@@ -61,10 +61,15 @@ We washed all the rope we had in the stream below strained by gravity but most t
SUMMARY OF ROPE IN HOMECOMING
+
-entrace pitches below radagast to bottom of entrance series all left rigged
--3 ropes in short passage above small pitch abbove radagast, colied,
+
+-3 ropes in short passage above small pitch abbove radagast, colied
+
-~600m rope some will be old +need junking, most of it dirty, ALL needs checking
+
-NO ROPE on entrance pitches up to end of Radagast
+
-NO METALWARE on any derigged ropes
@@ -563,7 +568,7 @@ Still need to find a grike.
Charlotte rigged a traverse down and across 2m so Harry and I could survey a side passage that quickly reached a pitch whilst Charlotte remained to finish rigging the pitch. We all descended the pitch to 2 routes.
@@ -834,7 +839,7 @@ Slogged down from Top Camp to Homecoming and headed down the entrance series. Wa
@@ -866,7 +871,7 @@ Transcribers note, 21st July 2024. Whilst I do appreciate the write up and the
@@ -1567,7 +1572,7 @@ Test of the logbook entry editing system.
Me, Radost, Mike, Jana and Will went to top camp to set up
main tarp and the second water collection tarp (which was a success).
@@ -247,7 +252,7 @@ main tarp and the second water collection tarp (which was a success).
A crack team of expo's hardest cavers was assembled to take a rope out of balcony that was left there last year.
@@ -263,7 +268,7 @@ at about 5pm. Charlotte and Harry were both very grumpy walking back with very h
After a carrying day on the 2nd, we suspected ff would be snowed in. A faff morning of acquiring shovel. We got to ff with shovels, discovering it
did need digging. Jonty got particularly into this, producing quit the snow trench.
@@ -309,7 +314,7 @@ non-working internal wifi on netbook causing config problems even though it was
Ash, Merryn, Amelia in [com?] Philip B., Sarah and me
@@ -322,7 +327,7 @@ came down the mountain.
After more faff from Chi, we set off about 10AM to carry gear and check out the route to Homecoming. Fishface to Homecoming was well cairned and fairly straightforward to follow.
Gear ledt at Homecoming entrance:
@@ -363,7 +368,7 @@ Nice write up [re Honorata's 3-day update]. The rope there now is stuff we bough
Joel, Lizzie and Philip fettled the tarp (where some water had pooled overnight) whilst I had a go at attaching the big Daren drum (filled with the
solar panels and cables) to my rucksack, ready to carry from top camp to Garlic Cave.
@@ -388,7 +393,7 @@ return.
We set out to improve the direct route from the start of the plateau to Homecoming. The way down the wall after the second pole was suprisingly nice. This was followed by an easy flat section until the bunde and tiny cliffs obscured all the alternative paths we tried. Most of the way was already cairned, but we did find some nice fresh transitions through the bunde walls separating the easy-to-walk-on slabs. At Homecoming, we met Harry, Christian, Alice, Merryn getting ready to rig the cave. Then we visited Garlic cave - a massive above ground hole that leads to a bridge below which are the entrances to the cave itself. There was loads of snow - just as in every entrance - but there was a nice campable bit , plenty of water dripping. I sensed some garlic smell, remembering the story that this smell gave the name of the cave, but was still mysterious. Then Maddie realised we were surrounded by chives! Mystery solved.
On the way back we met Jono, Evelyn, and Oakem who were on the way to Garlic. At Homecoming, Honorata and Radost told us they had found 3 intriguing holes while prospecting. We found a baloon with a sweet note on it and read it to them.
@@ -399,7 +404,7 @@ return.
An ambitious day which slowly went increasingly wrong. The group departed base camp at a stunning 8.20AM, blitzed up the plateau and promtly became mired in several hours of faff which soon descended into more festering. The plan had been to rig the entrance series of Fishface down to the bottom of Blitzen Boulevard (4th pitch), from where we expected everything to be left rigged. However, confusion about rope lengths and metalwork and some impressively long grike trips meant that the two shallow pushing groups planning to explore from Blitzen and Liquid Luck caught us up at Top Camp. Uncle Mike was not amused. We swiftly bombed down to FF in 25 mins and started rigging. Joel was left to do everything as Jonty's light 'broke'.
