We descended the entrance series at around midday to investigate some leads found previously by Mike and Alice. Adam and I surveyed the main chamber @@ -1616,7 +1616,7 @@ to derig the next day.
We decided to investigate leads in Tunnocks due to expected rain. I went to the base of the entrance pitch whilst the others negotiated diff --git a/years/2018/logbook.html b/years/2018/logbook.html index a5a5c068a..83e680f73 100644 --- a/years/2018/logbook.html +++ b/years/2018/logbook.html @@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Anthony: "Nothing to report, just tell everyone how great it was!"
After the first spit had been set we realised that we'd forgotten the bolts, doh, so the tags for @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ Returned to Top Camp ~5 mins before callout - blame my (Crossley's) slow rigging
Prospected along side of Kleine Wildkogel along South edge heading West. Little but choked shafts for most of the day, but promising end of the day with two good leads. Conveniently, another team @@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ Large open shaft. In, down over snow plug 30m. 2 consecutive pitches. First 5m,
Headed off to drop DM07 followed by DM06. Started with DM07 as the closer of the two. First pitch/handline 5m down from surface to large hole in ground. @@ -174,7 +174,7 @@ unable to push further the next day. :-(
Cycled and walked to N. end of Altaussee lake to try to look at the Weisse Wand area of likely location of hole from the other side of the valley (Trisselwand side). Failed to get far enough: only 1km away but 500m too low and @@ -195,7 +195,7 @@ the tourist boat. Photos taken [and posted to Facebook Expo2018 page].
Snakebite lands in large rift passage with waterfall entering from LHS. Water drains @@ -223,7 +223,7 @@ P6 visible from P5
Found the entrance* - but it is 60m away from where the GPS says it should be.
@@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ I had found the upper (smaller) entrance CUCC-PS01-2018 at N 47.66743 E 013.8094
Carried 2x 45m ropes and a 80m rope over to Heimkommen. Dickon rerigged the pitch then ran out of rope on, now named Radagast.
Pushed through a small meander to an up pitch (3m). @@ -268,7 +268,7 @@ Out of rope so we surveyed out.
[DIAGRAM of tarp rigging in bivvy]
@@ -279,7 +279,7 @@ Out of rope so we surveyed out.
Hacked out on the cairned path to Organhöhle to look at some holes found on a 2012 prospecting trip, and see whatever we could find: @@ -300,7 +300,7 @@ on. Grade 2 survey completed.
The ambitious plan was to rig Tunnocks as far as camp. This was never on after I misread the log entry from last year and believed the rope for @@ -318,7 +318,7 @@ and headed out.
Rerigged the cave entrance, to pendulum pitch and all the way to blitzen boulavard.
Pushed past survey station 14C, found the phreatic tube lead to a small chamber (pissing pot) then continued left to a big pitch. Bolted, Rigged. Michael nearly killed Lydia --> called liquid luck.
Surveyed from 14C to 22. Michael bolts, lydia and Mike survey. Mike made a dry stone wall. Mike found Toto chamber.
Mike and Michael did more dry stone walling. More gardening. Followed the free attic opposite liquid luck ledge ti findthe Urinal. Bolted and rigged to an awkward body sized squeezing, thatr smelt of pee, having pissed down B. Boulavard. But possible free attic continuation.
Took photos, Mike and Michael go down to crystal crumble, found stalactites, pretty. Tom bolted coral corner, pretty formations. Traversed round Toto chamber on a false floor to the continuation into conintuation of free attic flys called phreatic becomes meander rift, (bolted) and dind a large opening with left and right junction (very false floor) called odious odium. Taking a right turn along the false floor leads to a vast floor now called Ulysses (after the Frans Ferdinand song Michael was singing). Yet to be dropped due to its very unstable nature. Did some gardening but a lot of work needs doing. Left turn at odium, leads to a true floor, leads to multiple boulder chokes and meander in approximately the direction of Ulysses with short pitches not dropped. More photos on the way out. Michael gets ill. Wees a lot.
lots of pee, very loose, less ice than last year, lots of key-hole passage.
Still to do (by Mike Butcher): @@ -398,7 +398,7 @@ Tom joined Mike and Lydia, surveyed free attic frys and Urinal, found thgat Urin
@@ -407,7 +407,7 @@ Tom joined Mike and Lydia, surveyed free attic frys and Urinal, found thgat Urin
Hangmans's Traverse is not here: redrawn later. See 20/7/2018.
