-sloping tube on the left (QM A). -===2007-07-22|More Useful Walkies| Julia Bradshaw=== +===2007-07-22|Surface Prospecting - More Useful Walkies| Julia Bradshaw=== Having been down the hill and acquired a picture of the 247 entrance I went back to where the GPS said it should be and there it was, I'd been stood right on top of it the last time. So 247 now has its correct tag. @@ -338,7 +338,7 @@ Next I went to Earl and Becka's cave 7 and tagged it as 2003-16. Photos on the c Finally retagged Rock'n'Roll Hoehle (B) with the correct 239B and checked that the A entrance was tagged correctly which it be. Photos of both entrances on the computer. Yes, this was a very boring logbook entry but that's just tough. -===2007-07-22|Razor Dance|Duncan Collis and Anthony Day=== +===2007-07-22|204 - Razor Dance|Duncan Collis and Anthony Day=== The previous trip down Razor Dance had returned with tales of a deep pool that they had started traversing around to where they could see into a perpendicular rift with running water audible. Could this be the bottom? The target for this trip was to continue the traverse into the side rift to find out whether the sound of water was a continuation or an inlet. @@ -357,7 +357,7 @@ Duncan had a suspicion that the inlet contained water from the Midnight in Mosco T/U: Dunks 18 1/2 hrs, Dour 20hrs -===2007-07-24|Razordance -> The Forbidden City|Andreas Forsberg, Mark Dougherty, George North=== +===2007-07-24|204 - Razordance -> The Forbidden City|Andreas Forsberg, Mark Dougherty, George North=== The trip was originally intended to compose of Andreas, James and myself, but unfortunately James was feeling a touch ill, and so Mark stepped in to take his place. The weather was looking a little overcast, but still dry and we made a late-ish start at 11:00am. All went smoothly until we reached the top of Copper pitch where we heard an ominous rumble/whistling noise in the distance. Although we all heard this noise we stayed quiet until we reached the following pitch whereupon it became obvious that the water levels were rising. A couple of minutes later the water levels had reached impressive heights! After a brief discussion we decided to press on into the drier part of the rift. @@ -370,7 +370,7 @@ Again all went smoothly, we stopped for some food at GLAD, until we reached Myst T/U: 13 ¬Ω hrs -===2007-07-23|11 Second Rattle| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Andreas Forsberg=== +===2007-07-23|204 - 11 Second Rattle| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Andreas Forsberg=== "The Widowmaker" by Sarah White [drawing of skull and crossbones] Abandon hope all ye who enter here. @@ -388,21 +388,21 @@ Andreas then helped us to descend "The Super Fun Happy Slide" into "We The slide is a phreatic tube downward at 45¬∞. A pretty bit of cave, dropping into the roof of Wet Dry World, a chamber with a rocky/bouldery floor, a boulder choke, many holes in the ceiling, some squeezes in the walls and some water dripping down one wall. -===2007-07-25|Upper levels of 204e| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Sarah White=== +===2007-07-25|204 - Upper levels of 204e| Richard Mundy, Ollie Stevens, Sarah White=== On the 24th we had a day of top camp festering. Sarah and I completed a Rundreisehoehle-204a surface survey started by Ollie and me previously. On the 25th we went caving, surveying the slide, Wet Dry World and its link into [undecipherable word - Wtong's ?] Fortress. We derigged it in record time, then taking a peer at "Gosser Streamway" and at "Wot No Butcombe" before our return. -===2007-07-25|Walk from Base camp| Julia Bradshaw === +===2007-07-25|Base Camp - Walk from Base camp| Julia Bradshaw === I think it's called Tressenstein, will check in the morning with the map. But if you're at Base Camp it's the hill you see (on the right) if you look down the road (towards Bad Aussee) with the radio mast on top (ungrammatical). Anyway, it's a nice walk with amazing views. If you walk/cycle to the "Bad Aussee" town sign there are paths on the right, you want path no. 19. The sign says 2 hours, it took me 1 1/2 hours steady uphill (slowish compared to most) to the top. You can't really see base camp or Grundlsee, but you do get utterly fantastic panoramic views of Altausee and Loser on one side and Bad Aussee on the other side. The path is signed. I took a couple of wrong turns but made it in the end. Chickened out of climbing the mast but I bet you'd get a good view of Grundlsee from there. If you're festering at base camp and 2 1/2 - 3 hours to spare walk up this hill!! It's rude not to! Seriously good views, well worth the effort. -===2007-07-23|Convenience Series| Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman=== +===2007-07-23|204 - Convenience Series| Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman=== We returned to the new stuff we'd found to push it some more. We had cleverly decided to look at the most miserable lead: a narrow rift leading off "Now Wash Your Hands" which needed rigging as a traverse across a hole or down the hole. We got to the pushing front without incident, adding a handline to the climb down to Now Wash Your Hands (how on earth did we ever free climb it?!). @@ -445,14 +445,14 @@ We exited the cave with Olly adding a deviation and switching two hangers on the T/U Jen 2.5 hours Olly 3 hours -===2007-07-26|Surface shaft on Plateau| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== +===2007-07-26|Surface Prospecting - Surface shaft on Plateau| Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== Walked down the hill via lots of places - put permanent tags on Lardy Festerers and 250, calibrated the instruments at old TC [Top Camp]. Then walked up to Mystery Plus [?not Plus?] cave. I went in and discovered it choked less than a metre beyond where I had been without a light in 2006. Surveyed it and then surface survey down to a part-drilled spit hole near the cole. I hated the surface survey lots. T/U Jenny 1/4 hour -===2007-07-28|Razor Dance -> Gobi Trail|Andrew Atkinson, Andreas Forsberg + George North=== +===2007-07-28|204 - Razor Dance -> Gobi Trail|Andrew Atkinson, Andreas Forsberg + George North=== We had meant to get underground before 9.00am, but unfortunately Andreas and myself were feeling rather sleepy in the morning and so we managed to get underground shortly after 11:00am. We had a smooth 4 and a bit hour journey down to the pushing front, slowed down slightly by Andrew A's enormous camera case (which was later left in ‚ÄúThe Silk Road‚Äù). @@ -474,7 +474,7 @@ As they say, up is the only way ... sure was as we soon realised we were doing a We were exceptionally happy when it absolutely started rodding it down ... not so much because it was raining but more so becuase it was raining whilst we were NOT on the climbing route. Nial and Dave had the highly intelligent idea of taking their rock boots off whilst walking back to the car/bags which was fine until they go to the gravel path down past a railway station (!). Crossing the railway tracks we didn't have a dry piece of clothing left on our bodies ... indeed the Austrian climbers sheltering under an overhang looked most bemused at our antics. We decided to spare Tony R's car a bath and pretty much stripped off before getting in (Dave L in his underpants, me driving with a bra on, shirt off, etc). Despite our repeated offerings Dave L rudely refused to let us drive straight to the station in Bad Aussee to pick up his girlfriend who was arriving that same night. -===2007-07-25|Convenience Series|Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman, Pete Harley=== +===2007-07-25|204 - Convenience Series|Nial Peters, Kathryn Hopkins, Edvin Deadman, Pete Harley=== Once again we returned to the Convenience Series hoping to find further horizontal passage. Kathryn and I were first down and started by bolting the short pitch down from "Now Wash Your Hands". When Pete and Edvin turned up we sent them to investigate a QM back from the pitch head. This turned out to connect into the cave we were about to push and how now been named "Shit Chute". @@ -492,7 +492,7 @@ Photo trip to Eishoehle. Excellent cave, although I was very glad that I wore my T/U 4h -===2007-07-28| 81/82/85 |Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== +===2007-07-28|Surface Prospecting - 81/82/85 |Olly Betts and Jenny Black=== Olly's guts weren't very happy so we picked an objective that would never put us far from an entrance. We decided to survey 81 and 85 and check for leads. We started with a quick look into 82 to look at the ice stal and train tunnel passage. No ice this year at all and very little snow. Train tunnel passage as impressive as ever, we noticed a stooping/walking passage on the right which we followed (just a hole in the floor and a lower passage) to the entrance of 83 - hurray, a connection! @@ -519,13 +519,13 @@ Nipped into 76 to change radon detectors. All the rain was easting at the larger T/U 1 hour -===2007-07-29|Razordance -> Far East|Mark Dougherty, Duncan Collis, Jon Telling, Ollie Stevens=== +===2007-07-29|204 - Razordance -> Far East|Mark Dougherty, Duncan Collis, Jon Telling, Ollie Stevens=== Back down Razordance to take another look at the Far East. Uneventful journey down. Jon took a look at the tubes at the bottom of the Forbidden City. After ¬Ω hour working with a crowbar we decided that it was a long-term job to dig through. We also looked downhill at the end of the Silk Road. After descending a ~6m drop a shortish passage leads to the top of a pitch. This is almost certainly the same pitch which can be reached from below ‚ÄúCarry on the Khyber‚Äù by following the water. After that we continued along the phreatic passage above the Forbidden City (the ‚ÄùGobi Trail‚Äù) to the first major junction. Left here was unsurveyed so we surveyed in, clocking up ~100m of new passage to a point where a vadose canyon intersected. Right (up) led to a 6m aven, reasonably climbable with some gear. Left led, via a climb down, to a continuing rift which heads towards the left zipper/right zipper area in Razordance. The phreas clearly continues over the top of the vadose canyon but would require some effort to reach it. Finally we tidied up a few minor leads. Closing a loop which led back to the Gobi Trail at the climb (where we had previously rigged a hand line). Then out. A long hard struggle back up Razordance and all of us ran out of puff in the Ariston series. Ollie got slightly lost at Wolpertinger Way, but it was his first trip in the cave. Given that he has only been caving a year this trip was a major step up for him and all the rest of us thought he did BLOODY WELL. We can expect HARD BASTARD exploits from this chap in the future. Hats off! T/U 18 hrs -===2007-07-31|Surface walk and radon detector collection|Mark Dougherty, Phil Underwood, George North=== +===2007-07-31|Surface Prospecting - Surface walk and radon detector collection|Mark Dougherty, Phil Underwood, George North=== Walked over to 161d. Mark and Phil went in to collect radon detector from the Guillotene. We then picked our way down to the Stogerweg. On the way down we found a promising looking entrance. Unfortunately Mark found that it was a ~30m long through-trip! Going back along the path we made a detour to Schnellzuhoehle. Mark and George went in and collected another radon detector. After that a return to the carpark and down to the Loserhutte with Djuke, Tony and Emma for a meal and beer. @@ -537,7 +537,7 @@ T/U Mark 20 + 10 + 10 = 40 min, George 10 min, Phil 20 min Sarah and I thought we'd try the Loser via ferrata. Nobody died (almost though). The end. [Sarah writes:] But I enjoyed the last part. Sarah. -===2007-07-24|The Happy Hippocampus|Dave Loeffler, Djuke Veldhuis, Frank Tully=== +===2007-07-24|204 - The Happy Hippocampus|Dave Loeffler, Djuke Veldhuis, Frank Tully=== Frank Tully (for a bit) @@ -548,14 +548,14 @@ Then went into the Subsoil levels (turning down existing A-lead, right hand side TU 11 1/2 hours. -===2007-07-23|Surface prospecting|Dave Loeffler and Djuke Veldhuis=== +===2007-07-23|Surface Prospecting|Dave Loeffler and Djuke Veldhuis=== Surface prospecting and cave tagging in the northern most area of CUCC territory. Tagged one of Anthony Day's cave finds. Also found a new one and then the GPR ran out of battery and we walked back. In addition to doing the Loser via ferrata and walking up to top camp this ended a nicely varied day!!! T/U 1/4 hour -===2007-07-29|Loser Klettersteig| Wookey, Julian Todd, John Billings, Becka Lawson=== +===2007-07-29|Via Ferrata - Loser Klettersteig| Wookey, Julian Todd, John Billings, Becka Lawson=== A fine diversion as a warm-up for our carry-up to Top Camp. Checked out the cave at the base - graffiti dating back to 1800's - and the very small (5m) cave on the left at the start of the escape route - doesn't go. @@ -567,14 +567,14 @@ Bimbled down Gaffered, all looking very familiar. Before that, had to scrounge r TU 10 hours -===2007-07-31|Razordance -> push horizontal leads. Combined push, survey, photo + derig trip. Sigh.