The entrance pitch/spiral traverse thing was completed on a 40m rope. Tasteful noods (2nd pitch) didn't quite go on a 27m due to rerigging around the top rebelay to avoid rub, so Joel initially reached the bottom on a knot pass and Jonty rerigged to the bottom on a 32m. The traverse at the bottom of Tasteful Noods (2A) and pitch 3 both had rope left from last year but not rigged - some of the knots didn't line up and required rerigging but the lengths were fine. Pendulum pitch needs some more bolts at the bottom, possibly as a traverse, to make getting on and off the pitch less deathy. Uncle Mike rigged Blitzen for us as we got too scared, he insisted the step over the huge rift with no traverse was fine, so we left him to it. There may or may not be a bolt there now
@@ -411,7 +416,7 @@ return.
After hiking up to plateau to arrive for midday, we discovered the advanced rigging party still above ground... In order to leave them time to start rigging the first 4 pitches of Fishface, an ungodly amount of faff began. We finally arrived at the cave at 3pm, thinking we'd left plenty of time for the riggers, we quickly changed and headed underground. Alas, our hopes were crushed as we came to the bottom of the first pitch to discover the other pushing party sat freezing their tits off at the top of the second pitch as the riggers rigged just below them. Needless to say, it took some time to descent to the bottom of Blitzen Boulevard with Mike taking over the rigging of the 4th pitch after a debate over placing another bolt at the pitch head. Once arrived at Benign Bubble Baby Bypass, we conducted a quick something time to refresh our surveying technique before splitting into 2 groups. Me and Mike went ahead through the tube leading on through the bottom of the climb heading towards the liquid luck ptch head to bolt the small pitch at the end of the traverse whilst the others began surveying from said turn off. As me and Mike arrived at the pitch head, I asked if I could begin my bolting lesson before a big scary hole. I was refused. Instead I was told to tie the rope around a small head sized bolder wedged in the rift, which were currently both stood on. I thought this was a silly idea but obliged. The actual bolting of the pitch went well (I think?), however comments about placing bolts higher were made which was somewhat impossible given my height. The final bolting and rigging became passable so I decended the large (4m...) hole.
As we finished bolting, the survey team emerged behind us. At the bottom of the pitch, 3 leads emerged, a large passage with a traverse sloping down in front of us, a small drafty tube to the right, and a hole heading into the ceiling behind us. With the rigging team and pushing team 2 in the near vicintity of the cave around us, me and Mike were a bit naughty and scooped the large passage in front of us, as we reached the end, we could hear voices in the rift above us, thinking it was the other pushing team we called up. It was not. It was Buck from the rigging team stood near the base of Blitzen Boulevard essentially where we started. Discovering we'd done a large circle , we returned to the base of the pitch where the survey team were. As we arrived, Zac from the team 2 appeared in the hole above us, they had also done an circle.
@@ -422,7 +427,7 @@ return.
We prospected between Fischgesicht and Heimkehr entrances. We found 5 caves, which I will refer to here using the temporary number and names entered in expo.survex.com. Small drain (2023-hbrw-01) and medium drain (2023-hbrw-02) were surveyed completely and they both strecth for about 20-30m, a small stream passing through each of them.
We also found 3 new caves which seem to continue but we couldn't survey them since they all begin with large pitches:
@@ -437,7 +442,7 @@ return.
Gave the rigging team ~3hr headstart but we still caught up with them at the bottom of first pitch. Emma and Zac then sat around while Ash and Mealy calibrated the disto. We were waiting so long that Uncle Mike's surveying group caught up. We waited in a a bothy for them to pass us before slowly, one-by-one, following on. We then caught up with them again at the top of Blitzen pitch and had to bothy again (after Mealy led us on too low in the rift).
At the beginning of BBBB (Benign Babble Baby Bypass) we talked with Mike's group pushing the other lead and descending some small pitches to push ours. We faffed around a while trying to find it, but when we did, we found it just looped back around to Mike's group's lead. We surveyed it anyway.
@@ -448,7 +453,7 @@ return.
@@ -482,7 +487,7 @@ Bolts used:
Jonty's car: Jonty/Nads/Janis up to Garlic and return this evening. Taking new reflectors made this morning.
We pushed 60m at the top of "Clap My Pitch Up". Pushing required bolting ~20m of a traverse ( Mike adds: 20m ish of the traverse was new passage surveyed this year but there was about 30m of traverse bolted this year which was naughtily pushed by me - Mike - and Luke last year in the Red Light Spells Danger trip so the traverse is about 50ish m long). The final few metres of the traverse go above a sizeable pitch (30m?). We names the bolted traverse, "European Federalists". At the end of the traverse, we continued walking for another ~40m until arriving at the top of a massive pitch - further pushing would require bolting. The distance from where we were standing to the furthest point down the pitch measured with the disto was ~40m. We kicked rocks down the pitch and the sound continued for 10s, giving rise to a presumption that the pitch may be very deep. If it connects to "Clap My Pitch Up", it's at least 100m deep. IMPORTANT: the traverse passage and the walkable continuation are muddy and slippery; posing a hazard of falling down the pitch. Ash, Jonty, Mealy and Janis want to push the lead further on Saturday 8th July.
We wandered down to the cave around 10am, making it to the entrance around 12pm. The entrance series went pretty fast ... at least it did for me as Harry and Charlotte were carrying the heavy bags. On the way we made a quick stop to rerig a knot pass. As we reached the bottom of Wallace and Grommit where they had finished rigging the previous day both me and Harry experienced fizzling as we glazed the dry rope on the final 55m. I did not enjoy this part. We then made our way up the climb and Harry began rigging the small pitches before the long pitch series. The most notable part of this was when Harry appeared the wrong side of a pitch head after following the description and getting lost. It was highly amusing. As Charlotte began rigging the final pitch series me and Harry huddled in a shelter and watched Mathilda the musical. As it came to replacing a bolt Harry left to go help Charlotte and I was left along ... until it was discovered the drill battery was dead and I had to come down with a back up. As 8pm approached we made our way out leaving rope to finish the final part of rigging. On the way out we made a noodle stop at the top of Wallace and Grommit but with no fork a knife had to suffice. The walk back was miserable as we started following new reflectors towards the col and had to turn around and start again. We finally made it back to top camp at 1 am.
Following our previous shallow trip into Fishface we set out to continue the previous combined
leads from the day before. The journey across the plateau and into the cave was uneventful, aside from
@@ -538,7 +543,7 @@ camp for curry.
Another frustrating day with network. WiFi router refused to allow connections - rebooted at ~0830. Ok.
Rebooted network for a reason I can't remember - failed to re-establish routing to router. Much faff standing on chairs typing at netbook as cables all duct taped to the wall with it in final operating position up by ceiling. Found the missing rune, edited into 'runfakenet'. Redocumented everything in handbook. By which time the morning has gone and no progress achieved.
@@ -577,7 +582,7 @@ Afternoon: added lots of expoers to folk.csv and adding lots of mugshots. Partic
We went to where the group - Honorata, Radost and Mike - had left off the previous day. European Federalists was a very tough traverse that required the use of ascenders. We bolted and rigged (my first bolt!) the pitch at the end of the muddy passage about 10m down to a choke of boulders. At the bottom of it we saw that there is a large, smooth crack continuing east leading to a large, deep chamber that seems to be the same one we saw on the right. If it is it would be elongated roughly in a north east to south west direction. Ash and Mealy also explored some C leads which did not go far.
Radost and Honorata had found a few promising entrances that they could explore with just a hand line on Thursday so me, Mike and Emma set out with caving kit, bolting kit and a few ropes to investigate further (ropes were slightly out of date ones - ropes were very hard to come by at Top Camp so we pinched two 20m ropes from the stash at Fishface entrance).
@@ -607,7 +612,7 @@ We then walked back, attempting but failing to find Garlic Cave. On the way back
I carried my caving and bivvy gear from Top Camp to Homecoming whilst Harry and Charlotte carried Top Camp's second shovel and a camp bed (surprisingliy heavy) to be picked up by the Garlic Cave people.
@@ -633,7 +638,7 @@ Slow, tired progress out saw us leave the cave at about 1am. I stumbled to Garli
After the complicated operation of handling the solar panels out of the storage cave, the six of us packed kit, rope and a rescue bag and set
@@ -653,7 +658,7 @@ left our caving kit under the small overhand near the entrance, then headed back
This was a long day that started at Base Camp with the intent of rigging the entrance series of Homecoming cave. We set off only slightly later than the planned 8:00 [illegible] some faff. Quite surprising since Will was not part of the team.
The walk up to Top Camp took almost 2 hours, just as expected. We were also carrying drills, string, food, and other Top Camp equipment. We followed the reflectors to Fishface. They were white on both sides, which could make it frustrating if you are someone who is lost on their way to Top Camp. Instead, it should be red that leads to Top Camp, while white leads to caves and the car park.
@@ -666,7 +671,7 @@ left our caving kit under the small overhand near the entrance, then headed back
She is arriving at 0941 at the station, would like lift.
We went canyoning on a rest day. The "Strubklamm" canyon is located near Saltzburg, approximately 1h of driving from Bad Aussee. The canyon is graded V1A3 (vertical 1, aquatic 3). It's very aquatic, with many small jumps available and a 300m swimming passage. There are 2 bigger jumps: approx. 8m and 10m, both can be abseiled (topo can be found online).
@@ -711,7 +716,7 @@ Yet again a black bmw slowly moved in front of us with their sign flashing. Anot
Will and Phil went up as part of the 2-car lift to the carpark. Others all going to topcamp. Cardiff contingent (Ely, James, Thomas) arrived the previous day (at last)
Dep. carpark 10:06 we walked to the col but got spread out, 2 Cardiffians particularly heavily loaded so Ash dropped back to accompany them while James headed on with Radost and Honorata.
@@ -721,7 +726,7 @@ Yet again a black bmw slowly moved in front of us with their sign flashing. Anot
At the col, Will, Philip and ? followed Philip B's col-to-garlic GPS track. Somebody else was with us (memory hazy, is this true?
[correct later editorially]). All OK until we hit the hill in the middle where we followed cairns instead of the GPS track, and got in a bit of
@@ -756,7 +761,7 @@ hours of walking.
I managed to steal Oakem away from Harry, Charlotte and Becka just as they were preparing to depart from Top Camp. After a quick breakfast
@@ -809,7 +814,7 @@ his own logbook entry.
The Amphitheater Hoehle is named after its entrance which resembles an amphitheather. There are a couple of meters of an easy climb from the very top to the boulder where we started rigging. Rigging starts with an approx. 5-6m down climb, where we put a handline. It's followed by a traverse (10m ?) above the entrance to the first pitch. We rigged a Y-hang at the end of the traverse.
@@ -821,7 +826,7 @@ The Amphitheater Hoehle is named after its entrance which resembles an amphithea
We started by walking to Unlucky Gamse Cave, mostly following the path to homecoming, as Radost and Honorata had told us there was
an exciting looking entrance around 50m North of it - Rose Blumen Hoehle (2023-hbrw-05). We dismissed their cave as choked by snow, however it
@@ -897,7 +902,7 @@ Caves found:
We went back to continue exploring Amphitheatre. Since we were now pushing decently underground, we kitted
up and then headed in. Adjusted the initial traverse line rigging slightly.
@@ -931,7 +936,7 @@ Can't really remember the rigging exactly. Continues for about 200 m of rope to
@@ -999,7 +1004,7 @@ Pic: Oakem Kyne (L) and Jonty Pine (R) on Panorama Kletterstieg Sisi.
after a heavy afternoon at the tatty hut, Harry asked if i fancied coming to
@@ -1103,7 +1108,7 @@ Full details at
Edit this entry
@@ -1127,7 +1132,7 @@ drops approx. 5m with snow at bottom, can't clearly see bottom from top.
The plan was to do some prospecting in the relatively uncovered area around Garlic cave.
We met up with Philip at Garlic cave and had some noodles for lunch. Philip had already done some
@@ -1151,7 +1156,7 @@ Top Camp.
Following an impromptu pre-expo-dinner dinner the night before, we all arose with a tinge of hangover. Rapidly consuming breakfast and packing kit, we set off at 8:30am, only 30 minutes after we said we would which in all fairness is very good going for us.
After a smooth ferry to the Loser car park by our wonderful chauffer Alice, we set off up the mountain. Almost immediately after we left the car park a navigational faux pas was made and we found ourselves on the wrong path, and with a small section of off-roading, we headed up to top camp with no other further obstructions.
@@ -1185,7 +1190,7 @@ Overall, a great trip with over ~294m surveyed and more promising leads found. C
Deciding I wanted to go prospecting but didn’t particularly want to walk back over to garlic cave,
so recruited Evelyn, our resident non-caver to go wander around near balcony. Armed with known cave
@@ -1219,7 +1224,7 @@ yield any new caves.
Joel had discovered an exciting new cave, unfortunately this left us with rope and a lead down in
the Fish face – happy butterfly connection which no-one was going to. I was naively convinced to go and
@@ -1356,7 +1361,7 @@ Despite ~300m of passage being surveyed minimal progress was made in getting clo
Excited to go and see (and kill) this new cave, two groups set off to push the two ‘A’ leads at the
extent of Tempest. Arriving at the cave we prepared the bags and realised we’d forgotten a hammer, so
@@ -1440,7 +1445,7 @@ tldr: Camp: Effort does not equal success.
@@ -1457,7 +1462,7 @@ we regrouped at the base of the heifer after adding a bolt to make the pitch hea
Took Zac to bolt a cave he had previously found not too far of the path to Fishface. Slight delay as
we’d forgotten something important (bolts maybe?), which Will went back to get.
@@ -1473,7 +1478,7 @@ rift the were no continuations. Will named it Dead on Arrival (2023-ASH-15). Sur
Deciding we weren’t done for the day yet an afternoon evening trip was decided upon to survey some
of the caves Evelyn and I had found a few days ago. Will and I gathered the necessary gear and set off
@@ -1502,7 +1507,7 @@ off on the edges of the plateau. Plus curry for dinner.
Decided to go and survey/kill a couple more caves before heading down off the plateau for the year.
Aware that I would have a lot of data to sort out and vague plans to go canyoning Friday before the
@@ -1536,7 +1541,7 @@ Either way, glad to see it being pushed towards the rest of the system!
Tourist trip down Fishface to Pisspot. Already more SRT than Joe has done in his entire lifetime combined, hopefully not holding up Kai too much.
Turned around and headed back out after 2 hours or so as felt we had done enough SRT practice
@@ -1577,7 +1582,7 @@ Test of the logbook entry editing system.
Becka checked with Joe Stell and Kai Trusson to clarify this write-up. It does describe Mendip Man albeit confusingly. The paragraph starting "upon leaving" is the main, left route after the entrance. The initial write-up refers the shorter, right route. This was surveyed on this trip but there was a problem with the data collected and so the data wasn't added to the database. It also isn't clear where the GPS location referred to below was taken.
@@ -1591,7 +1596,7 @@ Test of the logbook entry editing system.
Hearing of an exciting new lead, "Mahlstromhöhle", from Frank, Max and Flo, Frank and I embarked on a walk westward out of Fishface gear dump. Upon finding the entrance (which took considerably longer than anticipated) we quickly started kitting up, only to find an absence of any drill bits in the drill bag, contrary to what Frank believed to be the case. Frank then left for fishface gear dump in search of drill bits, whilst I waited patiently, in kit.
@@ -1603,7 +1608,7 @@ Test of the logbook entry editing system.
After the brilliant success of yesterday's failed pushing trip, Frank and I returned to Mahlstromhöhle to actually go underground and push. After the entrance pitch, there is a small hole in the floor, from which several small-ish pitches follow.
@@ -1615,7 +1620,7 @@ Test of the logbook entry editing system.
Hearing of our great success with this shallow lead, Nadia, having returned from a fishface camping trip the day before, decided she would join us for a nice easy surface trip.
@@ -1667,7 +1672,7 @@ Also, it is now our closest cave passage to the neighbouring Schönberg system (
After a leisurely (not quite for Ruairidh, carrying far too much) walk up to topcamp with Frank and Nadia following a leisurely morning start from me, Ruairidh and I decided that we could attempt to find an easier, quicker entrance to Maelstrom by following the rift from the surface whilst the other two and Sam were actually in the cave derigging. First we found a large basin, containing what appeared to be a large cave entrance, but upon further inspection, choked out towards the back of the cave. Ruairidh did find a nice complete Gaemse skull though, which he seemed quite happy about. Another potential entrance found further along the rift with a steady flow of water disappearing into the ground which could explain some of the bigger drippy pitches after the lovely squeeze. The rift splits into two further on, with some promising, but inaccessible, looking gorges on the right fork as you follow it. The left seemed less promising from memory but this area is definitely worth another look with bolting kit to make sure. Realising we'd actually got quite close to the col, we decided to simply hike towards the slabs and rejoin the carpark-topcamp path and head back.
On the morning of my first pushing trip deep within Fishgesicht (5 minutes from camp) the nervous energy carried me up and away through the bountiful faff. After triple checking that we had all the equipment for bolting and surveying a rift that apparently continued but was too sketchy without a traverse line, Charlie, Adam EJ and I traipsed across the plateau for even more faff outside the entrance. After a prompt descent we met the camping team who showed us the way to silverback scoop including a stop at the tap and going down a wrong branch. Squeezing through a pitch head to descend 7m into a dusty tight canyon with a tackle sack full of heavy gear, I did wonder what I was doing, but once the drill was out that fell away completely.
@@ -1690,7 +1695,7 @@ Also, it is now our closest cave passage to the neighbouring Schönberg system (
Woke up to see a sub-optimal forecast. Somehow I was convinced that hiking to Garlic Cave Camp was of course the best course of action to take, so we set off. It was actually dry for the first third or so to fishface gear dump to collect our caving gear, but this did not last.
@@ -1702,7 +1707,7 @@ The path is a little treacherous in the wet, so it was a little slow going and s
After our lovely sleep, we woke up to dry weather, and set off to the top of the ridge above Garlic. Carrying the thick, wet 90m up the mountain was not conducive to good balance so I did fall over in the bunde and struggle to get back up. We reached Buzzard, Adam rigged it, first to the bunde, then hand bolting whilst we waited patiently. The improvement in weather did give a lovely backdrop of the Braeuningzinken for photos. Nathan went down next, followed by Manfred whilst I stayed outside enjoying the view. Upon Adam's return, I swiftly fell asleep, and awoke to find Nathan and Manfred had finished their survey and were finalising some sketches. Adam spotted some interesting holes beneath us on the plateau, so wet set off to prospect (see next entry).
After dropping Buzzard, the fours of us decided to drop down the north face of the ridge, heading east at first, then split to form two prospecting
groups, Adam and I heading further east to wrap around to the south face of the ridge, and Nathan and Manfred following the north face westwards to
@@ -1731,7 +1736,7 @@ that seem to follow a rift along the base of Wildkogel, then back to Garlic camp
Tuesday was another wet day so a day of top camp fettling was had whilst plans were made for a fish face camp the following day. We had a (fairly) efficient morning, departing top camp shortly after 10 having received a debrief from the previous camp group, who had returned in the early hours, on the state of the latest leads.
@@ -1752,7 +1757,7 @@ that seem to follow a rift along the base of Wildkogel, then back to Garlic camp
Woke up. 10am. It was rainy :(
@@ -1769,7 +1774,7 @@ did also later. I took some photos and made some shoddy diagrams of the tarps. G
Following a swift departure from Garlic in the morning, and an even swifter (and sweaty) hike across the plateau carrying the thick 90m rope with
all my other kit, I partially completed the garlic camp guide. Only the badly taken photos and badly drawn diagrams to add. I think I'll redraw the
@@ -1825,7 +1830,7 @@ After about 20 legs Rob had finished his rigging and came and collected Botch to
@@ -1865,7 +1870,7 @@ The pitches back to camp were painful, despite their shortness, due to our mud c