@@ -417,7 +417,7 @@ Tom joined Mike and Lydia, surveyed free attic frys and Urinal, found thgat Urin
Homecoming entrance and first pitch rigging guide:
@@ -439,7 +439,7 @@ Tom joined Mike and Lydia, surveyed free attic frys and Urinal, found thgat Urin
11:00-18:00 up the hill.
Found p115x the main "train tunnel" hole. Did a 200+ averaging GPS reading on p115x, Windloch, and cave 88 on the Stoger Weg. @@ -504,7 +504,7 @@ of Radagast pitch. No issue with pitches being impassable except maybe Radagast.
After acrack of 11:30 start we had a steady descent to the bottom of Hangman's then @@ -539,7 +539,7 @@ on Honeycomb pitch - it only seemed to have set on one side.
A swift hour's caving with minimal gear got us to
yesterday's pushing front. The first 3 hours were spentdropping two pitches (the Snail Trail pitches)
@@ -584,7 +584,7 @@ and Snail Trail Traverse (20m after Snail Trail climb)
-
@@ -612,7 +612,7 @@ top of big block with a sling.
The plan was to get all the gear to camp so that we could spend the night there. I rerigged the top half of Number of the Beast @@ -642,7 +642,7 @@ pitch, so he had to come back down to replace them with a sling.
We set off from top camp,full of optimism for the day. Nadias's ankle was sore from the previous trip, so we wanted to take the shortest route @@ -684,7 +684,7 @@ and left the other labelled as a QMB. Reason being: it's clean washed, and it lo
The top camp (Steinbrucken) set transmits perfectly with the antenna as arranged in both locations. @@ -739,7 +739,7 @@ as a less-than-successful short-cut.
An opportunity presented itself to visit the "other" new cave and - despite feeling a bit broken - I opted to give it a go. This proved to @@ -772,7 +772,7 @@ procured from Blackpool Pleasure Beach,or some suitable Photoshop wizardry.
Day 1
@@ -850,7 +850,7 @@ All rope lengths estimated
Typhon and I went for a walk to find and assess the new bivi cave which Anthony found earlier this expo. @@ -971,7 +971,7 @@ Photos uploaded to expofiles/photos/PhilipWithnall.
Another trip to the bivi cave (Garlic cave 2018-ad-02) to landscape it and
install some mod-cons. We put a cut-up survival bag in a poond to collect water
@@ -998,7 +998,7 @@ Frank dropped 2018-pw-02 (see previous page) and killed it off. Survey:
Festered and nerded at basecamp. Made various improvements to the GPX system, added syntax highlighting for survex files, thought some more @@ -1016,7 +1016,7 @@ comparison for someone who knows that hole.
Tested Wookey's TP-link 200 Mbps HomePlug devices between potato hut & mains socket above @@ -1031,7 +1031,7 @@ to test actual useable bandwidth.
We walked to Homecoming through Fishface cairning the route with Haydon, Jon, Ruairidh, Phil (U or W) and Typhon filling in the gaps. Making it a fully cairned route. @@ -1051,7 +1051,7 @@ the wet bit. Way out took longer than anticipated.
Due to a missing spit driver we went East to look for it. @@ -1069,7 +1069,7 @@ to find we weren't the first ones there.
We setoff with Nadia and Olly to practice surveying and exploring two nat-explored bits in Fisch Gesicht entrance. @@ -1087,7 +1087,7 @@ at a potential dig in Fisch Gesicht which also crapped out after a few metres.
Using Garmin eTrex Venture Cx GPS (WGS84)
"lookfutile.svx" was surveyed by Chas and Planc in 1983 following the discovery of the futility series in 1982. @@ -1265,7 +1265,7 @@ Philip
mq extension enabled on mercurial by Paul Fox.
My last chance of being underground for a few days so I was even keener than usual.It took 1h20min to get to the bottom of Mongol Rally. @@ -1390,7 +1390,7 @@ were on the surface at 01.30 to a full moon.
I found my second descent of Balkony to be easier than the first. Becka and Luke headed down aghead of George and I to Pitstop to survey that aven while George and I @@ -1415,7 +1415,7 @@ Met Luke and Becka at Pitstop for the journey out.
Having been confused by the pitch that required to be raversed rather than descended, another (?) consulting other cavers, we returned the next day. The journey into the system was @@ -1534,7 +1534,7 @@ PS we didn't survey because we forgot the notebook up the pitch OK bye.
We started the trip to Fischgesicht with 3 other people (Cat, Cat's Husband, Paul), but they decided to turn back before Liquid Luck because Paul was being slow.