|Wookey, Julian Todd, Andrew Atkinson, Becka Lawson=== +===2007-07-31|204 - Razordance -> push horizontal leads. Combined push, survey, photo + derig trip. Sigh.|Wookey, Julian Todd, Andrew Atkinson, Becka Lawson=== Woken up by Andrew to the news that we were going down Razordance. Hmm, really? I was prussiking out of 204E at 10pm last night + fancied a bit of a mellow, shallow shufty. Still, now or never as the derig loomed + Wookey was keen. Then Julian astounded us all by muttering that he'd come along. He went off for a dump whilst we consulted Andrew who was going to have to shepherd us down there. Why not? says Andrew, so we were underground by 10am feeling a bit old, unfit + generally fragile for all of this lark. Slowly down the pitches then into the rift. And more rift. And more sodding rift, ye gods. Only Andrew had been through before (+ then only once) so we got lost a couple of times, particularly trying to find the oxbow thing but finally we hit the sump + the unfeasible traverse. Don't worry, its easier this direction says Andrew. Hmm, reassuring. Quick chocky stop + off up lots of scrambly climbs ‚Äì not too bad but it felt a long way from home by now. What's all this about? asks Wookey. We have to go up 120m now says Andrew. Bloody hell. Wish we'd looked at the survey a bit more carefully before setting off ‚Äì except that would probably have discouraged us from all this nonsense. This is wasting my valuable getting-out energy grumbles Julian. Picked up Andrew's camera case + did some 4-flash shots in the big chamber then split with Andrew + Julian taking photos and Wookey + I continuing Andrew, George + Andreas' Gobi Trail survey ~ SW for 130m including plenty of diddly 2m legs in mainly crawly / stoopy tubes with sand or pebble floor. A reasonable draft heading in with us. It was all quite cosy + friendly and we could easily have notched up a few more hours surveying but Wookey decided that enough was enough so we took some cheesy group shots + left things at a complex junction wuth 2 QM A's and a QM B with sound of water. One to a Razordance-like rift with water, the other with a strong draft coming out + heading up steeply. Derigged the hand line + I picked up the tacklesack of unrigged rope + back to the sump to put on our SRT gear. I failed to palm off the tacklesack on anyone + set off to the start of the traverse. I'd heard Dunks muttering that cutting the rope for the traverse without leaving a tail down to the sump level had been a bit overkeen on scrimping with the rope + the muddy slope from the end of the traverse down had been awkward on the way there but, hey, nobody had actually fallen off it yet. Andrew had mentioned it was easier high but with the tacklesack I didn't want to slither a long way down so I gingerly teetered forward on muddy ledges + eyed up the slot in the sump, wondering if it was narrow enough that I couldn't possibly fall down it. Yes I thought + promptly my foot slid + I decided to check it out. 'Shit'. Then I've got one foot under the water + the other braced on the far wall with the tacklesack dangling like a Mafioso's cement sack from my waist + some serious knee shake. ‚ÄúAndrew's coming‚Äù shouts Wookey. He gets his long cows tail into the traverse + I manage to clip my cow's tail into his footloops + then do a flailing prussik up him and onto the traverse. Still nobody volunteered to take the fucking tacklesack. I hauled myself across the traverse trying to maintain enough stress that my 8pm spit sample on the far side was a good 'un. Right, that was my low point, literally as well as figuratively. Andrew derigged the traverse whilst collecting his spit + gobs as soon as he gets over. Were you holding the spit pot whilst you derigged? asked Wookey. Er, he's good but even Andrew probably didn't have a spare hand there. Tootled up the rift ‚Äì not as bad as feared, route-finding easier than on the way down + it didn't seem any more energetic than on the way down, especially as all the pitches are nice + bite sized. I didn't let anyone have a cup-of-soup at the camp as we didn't deserve it. On + on, I'd forgotten all the pitches by now. I managed to do an awkward section right at the bottom whilst everyone else wandered around trying to find the way higher up. Then a really long pitch, followed by another largish one. I got a bit concerned as Julian would be slow on this + I knew Razordance started with an awkward section + a couple of short pitches so we must still have quite a long way to go in the rift... Andrew came up swearing at his dysfunctional jammer. How many more pitches? I asked. 12. OK altogether, but how many to go? Well, we've done 1 or 2. No, but the first ones in Razordance are short... ah! You mean I'm not in the rift any more??? Great news ‚Äì halfway up Kiwi Suit before I knew it. No time out from here. Andrew + I got out + rehydrated, went to bed + Julian + Wookey came out a couple of hours later. Julian did an ad hoc spit sample just to see what euphoria hormones look like (though how he gets his 4am baseline comparison I don't know). A fine trip ‚Äì once in a lifetime, literally, for Julian at least... Combined age of 4 team members = 152 years, what's the retirement age for this kind of nonsense? T/U: 16-17 hrs -===2007-08-01|Prospecting from 204|Andrew Atkinson and Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-01|Surface Prospecting - Prospecting from 204|Andrew Atkinson and Becka Lawson=== Andrew and I decided to get a bit of gentle exercise so did a walk towards 161d/g and found not v. many promising holes for quite a lot of stomping. @@ -591,7 +591,8 @@ Andrew and I decided to get a bit of gentle exercise so did a walk towards 161d/ TU 15 minutes -===2007-07-01 to 2007-07-02|Overnight pushing trip to Convenience Series|Nial Peters, Pete Harley, Sarah White=== +===2007-07-01|204 - Overnight pushing trip to Convenience Series|Nial Peters, Pete Harley, Sarah White=== +(to 2007-07-02) Despite getting up at a reasonable time, lots of faffing (mostly by Pete) meant we didn't get underground till after midday. There was a serious lack of enthusiasm as we crawled through Germknoedel's Revenge. I had knackered my knee on the previous day's walk up the hill and the trip got off to a slow start as I limped my way down Treeumphant. Eventually we arrived at Engaged in the Convenience series and began to feel a bit more enthused about the trip. Unfortunately, Pete had taken a wrong turn and had dragged the heavy bag of rope down Out of Order rift - silly bugger! By the time he arrived I had put in the bolts for a Y-hang at the top of the pitch series we were planning to rig. I was extremely pleased to find that the power drill we had dragged down there worked perfectly. Four rebelays later and I found myself at the bottom of a very drippy and cold shafter. It didn't go anywhere, but did have two sumps at the bottom. Unfortunately it turned out that me power bolting is considerably faster than Pete and Sarah surveying (despite the fact that they had a Pony and a disto!) so I had to sit and freeze for 1 1/2 hours at the bottom while they caught up. When they finally arrived they were hypothermic too and had failed to finish surveying the shaft. I set off back up the ropes and left them to finish their survey and derig. This took much longer than expected since Pete had forgotten his spanner and in an attempt to give him hers, Sarah dropped it down the pitch! Pete managed tot derig most of it using a maillon but in the end I had to abseil back down to the first rebelay and give him my spanner. Having been sat at the top of the pitch for over two hours, Sarah and I were once again hypothermic so set off out as soon as Pete arrived. @@ -609,7 +610,7 @@ All in all a great trip :-) Pitch series is now called S.L.T.R. for reasons known only to its surveyors. -===2007-08-02 |John Billing's account of Razor Dance derigging trip| John Billings, Aaron Curtis, Jon Telling=== +===2007-08-02 |204 - John Billing's account of Razor Dance derigging trip| John Billings, Aaron Curtis, Jon Telling=== and 2007-08-03 (+ Duncan Collis, Mark Dougherty, Richard Mundy + George North) - which somehow have to fit into this schema @@ -640,7 +641,7 @@ Duncan + MarkD: 11hrs Richard + George: 8 ¬Ω hrs -===2007-08-03|Razordance ‚Äì Finish derigging|Wookey, Andrew Atkinson + Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-03|204 - Razordance ‚Äì Finish derigging|Wookey, Andrew Atkinson + Becka Lawson=== (plus Ollie Stevens for last third) Down 10am. Wookey + I fetched the tackle sack of rope from Mystery Wind + derigged the two pitches. By the time we were back at the bottom of Kiwi Suit Andrew had unbagged all the rope and done paella number one (and two) up the first pitch by himself... at which point we were committed... to 9 more paella stacks until the last one emerged onto the slabs outside of Top Camp. Ollie came along to help when we were on the big pitch below Wolpertinger Way, which made life easier (down to only one tackle bag each) and on the final pull we had an excellent surface support party of Aaron, Richard, John + Jon to do all the hard work. Rope dried overnight, coiled the next day so all the RD derigged in 2.5 trips ‚Äì not bad. @@ -650,14 +651,14 @@ T/U: Wookey, Andrew + Becka: 11 hrs Ollie S: 5hrs -===2007-08-04|Rigging Tunnockschacht|John Billings, Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-04|Tunnocks - Rigging Tunnockschacht|John Billings, Becka Lawson=== Neither of us had been before but the magic of GPS and a good set of cairns got us to the entrance. Jon then whinged all the way down the entrance pitch about rubs. I just thought he was seeing some standard CUCC rigging but as I went down it went rub, twang, rub along with a hail of loose rocks. On the way out we realized that some of the problem were that the snow level was way down on last year ‚Ķ but we‚Äôd also not been warned about the three rope protectors needed. After that comes a small sloping crawl. Should I take the tacklesack? Asks Jon. No, it‚Äôs OK if you just roll it ahead says I. Oh no - you OK? Er, do you want to go check out this QMC down this little shaft? Fortunately Jon could get down & reported it kept going as a QM B ‚Ķ and fetched the tacklesack. We then looked at 06-19A which looked an excellent lead. After some gardening there was no time left to survey so nosed around the rest of the passage there and then out. Be a lovely cave if someone with a drill rigged the entrance more creatively. T/U 4 ¬Ω hrs -===2007-07-30|Fucking about in the Quarries (?)|Pete Harley, Jon Telling, Nial Peters, Sarah White, Frank Tully=== +===2007-07-30|Surface Prospecting - Fucking about in the Quarries (?)|Pete Harley, Jon Telling, Nial Peters, Sarah White, Frank Tully=== (Maybe others) Some of the people at top camp decided that caving was effort. They were right. Therefore we decided to look at some hole we had walked past on a previous slack day showing newcomers where Tunnocks is. @@ -665,18 +666,18 @@ Some of the people at top camp decided that caving was effort. They were right. We passed 204 E to find some reasonably deep but snow filled holes. Armed with a drill Nial bolted our way down a hole. Our team (Nial, Pete and Sarah) was joined by Jon after Pete had descended and decided we didn't have enough rope. Aided by Jon what we decided was 2007.03 was descended to a snow plug and a slot followed by Jon. We surveyed down the slot to a choke. It turns out this place was probably already explored in 2002. Frank laddered down a hole that had a vital connection to where we had been. Sarah and I looked [continued 3 pages later: ‚ÄúQuarries continued‚Äù] in another hole that had a bolt already in place and found no leads. Sarah + Jon looked at some other places further in the Tunnocks direction which one of them will have to write about. To conclude: Time wasted ‚Äì 1 day. -===2007-08-01|Surface Shaft|Jenny Black + Olly Betts=== +===2007-08-01|Surface Prospecting - Surface Shaft|Jenny Black + Olly Betts=== Having failed to find 2004-04 the previous afternoon we had another go and it was still hidden sadly. Then went to look for 84 which we also failed to find, I guess it is either well hidden or not close to 83 to the WNW. Found an interesting looking hole (2007-73) walking entrance down a snow slope which then went down a bit to a chamber. Olly looked at the continuation which was a bit snowy & small. We will return later in expo. -===2007-08-02|82-85|Jenny Black & Olly Betts=== +===2007-08-02|Surface Prospecting - 82-85|Jenny Black & Olly Betts=== Went over to survey the connection with 85. Shortly into the connection is an aven up to the surface a new higher entrance! As we surveyed we could hear very loudly a thunderstorm overhead, and a waterfall appeared near the 85 entrance. Olly had a look at the continuation of 85 but thought the climb wasn't freeclimbable due to the current snowline position. -===2007-08-03|76: Boiling Tubes|Jenny Black & Olly Betts === +===2007-08-03|76 - Boiling Tubes|Jenny Black & Olly Betts === It had rained a lot overnight + was still raining so decided the pitch in 148 might be unpleasant, so decided on 76 instead. Went to the end of the Boiling Tubes where we left 3 leads in 2004. None of the leads looked great, but we started with 04-62B, the straight-on lead. This was crawling then wiggling to a boulder which was followed shortly by a stal blockage ‚Äì unusual for Austria. The stals weren't huge, but neither was the passage. I surveyed back while Olly took notes, and sadly my promising lead heading straight for 2007-71 was no more. (There was a small red spider there). @@ -698,7 +699,7 @@ Went back to 81 to survey the new stuff. Not a hugely long cave but a lot of ent T/U: 2hrs -===2007-07-19|Razor Dance|Dave Loeffler, Andreas Forsberg, James Carlisle=== +===2007-07-19|204 - Razor Dance|Dave Loeffler, Andreas Forsberg, James Carlisle=== Our hopes of an early start were sabotaged by the realisation that the drill battery was (a) flat and (b) broken. Several hours of charging and some gaffer later, we got underground around noon. @@ -711,7 +712,7 @@ Andreas attempted to answer the question ‚Äúis this a sump?‚Äù by traver T/U: 15hrs -===2007-07-25|Random leads in Insignificant|Dave Loeffler, Djuke Veldhuis, Frank Tully=== +===2007-07-25|204 - Random leads in Insignificant|Dave Loeffler, Djuke Veldhuis, Frank Tully=== We felt like a short trip so went to try & tick off some annoying QMs in the Insignificant area. @@ -728,11 +729,11 @@ At this point I gave up in disgust realising that my goal of making the survey e T/U: 6 Hours 45 Min -===2007-07-25|Trisselwand ‚Äì the IVth| Wookey, Nial Peters, Andrew Atkinson=== +===2007-07-25|Climbing - Trisselwand ‚Äì the IVth| Wookey, Nial Peters, Andrew Atkinson=== (the extra date 2007-08-05 was in the title) -===2007-08-03|'Quest to BS17'|Richard Mundy=== +===2007-08-03|Surface Prospecting - 'Quest to BS17'|Richard Mundy=== The previous night I had been down to 'God Loves A Drunk' with George North. On the 3rd I therefore hurt and my caving gear was thoroughly soaked through. Given no sun to dry it, a day of top camp festering ensued. I erased the memories of prussiking through 2 deg C Razordance waterfalls ("the wettest I have ever seen it" - Mark D) by going on a mission for Dave L; a quest to BS17. @@ -743,7 +744,7 @@ Organhoehle, BS17, is likely to be one of the many holes in these cliffs. The GP I took my photographs using Ollie S's camera before stumbling back in thick fog, hoping the GPS did not pack-up. -===2007-08-04|'Lead 03-75A'|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis, Richard Mundy=== +===2007-08-04|204 - 'Lead 03-75A'|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis, Richard Mundy=== My caving gear still wet & cold, we set off to the 'Wot no Butcombe' end of the 'Rhino Rift' area of 204. We rigged pitch 03-79A; a phreatic pitch wead [sic] tackled nicely with a single backed-up bolt. The fortuitous bolt placement occured purely by chance. @@ -754,7 +755,7 @@ At the bottom of this 9m pitch, one finds one's body in a small widening of a ta A boulder choke prevents one travelling far downhill the rift. Uphill there are fine mud formations on the left wall. A 4m climb leads to a narrowing of the rift. It gets too tight, but there seems to be a route above of B/C QM calibre. This is tough and may qualify as being a pitch. Would be better explored downhill. -===2007-08-05|'Chocolate Salty Balls'|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis, Richard Mundy=== +===2007-08-05|204 - Chocolate Salty Balls|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis, Richard Mundy=== Ollie, Aaron and I went for a 2.5 hour jaunt down 204e. The main purpose was to place some thermistors in Chocolate Salty Balls for Aaron. Meanwhile, Ollie and I looked at some QMs 01-39 C should be downgraded to a D lead. It seems to be boulder choked. @@ -766,7 +767,7 @@ The nearby B lead, if it corresponds to the hole in the floor, looks really very It is worth noting that Andrew 'Andy' Atkinson and co have replaced the handline in Cave tree chamber with some red 2006 9mm. I would have put in some 2003 myself, but don't ultimately care. -===2007-08-03|VERMIN|Richard Mundy=== +===2007-08-03|Top Camp - VERMIN|Richard Mundy=== Top Camp is now home to: -30 massively fat and well fed insulted mice. -THE FLAPJACK BEAST @@ -775,7 +776,7 @@ Frank has scored a victory over the mice by altering the food hammock, rendering However, we saw THE FLAPJACK BEAST (a small squirrel thingy) access the hammocks via running upside down across the Stone Bridge roof. This animal will thus prove hard to defeat. -===2007-08-04| Gosser Streamway ‚Äì Rig push, survey, derig| Wookey, Andrew Atkinson, John Billings=== +===2007-08-04|204 - Gosser Streamway ‚Äì Rig push, survey, derig| Wookey, Andrew Atkinson, John Billings=== DATEMISSING Needed an easy trip in order to walk down hill for Trisselwand, so picked a QM on the survey which was interestingly above the huge aven in Hippocratic Oath. QM 06-7A at the end of Goesser Streamway. Also took in a rope to replace 1996 traverse line in Cave Tree Chamber (9mm bit of 2006 red stuff ~15m). @@ -787,7 +788,7 @@ Rigged down - cave is not quite like survey. Actually p3 & p6 after ~4m and then T/U: 4.5h -===2007-08-07|Dachstein Via Ferrata|Dave Loeffler+ *2 guys from Reading Uni.=== +===2007-08-07|Climbing - Dachstein Via Ferrata|Dave Loeffler+ *2 guys from Reading Uni.=== Did the Seemond - Klettersteig. No helicopter involved. Takes about 5 hrs on the face and hours walk either end and cable car down. Bloody hard work but magnificent situations. @@ -797,7 +798,7 @@ FWIW If you are going to do this you must leave early - sun will hit you at 2pm TW (Time wired) 5hrs -===2007-08-08|'Slippery Hole'|Richard Mundy=== +===2007-08-08|Surface Prospecting - 'Slippery Hole'|Richard Mundy=== The previous day, we walked to 2007-04 with Wookey. On the 8th we pushed and surveyed this. The cave is in a loose depression on the ridge behind the bivi. It has plenty of snow in the entrances and dramatic slabs of rock hovering above it. @@ -811,7 +812,7 @@ Quick wee has a high entrance inaccessible to us. John's winter wonderland has We had several 'brown alert' moments on climbs, due to slipperiness and looseness. Another memorable time was when I put in a crap spit, then reached to hang a sling from a natural. The snow under me collapsed, dropping me 4m. Luckily onto more snow. I slid down the snow towards the Winter Wonderland, before the rope became taut and caught me. Worrying. -===2007-08-07|Walk to 204 via 161d|Wookey, John Billings=== +===2007-08-07|Surface Prospecting - Walk to 204 via 161d|Wookey, John Billings=== Given light rucksacks and a nice day decided to investigate doing 161 from 204 and thus check out the practicality of route. walked to 161 d without much faffing decided to have a tourist in cags and headtorches and to show John fine passage off triassic park. Nice trip for about 50 mins, including some photos. Then continued along traverse to 161 e and f. Found a large entrance sloping in, untagged and unmarked. Assumed it was 161 e but later research showed that it was further north than 161 f which we came across a few mins later. The entrance must be known? Later marked bivi site cave list to say 161e is not tagged/marked, but seems that is confusion not fact. @@ -826,7 +827,7 @@ With all the aving and sub-optimal walk whole walk from car park took about 5 1/ -===2007-08-08|Photo, Rig, survey, push in Tunnocks|Wookey, Becka Lawson, Andrew Atkinson=== +===2007-08-08|Tunnocks - Photo, Rig, survey, push in Tunnocks|Wookey, Becka Lawson, Andrew Atkinson=== Andrew took photo gear, Wook took tackle & rigging gear, Becka took survey gear. Went in to far end to rig traverse over '17s rattle,' via a couple of metres of entrance ice. @@ -841,13 +842,13 @@ Laser surveying is the way forward -- but keep batteries away from SAP [SAP = Sh TU:Becka, Wook 10h Andrew 6h -===2007-08-09| |Wookey, Becka Lawson, Andrew Atkinson + Ollie Stevens=== +===2007-08-09|Unknown |Wookey, Becka Lawson, Andrew Atkinson + Ollie Stevens=== Back to bag some more horizontal cave, despite having to walk back down (Wook). All underground by 9.30. 1hr to pushing front. Off resolutely North, past some very fine pretties for Austria. Then chamber with pitch below and [chories?] of A-leads. Took [giving up for now, too hard to read -[[User:Aaron|Aaron]] 16:40, 1 June 2008 (BST)] -===2007-08-08|Tunnockschacht South|Frank Tully, Aaron Curtis, Ollie Stevens, Pete Harley=== +===2007-08-08|Tunnocks - Tunnockschacht South|Frank Tully, Aaron Curtis, Ollie Stevens, Pete Harley=== Got underground 1pm with intention to head south. After ticking off 06-11C and 06-20C, realized our progress was cut short without any rope to descend the p9. Aaron set off to find Andy, Wook & Becka in South Tunnocks to swipe some rope. Find them he did, and returned with more than he bargained for - Big Bertha complete with drill, misc gear & rope. After much to-ing and fro-ing S to N, following objectives accomplished: Surveyed & derigged 2 pitches Duncan had dropped in N off of big chamber (now called ‚ÄúSecret Squirrel‚Äù and ‚ÄúFat Rat‚Äù). Frank & Pete left to go down hill at this point. Ollie & Aaron rigged p9 in Sauerkraut ‚Äî could only find one spit in wall & no naturals, so put another in as considered this a tad dodgy. Dropped 06-31A, to be surveyed next trip. Has another pitch and horizontal QMB at bottom & provisionally called the ‚ÄúPantin Sales Pitch.