@@ -1554,7 +1554,7 @@ We had a little time before out turn-around time, so Michael started to bolt the
Followed the lead after Rubble Rumble, surveyed for 6 hours, 60+ survey legs total. Good trip. @@ -1563,7 +1563,7 @@ Followed the lead after Rubble Rumble, surveyed for 6 hours, 60+ survey legs tot
Walking and scrambling on the hillside/cliff below the main entrance to 115 (Schnellzughöhle) to try to find an entrance to the Futily Series (again).
Up at 6am with Luke and Rachel, hitched back to Bad Aussee at the end of the day and Wookey @@ -1590,7 +1590,7 @@ Needs surveying and tagging.
A series of 4 trips bolting the Lizard King which is a rift with a strong draft in Homecoming Hole (CUCC-2018-DM07). @@ -1616,7 +1616,7 @@ In other words, an altogether excellent pushing front with a brilliant windchill
Set off for Fischgesicht, to survey the shaft scooped on the 1st (See Adelaide 01/08/2018). Surveyed down the 3m rope we put in, and took a right at the crossroads just at the bottom of the scree slope (crossroads at point 5). @@ -1634,7 +1634,7 @@ The high phreas would be accessible with a traverse line for a climb up that is
2x S,
3x XL,
4x L,
lots of M (some male, some female, no distinction in label)
Returning to Fischgesicht for the 3rd time, quickly descended to the pushing front. Began by surveying large chamber leading to pitch. @@ -1662,7 +1662,7 @@ Time in 10:40, time out 20:40
@@ -1683,7 +1683,7 @@ far side of Pitstop whilst Nadia set off out.
[Goal]: Derig Octopussy & Tentacle Traverse + camp to top of Kraken then derig out of Tunnocks to bottom of @@ -1821,7 +1821,7 @@ This was my first trip to Kraken camp, but it might also be the last. However as
1
We did a trip down Tunnocks to do a resurvey and a connection to "Balcony". @@ -1833,7 +1833,7 @@ Also surveyed a new passage there that just looped around.
2
[Editor note: very bad handwriting indeed. Please try harder Max.
@@ -1876,7 +1876,7 @@ Finally staggered out, including the [squiggle][squiggle][squiggle] by 2am.
[Wook:] Went over to Fishface to see if we could connect it to Happy Butterfly.
Looked in right direction but didn't find anything very interesting - a bit of
@@ -1924,7 +1924,7 @@ heading down which choked out, however when surveyed by Wook [squiggle]
8th, 9th, 10tgh August Balkon -> top of Kraken, collect camp,
@@ -2018,7 +2018,7 @@ This has been transcsribed into ugcamplist.html
2018-08-01
As well as being my first caving trop of the expo, this was also the first Balkon-Tunnock's through trip made. George changed the hang at the top of Mongol Rally, added a rebelay and fixed another at the bottom of MR. Olly began to bolt the right hand wall of Floodland. He got so far down the pitch but didn't bottom due to time constraints.
The connection between Balkon and Tunnocks is very impressive. Large chamber after large chamber.
The Prusik out was a laugh! It was an introduction and a half to Austrian caving. 10/10 would do it again.
@@ -2027,14 +2027,14 @@ This has been transcsribed into ugcamplist.htmlArrived at Pitstop to find George who was in the group in front to have finished bolting the traverse around to the other side. Passage was large walking passage with nice mud formations in floor. Passage ends at a pitch with a dodgy bridge. Half way-ish between the traverse and pitch was a flatout crawl on right. Crawl was unpleasant and sharp (I forgot kneepads!!) and was sloped upwards. Passage (including crawl unitil become too tight) was surveyed.
Pitch wasn't dropped.
We then head back to Pitstop and then attempt to bolt a rift but then the floor fell beath and scared me and we decided to call it a day.
Accompanied by Pi and Andt (two German cavers).
The trip was to push Fish Face further following a low-level lead in Gardening School. An exchange was agreed with German cavers whereby they would offer us a trip if we offered them a trip (an agreement arranged by Alex and Jacob during the bottom base camp BBQ). The trip also allowed the German's to experience top camp, both who were incredibly impressed by the arrangement, declaring, "You English are mad!" The international caving group encounted a language barrier in the especilly crumbly and loose passages of the Fish Face entrance pitch and traverse. WHile descending Alex had one of the Germans (Pi) shout "stein!", somewhat confussed he looked up to find the German caver was not offering him a beer, insted a number of rocks had been kicked down. A system was then proposed by the Germans to overcome the language barrier. The sylable count of words would indicate the cave command, therefore the language used would be rendered pointless.
Image of the syllable system table @@ -2060,7 +2060,7 @@ me a lift to the potato hut and I showed him the posters and aven. (He also has
Accompanied by Pi and Andt (two German cavers).
While drunk and making friends with some Germans, one of them, Andt, gave me a proposition: "You take me caving and I'll take you caving in an ice cave... with a snow volcano." I liked this idea! Despite the cave being less than 1k from top camp, due to Losser's 'I'm going to kill you with every steo you take' nature we had to walk accross the plateau toward Applehaus and then take that path. After negotiating some traverse, beating some bunde and safely avoiding the caver grinding we arrive at some dead larch... and a misty cave entrance! THis was to be our exit point. Pi headed up the hill to start rigging the top entrance while Andt gave me a quick lesson on how to walk with crampons. When crampon school was over, we too head to the top entrance. An oblong entrance of 10m-ish by 4m wide entrance pitch to the top of the snow volcano was probably 40/50m. When on top of volcano, daylight can still be seen. 'Tis quite impressive. When on top of volcano the size of the chamber starts to become apparent. In the distance ice stalls can be seen glistening through the mist. We continue the descent, this time down the side of the snow volcano for ~3-m until we reach the bottom.
Ice is hit. @@ -2072,7 +2072,7 @@ me a lift to the potato hut and I showed him the posters and aven. (He also has
Went 100m NW of top camp to put a tag on a possible cave (located previously on 8-9/08 by Nat and Paul) numbered 2018-NTU-01. We practiced hand bolting to install the tag and picked wild chives.
As water was needed at camp, snow was collected for the bivy. While Ryan efficiently poured 5 tackle sacks of snow into the rain tarp, Nat and Alex and Ruairidh proceeded to practice drilling a Z-rig to try to haul an overfilled bag of snow vertically (see separate write up). While taking 2 ropes each down the mountain, we successfully crosses the plateau in fabulous perfect weather, only to be hit by a sudden bad storm at the col. An hour of super heavy rain and lightening was upon us. We were forced to emergency shelter in our double-bivy baf near a rock.
Several very close lightening strikes (with 0 second gaps) reminded us how quickly the weather can turn against you on the mountain. @@ -2083,7 +2083,7 @@ me a lift to the potato hut and I showed him the posters and aven. (He also has
We aimed to re-locate several caves that had been recored in 2004/5/6 and were within 300m of Top Camp. How hard can it be???
Well, 8 hours later, lost and dehydrated, we managed to get back to Top Camp just 20 minutes before our callout!
Entering the coordinates into the GPS and walking in a direct heading was met repeatedly by either thick bunde or sheer cliffs going up or down! While we were lost we found several new caves, which we duly recorded and surveyed. They are very close to the path to Tunnocks, so we suspect they were either ignored or not recorded when first explored. We left the big pitch for another time and surveyed the small free-climbable hole. Then we got lost again looking for 2004-18. @@ -2093,14 +2093,14 @@ me a lift to the potato hut and I showed him the posters and aven. (He also has
from Robert Seebacher
Derig was going to be a big job. Tonnes of rope still down several holes, and most people had already buggered off, and a fair few of those still around had buggered themselves in some fashion! So we had maybe 6 decent cavers to do maybe 20 bags worth of rope from 3 different entrances in two days. The real hard nuts had done most of Balkonhole on a camp/push/derig the day before, and half of that group were quite deservedly taking a day off. Ruaridh's broken arm had mysteriously 'Got better, honest' until we made him prove it by climbing into the Animal house, so he was out. Fishface/Fischgesicht was the next biggest project, with ~300m depth and vague rumours of a drill left at the bottom for the "unclimbable" leads. @@ -2141,7 +2141,7 @@ The decision to leave all the tackle sacks at the entrance was endorsed unanimou
On the way back from KH entrance, Chris and I detoured to 115 to get 6 litres of water as we were very thirsty. Also took out the museli and flapjack. Left ~4 litres of water and a orange polythene swirl (sp?) bag.
[from https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=23424.msg299639#msg299639] @@ -2186,7 +2186,7 @@ Becka
@@ -2446,7 +2446,7 @@ just 20 minutes before our callout time!
Plentiful snow.
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ and made steps to get out at the front (~4m to climb out).
We walked from the car park (kind lift from Phil) via top camp intending to reflect the route from Fish Face to top camp and dump our kit near the entrance. On arrival, the entrance was under several metres of snow. @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ Other nearby holes choked rapidly.