‚Äù Also bolted pitch into big chamber in N [traverse into Caramel Catharsis] (where Secret Squirrel begins) which had hung off impressive natural but was awkward to mount / dismount, now much better. Pete and Frank out ~7pm? Aaron and Ollie out 12pm. @@ -856,7 +857,7 @@ Pete, Frank T/U: 7h Aaron, Ollie T/U: 11h -===2007-08-05|CSB Thermistor & Treeumphant|Ollie Stevens, Richard Mundy, Aaron Curtis=== +===2007-08-05|204 - CSB Thermistor & Treeumphant|Ollie Stevens, Richard Mundy, Aaron Curtis=== With one datalogger installed in Germkndel's Revenge already (upcoming writeup), we set off to install 3 more: 2 in chocolate salty balls (1 hobo(?) with 4 thermistors, 2 wet/dry pairs, 1 easysense with temp, RH, and barometric pressure) and 1 in crowning glory. [diagram of where stuff is] @@ -865,20 +866,20 @@ Also ticked off QMs 01-40C and 0139C. T/U 2.5 hrs -===2007-08-07|Anemometer related quick useless trip|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis=== +===2007-08-07|204 - Anemometer related quick useless trip|Ollie Stevens, Aaron Curtis=== After a few hours of fiddling with his homel(?) new sonic anemometer using a picoscope and laptop at the bridge, Aaron threw up his hands and decided to solder the finicky thing into a datalogger and whack it to the bottom of E entrance. The allen key needed to open the logger was conveniently in a peli case in chocolate salty balls. While Aaron was already resigned to bringing laptop and scope underground because anemometer needed to be adjusted after export, trying to solder underground seeme like crossing the line. So Aaron went down to get key and brought a well-calibrated Ollie to put in a spit to mount the anemometer on. On the surface again, Aaron failed to get the logger and anemometer to play nice together and decided to abandon the enterprise until a later date, in the UK or on Expo08. T/U 1hr -===2007-08-07|Gaffered -> Inconvenience Series|Nial Peters, Andrew Atkinson, Martin Green, Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-07|204 - Gaffered -> Inconvenience Series|Nial Peters, Andrew Atkinson, Martin Green, Becka Lawson=== Down to tick off some leads & start the derig. Nial rigged his "worst ever pitch" - for his sake, I hope it is true - rope slung round a boulder at the pitch head, past a wriggle through loose choss and a few rub points and down to a spit he put in with a 20cm long vertical crack above it. This dropped us down to where the Engaged pitch landed and from there Martin attempted to outdo Nial by rigging the next pitch on even more choss. Got very cold waiting and I was mighty relieved to find, after the first spit had gone in, that we'd run out of hangers (we accidentally only had brought two in total!) & could go out. Andrew took a few photos through the trip and he and I surveyed two shortish QM's whilst Nial and Martin headed out. We then derigged the rope in Convenience and Chalk & Cheese and then I took a tacklesack out leaving just a 55m pushing rope to fish out at the bottom of Gaffered. Overtook Martin and Nial before Gaffered and slowly we all trundled out. Super-muddy Gaffered rope plus a heavy tacklesack is a crap combination. T/U:14h -===2007-08-06|Tunnocks ‚Apfel Strudel|Jon Telling, Becka Lawson, Morven=== +===2007-08-06|Tunnocks - Apfel Strudel|Jon Telling, Becka Lawson, Morven=== My first ever cave in Austria ‚ descended down very loose boulder slopes to large pile of snow at bottom of pitches‚ fun sledging down. First ever injury in Austria soon followed ‚ jumping to avoid boulder fall and landed on lovely smooth icy floor ‚ same effect as banana skin! A fun but painful trip followed. Found Apfelstrudel section of cave ‚Äî best bit was a chute that looked like a bob sleigh run ‚ great going down, tricky on the way out. Ended survey at exciting junction‚ pitch on one side, stomping passage on the other. Back up pitches & down to top camp for introduction to Holy Hand Grenade [Hungarian-donated alcoholic beverage]. @@ -893,7 +894,7 @@ Surveying trip down 'great, draughty lead'--left after Wikinki Beach boulders, t T/U: 5 hrs -===2007-07-21|Flooding in England|Frank Tully, Phil Underwood, George North, Pete Harley=== +===2007-07-21|Journey to Austria - Flooding in England|Frank Tully, Phil Underwood, George North, Pete Harley=== Basically I'm working in Scotland so on the Fridat I drove from Glasgow to Bristol. However, it was very very wet. Took 5 hours to get to Manchester then the M6 slowed down to creep speed. I forgot it was the first weekend of the summer holidays so every caravan in the UK was on the move. @@ -913,7 +914,7 @@ So at the last possible minute Phil found a train that was going to stansted. Anyway, it all came together. Packed in 2 hours - drove to Stansted - found Phil and George. Drove to M25-A12 juntion found Pete. Got to Dover hour late - no problem. Drove to Austria in 12 hours. MCE. -===2007-08-08 |surface work|Jon Telling, Morven, Martin Green=== +===2007-08-08 |Surface Prospecting|Jon Telling, Morven, Martin Green=== Went to surface shaft Frank & I found a few days ago - a phreatic tube ending in a big bowl of choss, above quarries uphill of bivvy site. [Voed?] ladder & lifeline to survey, only small, loose cave, [blasted?]. Boulders, ah well. Named Pink Wafer Biscuit Cave as it was really only worth looking at after looking at all the other entrances. @@ -928,7 +929,7 @@ Walked carefully around on the ice we saw some cool curved ice formations. At th T/U: -===2007-08-07|Surface Stuff|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2007-08-07|Surface Prospecting|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Walked up to Laser 0/5 and had a look for 1987-02. Scrambled up the hill for a way and didn't see any horizontal entrances. Got fairly near the crest of the ridge, so headed back down by a different route. Olly spotted a draughting out shaft which we numbered 2007-7[MISSING], GPS[MISSING]. Carried on down and got to a hidden valley with a low horizontal entrance with a HUGE out draft. Walked inside and got some big passage going straight on and right, both of which led to pitches. Reading the old logbook suggests this must be 1987-02 (from the U/G and entrance location descriptions). @@ -937,7 +938,7 @@ Surface surveyed this to Laser 0/5/ Oh, in the morning had a look at another new entrance (that has probably been seen before). Collapsed valley entrance with a couple of leads, one might go but not without an oversuit & kneepads. Second lead is a crawling / stooping phreatic passage for ~10m till it chokes. This is 2007-7[MISSING] GPS[MISSING] -===2007-08-07|81-148 connection|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2007-08-07|81 - 81-148 connection|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Olly looked down the surface shaft near 148 first - down to the snow plug then the ledge to where a narrow rift heads down presumably into the aven in 148. Didn't push down this yet as we have the other route rigged. @@ -948,33 +949,33 @@ Back at the other end a tight grovel through ice led to a small rift and a pitch T/U ~5h -===2008-08-09|148 ‚Äì pitch stuff|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2008-08-09|148 - Äì pitch stuff|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Headed into 148 with way too much gear, but not enough crabs or maillons. Got to the [saw?] pitch and the water levels rose considerably making it very nasty & wet. Oh well, at least the rigging will be good in high water ... Olly rigged a backup & bolt to get down the narrow bit then got to a ledge where he rigged a nice Y-hang and went down through a tight bit and then opened up lots to a deviation. This carried on down to a big blackness with sadly no routes to drop down. It was quite [no word here] by this point (especially for the power drill) so we came back up - next time we need to rig it further out I guess. Came out of the cave surveying a poxy side bit on the way. Came out in the dark and clag - reflective markers are ace. T/U:6.25h -===2007-08-10|1987-02|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2007-08-10|Cave 1987-02|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Went to survey & explore 1987-02. Headed to the RH pitch first. It had a bolt which, combined with a couple of naturals & fending off from the wall, got us down. Pitch lands at a junction, left (as you look down the pitch) is BIG phreas with another way in from a little vertical oxbow. This goes for a while then gets smaller and lower (but still 5m wide). Eventually the gap between the rubble and roof becomes too low. Would be diggable but doesn't draught. Back at the base of the pitch a daylight aven comes in from straight on. To the right soon becomes a rift, climbing high ends up choking, low down gets to a narrow meandering rift turning left through which a howling draught blows out. We both went a few metres in and noted that it echoes and is a bit tight - the most promising a tight rift could be I guess. Again, back at the pitch, kind of back underneath, is a phreatic passage that ends in a hanging death choke that again draughts. Back at the entrance the other way on drops into the same passage as the other one. Daylight comes in from another shaft. Very interesting to get big phreas here ~1/2 way between 76 and 161 ... worth prospecting in the area next year I think. T/U 5h -===2007-08-13|South Tunnocks (Pantin Sales Pitch)|Aaron Curtis & Ollie Stevens=== +===2007-08-13|Tunnocks - South Tunnocks (Pantin Sales Pitch)|Aaron Curtis & Ollie Stevens=== Another trip involving ping-ponging to and fro from the North & South of Tunnocks. Went North to derig traverse past scree slope & commandeer rope. Returned through Sauerkraut, surveyed 06-31A which turned out to be an exceptionally smooth p30 duly named the Pantin Sales Pitch. Checked out little horizontal passage to left which didn‚Äôt go, and then dropped the next pitch, yet unnamed, which surveyed to about 45m. Exciting to find that we had been standing on a wedged pile of boulders suspended above an airy rift. Single hang & backup got us to bottom where it choked. Very likely way on (marked QMB) by traversing around to right into spacious rift ~15m down the p45. Ollie suffered a bout of the keenness so we went back north to meet Becka and Martin who were on their way out and survey continuation of Flying High. Didn‚Äôt manage very much (~30m) before Aaron had had about enough. Avoiding stals / pretties while maintaining our precarious position high in the rift while surveying involved a form of Vedic Levitation. Rift got smoother & wider ‚Äî looks like next trip will need to drop down to (easily walkable) rift floor & climb up again shortly. Blows a gale in there though. -===2007-08-11|Gaffered -> The Wares + Derig|Becka Lawson, Aaron Curtis + Martin Green=== +===2007-08-11|204 - Gaffered -> The Wares + Derig|Becka Lawson, Aaron Curtis + Martin Green=== Pootled to the Wares & headed off for a QM I'd been hankering after checking. QM 04-49A. We'd left it as a steep ramp needing a handline in 2004. I rigged a handline up (needs ~25m rope) using 2 naturals then hand bolted a spit on the left wall then a very fine thread on the left wall then tied off on dodgy naturals at the top. Surveyed up to find an extensive horizontal level - yippee. Sadly this was a derig trip so we surveyed as much as we could, as far as a complex chamber with several pitches, and we had to run out leaving lots of QMA's. Aaron's light played up then fell apart and he couldn't find his spare batteries, "I think I've learnt a lesson about redundancy today" says he ... Then slog, slog, slog, up the derig. Martin set off first with a tacklesack & then pulled a second sack up Gaffered, I derigged & Aaron did a tacklesack shuffle. We ended up getting 3 tacklesacks all the way out, one at the bottom of E entrance pitch & one tied to the bottom of Gaffered pitch so a pretty good job. T/U: 13hrs -===2007-08-12|Gaffered derig + Thermistors|Becka Lawson, Aaron Curtis + Martin Green=== +===2007-08-12|204 - Gaffered derig + Thermistors|Becka Lawson, Aaron Curtis + Martin Green=== I got to the lowest rebelay on Gaffered & hauled up the tacklesack tied to the bottom then derigged & Martin & I took out a tacklesack each whilst Aaron switched his data loggers. @@ -990,14 +991,14 @@ Becka T/U: 4 hours Martin, Aaron 5 hours -===2007-08-13|Maximum Pleasure leads in Tunnockschacht|Martin Green, Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-13|Tunnocks - Maximum Pleasure leads in Tunnockschacht|Martin Green, Becka Lawson=== Off down to the MP/Flying High junction and surveyed the walking passage on the right (after ticking off a QM just before Dubious Pleasure). This was fine, roomy walking passage. A large passage underneath linked back to the main Maximum Pleasure passage. Our passage went in fine style to a large aven with a smallish passage ‚Ķ with snow ‚Ķ and pine cones and leaves ‚Ķ I got really excited by the potential of an entrance which Martin was perplexed by, since I‚Äôd been unimpressed by all the old stal that he‚Äôd been getting excited about. We kept surveying past the aven and then it headed up a ramp & gradually became smaller and less exciting before we left it at a c2 in a drippy aven. I checked the snowy passage at the aven ‚Äî it was small & headed up steeply but the snow was rotten with holes in and it looked a bit dodgy so we left it. We then went back to the MP/Flying High junction & did a QMA near to it, on the left. This headed down steeply to a chamber with large lumps of flowstone. It was really drafty and we were too cold to face more so we headed out. T/U: 10hrs -===2007-08-14|Maximum Pleasure survey in Tunnockschacht|Becka Lawson, Julian Todd=== +===2007-08-14|Tunnocks - Maximum Pleasure survey in Tunnockschacht|Becka Lawson, Julian Todd=== A fine, sunny morning so we hung around until all our gear was dry in an attempt to have a warmish survey trip in Tunnockschacht. We started by doing the left lead just after the traverse in Ribs with Kn√∂del [just beyond Caramel Catharsis]. This was extremely drafty & rapidly led to a large pitch. We then headed to Maximum Pleasure, taking some snaps en route. We surveyed from where Martin and I had left off yesterday, in the flowstone chamber. We went past a large pitch & down to another, smaller pitch then surveyed a small passage on the left and then did a couple of legs up smaller passages to reconnect to the flowstone chamber, making us feel virtuous. Martin and Olly turned up and we pointed them to the remaining horizontal lead (which turned out to stop after only ~30m). I then dragged Julian to the far end of Maximum Pleasure to double-check that there were no other good leads to the North. Nothing looked very tempting but I persuaded Julian to continue the passage on the right where Wookey, Andrew and I had left off. This headed up into awkward crawls and ceiling tubles and leads of 2-3m legs. Unfortunately there was no good reason to stop so we just plodded on until, thanks be, it finally, gradually lost the draft & fizzled out to too-tight ceiling tubes. @@ -1011,16 +1012,16 @@ Surveyed the remaining passage in 81 and checked out all the leads - except for Went into 82 to resurvey the upper level and check out the 'drafting tube' noted in 1977 - it drafted lots and lots out and whilst it is very tight the floor is muddy/sandy and could easily be dug. It is heading for the similarly big phreas in 1987-02 and less than 200m away. -===2007-08-14|Rigging Guide for Tunnockshacht entrance|Duncan Collis=== +===2007-08-14|Tunnocks - Rigging Guide for Tunnockshacht entrance|Duncan Collis=== DATEMISSING [stuck in diag ‚Äì needs scanning] -===2007-08-13|76 derig|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2007-08-13|76 - derig|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Decided to derig 76 so we at least only had one cave left rigged. Didn't take the drill in to conserve battery power for 148 so couldn't push deeper. Nice going through the testtubes with only SRT kits to carry. Successful derig. To get to The Ledge needs 16 + 16 + 28 m of rope. -===2007-08-15|148 - ‚ÄúSome Like it Pot‚Äù + derig|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === +===2007-08-15|148 - Some Like it Pot + derig|Jenny Black + Olly Betts === Running out of time so could no longer put off the final trip 148 trip. Only had to carry in the drilling stuff + the survey kit, so got to the big pitch quite efficiently. Sorted out gear we had left there and Olly sety off down. I sat on the ledge at the Y-hang and shivered as I watch Olly getting father away, and every so often there'd be some tarzaning around for the rig. I noticed that Olly seemed to be quite near the water - today it was essentially just water running / trickling down the wall. I hoped it wouldn't rain. @@ -1032,23 +1033,23 @@ T/U 9 3/4 hours [148 rigging diag ‚Äì needs scanning] -===2007-08-14|Final CSB thermistor trip|Aaron Curtis & Pete Harley=== +===2007-08-14|204 - Final CSB thermistor trip|Aaron Curtis & Pete Harley=== Hauled datalogger and thermistor out of CSB, along with a tackle sack of rope left from earlier derig. Aaron reprogrammed CSB logger to log for coming year (recording once per hour, memory fills in 387 days). Plunged back down E, replaced the CSB logger and Pete derigged E on the way out. T/U 5 1/2 hours -===2007-08-15|Packing Steinbruckenhoehle Bivvy|Becka Lawson & Julian Todd & Aaron Curtis & Duncan Collis & Martin Green & Pete Harley=== +===2007-08-15|Top Camp - Packing Steinbruckenhoehle Bivvy|Becka Lawson & Julian Todd & Aaron Curtis & Duncan Collis & Martin Green & Pete Harley=== Pete, Aaron and Dunks had already done a monster carry yesterday, leaving the 7 of us a mere double carry today - we got everything down in 17 loads, packing up the bivi in between and heading down the second time at 8 pm with the final rays of sunset pinkening the slabs. -===2007-08-16|Rope Washing|Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-16|Base Camp - Rope Washing|Becka Lawson=== Tony and Djuke had back to collect spit so gave us a hand and Jenny and Olly came down the hill with their rope so, thankfully, there were decent numbers for the mammouth rope washing, checking, chopping and labeling + assorted scrubbing. -===2007-08-17|Sketching + Packing|Becka Lawson=== +===2007-08-17|Base Camp - Sketching + Packing|Becka Lawson=== I started drawing up surveys at 7am. Around 10 people were starting to emerge after last nights deep fat fried glove extravaganza. The conversation idly turned to ferry times as Tony et al set off home. Dunks decided when on the 19th his ferry went and came back and asked the date. "The 17th". "My ferry leaves in 12 hours." "The 19th is when I fly to China." Fine-honed expo machine spluttered into action and within the hour the wheels were on the trailer, it was filled with rope and the tarps strapped on, Martin had been working from his hung-over lie in, their gear was packed up, they'd been fed a cooked breakfast, sandwiches packed and they were on the road... With a good chance of making the ferry. After this firestorm we slumped for a while then started cleaning and I sketched until 3am, by which time I only had Pete for company who was on a one bender trying to beat Nials beer tally. The last bits of plan for maximum pleasure were a bit ropy but I got there in the end ready for a 7.30 start to catch our train to Italy. diff --git a/years/2008/logbook/2008logbook.txt b/years/2008/logbook/2008logbook.txt index a903b7c12..e629dca97 100644 --- a/years/2008/logbook/2008logbook.txt +++ b/years/2008/logbook/2008logbook.txt @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@ -===2008-07-18 |The Van limps to Austria |Edvin Deadman. Pete Harley, Tony Rooke, Djuke Veldhuis, Kathryn Hopkins=== +===2008-07-18 |Journey to Austria - The Van limps to Austria |Edvin Deadman, Pete Harley, Tony Rooke, Djuke Veldhuis, Kathryn Hopkins=== Iceman, Maverick, Goose, Jester and Juicebomb drove Tony's car and Natalie's van in convoy across Europe, a highly efficient military style operation using walkie-talkies to juggle drivers. 2am; We jump start the van. The headlights had been getting dim and it wouldn't start at the service station. Natalie's spare battery was flat! @@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ Iceman, Maverick, Goose, Jester and Juicebomb drove Tony's car and Natalie's van The rest of the journey: roads now filled choc-a-bloc with Dutch caravans. -===2008-07-23 |Hauchhole rigging |Edvin. Pete, Jess=== +===2008-07-23 |Hauchhole - rigging |Edvin, Pete, Jess=== Things we did right: 1) 2004-234-10B pushed through squeezy bit into aven. ? bottom is too tight, climbed up to top of aven where a QMC goes off to one side. Ahead a passage ends after 10m in a small choked chamber. @@ -32,23 +32,23 @@ Things we did wrong: T/U 6.5 hrs -===2008-07-18 |From Artic to Austria |Nial Peters=== +===2008-07-18 |Journey to Austria - From Artic to Austria |Nial Peters=== The sun was shining and it was a toasty 5 degrees when I left Longyearbyen. Unfortunately I fell asleep on the plane and missed the breakfast that was served. I had a 17 hr wait in Oslo airport before my flight to Saltzburg. Mostly I tried to sleep, but that was quite hard since I was sat next to a comedian guy who was explaining to 3 young American girls that he was the manager of Black Sabbath - not sure I believed him - but the girls obviously did. I arrived in Bad Aussee station just as it started to rain, and got very wet walking to the Gasthof. Beer and food at Hilde's made it all worthwhile though. -===2008-07-23 |High hopes rigging |Nial, Edvin=== +===2008-07-23 |204 - High hopes rigging |Nial, Edvin=== Short trip to rig into High Hopes (cresta run) from 204e entrance. Not quite enough rope to reach the C lead in toothless but had a quick look at the A lead in High Hopes - looks quite promising. Headed out via Helter Skelter and Boulder Coaster - much quicker but quite exhasting! T/U 3 hrs -===2008-07-24 |High hopes pushing |Nial, Tony, Djuke, Kathryn, Matin J=== +===2008-07-24 |204 - High hopes pushing |Nial, Tony, Djuke, Kathryn, Martin J=== Whilst Kathryn showed Martin around the upper levels of 204, Djuke added an extra bolt to the climb/pitch in cresta run and Tony and I began bolting down 05-62A. Both leads end in a wide slanted rift filled with lots of loose rocks. To the left, the rift leads into a sandy passage which has a strong draft. To the right, a dig through boulders led to larger passage. A stream enters from above almost certainly coming down from 05-42?? although no attempt has been made to establish a light connection yet. The stream exits the passage down a slot in the floor which appears to lead to a ~40m pitch. Stepping across the slot leads to a large upward sloping mud ramp which ends at a large 40-50m pitch which we are hoping to bolt on our next trip. -===2008-07-26 |Trip to Expo |Frank Tully, Julian Todd, Steve Jones=== +===2008-07-26 |Journey to Austria - Trip to Expo |Frank Tully, Julian Todd, Steve Jones=== Ferry 16.20, Sea France - because it was the cheapest! Basically Julian was ill on Friday so was pleasantly surprised when he had got much better when I picked him up (spare driver is useful). Got ferry ok and drove until 03.00 hr ish (German time). Stopped for 4 hours kip somewhere near Nurenburg. Farm road at back of services. Arrived at Hilda's 11.00 ish. Filled up Bristol 57667, Belgium 58050 (38.42L), Reid 58543 (39.42L), Arrived Bad Aussee 58634. In summary, its a lot easier drive if we can get the 16.00 ish ferry - arrive in good time for carry up on Sunday, and not too knackered. Will be doing it again if possible. -===2008-07-24 |Walk to top camp and Keith's first trip to 204 |Aaron Curtis, Keith Curtis=== +===2008-07-24 |204 - Walk to top camp and Keith's first trip to 204 |Aaron Curtis, Keith Curtis=== Left base camp around 10am. Keith drove Natalie's van up toll road. Stopped for coffee in the Bergrestaurant and then headed off into the clag. Low visibility but no rain. Arrived at empty top camp about 3hrs later. I checked the call out book which had a callout for Nial and Edvin - 11pm on 21st [should be 23rd?] August. Although technically I should have called the rescue, common sense prevailed. I checked the phone which had a sent message from Natalie to base camp saying everyone had walked down. Eventually, Ollie and Natalie showed up having rigged to within 10m of the bottom of tunnocks entrance due to rope miscalculation. I fumed bout the uncancelled callout and premature text. O and N returned to Tunnocks to finish the job. @@ -61,7 +61,8 @@ Once at the bottom, I nipped to CSB where to my excitement I was greeted by the T/U 4 hours -===2008-07-25 |Keith's second underground trip |Aaron, Keith=== +===2008-07-25 |204 - Keith's second underground trip |Aaron, Keith=== + The next day, Keith woke up keen to do more caving and we agreed to do E again and this time have a proper tourist trip, maybe heading on to D. On the way into the entrance I caught a glimpse of his central maillon and noticed that his stop wasn't on it, and asked him if he had it with him. He said yes, so I figured he was keeping it on his gear loop so it wouldn't get in the way on the crawl. I figured the routine of the day before where I waited at the ledge across from the rebelay was unnecessary, and Keith went down first. I watched him test his stop, and abseil out of view. Suddenly I heard a sound like a tacklesack sliding a few metres down the rope, and shouted "What happened?". I don't remember his response but it made me shout "CLIP IN! CLIP IN!" but then the tacklesack started sliding again, for a much longer period with a loud boom at the end. I believe I made some freakish noises at this point which seemed to frighten Keith more than the 30m fall he had just sustained. "ARE YOU OK?" I shouted when I had regained some sense of mind. "YES" came the response. "STAY CALM" I shouted. "*YOU* STAY CALM," was Keith's insolent reply. I waited until I felt I could do things carefully and then replaced the old style twist with a new one (which Nial had asked me to do the day before before walking down the hill) largely to prove to myself that I was still concentrating sufficiently to act safely, rigged my stop and headed down. I remember passing his stop, which was stll on the rope, using a normal knot pass, and noticing that the upper deviation was not clipped to the rope when I got to it, but the lower deviation was. @@ -78,19 +79,19 @@ After two hours he began to worry about cold and complained of shivering. He wa The rescue was brilliantly executed, and I am forever indebted to everyone who participated. -===2008-07-27 |Tourist trip down 204E |Jess, Nial, Kathryn=== +===2008-07-27 |204 - Tourist trip down 204E |Jess, Nial, Kathryn=== Walked up to top camp, actually staying dry, then was bribed into defecting from Hauchohle to 204, and was taken down E on a quick 2.5 hr "sightseeing" trip which seemed to involve Nial looking down every tiny miserable lead we passed. Went up to Chocolate salty balls to look at 2 B leads (02-38B,01-37B), which we decided to come back to as needed to bolt a traverse across a pitch. Then did a round trip down treeumphant passage and back via magic roundabout chamber and boulder coaster. Checked lead 00-30C in great oak chamber, and, after climbing down loose boulders, found that it wasn't a lead after all, and didn't go anywhere. Came back out of E and got back to top camp at 23.30. T/U 2.5 hrs -===2008-07-28 |Chocolate Salty Balls pushing |Jess, Kathryn=== +===2008-07-28 |204 - Chocolate Salty Balls pushing |Jess, Kathryn=== Returned to leads 01-38B and 01-37B in Chocolate salty balls to bolt the traverse and descend the pitch. Had soo much fun hand-bolting while perched precariously over the small pitch - once across, lead 01-37B turned out to be a short crawl to a small chamber, from which a second much larger pitch could be reached through a slot in the wall. Decided to leave descending it until the next day, as the pitch head was awkward, and we didn't have a drill. Went back to lead 01-38B, and Kathryn descended it to the bottom while I finished bolting the traverse. The pitch was blind, ending in rocks and boulders only about 10m down. -===2008-07-29 |Chocolate Salty Balls pushing |Jess, Kathryn, Nial=== +===2008-07-29 |204 - Chocolate Salty Balls pushing |Jess, Kathryn, Nial=== Went back to the pitch that we found the day before to bolt and descend it - dragged Nial with us, much to his delight when he saw the pitch head - the final bolt of the Y hang took two attempts, due to Nial seriously underestimating the room needed to swing the hammer to set the hilti - a space across which a drill can only just fit results in a very amusing woodpecker impression, but no nicely set hilt!!! After I got wedged in the pitch head due to all the dangly bags and survey instruments I was carrying (Kathryn had to prussik back up to me to take them off me), we descended the pitch, which turned out to be a large shaft about 30m deep, which unfortunately ended in boulders, with the only possible way on a crawl which very rapidly became too tight. @@ -99,7 +100,7 @@ Derigged the pitch and traverse line (which turned out to be too short on one si T/U 8.5 hrs -===2008-07-30 |Merry Fucking Christmas pushing (or not) |Jess, Kathryn, Nial=== +===2008-07-30 |204 - Merry Fucking Christmas pushing (or not) |Jess, Kathryn, Nial=== Decided, much to the amusement of Tony, to try to drop the pitch 01-68A in Merry fucking Christmas. Set off, and were fine, until we reached the end of Bonsai crawl. From then on, the trip descended into chaos, as we struggled to find No pain, no gain, due to difficulty deciphering the surveys, then proceeded merrily to a large passage ending with a pitch which, upon seeing an ice formation, Nial recognised as Wolpertinger way - a part of the cave off the edge of the survey we were using, and most definitely not where we wanted to be! After a certain amount of confusion, and such plans as "if we go back to no pain, no gain, then try again", and "well, if we go past a branch on the right and keep following this wall", we eventually managed to find the correct bit of passage, at which point we found we had to climb down a small hole in the floor for 3m - Nial and Kathryn managed fine, but for some inane reason I ended up trying, and failing miserably, to fly down it, tweaking my elbow in the process. Nial, who at that point was half way along the very tight tube at the bottom, was told to come back, by a slightly panicky Kathryn who was convinced by all the mutterings and groans that he was suffocating. Due to my elbow, we decided no to push merry fucking christmas and instead went back to lead 03-1B in Magic Roundabout chamber - a journey which took 3 hrs on the way in only took 1 hr to reverse! Once there, we surveyed the lead for a short distance up a narrow tube which carried on from [what we thought was - later found that we had resurveyed a fair bit] the last survey point - will have to return to carry on. We then decided to go for a bit of variety and to exit through 204 D - which seemed a good idea until we reached the innermost up climb out of suspended solution [apparently the floor had shifted since people were there previously, making it very hard] - Nial rigged a handline down off a rather dodgey boulder, which proved to be necessary as both me and Kathryn had problems with the climb - I ended up going up it backwards, and Kathryn prussiked up the handline. Nial then rigged the entrance climb from the bottom up, and we scrambled out over the snow plug into the blazing sun. @@ -108,19 +109,19 @@ We then returned to base camp, timing the walk to perfection as it got dark just T/U 7 hrs -===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks bimbly trip for team Limo, intro to Tunnocks for team crumbly|Steve, Edvin, Pete=== +===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks - bimbly trip for team Limo, intro to Tunnocks for team crumbly|Steve, Edvin, Pete=== Trundled to dubious pleasures. Killed 2 QMs at the end. 07-39C: 10m crawl to chamber; 10m aven - not surveyed as aven totally blind - dead loss. 07-38C is a 3m blind crawl. Didn't notice 07-35B. Halfway down penultimate leg of survey Ed ?? up rift towards water. 5m rift to 6m drippy blind aven, water disappears off down small rift. Followed ~ 100m. After ~10m, water goes down pitch (~10m QMC), continues as drafting hand and knees crawl. Left unsurveyed. Headed to crosswords. 07-80B, 07-93B both need rigging - not climbs. Headed home... -===2008-07-28 |Tunnocks 07-49A |Ollie Stevens, Becka Lawson=== +===2008-07-28 |Tunnocks - 07-49A |Ollie Stevens, Becka Lawson=== Added a spit to the first traverse and attempted to rig the second but the Makita drill died after 1.5 holes on the first battery and 0.1 holes on the second battery, so not enough bolting power or rope to check out more distant leads so we went to 07-49A. Did a dodgy rig on 2 naturals and down a chossy slope. Pitch on L side and 2m drop (with 2 spits, handbolted) to a pitch further on and QM? to pitch behind. Surveyed and out. No rope left to continue but worth returning to. T/U 8hrs -===2008-07-29 |Tunnocks 07-62A |Ollie, Becka=== +===2008-07-29 |Tunnocks - 07-62A |Ollie, Becka=== Yet another attempt to finalise the rigging - got the second traverse rigged on naturals - then off to starfish junction, turned right to the pitch opposite the snow tube (QM 07-62A). Got backup spits in then Ollie traversed out to put in the pitchhead bolt. "Tinkle" Hmm - I think I've dropped something shiny and metallic "Spanner?" "No" "Hangers?" "No" "Oh well never mind". More rigging. "tinkle, tinkle" "Bugger, I've dropped my sky hook" "Never mind, keep going." Drill ready to go - "Ah, I think I know what I just dropped - drill bit!" I decided to go down, throwing the rope over the edge with a tacklesack rope protector. I soon found the skyhook and, after a long furtle, the drill bit and sent them up to Ollie. He rigged down to the large ledge I'd got to, ~20m down, but we'd run out of rope for the next 30-40m drop so we surveyed out and headed home. En route Ollie put in lots of spits for the long (stone-monkey/caramel catharsis) traverse. -===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks 07-62A and 07-61A|Ollie, Becka=== +===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks - 07-62A and 07-61A|Ollie, Becka=== Got the final spits into the two traverses and back to 07-62A. Ollie rigged a pretty 5 or 6 spit traverse over to 07-61A whilst I hand-bolted spits for the next pitch down 07-62A which is a spectacular pitch - huge, curtain-like walls of rock in a massive canyon. Pete, Edvin and Steve turned up just as Ollie finished the traverse. Surveyed across and Ollie had a quick look ahead and whooped that it was the biggest chamber he had seen. It looked more like a series of pitches with a dodgey ledge along the left to me but we managed to get across and spotted Pete, Edvin and Steve's light from by the start of the traverse beyond Ykeykey Beach confirming the connection (maybe could close the loop with a disto?). Tried to survey the mess of aven and pitches. Ollie insisted on freeclimbing down to one section. He came straight back up, "OK, I know I can reverse it now." "Ah, jolly good..." After we had exhausted all the leads I was willing to climb to we went back down the 07-62A pitch and Ollie tried to rig down the next pitch but the rock was crap and his spit cratered and he got fed up so we gave up and came home. Left the drill at starfish junction and met Frank, Serena and Olly Madge ticking QMCs in the upper levels. Tunnocks rigging - extra info from 2008 @@ -139,12 +140,12 @@ F. Delicious leak traverse - 20m? About 8 spits. T/U 8hrs -===2008-07-28 |Hauchhole |Pete, Edvin=== +===2008-07-28 |Hauchhole - last rigging|Pete, Edvin=== After our last very successful rigging trip, Edvin reread the awesome description and we decided to try again. We rigged the rest of the pie series and set off to try and find the bit beyond Monster Munch. The description again had other ideas so we ended up down pie r squared passage and ticked off a QM (05-1A) with a couple of bolts into a blind pit. We then went back and found monster munch, put a traverse line over it and went to have a look at 06-1A. The drill battery died halfway through the first hole, so we left it and went over to the lead off cascade chamber I had looked at the previous trip (04-5B). We found some interesting stuff down there adding some new QMs. 70m of survey later we headed out. T/U 9hrs -===2008-07-29 |Monstermunch rigging |Pete, Edvin=== +===2008-07-29 |Hauchhole - Monstermunch rigging |Pete, Edvin=== Edvin decided it was a good idea to take big bertha down Hauchole with 200m of 9mm in her. It wasn't actually as bad as expected - even tacklesack blues was ok. I tried using the action cam to film the fun but all I got was a lot of shaky footage of the wall. I rigged down monster munch without any drama except for messing around at the pitchhead. At the bottom Edvin put in a really shoddy spit so I decided to put in another for a Y hang. Mine was even worse but I blame the crap spit driver with no mark for the depth. I rigged the rope anyway because 2 shit spits are fine obviously. At the bottom there was a too tight rift. 06-6C and 06-7A ticked off. We then had great fun hauling 200m of rope back up the pitch (we used ~150m) and carrying it out when knackered. Tacklesack blues was far worse than on the way in. Edvin carried Bertha back up the pitches. @@ -153,7 +154,7 @@ Addendum: Edvin stuck in a bolt above 06-1A while I was rigging, which we'll hav T/U 9.5hrs -===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks bimbly near the entrance |Olly Madge, Serena Povia, Frank=== +===2008-07-30 |Tunnocks - bimbly near the entrance |Olly Madge, Serena Povia, Frank=== Pushed a few C grade leads near the entrance series. Connected 2 loops. Met Becka and Ollie on the way out. Impressed by tunnocks entrance shaft in daylight. T/U 5.5 hrs @@ -161,7 +162,7 @@ T/U 5.5 hrs [Hauchole rigging guide] -===2008-08-03 |Merry Fucking Christmas and beyond |Kathryn, Jess, Nial=== +===2008-08-03 |204 - Merry Fucking Christmas and beyond |Kathryn, Jess, Nial=== We returned to push the pitch in 7/11 Chamber (01-68A) after our last failed attempt to reach the pushing front. The crawl to the pitch was not as bad as we expected (the survey suggested it became narrower after the point we got to last time; in fact, it got a bit wider), though it was still pretty awkward with tacklesacks. We made the mistake of being organised and packing all of our gear the night before. When we arrived at the pitch, we discovered that the drill bits that Nial had carefully packed had been snaffled by team tunnocks, so we couldn't use the drill that we had brought. Fortunately, we had also brought a spit driver, so all was not lost. The first part of the pitch was already bolted. A Y hang at the exit from the crawl leads to a rebelay on the far left wall. The rope rubs pretty badly - a rope protector is needed, and ideally it should be re-rigged. Nial put in two bolts for a rebelay under a large boulder on the far side of the chamber. This gives a clear hang down the pitch to the floor. The pitch is called 'no bits'. We used 62m of rope, and there wasn't much left. [rigging diagram] @@ -177,30 +178,30 @@ T/U 14hrs ===2008-08-03 |Base Camp |Natalie Uomini=== 7pm, wanted to go for one last trip on the mountain bike before it gets taken back to the shop on mon. Set off up trail to Grundlsee. Aim: go around the lake. Cycled along road, past village and castle, past huge limestone walls with holes in them, to Gossl (village on end of lake). Lots of campers there - left over from the Seer concert? Carried on around lake, up slopes. Forestry roads 'closed'. Through village and to the track that links the final section of lake to the end of the loop. A sign post: 'Track closed due to rock falls and storm, track unwalkable'. Thanks a lot - now I have to cycle all the way back around! So near, yet so far... In fact the return ride only took 1/2 hr, the road is lovely and I'd recommend the ride to anyone, even without the loop. -===2008-08-02 |Hauchhole derig |Edvin, Djuke=== +===2008-08-02 |Hauchhole - derig |Edvin, Djuke=== Plan was to head in with empty tacklesacks, quickly bolt and push 06-1A then head out, de-rigging and have done with this shitty cave forever more. Unfortunately, we found some good stuff so the cave has risen from the dead and is still now going. Spit and swallow opens out onto a window into a chamber. A backup spit and natural enable a 10m descent to the floor. At the far side are two ways on: The last chance saloon. The right fork winds for a bit before getting bigger and bifurcating: left soon chokes (QMC) and right passes a window onto a pitch (QMA) with passages opposite (QMBs) and then narrows, ending in another pitch (QMA). From the chamber, right is a bit scrotty, ending in a QMC, but it does pass over a hole which sounds like a big pitch (QMA). This bit of cave is vertically above Razordance, but lets face it, it probably craps out. T/U 5 hrs -===2008-08-03 |Tunnocks Pantin Sales pitch |Aaron, Edvin, Serena, Ollie=== +===2008-08-03 |Tunnocks - Pantin Sales pitch |Aaron, Edvin, Serena, Ollie=== We took the newly chopped 100m rope through Saurkraut to Patin Sales Pitch area, planning to tick off 06-31A and drop PS and ? pitch trying to bolt around the side of 2nd pitch and get into rift beyond it [that] closes up at [the] bottom. 06-31A turned out to lead to dodgey narrow ledge over main pitch. Traversed with 3 bolts and a natural. On the other side a short pitch with a QMC crawl with little stream. Last bolt took ages - crap battery dying or blunt bit, finished with hand bolted spit/ Patin sales pitch left rigged but not next pitch. T/U 6 hrs -===2008-07-29 |Tunnel work |Julian Todd === +===2008-07-29 |Base Camp - Tunnel work |Julian Todd === Worked on tunnel all day until Robert Seebacher showed up. Then worked with Aaron till late replicating Robert's outline of how to draw up a cave survey [tube??]. -===2008-08-02 |Walk to 161 |Julian === +===2008-08-02 |161 - Walk to 161h |Julian === Having typed in the correct co-ordinates (one digit wrong for last time), Julian led Nial, Jess, Tony and others over the Hinter col, down onto the lower plateau and then left down the steep shelves to the flat out entrance perched on a shelf. Julian brought his oversuit, while Jess and Nial followed in T-shirt and fleece. There was no ice in Iceland. All 3 got to nearly below 161G. Nial said it was quite warm. The crawl inside 161h, which was dug to make the connection was quite tight. Julian split from the group on the way back and went over the ridge behind the Stone Bridge, arriving after 1/2 hr. T/U 20 mins -===2008-08-3 |Tunnocks lead in hedonism highway |Julian, Becka, Steve === +===2008-08-03 |Tunnocks - lead in hedonism highway |Julian, Becka, Steve === The mission was to tick of some easy QMs at the far north of Tunnocks left by Becka and co from 2007. We surveyed into 07-70A up an easy passage, across a slippery hole (08-?A) and out of 07-68A. Which was a relief because I didn't want to cross that hole again. Lucky to find a survey point to link into. After some deliberation we surveyed into the rifty 07-69A thrutching about 4m above the bottom of the canyon until a widening and a free that was bottom to top chocked with boulders. Finally we headed to 07-82B, with Becka as usual screaming if we went so much as half a leg beyond the survey front to optimise the position of the next station, and therefore scooped - in spite of the fact that Andy A and Wookey had had a pass on doing such on her 2007 trip as evidenced by muddy footprints and notice of a lake on the 2007 survey several corners beyond the nearest survey station. Steve crossed the lake, which he thought contained dissolves insects, and I thought was bat poo, got his hands wet and was able to confirm that the unexplored crawl next to it that we daren't stick our heads into bypassed it. Several corners and tight bits led to a rift (also noted on the 2007 survey) where we left 3 crappy grade C leads, setting the score at 4 killed and 4 made. Passed the stone monkey team emerging from random holes on the main route on the way out. [Becka continues] @@ -208,7 +209,7 @@ The mission was to tick of some easy QMs at the far north of Tunnocks left by Be On a mission to tick off the QMs off Hedonism Highway. First two QMAs connected together but left a QMB smallish pitch half way along. Next (uppermost) QMA up tight, thin rift and ended in a boulder choke. This is the same rift that continues right under Hedonism Highway. Then up to corner to do drafting crawl. Only Steve crawled through the pool as we found a bypass. Onwards up to a chamber/rift with a QMB climb (needs protection?) which is very close to Flying High. Then back to junction at pool and downslope. Quickly to a c3 down which Steve went down to a small chamber with two QMs off both up short climbs. Cold by now so tramped on out. -===2008-08-4 |161a to 161d |Julian, Becka === +===2008-08-04 |161 - 161h to 161d |Julian, Becka === Much confusion about who to go with and when was best, as well as a lot of pressure on Becka to experience a rare instance of Julian being keen on a caving trip. As one of the original 1996 explorers of that part of the cave (purile humour) some bits might jog her memory. The log book suggested that we would encounter a pitch in Dead bat chamber, and we would have to retreat to 161C, go over the surface to 161d to rig it from the high side. As it turned out, the hardest part was the walk down to h with big packs (Becka very cross at Julian's lack of a good route) and the cave passage to 161d. The nearly freeclimbable bounce rift (with lots of loose rock) had a rope on it. We put the 9mm we carried, but the 1994 11mm line looked better than it. From there to Triassic was easy walking,k with a clamber up (lined) in Dead bat chamber up a cascade of bat bones and 2 further fixed line traverses. Triassic was so large it had its own weather system. We visited the pitch to Knossos, and climbed out and sat on the hillside of 161d watching the rain clouds gather. We walked part-way back from 161h in the drizzle in caving gear, then changed when the sun came out. It's a difficult route to optimise. Should this be considered as a way from the Stone Bridge to 161 far north connection to Razor Dance, thus saving the stone bridge from being a liability, the timings are: * Walk Steinbrucken top camp to 161h = 65 minutes (with big rucksack of caving gear and tackle). @@ -220,7 +221,7 @@ Rigging: Bounce rift - 29m rope for p4 down then p4 up - on naturals, needs spit T/U 4hrs -===2008-08-5 |Tunnocks, crossword passage|Julian, Frank === +===2008-08-05 |Tunnocks - crossword passage|Julian, Frank === Rain and misery at the Stone bridge. Beck and Steve left early to do [space left], while Frank faffed and Julian enjoyed the hours of no being in the cave while at the same time looking forward to trying out his inspiration of pouring boiling water into his wetsocks. The first lot was poured out after a long soak and the fear that too many nasty bugs would have been breeding. Frank asked if I was using custard. The second filling scalded my toes. As Frank considered completing the whole cave in nice dry woolley socks, I realised I had made a mistake and had soggy wet feet for the whole trip. Frank rigged 2 pitches until scared off while I froze and took an action picture of the wrong drill. I looked into Andy As horrid lead at the north end. We derigged. I strolled down from starfish junction to [space left] where Becka and Steve had dropped a pitch (blind) and now had rigged a free-hanging traverse across to a second pitch. I crossed, stupidly, and found rope on next pitch heading down at 45 degrees (it was pulled tight to get down next pitch) and shouted. Not much conversation with echoes. Frank arrived. I told him to go away as I crossed the 9mm rope traverse to prevent him from lighting the space below me. Technique was to have short cows tail from one bolt to next due to lack of faith in skinny rope. Took some funky pictures of self on ice shelf. Returned in the dark. Becka and Steve arrived within 10 mins of their callout. [Frank continues...] @@ -231,7 +232,7 @@ Trip back to cropscicle (crosswords) to rig pitch. Put bolt in below boulder wh Wibbled off at 18.30 headed out to get back to top camp at 21.00 after some photos - spoke to Becka on pitch on way back 20.00 ish. Becka arrived back at camp 10.50 ish - callout 11pm - bit too close. All ok though. -===2008-08-1 |Tunnocks, naughty naughty crawl |Steve, Serena, Becka === +===2008-08-01 |Tunnocks - Naughty Naughty crawl |Steve, Serena, Becka === Returned to crawl in Dubious Pleasure (cf 29/7/8); a descending crawl seemed a perfect intro to surveying... Serena was improbably enthused as we surveyed 38 legs along the crawl. Clean phreatic passage descending ~30 degrees, average 40(w)x70(h) cm. Left wide open draughts outwards strongly (can often hear the wind!) - NB if coming out its much easier *not* to end up feet first... Crawl is called "Naughty Naughty" continues as QMA. @@ -240,10 +241,10 @@ Added later by Becka: Deepest point in the cave as of 9/8/2008! T/U 8hrs -===2008-08-2 |Tunnocks, flapjack choke |Steve, Serena, Becka === +===2008-08-02 |Tunnocks - flapjack choke |Steve, Serena, Becka === On the way into tunnocks there's a traverse line. It goes over a hole. It needed doing (Flapjack Choke). P8 off a single spit backed up to the traverse line into a fair-sized rift, leads to short damp pitch, short stretch of passage to 5m pitch, short passage heads to too tight streamway. On de-rig Serena tried to asphyxiate herself with flapjack...(series name - choking on flapjack...) On prussik back up 1st pitch swung off into passage. Leads to short (5m) passage leading to ~p10 (QMB). -===2008-08-4 |Tunnocks, crosswords |Steve, Frank === +===2008-08-04 |Tunnocks - crosswords |Steve, Frank === Rigged pitch leading off monster[?] boulder in chamber with mud side (crapsides). Lobbed rocks into rattling rift beyond - clear draught and several seconds rattle into [can't read] rift. [Frank continues...] @@ -254,7 +255,7 @@ Back to crosswords - interesting belay of boulder down to floor of small rift [c Later Steve found edge of floor to be supported by 2" of rock - nice. Decided to drop shaft via hole in end of rift. Decided to head back and look at pitch tomorrow - pitch off boulder needs at least one bolt. Suitable name - cropscicle. -===2008-08-5 |Tunnocks, Gravity always wins, then blind and broken|Steve, Becka === +===2008-08-05 |Tunnocks - Gravity always wins, then blind and broken|Steve, Becka === Dropped 'Gravity always wins' - p20 off 3 spits; then short traverse line to Ollie's rig which gave a perfect free hang down to floor - stunning pitch to rubble floor choke ~p40, de-rigged as no QMs at bottom. Went across Ollie's bonkers traverse (called delicious leak) to the 'chamber'. Ollie's 'chamber' was 3 holes each give ~ 40m drop. Rigged pitch in 'rift' - perfect Y hang drops 36m to boulder ledge down another beautiful shaft. 1 spit rebelay off left hand side (looking out) to 8m hang to floor. Rift heads off - tight but booms - QMC. @@ -263,7 +264,7 @@ Up boulder slope leads to p10 with hole in floor that went 'boom'. Out of rope s T/U 10.5 hrs -===2008-08-6 |Tunnocks, Thin red line |Steve, Becka === +===2008-08-06 |Tunnocks - Thin red line |Steve, Becka === Rigged from Y-kinki beach over big 'ole. Found last year's last station; Becka scrabbled over the top of Blind and Broken to disto across [can't read] hole hole to close the big loop. Rigged pitch head of 2nd stage of big 'ole (3 pits on overhang over pitch); 1 bolt rebelay ~ 18m. 2 crap spits placed at end of rope. Came back up for more rope and a good wibble. Back down, [can't read] rebelay (1 good spit on line) and another (2 good spits just above overhang on line ~ -32m). Straight down to 1 spit just above next hang on line ~ -45m; 10m to steeply sloping boulder slope with 2-3 sec booming drop below - put 2 spits in to start survey [rigging diagram] @@ -272,11 +273,11 @@ On the way up Becka spotted the cut rope where I'd dropped a rock on it, the wib T/U 9.5hrs -===2008-08-7 |Tunnocks, Blind and broken |Steve, Becka === +===2008-08-07 |Tunnocks - Blind and broken |Steve, Becka === Becka: team enthused. Steve: team want-a-day-off-but-badgered... Over Ollie's traverse to 1st blind and broken pitch. Rigged it properly. Down to p10 left 05/08. Becka rigged this and muttered about dribbliness. Gardened 'big' pitch below, rigged 2 spits off BIG boulder at pitch head. Another stonking pitch - good free hand with 1 deviation to blind rubble choke, poor QMC rift outlet. De-rigged and cleared off; Ollie's traverse was fun for Becka to derig... Becka noted QMC on bottom pitch at level of small ledge - *small* tube going off ledge ~15m down/up. -===2008-08-6 |Tunnocks |Frank, Natalie === +===2008-08-06 |Tunnocks |Frank, Natalie === Popped down to tunnocks again to look at small pitch off route between caramel catharsis and Y-kinky. Started to rig down pitch and found rope too short so climbed up and bolted up to known passage from last year - at end is big scary pitch with a 5 or 6 second drop - 40' diameter. I do not feel like rigging this pitch despite Natalie's insistence that I should... I think this may be the wibble monster's lair. @@ -287,7 +288,7 @@ Started to survey down. Pony failed - disto failed, so resorted to tape + compas T/U 8hrs -===2008-08-7 |Tunnocks|Natalie, Frank, Serena=== +===2008-08-07 |Tunnocks|Natalie, Frank, Serena=== We set off to tunnocks at noon. Frank went in and Serena and Nat followed (around 1pm for all). Frank went ahead. Serena and Natalie went slowly on. Serena dropped the surveys down the ribs with knoedel hole bacause she didn't have pockets [Serena's writing - True story: pockets on kingsdale oversuits are unaccessible]. We found Frank at Y-kinki beach junction, very cold from waiting for an hour. Went down the new pitch in the rift ('round the corner from big scary pitch') while surveying it. Found big chamber at the bottom ('Maya's veil'). Frank bolted the way on and climbed up to the right above the next pitch (in small rift on left of chamber) to find boreholes (QMA) that look like they go to big scary. The next pitch needs about 50m of rope to get down it. The climb up to borehole needs about 10m. To get to maya's veil you need 30m of rope and 3 hangers. Natalie photographed Maya's veil chamber, with Serena and Frank as models. There is a horrible boulder choke beneath the veil with a possible passage (QMC). The whole chamber is a pile of huge boulder that move! After surveying the top of the next pitch and the first lef od the climb up, we were cold so we went out. Frank went ahead; Serena and Natalie followed slowly behind, taking their time. We came out at sundown (8.30pm?) @@ -296,19 +297,20 @@ After surveying the top of the next pitch and the first lef od the climb up, we [different writing] P.S. Natalie felt utter rubbish once on surface, and we got help to get back to top camp. -===2008-07-29 |High hopes - 204 |Djuke, Martin === +===2008-07-29 |204 - High hopes|Djuke, Martin === [Becka's writing] Bolting down pitch at end (Slush puppy pitch?) No write up! -===2008-07-30 |High hopes - 204 |Djuke, Martin Tony?=== +===2008-07-30 |204 - High hopes |Djuke, Martin=== [Becka's writing] +Tony? Finishing rigging then I think derigging. No write up! -===2008-07-28 |Ubantu- 204 |Djuke, Martin === +===2008-07-28 |204 - Ubantu|Djuke, Martin === [Becka's writing] No trip report! No idea what happened! -===2008-08-04 |Tunnocks, Stone monkey|Djuke, Martin, Jess === +===2008-08-04 |Tunnocks - Stone monkey|Djuke, Martin, Jess === [Becka's writing] More pushing and surveying then derigging at top end of Stone Monkey. No trip report! @@ -325,7 +327,7 @@ Pushed it a ways on - appeared to die but after squeeze through choke regained i T/U 8hrs -===2008-08-9 |Tourist trip down 204d|Nial, Eeva=== +===2008-08-09 |204 - Tourist trip down 204d|Nial, Eeva=== A quick trip down 204d to show Eeva the upper levels of steinbruckenhohle. Started out by bolting suspended solution and left a permanent rig on it. given how hard the climb up is now (the floor has moved) this is needed to keep 204d as a viable free-climbable entrance. Only required 3 bolts. @@ -333,12 +335,12 @@ Then went to magic roundabout chamber, threw some rocks down Gaffered, 204e, hel T/U 5hrs -===2008-08-10 |Pushing in sandpit (204)|Nial, Eeva=== +===2008-08-10 |204 - Pushing in sandpit|Nial, Eeva=== Went in 204d and through to Sand pit to look at 03-33B. On the way we stuck our noses down 03-32C and decided that is should definitely be an A lead! Hand bolted our way down a 15m pitch at 03-33B, but it rapidly became too tight, so we headed out of 204e, taking a quick tour of Sand pit on the way out. T/U 6hrs -===2008-08-11 |Pushing in sandpit (204)|Nial, Eeva=== +===2008-08-11 |204 - Pushing in sandpit|Nial, Eeva=== Having seen how promising 03-32C looked the previous day (and with Julian doing a carry down the hill for me - thanks!) we returned to Sand pit with a power drill and 62m of rope. A series of sloping pitches lead to a more vertical section of about 25m. beyond this, the pitches continued with a seconds rattle - this looks like and excellent lead! Unfortunately we had run out of rope so we headed back out, meeting up with Aaron and Serena on the way who offered to carry out the drill and rope - excellent! @@ -366,7 +368,7 @@ Took tablet PC and second datalogger down 204e. Serena got sponsorship snaps wh -===2008-08-14 |Top Camp Bivvy List |Becka === +===2008-08-14 |Top Camp - Bivvy List |Becka === Survey Daren drum: - 6 pencils