Plan Homecoming via stonebridge; returning to base ..... @@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ start (a bit of a ledge) to cslere (sp?) it got wetter and more verticle then we
Setting off bright and early from the stone bridge (11:00), we took tagging and surface bashing kit to Fishgesicht with a firm belief that we would find a second access ot the snowed-in cave.
Whilst Reuben charitably carried some gear to Homecoming (needlessly as they'd taken one of our ropes), me and Corin GPS tagged some likely entrances about the area. We should have written some more information to know which would need rope to access. @@ -131,7 +131,7 @@ Setting off bright and early from the stone bridge (11:00), we took tagging and
We set off back to Fischgesicht for more prospecting in the general area.
Andrew Atkinson joined us as far as Fischgesicht whereupon I escorted him to the path to Homecoming. @@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ choked within 15m. 3 tagged caves (tags: CUCC-2019; CD-01; RH-03; MH-02) with a
At the time of writing, I am sat in the Tatty Hut at Base Camp in Bad Aussee. @@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ Tom Crossley (11/07/2019)
Dickon and Dan went up at ~6am to HC (Homecoming) pushing in 'SecondComing'. They may return to basecamp. Callout 22:00. @@ -250,7 +250,7 @@ They may return to basecamp. Callout 22:00.
Radost & Philip drove to the carpark and walked to CUCC-PS-01 which Radost declared a "B lead at best" after we had got out.
Cave descripotion: @@ -280,7 +280,7 @@ to rifts in Schnellzughohle and Stellerweghohle nearby, but in this cave there a
Blog Post - Reply #5 on: JJuly 14, 2019, 01:16:07 pm
@@ -311,7 +311,7 @@ Dickon and Crossley returning to the col from Homecoming
Blog Post - Reply #5 on: July 18, 2019, 03:33:10 pm @@ -326,7 +326,7 @@ Dickon and I went down Homecoming to the start of the Second Coming (after the a
Tuesday Jul 16:
@@ -337,7 +337,7 @@ Crossley, Harry, and I went and added some additional rigging on the entrance se
Wednesday Jul 17:
@@ -348,7 +348,7 @@ Crossley, Sarah, Michael, Harry, and I went down to Propane Nightmares to rig so
Thursday Jul 18:
Back down the hill to basecamp. Jon has arrived suddenly to Expo, and discussing his efforts last year at Homecoming with Dickon and myself has only increased our confusion about the large drafty leads deep in the Second Coming. Another trip shall resolve this. @@ -362,7 +362,7 @@ My phone is bricked, so unfortunately I have no more photos to contribute.
Fri Jul 19
I went into Homecoming with Jon, who on a whim returned to the expedition, to sort out some confusion at the far pushing front where Andrew and I had gone. As it turns out, he and Haydon had in fact pushed, surveyed, and rigged the 'long slippery rift in need of rigging' I had mentioned, but at ceiling level rather than where Andrew and I had gone. Misunderstandings had led us to believe that this traverse was left in place when it was in fact de-rigged last expo, and so Jon and I set out rigging the traverse on the existing bolts. We had just enough rope and I was able to stretch the hangars/maillons just enough to reach the end of the traverse, where another pitch down will access this pushing front. This whole area was named the Lizard King, and we eagerly await the data from last year to better illuminate this front. @@ -377,7 +377,7 @@ At the same time, Dickon went down Homecoming with Reuben and Aileen to push Pro
Dickon went down Homecoming with Reuben and Aileen to push Propane Nightmares. They went on the upper level phreatic lead, which continued horizontally and then dropped into downward pitches of phreatic passage, in need of more rope to continue pushing. [Dan] @@ -387,7 +387,7 @@ Dickon went down Homecoming with Reuben and Aileen to push Propane Nightmares. T
Sat Jul 20
As I had not done any prospecting this expo and Jon wanted to feel warmth again, we decided to head west to prospect on the plateau beyond Homecoming. Much bunder bashing and karst scrambling was done, and many chocked holes and snow plugs were clambered down into. Amongst all of this though, we found two quite promising prospects in need of dropping. Jon has photos and a more clear understanding of location (as he logged them on the GPS), but as he is still up the plateau I will describe them in brief. @@ -409,7 +409,7 @@ A brief foray into Happy Butterfly found a Y-hang with a dangling hangar, and we
Fri Jul 21
@@ -433,7 +433,7 @@ of Mongo Rally, by then we had 4 heavy [incomplete scan - taken from 2019-07-25
Thur Jul 25
The second half of Expo picked up a lot: the sun came out and most of us ventured up the hill to stay at top camp. See Reuben below in the bivvy: