diff --git a/handbook/website-history.html b/handbook/website-history.html
index ea44499a3..e06c54472 100644
--- a/handbook/website-history.html
+++ b/handbook/website-history.html
@@ -60,6 +60,9 @@ College Belize Expedition, and in the 1980s we used Andy Waddington's graphical output on
a pen-plotter were ported to the University Computing Service by Philip Sargent in 1984. (Over Christmas 1983, the university mainframe had its RAM doubled: from 16 to 32 MB.)
+
1990 was the first year we had a computer on expo. Before that we had only programmable calculators. Unfortunately there were 3-inch and 5-inch floppy disc mismatches and it was an
+Acorn Archimedes anyway [Which had an ARM chip, not an Intel one. Yes younglings, we had ARM chips in those days too.]. See
+the 1990 report.
Initial cave data management
Along with centrelines and sketches, descriptions of caves were also affected by improvements
diff --git a/years/1987/logbook.html b/years/1987/logbook.html
index 45e59c9d1..74812b06b 100644
--- a/years/1987/logbook.html
+++ b/years/1987/logbook.html
@@ -7,7 +7,8 @@
-
+
diff --git a/years/1990/frontmatter.html b/years/1990/frontmatter.html
index b842a5e28..e055fec35 100644
--- a/years/1990/frontmatter.html
+++ b/years/1990/frontmatter.html
@@ -6,3 +6,24 @@ reformatting to allow for easier perusal and the limitations of ASCII.
The first part of the log is traditionally taken up by the journey out.
If this is of no interest, here is a link to the caving!
+
+
diff --git a/years/1990/log.htm b/years/1990/log.htm
index ff41e424c..fbe22d7ac 100644
--- a/years/1990/log.htm
+++ b/years/1990/log.htm
@@ -997,7 +997,7 @@ Trying to be brief, here it goes (leaving Hilda's at 10:30 AM)
[this is a table of lifts, and I can't remotely format it in html and
its pretty crap in plain ascii. Hence it's commented out, but if you
look at the source in html, you can read it (if you really want) Ed.]
-
+
not even slightly about caving :
_To_ _Transport_
@@ -1014,9 +1014,10 @@ Nürnberg lift in less than a minute (!!!) from strange man in Austria
All the way to central Berlin (50 yds from Potsdamer-Platz!) at 2am!!!
Nice man in nice car with nasty music tastes - rap & similar stuff with all the "middle" removed on the graphic equaliser.
(<12hrs from Salzburg)
+
------------------
-
+
Wandered around, through Brandenburg gate and then decided to go to airport
(<10km away) for kip (walking). Awoken at ridiculous time by lots of noisy
Pan Am staff. Wandered around Airport for a bit, Matt changed some money
@@ -1032,9 +1033,9 @@ starts. The Wall starts at 10pm ish & is v.good although it needed a lot
more bass. afterwards join hordes causing traffic chaos - walk toward A-bahn
get tired & bored & get bus - walk a bit more - arriving at A-bahn at
c. 5am.
-
+
------------------
-
+
Destn Transport
Nürnberg Two mad germans in Skoda "given to them by some E.Germans" who rolled cigarettes while driving & ran out of petrol on A-bahn, without a spare tank.
N.München Blue car-like contraption (suitable for caver) with 2 germans. after 2 hour wait
@@ -1048,7 +1049,7 @@ Hof About 9pm by this time & no f*cking Austrian b*stards will
Bad Ischl Wake up with beginnings of frostbite. Walk into town, find bus leaves at 7.15am, now about 5.30 am, so try hitching for a bit - no hope! Find bakery open & buy still-warm rolls & jam - eat 'em & feel better. Bet bus to B.I., even though timetable seems to try for B.A. Fall asleep a lot
Bad Aussee Train
Hilda's Walk (bloody hell, not more!)
-
+
T/U: Can we count Munich's U-Bahn, please?
P.S. Only 6 Oh D**r's!
diff --git a/years/1990/logbook.html b/years/1990/logbook.html
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..2e7093842
--- /dev/null
+++ b/years/1990/logbook.html
@@ -0,0 +1,836 @@
+
+
+
+
+1990 Expo Logbook
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
1990 Expedition Trip Log
+ONLY FIRST TWO
+
This is a (fairly) faithful transcription of the CUCC 1990 Expedition
+Logbook (Captain's Turd '90). The only changes made are some
+reformatting to allow for easier perusal and the limitations of ASCII.
+
+
The first part of the log is traditionally taken up by the journey out.
+If this is of no interest, here is a link to the caving!
+
+
+
+Wild Rovers Return - Paul T, Adam, Jeremy 30/6/90 - 9/7/90
_Found_ rover parked somewhere off Mill Rd, & spent a whole day filling it full of crap (springs bending). The invincible trio managed to meet up & promptly spent a day festering (except Paul who was busy graduating <- Narg!!)
Paul T: Half an hour after the graduation garden party, stomach full of salmon sandwiches, strawberries and cream, we were off....Down Churchill private road, Storey's Way, up Madingley Road, down the M11, and then a strange petrol smell, ah well never mind, just filled too high, but no, a strange liquid spurting out of the bonnet, 5 miles from Cambridge and we pulled into the hard shoulder, large petrol stain on the road, ranting and swearing, the terrifying trio attempt emergency repairs, armed with only 3 tools boxes situated at vaious inpenetrable areas of the landrover.
Jeremy: Possible slight exaggeration - team trio only stopped when they spotted petrol pouring onto the windscreen (don't tell Mike!). After a quick nut tightening & feeling that landy repairs were easy, set off again to brave hours of sore bottoms.
M11 to Ramsgate was easy peasy despite desperate double declutching & only a minor look of incredulity from the slate faced customs officer.
Sally line had it's customary eat as much as you can for £7.50, so I (Jeremy) ate as much as I could in 5 minutes & spent the next 2 hrs feeling V.V. green!!
Adam: 2 hours later, Jeremy holding in the puke, and the steak We turnover the first page to reveal Adam's turn.... <Jeremy missed the heart-stopping moment when the oil pressure dived to zero, then just returned to normal as we were on the verge of pulling over>
Animal: If the twats had read the instructions, they would have known that the oil pressure gauge had been dead for nearly two years!!
Adam: Off ferry into dark, pissing rain, LHS driving & first serious drive in rover since two expdn's ago. Also petrol horrendously low, but made it in time! We drove for a long time. Sleeping didn't really work & we got very zonked. Finally got to Sölden without much further ado ~8.30 (roads really nice on Sundays). It was raining (surprise!) Some time was spent trying to be decisive Re: sleep in rover or rough camp or camp in the nearby site (we had thought we would meet the other's here but they'd gone hütte walking). Eventually plumped for the latter & got off the next day without paying! > Oh yes, no shops open 'cos the Austrian's are crap, bloody bank holiday.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-06-30
+
Julian Todd, Matt Keeling, David Howes,
+
Journey out - In Jeremy's car
+
+Met Matt who was late (8:30pm) in Chad's carpark, so didn't get away from Cambridge in time to avoid Mark & Tony who dumped lots of extra gear with us... Turned off M25, heading for Dover (of course) until Matt suggested that the Ferry tickets (which we hadn't looked at) might be for Felixstowe. Fortunately they were for Folkestone, so we adjusted course, parked, left Matt in the car & crashed in a dark corner of the passenger demarkation area among the Moop-Neek! coin-take machines. A ferry arrived at 1:30am, so we had to move to a more comfortable building with private toilets, cushions on sofas and freedom to switch off video machines.
Freed from ferry at 6.30am, Dave drove the car all the way to Bad Aussee in 15 hours almost non-stop. Food for the journey was a pile of grease bought on the ferry, a thermos of coffee, a bag of sandwiches made by me from leftovers when I moved out of my room, and 5 fermenting nectarines. Matt navigated for the first half, and then let me take over when it ceased to be too difficult for me. Henceforth all navigation errors were due to Dave overshooting Ausfahrts because no one had any confidence in the signposts. It began raining at Salzburg and so far hasn't stopped.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-01
+
Wookey,
+
Journey out - Wookmobile I hits the streets
+
+(date unknown)
After already having done 1,500 miles in the previous week (Cam -> Nottingham -> Settle -> Assynt -> Cam -> Poole -> Cam), the wookmobile was given a new set of points & loaded up with a million tons of gear & taken to Tonys to unload it all again & put it in his loft. It was then loaded up with another million tons of kit - removing all the rear suspension. Easy trip in convoy with Del - despite leaving all the packing to the last possible minute we still had an hour to spare at Folkestone & then were told to go to Dover anyway at 5.00amish. Went through France, Belgium & Luxembourg no probs - terminal sunburn on the right elbow!
Team old cunty crosses europe - loads of food thanks to Tina, lots of stops - all a bit relaxing really!
I changed cars at 8.00pm ish in Germany so Tina & Damage were in mine - unfortunately as it went dark it became impossible to keep track of them amongst the autobahn lights & we lost them behind a lorry or two. After much slowness & waiting in parkplatzes and getting lost trying to go back we gave up and carried on - getting the campsite at 5.30am. We rang Fearon the next morning & discovered from Mike TA that they were alive & well but stuck on the wrong side of border with wrong passports! (Where Damage doesn't look like Wookey much at all)
After mucho driving around they went for it & arrived at Sölden at about 5pm - a little miffed!
The wookmobile was attacked by a bus at the border but suffered only minor damage - another wing - only 2 more corners to do!
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-06
+
Claire Purnell, Olly Betts,
+
Journey out - Learning to fly or Team me'n'she go to Austria
+
+(to 9/7/90)
Sorry about the delay - Claire asked me if I'd done it - I said no, you can if you like - she said she would - and seems to have forgotten!
Start of on the Friday evening with a lift by boss to Cambridge seemingly involving a tour of all country lanes between Hertford & C'bridge. Knock on 60 Sedgewick St. door & woman answers and yells "He's here". Shovel stuff into Waddersmobile and stand in living room looking at strange furniture & lots and lots and lots of computers. Set off after c.5min and Wadders tries hard to just miss every car on the road. Stopped for chips & Wadders had to leave engine running "'cos it sometimes doesn't start when warm". Reached Grassington late & found I had to share a tent (rigged upside down) with Tim. After little sleep got up to find Berk's Fell abandoned due to too much water & much dithering so get lift to station, wait for 3½ hours & get train to Leeds & bus with Claire to Ponty (oh yeah, rang her earlier) & stayed night there. After major packing sesh in a.m. we're off to Manchester airport after lunch & find plane delayed by 1 hr. Enough to miss tight connection with train in Salzburg, hence have to wander round Salzburg from 7pm 'til 4am. Then go by train to B.A., via Bischopshofen & Staudich Immermann (or something similar) since earliest train on Sunday goes that way. Claire buys tickets via Bad Ischl, but flattering eyelashes solves a problem with ticket collector (number 37, I think). After repeated dozing on train, reach B.A. Claire asks for directions to Hilda's & we set off into B.A. only to be stopped by the woman Claire asked directions from, offering a lift (even though she wasn't going that way). Claire chats to her during journey and I get about one word in ten. Get to Hilda's & Hilda tells us the cavers aren't coming for a week. Pointedly discuss fate of Wookey's genitalia. Hilda says we can stay the night in the Lager hut. Doze under a tree 'til it gets hot & then move to lager hut. Awoken by Adam later on to be informed that Rover had arrived - Reprieve for Wookey's genitalia! Ten minutes later it starts to piss down, after glorious sunshine all day, so the expedition had clearly begun!
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-11
+
Jeremy Rodgers,
+
Near 161 - Jeremy does it again - Another cave
+
+- After putting in the bolts two years ago (yes 2 years!) I eventually got round to descending the obvious rift in the ground at the bottom of the col & to my suprise it goes!!
Small crawl (over snow) below snow plug at bottom of rift => snow plugged crawl off => pitch => ???
Tell you more tommorow! (2 trips on first day up top!)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-11
+
Adam Cooper,
+
Surface
+
+Adam poked into a few random holes previously ignored. Will return to see what happens with a light.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-11
+
Paul Theobald, Julian Todd,
+
Surface - substroke
+
+Poking around on plateau miles from 161 away from the camp getting sunstroke. One was 20m long 40° slope down, dig through at end into small chamber. It's cold down there crawling in shorts & T-shirt. T/U ½ hr
+
Paul Theobald, Olly Betts, Claire Purnell, Julian Todd, Adam Cooper,
+
Surface - Everyone not really caving
+
+Poking further into various holes. The obvious pit by the "high level" route to 161 was descended using IRT (indestructible rope technique) after declining to use a Bunda belay. Ended at about 12m with a ledge about ½ way, choked as usual. Marked with '+'. Two other adjacent pits were free climbed. The nearest just a shallow pit. Other showed some minor horiz develop at bottom (about 15m) but collapsed. A hole was observed at about -4m (squeeze not suitable with T-shirt) into a pit with boulder floor. Not entered as too nasty & was in direction of first pit anyway. No number allocated as just pits. Continued via another shitty pit nearer to 161. Descended into opposite side of hill to plateau just poking about when we saw Wooks emerge from 161 new entrance! (see below). Dashed over to greet the dazed looking caver & found a spray painted cairn => foreigners (F or G) cave somewhere. Shortly found another entrance only ~12m from the new 161 entrance marked:
VSS2 88AF 1623/ [161c inserted here later - Ed] -
Inside ent found a french mineral water bottle.
This was on a bearing ~30° from the 161 ent. Had a look inside & couldn't see any bolts at the obvious pitch head. There was a vocal connection through rubble only a few feet from the new 161 ent. Bolted pitch but as soon as had got far from the (very loose) pitch head found a spit. Continued a bit and found signs of frequent use (mud smeared all over walls as from oversuit contact)
Rough survey : from ent to pitch head ~6m on 50° 230° cave was steeply descending hading (steeply) rift going ~ mag north south. Obviously deeper than 50m
[comment with arrows to the two changed directions: I'm a div who can't tell red from white !]
+
+(2 years Gestation) <- cave name (matt is a tosser!)
As the name suggests this cave was discovered two years ago by Jeremy, he descended first, leaving me sweating on the surface. The first pitch ("fancy a coffee") descended past a small snow plug down to a large(ish) chamber covered with snow which appeared to be about 20ft deep. A small section to the left let a shaft of light into the cave, which changed from a a wide beam to a narrow shaft of light. A low crawl on the left (ice covered) led to the second pitch ("your place or mine") - a short 10ft (approx) drop to a ledge then a alonger (30-40ft) drop down to the floor. The second pitch was slightly wet, with small amounts of water dripping from the roof. A loose climb lead to a tight crawl and even tighter pitch (Marble Sink revisited according to Jeremy). It took J a lot of moaning & swearing to get the main bolt for the 3rd pitch hammered into place. The 3rd pitch is now named "Get your kit off" this descended into a small chamber, where the limestone changed in colour from yellow to blue, a rift then dropped into a boulder covered chamber, with a larger boulder choked to the right and a very, very small hole leading to the left, which is as yet unexplored. the 4th & probably final pitch has been named "Came too soon". As it was getting close to the call out time, we made a hasty retreat with a smallish pause as we negotiated to top of the 3rd pitch.
T/U -> 6 hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-12
+
Del Robinson, David Fearon,
+
161 - Rigging RH Route
+
+Trundled over loadsa boring limestone get to cave about to die. Put on caving gear. Too hot. lobbed off down some nice greasy slimy fast 11mill Edelrid and I rigged the last deviation this time with a light. I wandered around. Del came down. Trumm Trumm. Lots later Wookey came down with some rope and hangers. Rigged second pitch with half a ladder and some Bluewater "11mm steel hawser" rope. We rambled off round Dungeon pitch climbed something a bit silly over Dungeon found some new passage [Umleitung - Ed] a 15m or so pitch more passage extending parallel to B Sainsburys. Climbed down in an epic style. ran back rigged 3rd pitch (well Del did!. I ran off and rigged pitch traverse round to Dreamtime with Dave and Geraldine with lots of style. Del Rigged wth pitch. I ran down after (clatter, clatter), Saw squeeze pitch. We re-rigged 3rd pitch (again apparently) and came out.
As it says above, went down to see if I could help anyone downstairs - took Geraldine & used it with Damage to rig the Traverse around to dreamtime. Then left Del + Damage to finish rigging 3rd pitch and went to see what Wookey & Juliette were doing down Adrians route, only to find that they had found another lower entrance to 161 only metres away from the French entrance. Came out of 161 to see them walking up the hill!
+
+Rigged down Adrians route - to the head of the large pitch discovered 2 years ago. The Wook - proudly bearing WOOK - on every gear item including Wembly helmet + ass - was belayed accross a really vegetable garden of a pitch head traverse. Percy Thrower really was needed as the rocks clattered down - I had the feeling that the entire ledge would follow the furrows down the shaft.
Two Wook bolts were rigged and several tension traverses fixed. The ferretting reflex took over and it dashed off after being belayed across the traverse (leaving me clutching a cold rope) whilst ferretting Wook popped out - A new entrance - and shouted "Where the fuck am I." to the nearest Bunda bush - Adam appeared. The alternative is only to be recommended to really 1st Pitch-O-Phobiacs - as it is crawly + shitty.
To give ourselves a 'Smarty' we faffed horrendously Calibrating Compasses + surveying.
+
+I set off at 1.30pm on Friday. Drove to Cambridge to pick up Julian's hangglider and found problem no 1 - the roof rack provided didn't fit on the Cavalier. Fortunately I found an ancient roof rack in my parents' garage which I managed to bend to fit (It was so rusty it wouldn't adjust). Proceeded to Dover picking up Francis & Pete en route. Second problem appeared sometime after Dover - the car was drinking stacks of oil. Since lifting the bonnet to fill the oil up involved taking the hangglider fastenings off we had a rather trying time. Arrived eventually at 9pm Saturday evening, absolutely knackered. God, did I enjoy the beer in Hildas.
MSD
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-13
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Matt Keeling, Adam Cooper,
+
Near 161 - return to '2 years Gestation'
+
+Underground after 4.00pm (Not bad), quick trip to bottom, a quick dig (extended cave by about 5m). Surveyed & derigged (derigging through squeeze "interesting").
No major cock ups etc, out in light
T/U 3½ hours
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-14
+
Julian Todd, David Howes,
+
161 - Below Knossus
+
+Dave H <-Mr Sunburn
The intention was to go down and check out the ? part way down flapjack, but by the time we made it down to boulder alley today's team faff hadn't rigged Knossus yet. We sat there with all our rope, poked at the 9m diameter hole to the side of the passage that noone had ever descended and Jeremy ("Oh dear, I seam to have left my dangly bag above the squeeze, could you pass it down?") agreed that it had better be sorted out. 3 tapes, a small maillon, two natural belays & 2 rope protectors, one with knackered velco got us started. then there was a textbook Dave bolt taking us to the floor of a rift. walking up one of the false floors leads up to Knossus, 3m above a loose hole in its floor no-one has gone down either. Bolting from a false floor, through 4 inch crack, then squeezing down in a different place to next layer down to gain access to rope met upon a 30m pitch. We were by now using Ernie the Earthworm (the 9mm rope)... Ok, well he's easy to carry and tie knots in. Pile of rocks at the bottom 4m in diameter, cheap little crawl which I shuffled down. By shaking the floor I packed the cracked rocks in tighter to produce more room. Fell down a dust pit at the far end. There was a slot on the floor with fist sized rocks spilling through. I dug them out. Skull sized rocks began rolling through. Crawled through carefully when there was enough space, took one glance at boulder choke beyond it and retreated. Call it Rabbit Curry. I sent Dave 5m up the pitch to investigate large hole in wall. He climbed it quite a way. Then I had to cower as the sky began chucking down rocks and Dave followed them. Fortunately still attached. He didn't enjoy it. Call it The Pit and the Pendulum. We surveyed & derigged out, dumped ropes and beat it for the surface in a shower of sweat.
+
+Team div brain. Trip started well with Adam using Wookeys electric cos he'd forgotten his generator.
Couldn't find drill at first. Found it, descended to squeeze. Rigged squeeze with dickhead catcher (a sort of donkeys dick for cavers). Ladder to short, but who uses it anyway?
Spent ages trying to rig next short ladder pitch (how long since I went caving!!). Got to Bungalow, waited for Adam cos didn't have rope. Tried to put a bolt in with drill but didn't have hammer, where? in SRT bag, above squeeze!!?#þþ. luckily so slow that Julian was at top of squeeze when I went back.
Took 3 attempts to put in a bolt
Rigged Knossossss (Dave H & Julian gone down another pitch in boredom), Rope to short by 10 foot!!
Rerigging adding short rope to traverse, still to short but doable.
Got to Yapate & Drill went flat.
Adam went for crawl down tube, & we were just about to go out in disgust when he found a 30m pitch (joint effort by shouting - I found easier way to pitch) - bloody cave is ridiculous!
Put in two bolts & Adam zoomed down (really good hang) & found going vadoes rift - time to go out
I zoomed out & spent half hr at surface wondering where Adam was, he appeared late moaning at me - his light had failed. GREAT TRIP!!
+
+Team get nothing done. Urm trundle. Faff, faff. Trundle. Trundle. Urm did anything happen. Might aff but I went brain dead last night. Del rigged some of final cut. I put a bolt in. How boring. I took my time in squeeze out, fat bastard ! We must have done something, surely ! Met Jeremy. Had a shit. Faff. Faff. CRAP TRIP.
+
+I spent most of this trip sitting on a edge over Adrain's Route waiting for Juliette & Wookey to rig a traverse. We descended about 12 via 161B and headed for the top of Adrain's Route. A short traverse lead to a small rock bridge over the large pitch. J & W then climbed and rigged another 20m (approx) traverse. while W rigged another pitch J & I surveyed a small side passage after the first traverse from the entrance pitch. We returned to find the entire pitch rigged. The 45m pitch which descended into some foreign cave
+
+In the most tedious way - with Boris -> Adrians to rerig the new pitch [French Connection II-Ed]. 3 hours for a bolt (7 goes !!!) Lost cones + jammed cones. Completely needless bolts drilled. Compasses dropped. Pitches descended with harness undone. Much flapjack eaten. At least 4 pisses per hour -> oh god!
6½ hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-15
+
Julian Todd, David Howes,
+
161 - Deep question mark at bottom of flapjack
+
+Oh boy what a long way down, and that's before we start any pushing!
Made a good start by getting lost in star wars/tower blocks but finally arrived at flapjack.
Rigged down to the ledge with sally, a little confused why I needed to use a rope protector. I discovered why on the way out when I found the _other_ bolt so had to faff for ages rerigging and joining Sally to Ernie (9mm)
When I saw Julian's way on I thought he was joking but the tight thrutchy bit did open out to a couple of Small pitches and then entered an interesting rift with multiple false floors, following a stream way. I hope it doesn't head for the sump.
Went zig-zagging down until it was time to bottle - "its like a maze down here" I did say! Taking some thread next time would be an idea. Anyway, its still going - just!
Interesting ceiling and in places, walls, of "pudding stones" and mud.
Thankful at the chance to leave the gear there we made a quick exit to catch Del + Juliette and a lift down to base camp to join the rest of the family who'd arrived over the weekend - BUT WHERE'S ALL THE BEER!?
T.U. 8½ hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-15
+
David Fearon, Wookey,
+
161 - Go to climb at end of Yapate
+
+(overnight to 16)
On the way popped into side passage before 'over the rainbow'. Found crap bolt & rigged rope from Wook & Dam the year before. Rope too short so tied on another & lobbed off 10m pitch into long rift - 'The Vestibule' choked at one end - pitch at other - left for another day.
Got to Yapate climb ('staircase 36') put on rock boots & went for it - one decent bolt runner 10 ft off floor - 1 crap chock & a dodgy sling - climb wasn't too bad but traverse was slimy & awful - well shitted up !
Anyway - I survived so tied rope to a boulder & Damage came up in wellies - dangly bag unclipped & fell down - traverse was dire - especially as he had to go back to get T.Sack - this then unclipped itself from tow line & so we were both at the top of climb with no gear - Grrr.
IRT used (climbing rope) to retrieve danglys & climb repeated to take off traverse line & retrieve tackle sack. Faff Faff - dire, whinge.
Eventually sorted & still alive so bolted pitch then looked along lots of nice stomping passage 'chicken flied nice'. 150m of this takes you up & then down to 25m pitch 'strange downfall' into large collapse chamber.
Slot in rubble to left of pitch goes down 200m along steeply descending loose rift to climb requiring handline.
Out in 3 hours - well fucked - just in time for dawn. Crashed at 6.00 am.
Surface - Walk to Camp 1 via some interesting holes
+
+A new face shows up (well, an old old lag really...)
Carried caving gear up pm. My first time on a CUCC exped'n. On the col just short of camp 1 looked across to the hillside opposite... a hole. Decided to go there & ended up somewhere else, where there was a _really_ tight flat-out crawl. just fitted through in a T shirt. Leads to a tightish (though passable) rift. Draughting quite strongly outwards. Decided to turn back, to make sure I could get out. Did so with a little difficulty. The entrance could be enlarged with a lumphammer & a crowbar. Ten metres below, Mark found another hole, this time a newly-collapsed small unstable hole, with a rock jammed across it. Tried to shift rock & got it jammed further. Mark went down a 6m climb, which led to a longish ramp. Dumped gear at camp 1, called Hugh at cave 161, had a brew & resolved to return morgen fresh. Discovered my sunglasses were still at cave entrance. I'd taken them off to go caving. Mark stayed at col, & I went to retrieve them. With shouted directions also found the entrance we'd first thought of - it goes all of 5 feet before stopping.
William
P.S: Built a cairn by entrances Bearing 285 Mag to Nose. 350 to Gr.Schiebling-Kgl. Caves are by col 50m above path on opposite side where path by tree meets fault running up mountain.
T.U. 5 mins each
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-16
+
Leif Hornsved, Jan Arnerdal, Hugh Salter,
+
161 - Dreamtime
+
+Dreamtime, ha, ha.
Trip to the above thwarted slightly upon meeting Matt _et al_ - who had said that a bolt had pulled out on the 3rd pitch.... as indeed it has. Went down to look, put in a hand-driven bolt, realised the bolt was probably unnecessary anyway and buggered off out.
Very quiet trip. Lots of sunburn makes prussicking painful.
T U/G - 4hrs
Matt et al's
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-16
+
Mike Richardson, Tina White, Jared West,
+
161 - Dreamtime proper
+
+Late underground. Went over the new route traverse across to start of Dreamtime. It's in a better place this year. Trogged down to the pitch we rigged on naturals last year rerigged it with a bolt. Followed the passage down through and beyond the eyehole. Rigged the most likely looking of the possible pitches at the end. hurray passage way. Minor epic as the flake which we rigged the rope from disintegrated as Jared was on it. So we decided to be sensible and put bolts in. Trogged down more passage. Found a carbide water pool which lucky 'cos we were low. Then "ooh says Jared an obvious stream passage going upward" then "oh well er no its another pitch actually" or something like that.
Descended pitch. At moment rebelay on dubious looking tape on a big flake. May be ok for abseiling if you don't jiggle the rope off. But iffy for prussiking. Found footprints. Found we'd come out below the chunnel. Thought ooh good connection well shall we survey out or make it a round trip and go out the other way. Felt knackered so the latter won. Wish I was fitter.
Time u/g ~9hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-16
+
Matt Keeling, Peter Swain, Mark Scott, Francis Turner,
+
161 - Novice Pottering trip
+
+Took us a ridiculous length of time to get down the entrance pitch by which time yours truly was no longer warm. Tried to do Damage & Del's extension to/near the Dungeon but totally failed to find it. So we pottered about at the back of Automatic Doors Lots of leads going nowhere (usu back to Big S or each other) also one picth with 2½+ second drop but it was disgusting to rig so we didn't. Then I took Adrian back up to surface & the rest went to remove a bolt (see hugh's bit)
T u/g ~6hrs (Francis) 7hrs (Matt, Pete, Mark S.)
Hugh's trip (replacing the pulled bolt - same day)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-17
+
Mark Scott, Leif Hornsved, Tony Rooke, Matt Keeling,
+
161 - 2nd Dreamtime Pitch
+
+Yes, another novice trip, down into Dreamtime, there was a pitch within 20m of the start of Dreamtime. Me & Mark bolted the pitch, and I descended, rigging an emensely tight deviation which later became a rebelay so that I could get passed it. The pitch descended for ~30m, follow by a ~10m pitch a further ~10m on. This lead to a tight rift, which I failed to descend as we were pushing time and it would have required several new bolts. At the base of the rift was an as yet un-identified rope.
T U/g ~6 hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-17
+
Mark Fearon, Adam Cooper,
+
161 - Flat Battery
+
+Continued exploring the pitches I (Adam) discovered with Jeremy a few days previously :
Descended previously rigged 25m pitch & bolted further 20'->25' pitch (slightly damp). Mark descended a further 15' into a pit where water flowed out down an impassible rift. A way on thro' a squeeze was found just above this pit into a 13m pitch with a second squeeze at the head. Mark was unable to get thro' with gear on & was cold & it was time to go out so we did. (a lot of time spent faffing wondering how to avoid the squeezey bit)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-17
+
Mark Dougherty, William Stead,
+
Surface - RosenKavalier Höhle (Shaft-bashing)
+
+... A follow-up to yesterday's enthusiastic write-up.
They both choked almost at once. It took us 1½ hours to explore the lower cave & 2½ hours to shift the rock outside the upper one ! Both caves still unmarked. Where's the paint ?
_William_
T.U. = 1 hr 32 mins each
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-18
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Francis Turner, Peter Swain,
+
161 - Second Dreamtime Pitch
+
+(extended to 19th, Pete in brackets)
2nd Dreamtime pitch - The Exposé. also J & F get totally knackered.
With our surveying gear, bolting kit etc, mostly found in other people's SRT bags, we trotted off to survey Matt's Mega New Conexion. Now for the facts. Pitch is ~13(not 30)m. Matt's rigging also caused comment. It ends in a disgusting rift which ends at a stream not a rope (but now probably has the added attraction of a bolting hammer) There was also a bit going backwards which was descended by Pete & ends up in a similar sort of rift. Having thus punctured Matts ego Pete popped out & Jeremy & Francis went on to Chicken Fried Lice & the other bits of the Damage & Wookey Yapate pitch discovery. We found their endless rift & it was truly so. Must go down to at least - 400m. Ended on a very steep (80°) boulder run above a pitch where rocks bounced for a loooong time (7 secs) so a good 30&plusm;m pitch is possible. After Jeremy nearly killed himself by thinking the pitch was nothing like that (ain't carbides crap really) & Francis went tumbling down a pitch that wookey had decided not to go down we sat around for hours slowly putting bolts into cheese while sitting on a very unstable set of boulders. J eventually descended to a much more solid rock wall which split the pitch. On one side it was quite small because J could see the floor with his laser, on the other he couldn't. We then came up. Thought about surveying but decided were too knacked & proved it by taking a good 4 hours (damn near 5 for Francis) to get to the surface.
Conclusions: 1) Matt earned his alternative dinner award 2) This is yet another lead going at ~400m 3) Its a bugger to rig on the top bit so bypasses (eg. pitch francis fell down) are required 4) Jeremy & Francis aren't very hard at all.
+
+Started surveying from S final survey station in Yapate inlet. Series is choked-looking insignificant crawl on lh side looking _out_ of cave. After a little crawling, however, soon reached sizeable chamber + damp 25m pitch, 6m pitch with tight take-off & 3½m pit into which the water disappears. (Flows off _left_ looking _in_) Right above pit leads to 2 squeezes + pitch to limit of push. At this point, Mark started banging bolts in 19 to the 12 down 8m pitch (Jackpot), a lovely 40m pitch (Fifty Francises Phreatic Freehang) to a thoroughly complex chamber with rifts off in several directions + a big rock arch (The Mathematical Bridge). Mark rigged down one more pitch, then 6:30 pm struck & it was time to go out. Passage leads _right_ down 2½ second drop. Cave going like a train. Left _huge_ bag of rope at foot of last pitch. Last survey point marked S on wall 2m up on rhs near top bolt on last rigged pitch.
Met Damage, Wookey, Jeremy & Francis (no relation) on way out. Exited 10 pm. Felt knackered - must be unfit.
T.U. 10 hrs apiece.
William
PS. Kaninchenhöhle is _nice_. No horrible tight rifts.
Mark carried rope. I took notes. Adam read instruments.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-18
+
Wookey, David Fearon,
+
161 - Vestabule
+
+(to 19/7)
Damage- My furry suit was so soggy and I was so cold. Popped down Vestabule Near over the rainbow and surveyed down low passage with over a foot of squalor. I now pass on to my more enlightened half.
Wook- After surveying on my back with tape in teeth in lots of mud we finished off the Vestabule survey - leaving a pitch to be descended.
Trogged off to CFN - passing Mark D & William at Bungalow pitch. Had a brew & meal - damage about to die of cold so did more surveying - pretty dull - dropped all the notes in a stream & had to roll huge rocks to get them back.
Retired before damage died of cold & out v.slowly by 8 am - well knackered.
+
+Caving gear up to Top Camp then relocated and redescended 100 (from 1977). Still needs number painting on ! Wandered all over the plateau without finding 101-103. Got bitten by Bunde. Back to Hilde's whereupon car died. A.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-19
+
David Howes, Del Robinson,
+
161 - Push + survey Julian's route off Flapjack
+
+- the Daleswear boys.
Push + survey Julian's route off Flapjack. [tick] vg
Armed only with a small ball of bailing twine our two insomniacs boldly surveyed where other people wouldn't bother caving. However, the Julian hunch has worked once more, and a few bolts and not a little thrutching, find us at the top of a 50m+ pitch. (NB this is not bullshit ! - Hanging in the blackness on the end of a 25-30m piece of string reveals long drops below)
Rocks dropped from a traverse above pitch may produce alarm in some cavers due to the increasingly loud whistling sound produced + consequent BOOOM ! Tee Hee.
- Twine is (approx) easiest route thru rift, and leads to small pitch - Survey is to pitch head bolt - In dry conditions, stream trickles down wall so not too wet, but...?
V.nice relaxed trip, no time worries, mix surveying with pushing = ACE! Brain death at 5 a.m. 2 hrs out from Knossos via Dreamtime.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-19
+
Mike Richardson, Tina White, Jared West,
+
161 - Dreamtime - surveying and re-rigging trip
+
+Down at about 12.30 armed with 7 choccy bars ! Tina & Mike did a romantic (!) surveying trip down to the top bolt of bungalow pitch via dreamtime whilst I tried to tidy up the rigging a bit in order to turn the dreamtime passages into a 'trade route' into the cave. Put 5 bolts in in all with primitive bolting kit, and rigged a traverse line across a nasty hole in the floor just before the pool. Del & Dave passed by on their way down to Julians route. On the way out we explored a small passage leading off from the bottom of eyehole pitch (Gnome passage) which has really white limestone walls - just like the limestone at the surface. Explored past a stal obstruction (hammered) where the passage forks. Both ways on too tight after a few metres but still drafting strongly. Exited at 11.00 pm & Annie was kind enough to take orders for food over the radio !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-20
+
Wookey, David Fearon, Peter Swain,
+
161 - Endless
+
+(to 21/7)
Yet another overnighter to finish survey of Endless. Went OK except Pete screwed up compass readings at steep angles so redid some - also dropped Geraldine 15m down rift - tut tut, but she is ace gear & works OK. After bunging 30kilo ff2x2 & 150 kilo ff1 down cliff & discovering that HILTI bolts are ACE GEAR, we took G.B.H down to do pitch. Damage went down 1st on one bolt for 50m. I added 2 rebelays but rope now didn't reach tacklebag. - Grr. Went home at 1.30am. out by 7 after a brew. Tried Dreamtime on way down - well weird!
an absolute tourist trip to show Mark how crap caving is as opposed to squatting in the campsite waiting for the wind to change direction. Descent at 9:95, so had acquired our night vision for start, could actually see things. Festered through Dreamtime, tottered into Knossus, walked round it, shrugged up staircase 36 and found Wookey (where else would you find him!), but his kettle was broken and he'd run out of peanut butter. Plenty of cheese cake on the loose rocks in the rift. At pitch end 3.30am, festered a bit, then headed out, me falling asleep and/or hallucinating at the bottom of pitches, and having to kick Mark awake whenever I got up them. He hated it!
Another brick in the wall / Team me'n'he go to Berlin to see the Wall (Roger Water's not Berlin's) (Maybe it should be "The Pros & Cons of Hitchhiking") Trying to be brief, here it goes (leaving Hilda's at 10:30 AM)
[''this is a table of lifts, and I can't remotely format it in html and its pretty crap in plain ascii. Hence it's commented out, but if you look at the source in html, you can read it (if you really want)'' Ed.]
not even slightly about caving : _To_ _Transport_ B.A.station Foot (with Claire). Salzburg stn. Train Autobahn near Walk (bloody long way!) Salzburg Across border Nice lady (in all senses!) in nice red car Munich Bloke with little English in transit van with electric chair (wheelchair) in back. Ingolstadt Bloke in ICM (ideal caving machine - space cruiser with loud stereo) who gave us some v. nice beer & drank some himself while bombing it down A-bahn. Middle of Wrinkly with no English in nicish car. nowhere Nürnberg lift in less than a minute (!!!) from strange man in Austrian national dress who got lost and confused near Nürnberg. All the way to central Berlin (50 yds from Potsdamer-Platz!) at 2am!!! Nice man in nice car with nasty music tastes - rap & similar stuff with all the "middle" removed on the graphic equaliser. (<12hrs from Salzburg)
------------------
Wandered around, through Brandenburg gate and then decided to go to airport (<10km away) for kip (walking). Awoken at ridiculous time by lots of noisy Pan Am staff. Wandered around Airport for a bit, Matt changed some money & wandered back to central Berlin. Looked at some sights & at V. impressive rig in Potsdamerplatz. Got some food, looked for banks - all shut of Friday afternoon (!?!) - so ended up in horrendously packed Bureau-de-change, wandered back to grassy bit full of tents across road from P-platz, sat dawn & moved on by police at about 11pm, move across road to more grassy bit, police give up & we get some sleep - chilly (_never_ get seperated from your pit!) Start queueing at about 8.30am get let in about 1.30pm, find good spot & get v. bored till about 4.30pm when music starts. The Wall starts at 10pm ish & is v.good although it needed a lot more bass. afterwards join hordes causing traffic chaos - walk toward A-bahn get tired & bored & get bus - walk a bit more - arriving at A-bahn at c. 5am.
------------------
Destn Transport Nürnberg Two mad germans in Skoda "given to them by some E.Germans" who rolled cigarettes while driving & ran out of petrol on A-bahn, without a spare tank. N.München Blue car-like contraption (suitable for caver) with 2 germans. after 2 hour wait S.München Informed by Munich-based hitcher that A-bahn signed for Salzburg from N.Munchen is crap & tells us how to get to S.München by using every form of public transport available in city. Walk and take tube & walk again instead. Salzburg (in fact Wait on A-bahn junction designed frustrate hitchers for more than 3 hrs, then walk back along road and deviously stand by traffic lights. Get lift in <1/4 hr all the way to Salzburg. The man is a W.German, Austrian pig breeder who drives a plush V.W. with a car phone, sun-roof, etc & hang glides & smuggles cigarettes across international borders in his spare time. a couple of exit after on road signed to Bad Ischl) Hof About 9pm by this time & no f*cking Austrian b*stards will stop for us. Walk up road. V.tired by Hof, so kip overnight in wood. Bad Ischl Wake up with beginnings of frostbite. Walk into town, find bus leaves at 7.15am, now about 5.30 am, so try hitching for a bit - no hope! Find bakery open & buy still-warm rolls & jam - eat 'em & feel better. Bet bus to B.I., even though timetable seems to try for B.A. Fall asleep a lot Bad Aussee Train Hilda's Walk (bloody hell, not more!)
P.S. Only 6 Oh D**r's! anon:''long bit of self-indulgent bullshit!!!'' Olly:''(Fuck off!OK?)''
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-21
+
Hugh Salter, Tony Rooke, Francis Turner,
+
161 - 161b
+
+After much looking, located entrance (this involved Hugh + Francis standing a long way away and shouting directions to Tony as to where he should look!). anyway, descended 50m pitch and thence to French Connection II. [''confusion of names here - read 'France' for 'French ConnII', and 'FCII' for '50m pitch' Ed.''] several/a big one pitch off - probably explored by les caveurs Francaises. Surveyed back to base of 50m, intending to continue exploration of rift. The foot of the 50m has many ways on, all obviously reaching the bottom of the same rift 30-50m lower (one fucking big rift). Unfortunately we had no bolting kit. But we did rerig the continuation on a 50m rope (should be long enough, but needs another bolt?) and then we surveyed out to the connection bolt to 161. Lots left to do. One big bit of passage.
T U/G 4.5 h
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-21
+
Mark Dougherty, William Stead,
+
161 - Flat Battery Series (cont'd)
+
+Set off @ 11:30am + bolting + surveying gear on a push/survey trip. Arrived at limit of push quite quickly + rigged down into ... A chamber left leading + an aven + a little water lowing down, right to muddy banks & no apparent way on. Water sank in a trench in the floor. Follewed this with difficulty through a smallish rift partly choked by boulders to a sandy chamber. Water by now gone. Here, the obvious way on was blocked - a cheese grater type formation of a whole lot of holes in a rock barrier, leading to a reasonable sized passage. Climbed up sand bank to side to an insignificant rift, which led to a maze of small, sharp phreatic passages, slowly descending (the Labyrinth). At this point, we started worrying about getting lost, especially as the way on was getting very muddy. These passages draught, though, & would keep Wookey happy surveying for ages. Came back out & discovered a small rift back to the foot of the pitch over the top. At this point, decided to rerig the last pitch with bolts prior to doing a serious push. Sent Mark in to bang said bolt in, who then discovered a total absence of spits. Bollocks! Resisting the temptation to exit immediately in a fit of pique, surveyed down the last 2 pitches in 3 stations & into the avens in 2 more. This took an hour & a half & we were very cold. Handily realized that we couldn't really do more surveying as we didn't really know where the passage went, so cut off the bottom off the rope on the last pitch & I climbed up over the rift.... A large phreatic tube with a nasty traverse + naturals to rig it. Mark duly rigged said traverse into continuation of tube. Tube ca 3m diameter with holes in floor ca 30 foot deep. One of these probably leads to the other side of the Cheesegrater. Finished at hole in floor ca 30 foot deep with continuation of phreatic level opposite - quite easily reachable with bolts. Interesting suspended mud floor in side shaft - just the thing for Damage to jump on (he'd go straight through). By now 5:30pm. Debated whether to survey the phreatic tube + didn't. Last survey st'n (3) marked with S on rock 1m in front of foot of last pitch - obvious.
Came out via Dreamtime (a little rerigging needed if it's to be the main route) & exited ca 8:30pm
The following rerigging needs doing + bolt kit in Flat Battery series. a) Dodgy traverse on way to Yapate - could do with bolt + tape. b) 1st pitch in DBS (Oldham) - Long pendulum if main bolt fails. Needs back-up (hole part-drilled) c) 40m pitch ditto. d) Last pitch - rigged on naturals. Needs bolt at head & wire on rebelay (Wire left down there). ... had we any spits we'd have done these.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-21
+
Mark Scott, Mark Fearon, David Howes, Del Robinson,
+
Eishohle - Trip into the fridge
+
+Bloody long walk up to a titchy entrance for the cave when there were much nicer and bigger entrances scattered about everywhere. Well the entrance has a squalid cold drafty hole about 20' long which proceeded to come to a pitch of solid ice about 40 metres long of 60 degree ice but crampons are great. Very pretty and big chamber but quite cold. lots of pretty stals of ice very good pottering trip very enjoyable but the bloody walk back was too long.
Del: Eishöhle (big entrance with nice tourist plaque) is ~ 20 mins from nipple. Follow red dots to red ski pole and end of path ~ 15 mins for _the_ entrance. Ice screw rebelay recommended.
Could take another SRT rope and do next ice pitch (back + right whilst on first pitch - see the _nasty_ poly rope frozen in situ).
+
T/U: 4.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-22
+
Del Robinson, Francis Turner, David Howes,
+
161 - Finishing off Too much too soon
+
+[date deduced to be 1990-07-22 from survey data, Ed.]
The first time Julian took me down flapjack to show me the question mark he found last year I just laughed and thought he was joking. When it entered the rift "no-you go first" I knew he was ! But - three trips later and here I am again!
The three of us left Juliette and Jeremy at the surface on a gorgeous day, with beers at hand, playing with the co-ax and cave radio. The prospect of 16 hours underground again didn't look good!
Following Jeremys advic,... and then ignoring it, we rerigged 'too far too soon' further up the rift to take us further round to the right (Del's idea!) - a much better (and drier) freelang. After two rebelays and 65m later reached a large ledge and two further pitches. Between a little surveying and bolting, managed to keep us all occupied before coming out. after looking around the 'bottom' trying to find a way on.
Well, there was, sort of, after bashing with a hammer and taking off dangly's - a further 10m down through an eye hole and a tiny slit in the floor that opens out into an impenetrable pitch. Verdict? Splooosh! Probably sumps then just _below_ 500m!
Came out slowly and walked down to camp (even slower!) But, a good trip.
T.U. 16 hours
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-22
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Juliette Kelly,
+
161 - TRIP BEFORE finishing off 'too far too soon'
+
+Date guessed
Very uninteresting prospect this write up. Went + looked down too much too soon. Too much on 9mm rope for us bottlers - So instead -> the complete survey of a man
[12½ hrs]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-22
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Juliette Kelly,
+
161 - Laying the coax (fnaar)
+
+(Date totally guessed)
What a lovely trip - Sauntered down the Cave - decorating it like a christmas tree with Coax. Jeremy joined me - (pissed) at the 3rd pitch. Coax Stretched to squeeze, where we had lost the joiner, So Jeremy volunteered to be Sweaty going to get a new one from the entrance,
At Pot Of Gold the coax was connected - Wonderful - I could listen to Jared + Anna + Jeremy getting pissed in the sunshine. No, seriously it is very Calming to talk to somebody whilst Caving. Listening to the 'Whats for tea' Conversations relieves boredom whilst Caving. Highly recommended these convuntily [??] trips.
TESTS 1 Me on handset in Cave with Coax turned on Could not reach base Camp. 2 With Coax on -> You Can communicate with the entrance anywhere in passage where Cable is + 50m odd on from end of Cable. 3 With Coax off Can only get entrance with set a few centimetres from Coax. Although I could hear entrance but they could not hear me about 1m away Jeremy 3hrs Juliette 5½hrs
Julian Todd, Keith Millar, Tony Rooke, Jeremy Rodgers,
+
Surface - Skinrip Passages I-IV
+
+Assisted by Kieth, Tony. and the total bastard pants gravel hypodermic foreskin up-your-thunk Jeremy. A potter up to the camp 1 with bier to hunt for Wadder's lost cave entrances wearing insufficient protection from sharp rocks in unmarked sink-grinder holes. There is a fun system of about six openings all in a line near the camp, all connected by cave, the last of which is very tricky to climb out of and in the middle of bunda. Snowplugs have receeded a lot due to the hot temperature & good weather (apart from the wind) revealing earthdarks (antiskylights) at the edge of the ice the size and sharpness of a small shark's mouth. Twice I got into these and Jeremy - may his bollocks turn to permafrost and be used as powerstation ball bearing - kicked snow all over me. Then, at yet another snow choked crack too tight to escape from, I heard his voice below me assuring that - from the other side - there was a way through. Cold ice slide, hands scratched by ceiling rocks, I crawled to the connection: a seven inch high horizontal skid through a puddle of ice water with Jeremy - may his gut squallor infestation scrawl-nose stink-plague give him a six day hang-over for every whiff of beer his brother breathes - laughing from the other side. I shall keep dry ice in his caving shreddies and use his SRT gear for superconducting experiments
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-24
+
Paul Smith, Hugh Salter, Tanya Savage,
+
Surface
+
+( "Big" Paul Smith)
Body failure. Lamp Failure. Motivation failure. All 3 occurred _prior_ to descent so I'm surprised we went anywhere. Did listen to Paul doing his Geology super-star bit though.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-24
+
Wookey, Andy Waddington, Joe Lenartowicz, Juliette Kelly,
+
Surface - Trisselwand.
+
+Team hard bastard goes to re-enact the ancient CUCC legend of the Trisselwand climb
Found route with minor faff - hearts in mouths. Yummy new ring hangers ran out after 1st 3 pitches - all a bit shitty until up main gully where was more interesting - albeit a bit hot. Joe had epic on 1st really hard pitch - with one poxy runner ½ way up & extreme difficulty finding a belay at top. After me & Wadders had sunned ourselves for an hour & played radios again - Talk to Eishöhle from ½ way up T.wand? Went for Alpine bit across lethal scree slope - carefully ignoring the really silly drops to left. Bit of route faffing until found pitons. Wadders did traverse - I did really nasty shitty but quite hard pitch - W had final traverse out over edge of world ! I spent 40 mins on next pitch going up & reversing after getting to hard bit 20m above last crap runner. AERW reckoned left - I went right - it looked easier - managed a few more wires to shit belay. Eventually W came up & found piton - 2 more nice pitches with real attached rock to top via 3 more rope lengths of scrambling/bunde bashing. Mega climb - well shitty in places with Fuck All protection - good job it's not too hard!
Took 8½ hours (9 hrs J & J as they suffered from dark & Bunde at end).
Back just after 11 via a toad & lots of [???].
Radios are fun - Can talk to Top camp, Stogerweg, Bergrestaurant, Base Camp & Entrance.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-24
+
William Stead, David Fearon, Mark Dougherty, Adam Cooper,
+
161 - Dreamtime flapjack photos
+
+says Adam
Trundled off for an early start quickly into caving gear. No tackle <tick><tick>[ascii failure again]!. Above 3rd pitch Mark showed us how to play flashes. I posed in my Mac suit above 3rd pitch. We then ran down to Dream time to photo leopard skin again the lovely Damage posing. Dougherty made Adam hang for ages on Knossus as we photoed him. We then ran down to Flapjack. Loadsa lovely pitch. Down bottom I saw Williams head poking out of the wall, He thrutched down a pitch on 9mm SRT. Mark tried dodgy techniques to make us smile. We ran up pitches, William & I derigging Adam & Dougherty left out early. After fettling carbides (grr, grr), one left to finish a highly organized, efficient and (hopefully) successful trip 11 hours(M&A)
+
+Explored and surveyed a climb spotted by Damage Del. Climbed up Big Sainsbury's, crawled into the chamber containing Dungeon ['Dungeon' crossed out by Del - replaced by 'No', this in turn crossed out by Wookey and 'Yes, it does' inserted]. After a spectacular climb by Pete up about 12' into a passage which ends in a small pitch. This was descended and found to tighten and tighten until it was quite tight, in fact too tight. The passage seems to continue on the opposite side of the pitch but we could see no way to get across. Spot of bad bolting, followed by bad rigging, Resulted in a bad rub. Very scary.
+
+Zoomed down to the pitch at the end of Endless (alright, contradiction). Did some cold waiting while Damage did some slick rigging. Descended first pitch and found small phreatic both to hide in and explore. Just really hid in it. Second pitch was again impressively riggid by Dave and ended in large chamber with 2 ways on.
Matt had first epic on rebelay. Managed to have 5 pts. of contact. Took along time to decrease it to two. He arrived at the bottom of the pitch, panting and horizontal!
Anyway, straight ahead is a sandy passage which ends in an inlet. The floor shows obvious signs of water. The other way is down a small climb to a spot of rifty passage. This ends in a tight crawl in water and mud. Both Damage and Matt went down and found a small chamber which it was too difficult to enter. This is where Matt had his second epic. He got quite badly trapped and had to do some vigorous thrashing. Couldn't face surveying and started out.
In Endless Matt had his third epic. Yawn! Slipped and fell 6', twisting his ankle. This forced us to a very, very, very slow pace. Came up through Dreamtime. Damage went ahead to contact top camp and Matt and I plodded on. Matt eventually emerged 5 mins before 10am call out. Long, long trip.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-26
+
Adam Cooper, Mike Richardson, Jeremy Rodgers,
+
161 - Push and Survey Flat Battery
+
+A nice trip, that rare Austrian beasty, a "short trip". Zoomed down to 400m (fine route) dithered around a bit deciding where to push. Rigged down into pit & climbed (using human pyramid technique) up into phreas other side. Phreatic tube ends at climb (done) & pitch (done) which chokes. 3 possible but squalid leads so surveyed out leaving rigged & ignored squalid bits - Team push anything can have a go later. Rapid exit, everso nice caving out before you're shagged senseless + light at surface.
PS Adams light failed again!! (Carbide this time)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-26
+
Mark Scott, Julian Todd, Olly Betts, Keith Millar,
+
Hanggliding
+
+Team Wings: Mark S, _Julian._
Support crew : Olly (photographer), Keith (chauffer), Wook's car.
Finally made it at 11am to the Loser hut. I unfolded my wings and flew from the ramp. The ground flops down in ripples like a table cloth, stacked up with trees; your shadow skates across it and becomes out of focus. Unaware of quite how much 800m in height meant distance wise, I hovered the whole time above the landing field in Altaussee, the houses and trees refusing to get any bigger.
When we packed the hang-glider and drove back up, it was Mark's turn as pilot. He was watched and photographed by a passing landrover load of cavers. Olly stayed in the landing field afterwards and got bored because we delayed for two hours and bought lunch in Loserhut as the air was too rough, turning umbrellas insideout and blowing other people's food onto my plate. Tried to set off again at 3:30, but this was made difficult by a crowd of 50 spectators all getting in the way, making me nervous and heckling me as I tried to carry the glider up the road to the ramp. The air was rough, damn rough. Afraid the glider would disintegrate above the forest. The lake is simply beautiful to glide across at plus 500m. Mark did the final flight of the day and waved at some children on the beach, who waved back. When he began packing, he discovered what had gone ping! during the rigging in the car park prior to the flight: a rivet had disappeared.
T/A 15 minutes each.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-28
+
Matt Keeling, Francis Turner,
+
Surface - Team plateau explorer
+
+Went up to Loserhutte with team Hangglider (& William driving just for added fun) set off for top camp & found a lot of people thinking about going caving. Went with them to 161 & watched while they got changed into nice warm caving gear. took some piccys. Then went off up ridge to HinterSmk
Found one vaguely promising hole, apparently a bedding plane nearly vertical. Went down c.5m could see a good 5m further down & stones thrown indicated more.
Marked Slab nearby with CUCC 90 & left a cairn. Bearings: Bräuning Nase 246° Central Peak of Dachstein 215°. The cave is on the far side of the ridge by an isolated patch of Bunde on a slab. It starts off as a (N-ish) crack in this slab. On way back found humungous hole with snow plug & then a _very_ loose drafting hole. Didn't take bearings because while I tried to chuck a rock down into it most of what I was standing on fell down it. Then came back to Base Camp.
T u/g 10-15 mins.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-28
+
Joe Lenartowicz, Mike Richardson,
+
161 - LeftHand Route Expo
+
+First venture into the l/h series. In via Dreamtime for Joe's benefit, then Joe up to l/h series while I nip down to Yapate to get Sally, thence back to l/h. Arrived to find that Joes driver had broken leaving half the threaded bit still in the spit. Found I had left SRT bag back at end of Dreamtime. Joe, being frozen, went and fetched it. Had a poke down first l/h passage on l/h route - see drawing over.
[piccy showing passage off to left at first corner of left hand route with c5 up to aven and c6 beyond above almost blocked passage - this has been superceded by Wook sketch 1991]
Rebolted top of Candlestick(?), Joe set off down to put in rebelay about 10' down. I went for poke from Arrow Chamber, and came out about 10' below Joe!!
Joe, Having bolted, came up for rest, I went down 15m(maybe) to FOULNESS LEDGE. Put in next bolt, then Joe's turn - down 20-25m to freehanging rebelay. Half did bolt, then dead legs so up, and I finished it. Abbed on down, got to bottom of rope about 10' above ledge. Rats. Prussiked out.
PS. Another hole (2m x ½m x 2 sec drop) in carrefour: Bloody well go look at it!!!
Mark Dougherty, Mark Fearon, Tony Rooke, Paul Smith,
+
161 - Dreamtime, Knossos, Yapate Foto trip
+
+Well, got farther than the end of Big Sainsbury's this time. A gentle amble down Dreamtime with the two Mark's snapping away - ably assisted by their pouting models. Few diversions, Mark F. dropping camera cases and general alarm at the rigging on a potential trade route. Mark F. & Tony trogged around Knossos while Mark D. & I went off to examine Yapate Inlet and photograph it. On the way out, much time was spent dangling in the dark on the Knossos pitch. Certainly adds to the splendour, if splendour is brown coloured and vaguely liquid. Hope the foties come out
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-28
+
Wookey, David Fearon,
+
Surface - Down 163 and other 'oles
+
+We trundled I complained, I got in my oversuit squeezed down some 'oles. We then surveyed 163 and surface surveyed to VD1
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-28
+
Juliette Kelly, Del Robinson, Olly Betts,
+
161 - go to see Adrian's bottom
+
+(Better late than never)
My first real caving trip (Heyman!!!) Del vanished to do some bolting whilst me 'n' Joules do some surveying. Stop after some, & go and join Del. Survey more, derig a bit & leave via 161B. I have a sudden keenness attack & dive back in towards where MarkD is to discover 161C. Not hungover, so chicken out. Olly : 8 hrs
Walked ridiculously fast for 4½ hrs & found [?] at Simony Hütte
Rested for ½ hr while letching at local talent & decided to go for the top hut despite Jeremy feeling a bit squiffy in the 'far too much' heat.
Went for it & only took ¾ of hr to reach hut, so went for top (without using any of our nice ice gear) - Jeremy really f***ed.
Got to Hütte & found it was full (6.00pm). "Oh, dear"! - "Oh well, lets go for it" - "but isn't that a bit silly?" - "Yes" - "Just checking"
Run across bit of glacier & bloody hill in way (another 100-200 metres !!) - Jeremy really completely fuck*d.
Stopped at top of hill, ate dinner, realised had no bloody water (oh god!) & radioed down to paralytic Julian at base camp - praise Philips in the high (whatever that means?).
Walked/ran down to the next hütte hallucinating about water, got some strange looks when we got there.
Ran down next bit until it got dark
Jeremy forgotten zoom (yet another light failure for the intrepid duo!) & we got lost.
Found road at bottom & managed to meet others thanks to radios
Re-rigged yesterdays pitch with 30m marlow, down to Foulness Ledge, then Sally down to bottom. Trench in floor (AFWAT) goes down another 6-7m. to another floor with a trench too (AFWATIT) This trench leads to a floor at 10m (undescended) with a humoungous hole about 5m horizontally with a 4-5 sec from from AFWAT. This might be an aven into Niflheim but it looks to be 20m or so too far west. This huge hole, if not Niflheim should be called DOUNREAY
Off behind you when descending from AFwat is a small rift/tube with a 10m pitch into a rift. Sandy bottom with two small [und] tubes off at floor level. One goes north, is passable as a small crawl and goes dead straight (you have to reverse out), the other goes south round a tight corner, looks as if it comes out below Afwatit. This area is Dungeoness.
+
+Juliette: _TANTALUS_ (_the Paul investigation_)
A prospecting trip - Wandering accross the plauteux from the cave, down the side of the ridge, casualing looking for lower entrances.
CAVE 1 -> Nice passage, past snow plug 20m down -> choke. (juliette mortally wounded) CAVE 2 -> It was an enormous hole said Dougherty. So we sent Del down, to Cool beer in the snow, Paul and I lazed in the Sun, Del reemerging with tails of ice formations having got to end of 50m rope TANTALUS So named because of the water at the bottom - as the prospecters sat parched at the top. Del and Paul bolted in the Sunshine - I watched the musculatures at work. Then lady muck rigged (Very worried about an enormous natural) Anyway - Very pretty pitch - Shame it stopped.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-29
+
Wookey, David Fearon,
+
162 - The Dynamic Duo Rig, survey and Derig 162
+
+We went to 162 surveyed top bit rigged ladder. I lost toss, derigged entrance ladder 161, nicked 55m beal. Surveyed this too. Nice ice. Nice cave. Shame so cold
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-29
+
Adam Cooper,
+
Surface - solos 90/5
+
+This hole found several days previously by a Juliette, Paul, MarkF, Claire & I wander trip. Paul numbered entrance later. As an alternative to total fester I went with rope & Paul's gear to do 90/5. Rock very brittle & no naturals so took 5 attempts to start bolts. Finally got 2 OK ones in to find MSD's rope had a big bad cut in!!
got down found not choked so out again to get bolt kit & put furry on. Last (2nd) pitch led to climb into choked bit. Sketch survey in survey book. putting top two bolts in but this bit could be climbed to so doesn't really count)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
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+
+
+
1990-07-30
+
Matt Keeling, Tim Farrar,
+
161 - Dreamtime
+
+Matt decided to sacrifice himself & take me caving for the first time. After complaining that I walked too slowly he complained even more down the cave. We knocked five bolts in & rerigged the top 3 pitches. Went out & walked down slowly.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-30
+
Del Robinson, Juliette Kelly, Mark Dougherty, Wookey,
+
161 - Flat Battery
+
+Set off to photo Flat Battery, push the 'leads' & prob de-rig when they didn't go.
MarkD only made it to 3rd pitch traverse after making a hole in himself with a lump hammer trying to break carbide. His hangover was just too mega so he went back via adrians & 'discovered' (ie dug) 161C
We declined to take camera gear & boogied on down - did grade 1 survey of stuff off OTR then Del found rift climb at top of bungalow while me & Juliette surveyed between bolts - leads into high phreatic tube which comes out above top of boulder alley. Also looked at climb up BA. - looks feasible.
Finally got on down to T.Block & had a brew & noodles before going down FB. Zoomed down lots of pitches to poke squalid holes at bottom. Connected a couple of Question Marks & pushed 'phreatic Maze' through awful duck to hard c3 climb.
Decided to forget it & de-rigged - efficient job so 250m of rope out by 1.30am. Staggered out of cave by 5.45 - shagged again after shifting rope to bottom of dreamtime.
Ace trip - why can't they all be as good? Del
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-30
+
Jeremy Rodgers, David Fearon,
+
161 - Endless
+
+(Date guessed)
Grr. Grr. Isn't it boring f***ing RH route. Trogged down. Endless. Ignored Jeremy wimpers but was taken in by his surveying bullshit. We surveyed and (I) derigged up. Gross errors were spread amongst the survey papers and were then washed off. We then made up some new figures. (Laugh). Epic struggle with tackle bags. lots of shitty rope. Thank G*d for H**ti spits. And thanks for all those who helped in this production. What's more, my pet piece of cave, Endless, is really irritating
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
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+
+
+
1990-07-30
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Adam Cooper,
+
Surface - plateau-wander
+
+We wandered found a hole, descended it. this was not far from the camp fault (goes thro nr water hole) & is a rift. Numbered 90/9 but not written as no paint. This cave is close to the large bedding cave (which if you know where it is is a good locator). See survey book for a sketch survey & bearings (ha).
Struggled thro more Bunde, via various un-noteworthy pits, moving more "out" on the plateau (ie away from 161). Eventually popped out at an umpromising large breakdown entrance with a low, wide horiz bit just inside. Quickly became 45 degree bouldery slope then canyon. Traversed along top for a while til reached harder bit (woz in T shirt & shorts). Took bearing with view to return (see 2/8/90 trip). This cave called 90/12. Too hot so went to camp. Thundered later.
T/u Jez 15 mins, Adam 35mins
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-07-31
+
Francis Turner, Mark Scott, Peter Swain,
+
161 - French Connection
+
+French Connection After getting lost 20' from entrance pitch we discovered that Francis had lost all the spits. He spent 20mins looking for them while we tried to find the way on. Eventually did (both of us). Got down to the French cave without mishap. Unfortunately, it had been derigged. Bollocks. Tried rigging another route which seemed to go but the rope didn't. Came out through 161b.
BLOODY ENORMOUS THUNDERSTORM ! ! ! ! !
Waited at entrance for an hour in oversuits. Bloody rain didn't stop. Bloody rucksack leaked. Bloody waterproof wasn't. Bloody great trip.
+
+We went back to finish off the rest of rerigging Dreamtime. It is now very pleasant. Got all the way to the Chunnel to pich up some more rope. Rigged the bottom few short pitches plus a traverse & knocked in more bolts (yuck!). Came out to a thunderstorm with an incredibly wet first pitch. The walk down was awful with it getting dark & Matt falling down a shakehole, while it pissed down.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-01
+
Joe Lenartowicz, Adam Cooper, Francis Turner,
+
Surface
+
+General Plan: Push Joe's holes then Francis' then Adam's.
Kitting up was the usual wander to cave entrance + faff trying to find bolts etc, nearly forgetting SRT gear finding more spits in Matts gear etc. Finally set off to Joe's hole. Joe disappears down a nasty bedding plan. Adam provides helpful boulders, Francis fails to find Joe's other hole. Francis comes back & is told to bring loadsa Bolting gear etc. Joe has 2 pitches adjacent in a bedding plane. Both very loose at top because the roof is trying to fall down. Joe spends ages putting a bolt in this roof while Adam & Francis look down the other hole & shout from various nearby holes & establish vocal connexions (thru impenetrable stuff) Joe has finished Francis has the only SRT gear so its his turn to rig the clear bolt for the free hang (gibber). First attempt in roof gives neck ache, head ache arm ache back ache + 2 or 3 rocks of roof down the pitch. Next attempt (on the wall) gives a bolt shattering the rock when the cone is banged in. Final attempt OK. Francis + Joe rig this & F goes down c.15m. Finds ledge thinks about putting bolt in. Finds possibility of pendulum + wire rebelay Then pretty ice + 5m more of going under ice (dead pretty) Flow goes down a little hole then a rift (a la Flapjack2). Mean while Adam + Joe look at Joe's other hole & Adam leaves to rescue his pit. F comes up. Joe goes down F paints 'CUCC 90/10' near hole Joe comes up & all head for Vesta.
T u/g 3 hrs (F+J), 0.5 (Adam)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-02
+
Julian Todd,
+
Hanggliding
+
+Team Wings : _Julian_, assisted by Jeremy, not assisted at all by half the caving club, distracting, telling me to get on with it, admiring its aches and strains and cracks. Couple other pilots in carpark keeping well away and mumbling things about parachutes. On account of it all, had a shit take off and the glider started to disintegrate: battens springing out, left wing flapping noisily as a helicopter.
So decided to land as I was so awfully high. Jeremy kindly let me have another go. Picked up another hang-glider pilot and gave him a lift to his car whereupon he placed 40 shillings in payment on Rover's front bumper.
This time the audience was smaller. A couple of young men with gliders on their car drove up as I was rigging, thought that the wind was shit, the glider was shit and they didn't want to see any more of it. A couple of paragliderists were also walking all the way back down Loser, not flying, muttering something about kamakazees.
Which all goes to show it's bullshit because I had a great takeoff, great flight (little rough the air though), got scared to go any higher when I looked for an instant down at the nose of Loser, so followed Rover along the road for some way. Some little muscles in my shoulders suffered in agony to make flying possible after a while, so I slipped off and landed. On my feet. Ground zero.
T o/g ½ hour
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-02
+
Joe Lenartowicz, Adam Cooper,
+
Puffball
+
+go to do 90/12 (see 30/7/90 write up)
Had vague idea of area of 90/12 but spent 2 hrs Bunde-bashing to fail to find it. Got VERY Bunde bitten & hot & fucked. Found another cave 90/11 (numbered in red, see survey book for a sketch). Sunbathed, eventually found 90/12 & marked entrance, see survey book for location & details. 90/12 is a cracker and is _still going_. There is several hundred metres of vadose canyon, traverse high until until a large pocket on right, then drop down to the bottom. Eventually (via formations and white powder on walls) get to 20' pitch (1 bolt for ladder) shortly (follow joint in floor) get to a 20m pitch (unbolted & undesc'd) where we turned back as rope at surface & we were lazy (besides which I had already come out once for the ladder !) 90/12 is called Puffball & Icing Sugar Cave. THIS CAVE DRAFTS & IS A GOER
While I was down, Joe went wandering & found 90/13 & 90/14 - see survey book for details & locations. Joe squirmed down 90/13 over loose shizen to find a small non-free-climbable pitch. 90/13 drafts.
Wandered further & Joe "suggested" I go down 90/14 while he went down a nearby rift which didn't go. 90/14 is a canyon which starts on the surface & is a bastard sharp & narrow canyon bastard shite..... Hence called SHIRUKEN (the spiky things ninjas throw!) Didn't go that far as really desperate & my oversuit got ripped in 50 feet of thrutch ! Joe 1 hr
See survey book to locate 90/14
V.G. but write in pen next time
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-03
+
Wookey, Tim Farrar,
+
161 - go play bolt dot-dot
+
+Went to join assorted bolt-bolt surveys and misclosures - old 2nd pitch - new, re-survey dodgy Sainsbury's leg - join both ends of dreamtime to survey & join new & adrian surveys - achieved all but last - after talking to Paul & Tony at bungalow - took 2 bags of rope & checked out Vestabule - last 20m pitch didn't go so detackled & left. Put 100m of rope by LH route & took rest out - hard work.
+
+Shoogled down to squeeze, hunked through, shaked into Knossus and shouted at Tower Blocks. Damage got the drill and drilled a bit and a bolt and I went for a grovel into the tight shite canyon in the dirt floor of Yapate Inlet. There's a freeclimb down at a 3 way junction of trickles which travels a bit, then goes narrow as a trash compactor - one can just about get into it, sideways, horizontal, feet first ten metres, but it doesn't get any better. Meanwhile Damage had dogged the pitch and was mumbling around in it. I followed, egged him on and made him sag the next pitch. One freeclimb later - oh not another pitch, here, Julian, you rig it. No! I do not rig pitches whatsoever. Damage was having a crisis of confidence, what with no great pillar of caving prowess such as Wookey or Jeremy on hand as a trustable expert system. No offense, he said, but I wish I was with someone who could do the rigging or say if it's OK when I'm pissed off with it, I really don't know what I'm doing.
Damage discharged the drill, the clino jammed, so we left it all and went for a brew, then a poke up a man-sized phreatic tube off left side of Chicken Flied Nice which goes for miles, well 80m.
Guess what, It ends in a pitch. Damage had left his descender at the bottom of Staircase 36 and I had a sharp stone in the back of my shreddies. Both dealt with out we went for a lovely meal with Big Paul still mourning the litre bottle of schnapps exploded all over his tent for no apparent reason.
So anyway, in the beginning there were three festering louts. Time passed. Two of these differentiated from the norm thus changing the norm and started to go caving. The third, the 'Olly' stayed put. The 'Wookey' and the 'Damage' proceeded to travel without haste accross the karst to the cave. On arrival a radio from Philips started talking to us. The 'Olly' was communicating (or at least trying). The 'Wookey' shouted loudly at a black box because of the lack of the 'Olly'. There was then discussion of suitable punishments to 'Olly'. The 'Wookey' was considering various forms of physical abuse. It was eventually decided that drop testing him was too severe and we went caving. What a nice bit of cave said I, being so close to the top of the 1623/161 thingy. We zoomed down the Joe rigging, faffed, put in a bolt and descended to the head of a pitch and started gardening. We concluded it were a big pitch. Forty five metres we timed it to, and 52m it was - so go climb a toadstool all you automatic pitch length halfers, we get it right, or at least quite close even if we are so fit that it only seems like 35m up. Got to bottom and found a big passage to the bottom but another thr metre pitch grr, grr. Did some more rigging, found bottom, I then suggested Wookey went down some small holes. We then left.
Tm U/G 10 hours
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
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+
+
+
1990-08-05
+
Mark Fearon, Tanya Savage, Tony Rooke, Paul Smith,
+
161 - Climbing above Boulder Alley
+
+(Date guessed) has to be before 08.06 when derigged to Bungalow, probably after 07.28 when similar personnel did a photo trip
A relatively quick trip down to Bungalow with Mark F. taking a few photos of Tony perched above the Third pitch pretending to use a radio. At Bugalow the party split, Mark F and Tanya going down to Knossos for a tourist trip whilst Tony and Paul climbed into the small tubes across from the head of the pitch. These emerge into a fine 3m diameter phreas which pops out around 15-20m above Boulder Alley. From there Paul traversed high along the side of BA heading for a large black hole which promised to be a continuation of the tube. The traverse was fairly hairy over gravel and very loose pinnacles. The black hole turned out to be a window between the two shafts off Boulder Alley and not a passage. The two shafts are directly adjacent - contra the survey - although they appear to be separate due to the steep angle of Boulder Alley.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-06
+
Del Robinson, David Fearon,
+
161 - shear the driver
+
+We got changed and it rained. We went down dreamtime, down Boulder alley into Carefour eventually. If you think this is boring so is the RH route. How am I supposed to write anything interesting about an uneventful passing through a piece of cave which I know every stable boulder personally.
Now then, now then, the pitches, the drivers and other laugh. After much faffing of gear, [???] really are a pain. Then I snapped the driver, laugh. We [???] and [???] and surveyed out and were then dead 'ard and derigged to top of Bungalow. Last trip.
+
+Fluttered down pitches 1,2,3,4 + squeeze into LH Route. Then walked to hole in floor off rift & abseiled down pitch after pitch to the bottom including lovely 50m free hanging pitch off crap rigging (Damage with wire belay through maillons). Got to the bottom in 2½ hours then had to start out & survey. This took ages & ages. Olly did the pretty (?) piccies, Tim did the readings (with muddy glasses & instruments) & Francis did the derigging (& got cold). Eventually surveyed to the top & had to carry lots of gear up the squeeze - which tired Olly out slightly. Made it out after our call-out time.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-07
+
Wookey, Jeremy Rodgers, Paul Smith, Juliette Kelly, Julian Todd, Peter Swain, Andy Waddington,
+
161 - Uncle Tom Cobbly & all go derigging
+
+All change in rain - Jez & Julian & Wadders down squeeze, Paul, Juliette & Pete down dreamtime. Wookey follows to squeeze doing radio tests with Julian - dist from cable is critical - unreliable more than a couple of metres (over 200m of cable).
Comms from: basement to head of 4th (can get 2m away towards Adrians Route - constriction seems to block signal) Big Sainsbury's to Squeeze (up to 4-5m away) Chunnel Pitch to OTR (anywhere in passage) Comms seem to be better at top end (can move farther away than at bottom end)
Without cable:- from top of 3rd to 1st D.time pitch.
Jez & deserted with a T.sack each & left Paul & Ju to derig d.time - Wookey did chunnel pitch, squeeze, 3rd & 4th, becoming utterly festooned as zero T.Sacks present. P & J had similar probs & requested help via radio. Julian came amidst incredible abuse :- the airwaves positively crackled !
All staggered out under mounds of gear & went home. Pete & Wook 4.5 hrs
+
+(same trip as 1990-161-42 on 90.08.07 PaulS guessed)
Well, yes, that about says it all. God, isn't rope heavy.
Juliette useless at remembering things; head of first Dreamtime pitch totally collapsed just as Paul derigged and stepped off it. - Ju.
6 hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-07
+
Jeremy Rodgers, Andy Waddington, Julian Todd, Peter Swain,
+
161 - Down Squeeze Up Dreamtime Sherpa
+
+Second Account
This write up is going to suffer from a lack of definition of the boundaries of the domains of one or several simultaneous and vaguely coordinated trips. If you think what you did sounds enough like what we did at about the same time, you could try adding your name to the list.
Well, it all started with the novel experience for AW of walking up to 161, with caving gear and by the proper path. Once he had worked out what all this funny shiny SRT was supposed to do (roughly), AW set out to follow Jeremy down the entrance pitch. Ignoring the crowds taking the piss just because he had both Claude loops and a cow's tail clipped in at the top he plunged on into the depths apace. Ah, well, not very apace actually. Come on you stupid bastard, FEED ! Well, that sums it up, really, lots and lots of wingeing 'cos the rack won't feed, and Waddington has basically forgotten what to do in the dark.
By the time we reached the squeeze, AW was almost back to being a smoothly functioning entity - at least he got through the squeeze faster than Jeremy. Then a guided tour of the phreatic level until we found an enormous mound of tackle bags. Oh, shit, I remember now ! But by this time there is no escape. Paul and Juliette arrived from Dreamtime, and Jeremy set off up.
Why does it always happen ? Just about this time, the little Austrian bastard in the local Geo-control centre turned the gravity right up to maximum and switched the rock into its most greedy tackle-bag snagging mode, having first ensured that mud was nice and evenly spread over everything. Ahead, Jeremy is grunting and muttering, but Waddington becomes obscured in a small pulsating blue cloud. Only the occasional arm or leg emerges from the sphere of high-density profanity. It just happens that swearing at inanimate objects is Andy's favourite way of passing the time in a cave.
Of course, even with gravity turned up full and the cave echoing to novel new combinations of insults to tackle's parentage we get to the top of Dreamtime where Waddington staggers across a loose, avalanching boulder slope, wondering "I wonder where that traverse line goes ?". Its Jeremy's turn to shout and winge and enquire whether Waddington isn't slightly put off by the 30m drop just to his right. "nah, seems alright to me...", stagger, crunch, BOOM!, teeter, etc. Up the second pitch surrounded by people with radios in all directions, mainly trying to account for missing cavers before they get entombed for a year....
This is where the personnel/trip distinction gets really fuzzy...
A brief episode to retrieve a tackle bag from a place it can't possibly have got to punctuates the bottom of the entrance pitch, then up to the surface (very slowly) to find Jeremy's face leering happily over the edge. Jeremy has a radio and is expressing his great desire to come down and drag some more tackle, but this is tinged with his immense regret that the first pitch is occupied by ascending bodies and he can't get down, so tragically he is obliged to get changed... Much swearing from below... Much giggling from above... Much milling around on the surface... Much wittering from emerging knackered cavers on the first pitch.
Jeremy sets off to walk down carrying a load the size of Rover's trailer, while Matt sets off carrying the drill, which is an error, so he has to go back. Eventually back to the car park and down in still vaguely working Waddo-wreck so Jeremy can take Rover up for everyone else. Everyone at base camp seems to be tremendously pissed. Wasters ! hours. Andy
Francis & Matt are cold in top camp. It is the day for derigging. Francis sez "whoz gonna help me derig Adrians" Matt sez "yer". Off we go. Francis the pitch he wanted to push & the rest of 130m rope. God it's heavy. Matt forgot a tackle sack. Matt derigs the traverse & the pitch anyway. F tosses a tackle sack down Ntrance pitch. It hits a hitherto undiscovered flake. F***. Matt is happy, so is F.
Francis T/ug 3.5 hrs, Matt T/ug 6 hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-08
+
Paul Smith, Juliette Kelly,
+
Surface - 161c
+
+(Date guessed)
And the rain came tumbling down - The aim
To paint 161c on French entrance and gloat
To derig Docharty's Crawl. And remove Paul barriers with a lump hammer.
To survey 161B->161c
I think we destroyed the Docharty bullshit about the crawl, as Paul fitted through.
Long walk - do cave - nasty crawl - nice formations - fun sliding, nasty walk out up ice slope with one jammer - Matt twists other ankle on walk down. Getting dark - arrive late at Top camp - eat Vestas.
+
+
+8th day of the month of August, Year of our Lord MCMXC
Paul and Mike go poke down a hole "WINDED HOLE"
Stepping over several turd filled holes with Andy, we examined a hole near top camp, with a newish bolt but no number. Rattly shaft with various entrances. Paul winded himself by falling about 10cm [might be 10m, Ed.] (159, I think)
[small sketch]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-09
+
Julian Todd, Tanya Savage, Tony Rooke, Paul Smith,
+
Tourist - Mammuthöhle & Dachstein Eishöhle
+
+(Date guessed)
A suitable wind-down before returning to the caveless wastes of Denmark. Mammuthöhle is well worth the entrance fee. _Enormous_ phreatic passages the diameter of Knossos which charge through the hill made us realise that 161 isn't quite in the Austrian big time. Yet. Eishöhle also good value, but much more breakdown. And the ice covers up all the rock. Grrr. Pretty though.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1990-08-11
+
Andy Waddington,
+
Surface - "Positively the last chance to paint a number on 100" trip
+
+Having finally fixed the brakes on the Green Death Machine _and_ found some paint, Waddington burned up to the car park, then up to Top Camp in 24mins 28sec (is this a record?). Finally, after 13 years (!) got a number painted on 100. Also painted 159, then searched for B10 and B9 again, failed again. Sauntered over to 80 and refreshed its number. Searched for 84 for ages, gave up - gave 100 a second coat ! Searched for B6 and B5 unsuccessfully, then found a BIG entrance with no number visible. Descended the entrance, found various ways on, one DRAUGHTING shaft looks interesting. No footprints (probably means nothing at this depth). Only 5 mins from Top Camp - worth a look next year ?
Sauntered along the west rim of Kratzer looking for A1, B1-3 etc., but found nothing except a very impressive choked shaft with an apparent phreatic tube leading off. Climbed in, then scrambled down a snow slope to find a lack of ways on, except a narrow way down a snow-choked rift.
Eventually sauntered down towards Bräuning Alm where the number on 96 looked a bit faded, so I refreshed it. Trogged across to Bräuning Kunntal and up Sommersitz planning to saunter down to the Bergrestaurant, but things went horribly wrong.
This path pops out at Augstsee by which time (it was downhill) I was running. Unfortunately, I got carried away, and ran up the path to Loser. By the top of Hochanger, sanity prevailed (and so did aerobic wipe-out and general sugar deficiency) so I sat around and took piccies and decided to forego the final stage to Loser. Sauntered along the ridge until it was mainly downhill again, pausing for photos at Loser Fenster, then ran all the way to the car park. Drove down to road test the brakes - no problem overtaking ouigees.... Give me a beer...
Del Robinson, Juliette Kelly, Julian Haines, Jon Williams,
+
1st expo caving trip. 1991 !!
+
+Thursday 4th July 1991 T/U : 3½ hours
Del, Juliette, Julian H, John
Initial exploration of 'Puffball' 182
All walked up from base camp with kit, then caved. Spent ¾ hour or so finding a route across limestone and bunde to the hole and building cairns. Fairly loose boulder slope into cave below snow at the entrance. Quite a loose rift continues and can be traversed high up. A ladder was fixed to indicate the way on, but it is easier to climb down and only use the top 6 rungs or so. Sharp narrow rift continues for 10 mins to a 10m (?) pitch. Short bit of rift at the bottom to top of next pitch (not rigged). Juliette and John surveyed into the cave.
Wookey, Iain Miller, Henri Welbourne, Gill Lindsey, Mark Scott, Julian Shilton, Ian Harris,
+
161 - 1st rigging in trip
+
+
Wook, Iain, Henry, Gill, Mark S, Julian S, Ian H \---------v--------------------/ \--v--/ Team A \------------v-------/ team Team B C T/U: 9 9 9 7 5 5 0!
Rigging in to 161 finally begins: Iain finally managed a decent job of the second pitch, rigged down to halfway down hole in the roof but bolt was terminally rusty, Iain's hand hurt and Henry was tired so we went home.
Mark S, Julian S & Ian H all arrived as we descended. Ian had no hat & light & so went home. Gill got left behind with Mark & Julian adding a bolt to eyehole & went out with them - getting strung up for an hour on the entrance pitch.
There were 2 more pitches then in the topo down dreamtime which caused some problems with shuffling ropes. Iain put in another bolt on the handline climb !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-05
+
Mark Dougherty, Fran Lane, Paul Smith,
+
RIGGING DOWN 161C
+
+mark rigged down the French pitch, mainly using their spits - which had been missed by most people last year. Y-hang at far end of pitch head beyond large boulders c 10m with deviation to point where rift doubles back on itself. c 15m of abseiling down sloping ledges to point where rift drops into a much larger one. 5m to deviation on far wall, 10m extra to rebelay then 15m to floor. Pitch lands adjacent to cubic boulder (The Dice) in France. Just below last rebelay is large phreatic tube heading off towards French Connection II rift.
Mark attempted to rig down large hole beyond the Dice - Roll of the Dice - which is undescended by us. Abject failure when driver head sheared off. Gentle exit with Fran getting used to Austrian rebelays.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-05
+
Tony Rooke, Jon Williams, Mark McLean,
+
Pushing trip down Puffball
+
+
When we began the pushing front was the top of what came to be called 'Shell Pitch'. We bolted this and abseiled down. It was a lovely pitch, spacious and deep. At the foot of it we found a short streamway (10m) leading to another pitch (to be called Q8, pun on Shell) and descended to the very end of the rope. With the knot in the rope end up against my Stop, I swung around trying to place a decent bolt for a rebelay. Eventually I managed it and rigged another rope onto it. However, time was running short, so in order to get out before the light failed completely, we had to turn around leaving a rigged but undescended pitch !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-06
+
Mark Dougherty, Fran Lane, Ian Harris,
+
161c
+
+Started rigging Roll of the Dice, problems again with a different bolt driver.... Found a French bolt and attempted to rig off this, but the bolt was poor and is in a crap place. By then Fran and Ian were both v. cold so an exit was made. T/U 4 hours.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-06
+
Del Robinson, Juliette Kelly, Julian Haines, Mark McLean,
+
Puffball
+
+
Mark rerigged the pitch after Shell Pitch then continued down a clean washed waterfall type pitch. Several rebelays/deviations were put in his route. This same shaft was followed down until it eventually ended with a very small route on; probably c 50m. By going up around 7m and penduluming across into a narrow rift, another pitch was found but not rigged. Quite a cold trip, too many people and too few bolts to drill simultaneously !
There is a possible lead through a rift to the right of the pitch after Shell Pitch (3rd pitch). A shaft continues down after a short distance.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-07
+
Gill Lindsey, Jon Williams, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball and Icing Sugar cave
+
+Tony wanted someone to go surveying with him & Jon, but somehow we got Gill instead. We went to the "bottom", looked down a hole partway up the shaft and slung the end of the rope down off a dodgy-ish natural. Unfortunately it got nowhere near the bottom. So we gave up on that and started surveying out. After about three pitches, it emerged that we couldn't possibly survey much more and get out in time for our call out, so we gave up and left.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-08
+
Gill Lindsey, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball and Icing Sugar Cave
+
+Decided I like the cave, so went back (minus Jon who had damaged his knee), to do some surveying and push the hole. Surveyed for five (yes, 5) hours and got to the bottom of the first rope. God that rift is awful ! Then grabbed some rope and hangers and a bolting kit and continued on down. The hole continues down to a ledge, by a small chamner where a trickle enters high above, where a rebelay was needed. Being lazy, impatient and short of time, I rigged the world's worst deviation which fell off when Gill got on the rope. Never mind. Explored along nasty rift (tip: keep up on hands and knees) - "Tarzan's Folly" - and finally emerged in an impressively high blackened chamber - "The Dark Room". Called Gill to come and look, then got stuck getting back, eventually emerging at 23:15 - call out was 23:00 - Ooops.
Anyhow, Tony, Iain M, Jon and Andy A arrived at about 23:30 and seemed mostly relieved.
Boozied on down and played drills re-rigging the third pitch in a fun manner - better but not perfect. Carried on & added a traverse line then re-rigged hole in the roof. Iain's hand had exploded so he went home. Mark & I carried on & rigged as far as the head of Knossos. Decided to come out rather than make it overnight. Got burned off by Mark on the way out. Grr. Managed 9 bolts on one battery.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-09
+
Mark McLean, Julian Todd, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball and Icing Sugar Cave
+
+Oh no, I'm getting keen on caving ! Due to rain, no one except me got up (except Mark S who just made a paella breakfast and went back to bed). Then Ian H, Mark M and Julian T came up from base camp. Ian's gear was at 161, but Mark M's was at 182, and Julian's was in his rucksack, so that decided it.
Anyway, we went down to the 3 rope protectors, one of which had exploded in front of me the day before, and put in a bolt to try to remove the rub - failed, unfortunately ! Went on, and Julian put in a bolt on the ledge and then we clambered into the Dark Room, followed slowly by Mark M, cursing his tackle sack in Tarzan's Folly.
The only obvious way on (and probably only possible without aven bolting) is parallel to Tarzan's Folly, and is a rift with several levels, ending at a pitch. We slung a 19m rope down, which was too short, so I added a knot pass, then Julian found a 46m rope in the bottom of the sack, so we rigged the pitch and the next one with it. The upper one we've called "Natural Redundancy", due to the obvious natural 6 inches from the bolt, completely unused. The next pitch is the "Cyclotron" followed by a very wierd rift with tippex pretties, called "Quark, Strangeness and Charm", then scrambling down to a 15-20m pitch into "Cloud Chamber". Julian's watch gave this chamber a depth of 175-200m below the surface. Hurried out to try to catch the last of the daylight and got out in 2½ hours. Walked back in the dark, and then down to base camp to repair my shredded oversuit.
P.S. Don't rant about pushing without surveying, as I went surveying the day before and I'll be back !
_Note_: In a fair rain, Puffball was wettish, but showed no sign of being dangerous ! [but see next trip !]
[2 pages of sketches]
+
T/U: 10.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-10
+
Wookey, Henri Welbourne, Andrew Atkinson,
+
161 - Go to Burble
+
+Go to Burble
Finally reached Burble - Henry fell off traverse by SC36 & bashed chin but survived. Andy was left to bolt the big pitch while Henry & Wook attempted to survey the crawl. When geraldine ran out of welly Andy took over survey notes, whilst Wook went on to do more rigging. A bit of nasty animal rigging got him down to the floor (p38 ish) lots of phreatic maze at the bottom, mostly glacially filled - but with one draughting 20-30m pitch. Stupid place to find cave ! t/u 15
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-10
+
Tony Rooke, Del Robinson, Julian Haines, Juliette Kelly,
+
Puffball
+
+
Tony Del [big cartoon] Julian H _Juliette_
11 -> 9½ = 10½ hrs
On an overcast day the trip began in the light of, I quote [from previous trip, Ed.] "In a fair rain puffball was wettish, but showed no signs of being dangerous".
Rowdy riggers Kelly and Haines wham in 7 bolts (hand drilled due to technophobia). Haines manages to knock off all but one tooth of the spit using fat bastard lumpling hammer.
Sleazy surveyors Töny Melöné and Del-a logus-legman take on the records bottom of shell pitch. Töny's keen eye and Del-a Microdiagrames bounce on down for 5/6 hrs [small graphic]
At the end of their rope, and still without hearing the 'Sleazers' we decide to tie the ropes together. Lady incomptance suggests this:- [graphic of two linked figure-8s, total length > 1ft] (Do _knot_ do this.)
[the Dougherty supervariation is:- [graphic of a reef knot with two stoppers, and a dirty great "safety loop" on the downward side. allows you to undo it]
After 15 minutes Juliette is down and Julian is tacking - Fat Knot Fruity - with some flow of suitable abuse.
Meanwhile the surveyors can hear us coming back up the rift .... or not .... the thundering increase, even Del knows Juliette's knot that fat .... and are running for the rift, sit and whatch a fountain emerge from the top of pitch.
Having also heard this gradual roaring build, dared not mention it to each other not wishing to induce panic
\|||||/ -PANIC- /|||||\
Julian by calmly proclaiming that he might start going up and Juliette by plastering herself against the wall and preparing for certain death in the form of an Indiana Jones style tidal wave (with rocks) [almost certainly]. It's arrival was in fact a slight anticlimax in comparison to this.
_Advice box_ In this situation have a code of shouts or whistles because once the flood is upon you you will hear precisely fuck all.
Meeting Del and Tony was a relief, especially as Tony had a waterproof oversuit and was made to go last and prussik _in_ the water.
In summary, from the top of 'Traditional Style' pitches to the entrance after 3 hrs torrential rain are possible, the rebelays and deviations are out of the water. But you will be _totally_ soaked.
Below this the water can only _increase_. The mud mark on the rift above Thundering pitch is half way up the rift. So the answer is :- Only go in clear not thundery weather. Rigg _well_ out of the water.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-11
+
Mark Dougherty, Mark Fearon, Julian Shilton, Paul Smith,
+
SURVEYING 161C - FRANCE & RIGGING ROLL OF THE DICE
+
+
Mark F, Julian and I surveyed down to France uneventfully whilst Mark D rigged Roll of the Dice and below. On the way down, Mark D & I entered the large phreatic tube just below the last rebelay. Surprisingly it was virgin - sloping down the bedding steeply to intersect the boulder-floored rift at the base of French Connection II. After a trip back to the surface for some rope, Mark D traversed across the rift into a continuation on the opposite side - this section was not virgin, with a single footprint visible, but the route up and the person responsible were not obvious. Virgin section is Robinson Crusoe passage, continuation is Man Friday Passage. The [??] chokes quickly but draughts strongly - probably underneath the Rabbit Warren.
Whilst we surveyed, Mark D had rigged Roll of the Dice (a 35m pitch with 3 rebelays) to a 20m pitch to a hading rift (undescended).
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-12
+
Mark Dougherty, Jon Williams,
+
Puffball
+
+Push at end of Puffball got off to a poor start at the planning start. We had two hangers and very few spits. This was solved by carrying down lots of LADDERS (hee hee !) and making some rope slings from a knobend of SRT rope.
Arrived at the end after 2 hours of steady caving and rerigged the last pitch which had had a knot change on it. A nice natural belay got us down the second half into a small chamber. From here a small 10' drop leads into a largish passage. This ended in an area of breakdown where a 20' ladder was used, popping out into another shaft series. Our second hanger was used to keep the ladders out of the water; we left "Traditional Style Pitches" still going. T/U 8½ hours
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-12
+
Julian Haines, Mark McLean, Julian Shilton,
+
Surveying trip down Puffball
+
+
Started just before the Darkroom, went along and down a couple of pitches. It was boring, cold, crap. Never mind.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-13
+
Andrew Atkinson, Julian Haines, Mark Scott, Julian Todd, Mark McLean
+
Surveying pushing trip down Kaninchenhole. S'not pitch and Burble and beyond
+
+
+This was really two separate trips which interacted. We set off together. Mark S. and Julian H. surveyed S'not pitch. They surveyed from the lower Y-hang bolt on the 2nd pitch via S'not to a red spot below the squeeze, past the campsite.
+Meanwhile Julian T., Andy and myself pushed on down S'not and on to the start of Burble. Here Andy wanted to try a short climb to see if there was any useful way on that possibly by-passed the Burble crawl or else led to new cave. We placed a bolt for protection and eventually managed to gain a shelf. From here a climb up boulders led to tight, sharp passages that seemed to go nowhere. About 20' above the shelf a passage led off seemingly parallel to the Burble Crawl. However climbing at at least HS standard would be required to reach it, so we certainly weren't going for it without sticky boots and dynamic ropes. We fixed a rope up the climb. Anyhow we then went on through the crawl and down the Burble pitch, rigged by Wookey. [Where the last rebelay fell off just as I (Andy) passed it.] At the foot of this is another pitch as yet unrigged, probably about 15m and then choked. Also are at least two horizontal ways on. We went on opposite the pitch into a maze [the lead mine] of walking passages. There are still possible ways on here. We eventually reached a large chamber on the scale of Big Sainsbury's. We checked out quite a lot of ways on from here but have not yet got any definite way on. A return is certain !
+Time was getting on and lights were failing so we turned back. At the foot of the Burble we met Mark S. and Julian H. who gave us their surveying gear. They then went on to the chamber while we surveyed between the top of a pointy boulder at the foot of the Burble pitch (about 8' right of the end of the rope)(carbide mark) and a ceiling pendant at the entrance to the chamber. We surveyed our route through the lead mine (so-called because the entire survey was done on 1 cm of pencil lead) and some of the dead-ends off from it. While we had been doing this, Julian and Mark S. were pushing a pitch in the big chamber. We met them in the chamber and swapped Andy for Mark S.
+Mark S. Julian T. and myself then headed out doing a spot of surveying en route. Meanwhile Andy and Julian H. descended the pitch and found it to be choked at about -15m [now known to be Endless]. They then also headed out.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-14
+
Olly Betts, Wookey, Andrew Atkinson, Ian Harris
+
Derig Dreamtime
+
+Tipping it down so after too much festering decided to de-rig Dreamtime so as to at least do something useful. Checked out a potential cave on the normal path up, as it had water going down it - moved a couple of rocks and sent Olly down - it went about 3m.
At Khöhle showed Andy & Ian H a Q.M. at the start of D.time & told them which bit to survey/resurvey then went back to go down S'not. Much fannying about & ridiculous climbs down holes failed to find it, so we had to get Andy to show us.
Olly looked about 15m down a hole at the first corner in LH route - goes further (maybe another 15m) Wook look down grade 1 bit where Dave H & Animal had been - looked different - went further than Animal but apparently not as far as Dave - gave up at squeeze over block that would require gear removal.
[grade 1 sketch]
Then we derigged dreamtime & got a very fat baggie which we left at bottom of entrance.
Ian & Andy started bolting QM but it was too wet so did a bit of survey & left.
Attempted to rig Dungeon, but difficult lots of ice, no sign of previous bolts, probably under huge pile of snow @ the bot of the 1st pitch - aborted this + went for a tourist to dreamtime & hole in the roof - put in another bolt @ the bottom of the 3rd pitch to pull the rope onto the edge.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-14
+
Wookey, Olly Betts,
+
Derigging Dreamtime
+
+After Wooks and Ian H had carefully put in lots of nice bolts, Fran goes & finds a better squeeze bypass and so team Charlie have to go pull the rope out again. On the way (having failed to find Snot until Andy showed us) we poked down a hole in LH route (goes down until free-climbing seems v dangerous) and crawl nearby (looks nothing like Animal's or Dave H's sketches). Then pulled D.T. apart.
Started bolting in Dungeon @ the bottom of the boulder slope in Big Sainsbury's. Got two bolts in. I went for a wander underneath some boulders and told them I'd found a four second pitch, hummm !!! so Iain went down having rigged off a large natural thread. Realised that people had been there before and having discussed it with Del realised we'd found the squeeze bypass and had dropped into the LH route close to the old camp. Went for a tourist - rigged SNOT pitch - Iain was blowing his nose down it - rigged the chunnel - went as far as bungalow - my light died - Iain + Del went as far a Knossus came back. Dels light had died by then so all three of us came out on one light which made life interesting !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-16
+
Mark Dougherty, Julian Haines,
+
pushing trip down Puffball.
+
+Perfect weather, bright blue sky, no chance of flooding. Original plan was to push the end of Puffball as far as possible, and do as much surveying as possible, ie. a long trip. However, shortly after entering the cave, we discovered that we had about ½ a carbide stinker between us (mine was completely knackered and Mark's needed flicking). We decided not to go to the bottom (as lighting my light from Mark's would be very tedious and there was the possibility of complete failure of both), so we pushed the lead through the rift above 'Q8' pitch. After a short rift section, this opened into wide shafts, all clean washed. These we rigged as far as possible on naturals (since the bolting kits were at the bottom of the cave!), but after around 30m (?) the naturals ran out. We surveyed back to 'Q8' pitch and then came out. This lead looks very promising. It is longer than any other route before the 'Dark Room' and may well provide an alternative into the lower levels of the cave.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-16
+
Andrew Atkinson, Julian Shilton, Mark McLean,
+
Kaninchenhole - Pushing-surveying trip down Burble
+
+Had a luverly time scrambling around in a maze of passageways leading off below the burble pitch in the opposite direction to Repton Chamber. We eventually worked out that Wookey had been there before and that it was possible to crawl/walk/traverse in a loop from the chamber. We also found a pitch at the end of a muddy passage with a 6" deep pool of water in it. There was a stiff breeze blowing up from the pitch so we rigged it and descended (with some fun caused by Andy's lousy rigging RANT !) to a continuing maze of rifts and passageways. This is still going strong and deep with at least one tight but deep pitch to be descended. On the way out we surveyed our loop.
Also we had a go at a climb at the head of Burble pitch. In true caving style I sat on the pitch head assuring Andy that I would jump off if he fell and thus limit the fall to FF1. He climbed up a rather cruddy mud covered passage to a dead-end. The longed-for Burble by-pass continues to evade us !
Elevation of bottom of Exhaustion
[grade 1 sketch]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-16
+
Wookey, Gill Lindsey, Henri Welbourne,
+
push and survey Burble
+
+Gill & Henri both desperately keen to go caving so I took them to show how awful it was. Henri came to her senses & jacked at the top of boulder alley.
Gill & I continued & met team Burble A surveying a new conncetion to Exhaustion pitch.
We went to Boulderdash & poked around & fettled Gill's carbide for about an hour - too full error. I find an 8m climb down through boulders under a drip to a severely draughting hole behind some rocks. These were small enough to move so I did & zoomed down some stomping passage - but it choked after 2 zigs (20m) turned round & wondered about draught so went back & following breeze led through 'obviously choked' bit to a sizeable room. This is a gaping QM. T/U Wook:15 Gill:15 Henri:5.5 (Jacker)
[sketch]
Also poked obvious passage at end 'A'
[sketch]
Needs surveying & is sufficiently complex to need more thorough checking.
There is also a hole in the wall about 10m above A but it is pretty thoroughly inaccessible !
Surveying the chamber (called Boulderdash in survey - but now Repton). Climb down to pitch end needs some sort of aid on it cos its bloody hard.
Went out & surveyed Vom pitch on way out - to connect lead mine survey to Burble crawl. Called Vom as Gill felt ill all the way up.
She was totally shagged on the way out. Good but slow trip. out at 04.30 for dawn. T/U Wook:15 Gill:15 Henri:5.5 (Jacker)
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-17
+
Wookey, Julian Haines,
+
surveying, ladder de-rigging Puffball.
+
+
After a thunderstorm just before lunchtime the weather cleared so we went for it. Wookey's first trip down Puffball (excl. brief look to top of first pitch), so nothing much happened as far as the "Dark Room". Then .... "Oh bloody hell, ... not again"; the flood pulse hit. We sat around for about 20 mins or so, had a nose down a bit of rift the other side of the 'Dark Room', and then decided to get out while we could, if we could. It was very wet, very very wet. 'Bottom Bypass' was very wet. 'Q8' was incredibly wet, disgustingly, unpleasantly wet. 'Shell pitch' was wettish. Both of us were very cold by the time we'd got out. Oh well, perhaps we'll manage to avoid it happening again !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-17
+
Paul Smith, Mark Dougherty, Penny Reeves, Tony Rooke, Hugh Salter,
+
"survey" + "Pushing" trip down France
+
+Entered cave at 2.34 (Pauls timing). At 2.40 someone turned the taps on, whilst Penny + Hugh were still at 4th + 2nd rebelays respectively. Little dangerous at first as loadsa loose choss brought down. Everyone down OK except by now cold + wet + windy.
As water showed no tendancy to drop, thus making the object of the trip unattainable, a retreat was proposed, seconded and carried unanimously. But first we took photos of the dice, of Belgium and of the phreatic tube (nice bit o'cave that). Also found a miserable bit of sideways crawling in mud and Mark went up the slope at the back.
[grade 1 plan labelled BCRA: -5]
Thence out, pitch OK in terms of safety by now but very cold hands all round. Marks footloops broke on the way up, which elicited absolutely zero sympathy.
+
T/U: 4.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-17
+
Mark Fearon, Iain Miller, Jon Williams, Fran Lane,
+
Niflheim rig
+
+(Date guessed)
Went down thro Butcher, Baker whilst Iain M rerigged Snot for a while. Mark had a few problems finding bolts - got as far as Niflheim which Iain M rigged when Mark bottled out sat in a pool for 1½ hrs whilst people pottered down there trying to find the rebelay. Came back out again with another dead light. Iain M made sure I wasn't in front of him - only I sussed rebelays on this trip @ last !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-20
+
Julian Shilton, Andrew Atkinson, Henri Welbourne, Fran Lane,
+
Eishohle
+
+(Date totally guessed)
After a sweltering heating daying walk (? - my brains gone !) we eventually got there. The crawl had iced up for the first time in years made it nice and slidey - got to where the pitch should be + there was a massive pile of snow which came as a surprise to hans but he rigged it anyway - using thin cord in a single fishermans as a back up + an overhand for the actual rope but we went off it all anyway. Fairly amazing stuff certainly the time to get used to crampons landed @ the bottom of a 50m pitch in a massive chambers with all this ice Hans was going round manically on his crampons occasionally Andy followed but only armed with iceaxes. Lots of ice incredibly pretty + fairly amazing stuff crawled up a hole + found another entrance normally closed. Andy went up unroped we however didn't follow + went back the other way had a few problems going up the slope ended up with Hans practically dragging us ie. bring as many jammers as possible very useful stuff also lost a few peoblems - me twice - Julian - 5 times including twice @ the top oh dear - get ones that fit - well made it out eventually ! Went two ways back Henri with Hans whilst me, Andy + Julian bubderbashed + limestoned our way back up to 161 + back - fairly knackered by now - not surprising really !!
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-20
+
Olly Betts, Julian Shilton,
+
Toddle Around Big Sainsbury's
+
+Ian H told us there was this big hole near the top of Dreamtime ("What ! Another one ? Never !). If we were feeling bored we could even go down and have a look. So off we ambled. Cave entrance - Faff faff stall (Do we really have to go caving ?) Finally summon the energy to do down. Make our way slowly to this amazing hole that Ian H and Andy have already bolted (olly - Christ, these bolts really are shit !). Undaunted by such things as almost zero rigging gear and almost useless bolts Olly lemmings off the pitch head and whizzes to the bottom of the rope, pausing only briefly to use his spanner cord for a deviation, only to find that the rope doesn't reach. Surprise, surprise, another sodding great hole that goes down long distances. Got bored and ambled slowly towards the entrance. Surveyed this bloody pitch to the (wrong) bolt on the 3rd pitch, derigged 3rd pitch. Then Olly decides to fetch the drill battery from the bottom of S'not pitch while Julian pokes around in the hole in the wall at the bottom of the 2nd pitch. Result ? Ten minutes later Olly returns to find Julian wedged tightly in some ridiculous rift that goes off long distances but is only 6 inches wide. (Sodding cave; pitches too big, passages too small). Julian swiftly extracted and by now bored cavers wander slowly out. Passage apparently runs parallel to Rabbit Warren. There may be a way on but lots and lots of boulders.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-20
+
Andrew Atkinson, Fran Lane,
+
Prospecting up Hinterer Schwarzmooskogel ?! All day !
+
+(Date totally guessed)
Found quite a few holes only major one was just below the summit terrified myself climbing down a 50ft ladder above a snowplug + loose boulders - refused to jump down the extra 4 ft needed to reach the bolt rerigged + sent Andy down went another 10ft below snow still plugged could be very big tho. so named 161d - thus giving us the highest entrance !
_To_ B Zinken 236½° _To_ Hinter SKL 37½°
About 5 mins from the summit down grass deer path on RH side of main (from top) gorge in bunde. Two large holes.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-20
+
Henri Welbourne, Fran Lane,
+
Prospecting
+
+(Date totally guessed)
Sent Henri down a few holes - yes I don't go down ladders unless forced ! Two 50fts going nowhere one 5m below 161c - very obvious once you remember where it is otherwise it takes 1½hrs ! Also a 50ft just below 161a ending in a 20ft high chamber. Lying by entrance pitch - mysteriously found Ian H gear there who knows why maybe thats where he disappeared to ?!
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-20
+
Wookey, Andrew Atkinson,
+
check out LH route
+
+As the Left Hand route had kindly been rigged for us by Mark F & Iain H we decided to get on down & have a lok. Finished & improved Niflheim rigging - but needs at least a deviation out of the water at the top.
Rigged on down into Time Dilation, p6 with totally shit get on/off. Then climb down to short p7. Both these have been left rigged so you can get into LH route. French connection has also been rigged so D&S will also get you there.
Gave up on roof bolt & wazzed down on natural to poke whilst Andy finished off bolt. Pushed a very unlikely tube & finally dropped into Wobbling - hooray - didn't have to go back up Niflheim if it rained (which it did as soon as we started the survey). Had compass failure after 9 legs so boogied on out.
Andy reckons he started up Knossus at 02.00 - I reckon he did it at 02.29 - he got out at 03.10 - I had a baggy & got out 05.03 he took 1 hr 10 - I took 2 hrs 20. After waiting an hour & 20 mins at the ent. (04.30) Andy decided I had died & called out Mark S, Olly & Tony. I was thus somewhat surprised when people turned up at 5.45 am - apparently to go caving ! There was much ranting but I had 2 hours to spare on my call out so I maintain it wasn't my fault - I can't help it if Andy is [illegible], although quite where the extra ½ hour went in Knossus I have no idea.
+
T/U: 15.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-21
+
Andrew Atkinson, Tony Rooke, Mark Scott, Henri Welbourne, Fran Lane,
+
France rig, Survey
+
+Surveyed down from the dice thro 2 pitches, Tony felt crap [quite literally] & went out followed by Andy + Mark S. Me + Henri kept surveying a while but got bored + went out. Mark had started to rig 4th pitch with a lot more possible ? + depths beyond - didn't bother derigging until the day after. [continued later]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-21
+
Andrew Atkinson, Tony Rooke, Mark Scott, Henri Welbourne, Fran Lane,
Pushed France down yet another pitch with several leads on which weren't descended because we had no rope. I descended the 4th pitch to a ledge with about 20m of pitch visible below through a squeeze bit with a way off to the right & left and at the top of the pitch a rift going 2ft so heres a sketch (grade 1)
[a grade 1 elevation]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-22
+
Mark Scott, Julian Shilton,
+
Derig France
+
+"You're lying around the campsite festering. Bugger off and get the rope out of France." "Sodding hell. Do we have to ?" "Yes. Bugger off." Normal boring derigging trip. Forget grease, fetch grease. Whizz down to bottom, prussik slowly out - Prussick, prussick Sod the tacklebags caught again. Free tacklebag prussick prussick. Repeat until caver gets bored, and then about ten times longer. Aargh. End result the air is turned completely blue as caver gets within six inches of last rebelay (France - whole armies of rebelays lying in wait for naive speleologist. Has anyone else ever noticed how there always seem to be more on the way out than on the way in. I always lose count - seemingly around fifteen. Anyone ever wondered how many different types of bolt there are in the world ? You find out down France. The bastard that rigged it made every sodding rebelay too tight. Hours staring at all the different bolts. Your dreams become filled with bollards, simple bends, rings and clowns all laughing at you. I swear there's one type that moves round the wall. Coming down - nice ledge in just the right place. Going up - shit my feet are six inches above the ledge and two feet further out ! That bloody clown's laughing at me again. Its the eyes following you around that really gets to me though.)
Tacklesacks - bastards. Hate cavers. Refuse to go down caves. Hate it when you try and take them out again. Bastards. Nothing more to say really.
One more thing. Left campsite at noon. Got back at 9:10. How long is the walk ?
Survey calibration cairns - survey bottom of Snot pitch - derig rebelays at bottom of Niffleheim - discover and survey Trehala (off Black Logoon) - improve grade I survey of Hellgrind to grade II - survey Time Dilation and Ambidextrous - discover Repton drops into Hyper-Gamma spaces - derig Burble pitches and put fixed rope on Repton - remove Burble tackle to bottom of Knossus and tie to rope - exit v slowly - die on entrance pitch.
God it was awful ! What heroes we are .... trumble ... 'spose it's my own fault for having the idea in the first place. Oh hum.
P.S. We used every rigged rope in the cave except the one on French connection !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-23
+
Julian Shilton, Tony Rooke, Mark Scott, Fran Lane,
+
Knossus derig.
+
+(Date guessed, and Julian guessed)
Derigged Knossus wandered slowly back because we were all knackered 'cept for Amrk Scott. People had fun going up S'not pitch - Abandoned tackle sacks @ the bottom of the entrance pitch for hauling the next day.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-23
+
Andrew Atkinson, Wookey,
+
Puffball derig - 1st Wave
+
+Henry & co came back from eishohle reporting thunderstorm the next day (afternoon) so it was obviously necessary to derig puffball immediately.
Andy & Henry volunteered for 1st team but it was reckoned that Henry dragging a baggy all the way from the bottom would have an unfairly hard time so that meant Wook or Olly: Wooks had had 2½ hours sleep since getting out at midday so he got the job,
Went to go caving before realising that I had forgotten my oversuit. Met Tony halfway back with oversuit (& wellies !). Underground by 10.30 (pm)!
Zoomed down to the end to laugh at ladders. Too many tacklebags and too much gear made for a slow exit. Met Henry & Olly at 1st pitch. T. Bags were bastards, esp. in Q.S.C. & Tarzan's Folly. We were so fuckin' 'ard - shifted about 40 kilos of gear out (& my bag was heaviest). Buy some small T sacks next year. Oh yeah ?
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1991-07-24
+
Henri Welbourne, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball De-rig - Second Wave.
+
+Got on second trip since I'd had ½ hr sleep when wave one (Wooks + Andy) left camp. Set alarm to 5pm & got awken by Hen at 5:30 am. Suffice it to say that ... God it was awful ... what heroes we are ... etc....
+
++ Andy Fran Henri TU 0 hrs but a hell of a lot of hauling
Everyone being crap, so I foolishly agree to do it. Sit in Wookmobile II in Loser car park in pouring rain and eventually go for it. Got drenched by the time we arrive at Top Camp - drag SRT gear to cave, descend into river down entrance pitch - hide carbide and tie ropes to hauling line, shiver a lot, prussik up and realise that the grease is on floor 20ft below curse and decide to ignore it. Curse continuously up and meet Wooks on ledge (stranded now, having no-geared down and Andy + Fran have deserted for Top camp. Finish prussiking & lower gear. Wookey enjoys my foot loops, cows-tails, etc. which are big for me. Feel hypothermic, until Wookey lends me some dry clothes - opposite problem to him using my SRT gear - and we go back to base. God it was awful ..... and so on. Wookey : ½ hr - (if you can call it U/G !)
Mark McLean, Julian Haines, Matt Keeling, Alistair Morris,
+
Puffball
+
+Caving at last !! The first problem that was presented to us was how to get in. The winter snow fall had not fully melted and the entrance appeared snow plug. There was the possibility of gaining entrance down the side of the snow just to the left of the cave number. So we placed a Hilti and dropped down a ladder. This provided a way into the main hole. Some digging provided a route into the passageway into the cave.
Since last year it appears that the roof has fallen in and there is a new hole in the roof <-- Bollocks ! Look at the survey fellas... The boulder choke is very loose and should be descended with caution.
Once we arrived at Shell Pitch, Julian and Matt went ahead to start rigging Piezo. Mark and I began to re-rig Shell Pitch but due to a slight misjudgement we only had one hammer with us and were unable to dress the rock properly. This will be re-rigged next time we go down, hopefully.
On the traverse to Piezo there is a move over a deep hole which should be hand lined and possibly explored. Julian had rigged the first part of Piezo too a long free hang. We descended this but found that rigging the next pitch would be difficult avoid what could be a large waterfall and as our side of the cave was not vertical. The other side is overhanging and should make an excellent place to rig, but unfortunately it is virtually impossible to reach, let alone to drill a hole. After some looking we spotted a good ish rigging point, again it was somewhat difficult to reach as a traverse out was required and then the rope just pulled you straight back.
Matt at this point was feeling very cold and decided to leave the cave. We then started rigging a descending traverse from the top of the pitch to reach this point. After 3 bolts we were tired and decided to come out. We're not far from reaching the good rigging side - next trip we'll get there.
+
+Re-rigged Shell Pitch, placed a hand line over a large hole before Piezo, also spit placed for exploration. Carried on pushing to Dark Room (hopefully) - more epic bolting. Rebelays removed down first pitch of Piezo so now there is a straight drop to a shelf half way down the pitch. From there is a upward pitch leading to a hole in the opposite wall. Then a descent down a pitch the other side of the hole in the wall is currently halfway through being rigged with two rebelays to reach a free hang for some distance. This route keeps the caver out of any water. Many bolts were placed and removed to reach the route. It rained whilst we were down the cave and we didn't notice at all.
T.U. = 9½ hours.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-03
+
Mark McLean, Julian Haines, Alistair Morris,
+
Puffball - Crow's Nest
+
+Piezo goes through to the Darkroom ! The hole named Crow's Nest led via 4/5 rebelays (2/3 hanging) to a 34m free-hang into the darkroom. This free hang ends up in a waterfall coming into the Darkroom, therefore we rigged a second route, a dry route, through an eye hole through the side of the wall of the free hang. This provides a nearly totally dry route to the Darkroom. The whole pitch from the Crow's Nest to the Darkroom is about 60/65m. Once we had reached the Darkroom we had little rope left so surveyed the pitch on the way out.
T.U. = 11 hours
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-03
+
Matt Keeling, Glen Long, Julian Shilton,
+
Puffball
+
+Went down to inspect a hole near the top of Piezo. Found a ~10m pitch - called Brute Force, and a 35m pitch, called Ignorance. Ignorance is a dead end, but has a hole about halfway up, which may go.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-04
+
Glen Long, Mark McLean,
+
Puffball - Chimney
+
+Carried about 200m of rope through the Darkroom to the rigging front. Re-rigged the Chimney on a longer rope and used the excess to rig a traverse line through the Darkroom and the first section of the rift to Redundant Natural. We also re-rigged Redundant Natural on one rope rather than two, and placed a deviation on the second part of the pitch.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-04
+
Matt Keeling, Julian Shilton,
+
Puffball
+
+Tried to rig hole ½ way up Ignorance. Eventually leads into main route, probably at top of Dot-to-dot. Left rigged until it can be surveyed. WARNING - do not prussik up bottom section - freeclimb instead.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-07
+
Mark Scott, Clive George,
+
Puffball
+
+After everybody else jacked for various reasons, we went caving. We touristed to the top of Natural Redundancy and then left, having admired Mark M, Julian H & Ali's hanging rebelays. Up & out, and home - we were tourists & we don't care.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-07
+
Mark McLean,
+
Kaninchenhöle
+
+Went down to get as much as possible of the co-ax out. Rigged in as far as the third pitch, but unfortunately I didn't know where the rebelays etc. should be so I rigged it completely crapply and had zillions of rubs and abseiling on single crap bolts. Basically I didn't enjoy it at all, and I was wearing dry grots and Julian's gear so I got cold and wet and thoroughly pissed off. Eventually got about 200m of co-ax out and prussik out just after my 2 hour call out had expired !
+
+Pottering about trip. If you follow the roof in the entrance rift, you eventually come out over the top of Shell Pitch. Ignorance comes down by the question mark in Dot-to-dot, and should be rerigged since the rigging wasn't designed for people to actually use it. Ho hum. Went and saw the Darkroom. Came out.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-08
+
Matt Keeling, Julian Haines, Alistair Morris, Mark McLean,
+
Puffball
+
+We rigged in to the Navigational Limit and pushed the end. Abseiled past the last of Dokertee's ladder bolts and via a deviation to avoid water to the foot of the pitch. Then we walked down a length of rift (10m) to the head of another pitch. This remains to be rigged with the 200m of rope we now have at the pushing front.
The problems came on the boulder slope on the way out. There's a big boulder jammed across the entrance boulderslope, holding back a terrific weight of piled boulders. This boulder is resting on a pile of other shit that gets eroded with every person leaving the cave. As I was climbing over it some loose rock fell out from under it and this big (3' cube) boulder subsided slightly. This scared me a lot. Julian was behind me, he chimneyed up beside the boulder without touching it and then climbed up the boulder slope. As he climbed past me more rocks fell out from under the big boulder and it subsided by another 2".
Anyhow we got out okay and considered ourselves lucky. The entrance is now definitely unsafe and I will not be going down it until it changes. T/U 14 hours.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-10
+
Olly Betts,
+
Puffball -retrieve glasses
+
+I decided that far too much ill-informed bullshit was flying regarding the Puffball "Rolling Stone", so went prospecting with Glen and Julian S via PB to retrieve my glasses and some gear. Decided a quick look at the boulder was in order, so I donned my oversuit over my shorts & T-shirt and with Julian's helmet (he has a laser) I descended and inspected the boulder and the rift for a while. Gingerly kicking the two rocks produced no movement, and after a little more contemplation I decided I was willing to go and retrieve the drill if this would be useful. I carefully left and found a pair of caving gloves I had dropped down the side of the snow plug last year ! Then we went prospecting, refound 90/14 (=184) and Glen fell down thru' a snow plug and dislocated his shoulder.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-10
+
Andrew Atkinson, Jerry Williams,
+
161
+
+Went to rig upto Knossos, we rigged top pitch. Jerry left tackle sack of rope at top so had to go back, I needed the practice. Went to Big Sainsbury's then rigged S'not pitch. We could not find the second rebelay. It was supposed to be a natural. Jerry rigged the last section which made it go to Knossos.
After Olly's trip saying Puffball was alright <-- "I never said it was alright - I said I was willing to go and get the drill if it would help in making it safe, 'cos in my opinion, if it fell, the rift would slow it enough to get out of the way in time." I went down to play pulleys ropes and stuff for fifteen minutes to sure it wasn't. Olly was in fact wrong <-- "No, 'cos it didn't go down the slope so I was, in fact, completely right" and after putting a bolt in I reached down to put a tape round the offending rock, and when I had my arms in the boulder slope erm, erm well anyway about 2 seconds later I was four foot further down the cave thinking - 'well that went remarkably well didn't it', 30s later I had really bad shakes. We then wasted some time trying to pull rocks down from the surface with pulley and loadsa people <- complete waste of time. Andrew and I then spent the next few hours kicking shit down the cave. It was dead dull and knackering, much like prussiking with someone throwing rocks on your head.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-11
+
Julian Haines, Richie Perotton, Aggy Finn,
+
Puffball
+
+Having sorted out the dodgy boulder slope with Dave and Andy previously, it was time to go caving again. As we got to the cave cloud rolled in obscuring all visibility and it started raining. Decided to come out in daylight in case visibility continued to be crap. Laid cable for some time until about ½ way down Cloud Chamber and then ran out of cable. Continued to bottom of Cloud Chamber then turned around. Meanwhile surface weather continued to deteriorate to the point where it became much wetter underground. Cyclotron was fairly wet at the bottom and Natural Redundancy less so. However, the wet weather route from Darkroom to Piezo turned out to be really good, only a bit damp on the lower section above the eyehole. Arrived on surface in pouring rain, so changed at top camp. Very hard work finding way across plateau in darkness and poor visibility.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Tina White, Mike Richardson,
+
Kaninchenhöhle
+
+After two years wondering about whether it went, we returned to the boulder choke at the end of Gnome Passage off Dreamtime. In the interim it had collapsed a bit so we had a quick look and decided that being Austria and not (say) Mendips, it was (a) too much like hard work and (b) too dangerous. However, on the way in, we had noticed that the rift in the middle of the passage at the start of Dreamtime was now accessible, a load of crap having disappeared. Rigged a rope from a very large boulder and a thread and descended below a large piece of hanging death. Established that this is not part of Bullshit Alley, but goes back under the rift sort of towards Alternative Shopper (but as far as anyone can remember, nothing breaks into Alt. Shopper). Needs to be explored 'cos we buggered off out. This bit is called "Deep Sleep" (ask Tina).
PS: Rerigged entrance pitch properly but pitch 2 is a big improvement.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Richie Perotton, Jerry Williams,
+
Puffball - sumped
+
+After finding a complete set of borrowed gear for Jerry having spent several fruitless hours looking for Kaninchenhöhle & Jerry's gear, we finally descended the entrance at 15.15 with the intention of finding Mark M etc. at pushing front. Descent was extremely uneventful reaching pushing front to find the cave had "sumped out". Met Olly and Julian S on way out. Carried battery for drill up Piezo causing massive distress to wedding tackle.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Julian Haines, Aggy Finn, Matt Keeling,
+
90/13 aka 183
+
+Didn't get underground until 4 ! God we were crap. Entrance is a 'tight' (well, for Julian at any rate) squeeze past a boulder and into a hands & knees crawl for about 10 ft. Following the fault line, sliding over loose boulders, after ~30 ft we reached the first pitch, around 10 mins, and while I faffed on the rebelay, Julian got the first bolt of the next pitch in, but for some (still) unknown reason, the cone was knocked too far into the spit, splitting it. The next bolt was also a no-hoper. Next we kicked 12 ton of shit down the pitch. The rope led down about 2m - almost a free climb - across a ledge littered with boulders and then to the floor of a rock covered chamber with a little waterfall, (which probably looks fairly impressive in the wet). A small slot under one wall led to the third pitch - still to have a rebelay placed. The way on at the bottom of this is a small hole leading into largish rift.
I'm crap and can't remember the names - but we do have some (honist) - so Olly can't get his warped imagination out of here.
Alistair Morris, Clive George, Fran Lane, Mark McLean,
+
Puffball - muddy crawl
+
+A couple of days before 600m of cable for radios had been laid down the cave. Then Julian carried 200m of rope to the pushing front. Only one thing could happen next - we found the sump. We rigged two pitches after Traditional Style, the second of which was disgustingly muddy and ended in a sump pool the size of a dinner plate. Yuk ! However, this may not be the end because above the sump pool there is a muddy crawl going off for some distance. It is below the high water mark of the sump pool and clearly sumps when it rains, but none-the-less will probably be pushed on the next trip down there.
We found:
[grade 1 elevation]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Olly Betts, Julian Shilton,
+
Puffball - Aqueous
+
+Didn't get underground until 22.15 (beat that Matt). Resurveyed entrance then went into cave proper and surveyed from ladder to just before 1st rope pitch. Met 6 people who were all coming out. Got yummy illuminated compasses to do rift section. God, so nice. Other set too shit ! A clino that sticks 90% of the time, a compass with no line on it - Accurate survey city ! Now to survey properly. You have a rift that's narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. Very wide in places. Positively capacious in fact. Ol: "I want to survey along the roof if I can". Point is that Julian is very crap at wide traverses. Ol: "It's easy that bit. You just put one foot on that blank wall there and stretch across to that massive foothold only 6ft away. It's huge. It's at least an inch across". Julian S: "No". Finish surveying 04.30, Bored now. Go down to see what Brute Force does. Get to top. Lift up drill battery and massively lose interest. Olly tries his footjammer out up Shell Pitch. It failed. Get out 7.15. It was raining. Again. Solidly. Heavily. Aqueously. Pissed down. Pissed Off. Very Pissed Off. So we pissed off and woke up top camp. Then we pissed off to BA and sat in the potato hut.
PS. What do you call 2 ageing Austrians who are walking across the crapper in the pissing rain and mist at 8 am carrying umbrellas ? We didn't know either, but if you can think of something tell us, 'cos when it happened we were far too knackered to think of it.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Gill Lindsey, Wookey,
+
Surface survey
+
+Surface survey from top camp -> col
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-14
+
Andrew Atkinson, David Fearon,
+
161 - pipeless
+
+Finished rigging to Repton. Going up other side of HG discovered some fool (Wookey) had not put the handline on so there was an epic get off. This ruined our original plan of rigging Exhaustion so we had a look at another lead. Tried surveying but clino died. So went and found a big chamber, Satan's Sitting Room. No rope so gave up and came home.
T/U 11½ hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-16
+
Henri Welbourne, Andrew Atkinson, Tony Rooke, David Fearon,
+
161
+
+Once upon a time in the west four intrepid cavers went a cavering. One by one they assembled around a hole in some limestone. The 3rd born donned his suit of armour and clutched his sword before leaping fear(less)/(full)y into its mouth. After battling with its sore throat he leapt, fought and once again cried.
Three followed slowly.
They stopped cause they found a small and insignificant reason to go no further. They were as apathetic as a six shot revolver. They threw rocks and bolts.
They descended Garden Party fearfully.
Dum dee dum. Niflheim [This is disinformational, Ed.]
Love Dave T/U 10
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-16
+
Richie Perotton, Alistair Morris,
+
Puffball - Brute Force + Ignorance
+
+The intension of our trip was to go down Brute Force + Ignorance - push the (?) and survey it all. What happens was that we went down Strike 2 - which will go I think, - it's not too tight - there's another pitch beyond. We started surveying Strike 2 not knowing where we were going eventually dropped the pencil, got cold + tired so left 100m 9mm at Dot to Dot to push (?) and came out - sorry
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-16
+
Julian Haines, Wookey, Gill Lindsey,
+
Puffball
+
+Intention to get to bottom and survey out, checking leads on the way and hopefully finding they don't go. Wooks + Gill much impressed with the new Piezo route and wet route rigging, but those enormous hanging rebelays knackered Gill out. (How about a smaller loop next time?). Much spagetti junction.
Anyway Gill wimped out at Traditional Style and solo-ed out. Julian + Wooks checked out muddy crawl above the sump, which goes to another sump. Then they de-rigged last 2 pitches and brought out x'00's m rope. There is a lead off Delicate Sound of Thunder, passage on left leads to "Honeycomb" (lots of phreatic maze) water coming down a small hole; mud pools; passage to a pitch above a pool. God I hope it doesn't go.
_Geology_ : Many pitches obviously on a fault line between the grey shelly limestone (huge bivalves 6" across) and a sandy coloured rock. The grey one is the one that doesn't bolt easily. Often see offset of beds, eg. a ~horizontal dark shale bed. Some pitches along a wide fault zone, at least 2 faults 4 foot apart. Whole cave is developed along same plane - see Olly's survey rotating.
T/U 8 hours (Gill) 11 hrs (Julian & Wookey)
Took 5 hrs to get baggy bastards out and we went incredibly slowly by the end. Wooks threw up 3 times on return due to de-hydration. It was shit.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-16
+
Aggy Finn, Glen Long, Clive George, Matt Keeling,
+
Puffball - Moose Trap
+
+Rigged 2 more pitches in Moose Trap, one goes through a tight hole in a boulder slope.
T/U 7hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-17
+
Fran Lane, Mark McLean, Matt Keeling,
+
Puffball - Moose Trap - Surveying
+
+Surveyed all 5 pitches of Moose Trap
T/U 5½ hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-17
+
Olly Betts, Julian Shilton,
+
Puffball
+
+Went down, came out. Joined up surveys of QS&C and below. Also grade 1ed the bit off Del Thunder.
T/U 9hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-17
+
Andrew Atkinson, Wookey,
+
Puffball - Surface survey
+
+Surface survey Puffball (182) to 183 & 184
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-17
+
Mike Richardson,
+
161 - Deep Sleep
+
+Nobody else wanted to go down 161 so I was forced to go alone into the depths of 161, to see if Deep Sleep went anywhere. Well, after 4 bolts it didn't !! For 161 this is positively amazing and stunning !! On the way out, has a look at the passage at the bottom of Pitch2,m [might be p21m ? Ed.] it has a 2 second drop at the end. Came out to loadsa sunshine.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-18
+
Mike Richardson, Wookey,
+
161 - Deep Sleep
+
+"Want to go down 161" says Wookey, so "OK" I says. (a) Went and surveyed Deep Sleep (b) Went and looked at Gnome passage; Wookey pushed the r/hand branch to a pitch so surveyed most of it (c) Shifted the co-ax down the squeeze and (d) Buggered off out to daylight
Julian Haines, Andrew Atkinson, Tony Rooke, Mark McLean,
+
Puffball
+
+Combined photo and derig trip.
We all went in together, took photos at : Puffball rift; Shell pitch; New Battery Rebelays; Cloud Chamber; NDE. Then Andy and Tony went out and Julian and I began derigging. First we checked the various holes emanating from the hole in Delicate Sound of Thunder. Olly had pushed one of these to a pitch, without his SRT gear on, but we couldn't fit wearing ours and so decided that it was clearly far too tight and ignored it. We derigged NDE, Cloud Chamber and Natural Redundancy, plus the Dry Route parallel to The Chimney. Half the resulting rope we took out and half we left in an utterly knackered tacklesack at the head of Piezo. We also got out all 600m of cable and carried out the drill battery.
ANYONE GOING DOWN TO DE-RIG FURTHER WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE DOWN TWO EMPTY TACKLESACKS.
The Dark Room has been derigged so the Chimney rope can be pulled up from above. Have fun on the rebelays !
+
+Went up to Moose Trap. Rigged down to rift (can't remember no. of pitches). Found cut in rope just where we were to rig at top of pitch. Rigged one other small pitch, which promptly collapsed to a climb. P9. Rift, tight and horrible.
T/U 6hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-22
+
Andrew Atkinson, David Fearon, Wookey,
+
161 - (Repton) Garden Party
+
+Boogied on up to KH efficiently early with drill and gear with intent to finish off Garden Party and way down to Pipeless to sump and push.
Plan failed as Garden Party went huge and we used up baby drill battery on 80m of rigging down two shafts. Somehow we didn't intersect with Powerstation - what the hell is going on? Had a good wander round connecting rift and 2 parallel shafts. Andy was ill and after surveying 1st bit went out. Dave and I surveyed out all the new stuff - really satisfying. This cave is ridiculous (again) (Andy) 7hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-23
+
Julian Shilton,
+
Puffball
+
+Went to fetch my gear back from Puffball for the great Eishohle extravaganza. As me Aggy Clive leave top camp Andy shouts "You could get the rope from Shell if you want to fetch it." Bugger that thinks I. As I wander I dither etc, and when I reach Puffball decide OK. I ought to then. Go back to Top Camp, get carbide etc., go back. "It's somewhere at the base of Shell" says Andy. Back to cave, get changed, down I go. Hum ti tum rift bashing god its boring bottom of Shell - No rope. Go to top of BFI - still no rope. I can't get back up the 8ft climb unaided so can't go any further. "Oh bugger" says I "I won't be able to take 2 full tacklebags of rope out of that bastard rift. Shucks!" Out I troll. God Puffball is boring fifth time around. Mind you, my Macsuit is still in one piece tee-hee-hee
PS I tried to help derig honest
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-23
+
Jerry Williams, Wookey,
+
161 - Pipeless push/survey
+
+Got up later & then only underground by 2.20. Gave Jerry a good tourist trip on the way down - he was stunned by the sheer size of KH. Staggered all the way to Repton [this was originally typed in as Pipeless - its almost illegible] with a borrowed York rope, to find some more there - bum, needn't have bothered. Had a look at rock in my question mark and moved part of it but decided too dodgey to move other half. Then trundled all the way down Pipeless to Satan's Sitting Room. Rigged down pitch & found a bit more cave at the bottom, including Silent Fellow, a chamber with a pitch out of it (but very chossy) prob 30m. Then surveyed out. Pipeless is very windy & bloody freezing. Trailed back to surface with some hangers and Mike's rope. Satisfying, efficient trip. Jesus what a lot of cave.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-24
+
Tony Rooke,
+
161 - France
+
+Rigged in to bottom of Roll of the Dice, but could not [find] last rebelay and could not be bothered to put in a new spit so left all the gear there approx.- 4 hangers, 2 tectors, 1 bolting kit, 2 tapes, 60m of rope. _Warning_ top of roll of the dice wants another tector or preferably a rebelay - rope can be obtained by removing the clown well back from the top of pitch. Also for the first few prussiks up from the freehanging rebelay in Francophobia (one with tape foot sling) rope rubs, but I have now tightened the deviation so I don't know if it still will. Caving is _ace_ best trip I've had in months, ran back to top camp because I was feeling so good and Gill who saw me thought there must have been an accident.
+
+I can't remember what happened, so I shall make something up. The battery was heavy. It was heavy on the way to the cave. It was heavy in conjunction with a light tackle sack. It was fucking heavy in the full tackle sack and a drill.
So, I went dangling with gear, strewn with expensive dead weight across dubious traverses down dubious climbs and across f'ing unlikely chocked boulder floor things. Thus, standing at the edge of Cat Litter, I clipped in and descended, slammed a bolt in the wall - I thought about using my hand driver but thought that I ought to use Mark Mileing [??] battery. Descended loads, Andy followed and said Hey up gus [??] its some gear tape. And thus realised we were in known cave. We then found some rope. After toffee eating we lugged heaved hauled and surveyed. Laugh.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-25
+
Aggy Finn, Jerry Williams, Wookey,
+
Sonnenleitenschacht (Sun-ladder shaft)
+
+Up at an unreasonable hour (5.30) to meet Austrians at 06.30. Long, hot, fast walkin. We were shagged. Fortunately caving was much easier & we were suitably boggled by fairly mental shaft series down to -368m (p20,p93,p19,p10,p53,p88,p57). Nasty tight rift halfway down.
At bottom is some horizontal cave with mega-slippery mud. Did a bit of surveying but bottom pitch was too wet so had a look at rest of cave, ending at a big shaft (surprise surprise) got a rope to enable Rob to do traverse round pitch-head to find miles more cave- prob nearly 300m to a big rift pitch & shaft down to streamway. Fucking brill - and we didn't even have to survey it. T/U 7½hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-25
+
Olly Betts, Julian Shilton, Richie Perotton, Fran Lane, Clive George,
+
GRUBSTEN WEST-WANDHÖHLE 1625/351 - An Eishöhle near Bad Mitterndorf
+
++Hans, H's son(Manfred), another one + Günther (Austrians)
Preparation started early for this one : packing rucksacks the afternoon before!?! What, CUCC getting organised? Fortunately we were able to disprove this by having a 21st birthday party the evening and before, and various of us bivvied coz it was nice, despite knowing that the Austrians wanted to meet us in BM at 6.30am. We made it, with Richie's epic driving, 2 mins early.
So here we are at the top of the toll road (another one). Olly improves our organisational record by having no crampons, and the Austrians had no spare set. They did say they might tho'). Hans sez an ice axe is good gear though, so off we walk to the cave.
Plan: 1hr walk to cave, 2hrs cave, 2hrs walk back across the plateau then bier in a caff.
Results: Austrians lots CUCC 1 Where did we lose?
First game: Rucksacks. We had traditional cavers rucksacks with lots of gear. The Austrians rucksacks looked like they would struggle to hold a walkman, let alone full caving gear.
2nd game: Hangover (some of us). Imagine going Sunday caving (albeit with dry gear) at 6am, after a late nite sess at the Hill Inn. You don't, do you? You go to bernies and fester lots and groan and maybe walk round Yorkshire a bit. Not walk up a mountain led by hyper-fit Austrians who say 10km is 1hrs walk easily. With caving gear. On nasty scree slopes with goats throwing rocks at you. "See the hole in the middle of the cliff there? That's it". While changing, my oversuit did a tumbling boulder impression. I didn't really want it to fall all the huge distance down the scree slope. I like grass: it stops things falling.
3rd game: Odd gear. Hans' furry - unpacks from his tiny rucksack along with oodles of ham sandwiches, wurst etc (slavering english had no breakfast) a furry. Imagine camo pattern, 'cept in bright colours. That's it. Hans' son's undersuit - looked like black bubble-wrap? Ho hum
4th Game: We won (what - FESTERING of course). Various light fettling, hangovers, generally being slow.
5th Game - Caving (yes now comes the important bit). U go down the obvious cave, then crawl a tiny bit (austrians are hard, they don't need kneepads. Fran and Richie do, tho'). Out again a few metres later. A through trip! Down another cave, amusing fixed ladder with lots of bolts & wires holding it together. Perhaps a leetle bit over the top. Some rocks, then crampons on for a toddle down a nice ice slope. Watching Olly fun, as Hans walks him down (Ol's foot resting on Hans' etc). Squeeze at bottom of ice would be awful except ice is v. slippy(!). Then some real caving. We wandered round lots of big bouldery passage, being shown all the leads & being out caved in a miserably easy cave. Günter had a trick of being behind one minute, then you see him next in front. OK, he did find the cave. The walls were all light coloured mud, making the big spaces quite bright for a change (cf puffball any [?]). It's a big cave : 10km, 400m deep & we only saw the top bit. Beautiful sail like piece of really blue ice somewhere we saw. Eventually after wandering apparently randomly exeunt cavers. Out, change. Hans showed us (in the cave) a passage which went up, and said "We found the hole in the top by surveying it underground, then walking 350m from the campsite & saying 'Yes it's here'". Why can't CUCC surveying be this good? Anyway, we have to climb horribly steep chossy crap bit of mountain. I scared. At the top, a football pitch sized bit of grass. Flat! Their campsite - amusing camping - they have to carry all their shit up, but a helicopter delivers barrel of beer and cakes.
Walk back across plateau - real Totes Gebirge - grey and white, no bunde for miles but little grey plants feeking [?] around. Shown some big holes & people drool etc. - one is a big hole near the path with a cross/memorial on the other side of the path from the hole so people fall down it on the way to see it.
Vaguely tropical once in the plant level again - clear lake below, beautiful colours, plants with really bright colours all round.
Then to a Gasthof for a yearned-for drink & home.
Summary: don't go caving at 6am with immensely hard Austrians who are really good tourist guides (the day was really interesting despite the fact I felt a complete ouigee) The End
P.S. Richie and Fran stole Aggy and Jerry's shorts on the way out the A's thought this was funny. There seemed no point in nicking Wook's shorts tho.
P.P.S. Guess whose light failed despite it being a club FX2 and whose replacement carbide was shit also?
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-27
+
Wookey, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball - Derig
+
+Wook checked out QM's down Chimney : Just extensions of rift. Had a jolly time de-rigging, especially Crow's Nest which was epic. Ol tried a couple of bits & ticked off a QM leaving one crap one. Decided to head out with 3 baggies as 6 would be stupid.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-27
+
Sam Lieberman, Gill Lindsey, Rachel Hunter, Julian Shilton,
+
161 - Dungeon
+
+
Someone finally rigs Dungeon ! Get down, find Dungeon (not that simple, once we went down 2nd pitch). Spend such a long time trying to put a spit in, Gill offers to "nip down S'not and fetch the drill". Off go Gill and Rachel. 2 hrs later, JulianS & Sam finish messing about, go down the pitch, and decide the best way is to rig on through an eyehole. Rig the eyehole. "Can you hear a whistle Sam ?" "Don't think so". About to go down. Hear six whistle blasts. "Oh, SHIT !" Never prussiked so fast in my life. Sam in front, races down S'not. Horrible thoughts of stretchers and falling boulders. Major relief when its just that Gill has been strung up for 1½ hrs. Ends up with Sam undoing the rebelay so she can get past. After this, nobody feels like much more caving, so exit all.
+
+Tony (the hard caver) had been down a few days before to rig this, the most superior of pushing fronts. Sat in the entrance waiting until our bodies had cooled to a temperature that would allow the brains' thought channels to open. At this point Tony's brain (not unexpectedly) told him caving was shit (a true fact) but we continued. Beautiful wizzy pitch. Then at the bottom of Roll of the Dice 'BELOW' I tensed and waited for the clack to come. Nothing happened. Began to relax. Wack, Oh no I am falling should not have let go of the rope. Why is my stop not working. Ah let go of the handle. 'STOP' thats better, bollocks, who put that wall there. Ouch ! Zip. Next thing I know I am at the top of the next pitch been ill again. Never mind lets continue. At last, the pushing front. Wander up and down, traverse across, Tony has a go. Time to rig the Crash, Oh no no again I'm falling. Where has that 6ft by 1ft shelf I was standing on gone. Went down Toothless, put one bolt in using 3 spits, got psyched so left.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-28
+
Wookey, Olly Betts,
+
Puffball - derig
+
+Went down BFI. Got very cold surveying it & Ol rigged down to Strike 2 to force 'too tight'. Little pitch and some stuff. Derigged most of it but had to give up to get back to camp in time for slideshow - only 2 baggies this time.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-28
+
Fran Lane, Jerry Williams, Mike Richardson,
+
161 - France
+
+Zippo down to where Tony and Andy jacked out. Fast descent aided by several french bolts until (with only just enough rope) we dropped into a huge (well, pretty huge) chamber. Poked around, found several ways on (one bolted), and left, 'cos Fran/Jerry wanted to go to the slide show.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-28
+
Sam Lieberman, Julian Shilton,
+
161 - Dungeon
+
+Go down to survey Dungeon. Descend pitch into second chamber on yesterday's rigging (note, take a rope 'tector). Survey. Find the way on, and a Zoom which must have fallen down the entrance.
T/U 6 hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-29
+
Wookey, Andrew Atkinson,
+
161 - Hyper Gamma Spaces
+
+Went down with Andy and Wookey to HGS where we left them to rig a tyrolean (inadvertantly stealing the bag of gear they needed). Missed directions to Exhaustion (?) and ended up in Pipeless, but found ~110m new passage and another pitch. Surveyed out. I was knacked.
Wook & Andy - discovered Wook's filled-in Q.M. going to Pipeless - ticked off 2 QM's !
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-29
+
Mike Richardson, Sam Lieberman,
+
161
+
+SAM/MIKETA go somewhere else
[and don't write up their trip at all, even though Mike remembered it in 2009 when it wasn't parsed into the troggle database]
Our lonely intrepid explorer made his way to the cave. He entered thinking of the absence of annoying friends. He came upon a drop with badly buried rope. He fearlessly pounded upon the rock eventually it gave way. The rope was claimed. I rigged the first three belays on tape - such delight - never before had I had so many tapes - oooh the benefit of being a facist thieving bastard. Bolt, bolt, bolt, bolt yawn loadsa pitch.
Bollock Bollocks, it stops. I don't fit. Aahh but no. It goes so squeezesque* lovely. Then rift, then maze, then pitch. Yawn bolts.
* Millenium Falcan -> squeeze bit * Yoda -> mazey bit * Androids -> pitch
+
+Faffed measuring Puffball ropes & eventualy went once it was too hot. Nice 1st trip down France, if a bit drippy. Faffed somewhat surveying down to impressive space at bottom. Also arsed about with rigging in largely vain attempt to improve it, after dire warnings about ropes too short, spits shit etc. Had a good poke round in chamber and found some scrotty stream cave with lots of water in it before boogying out. Took ages to get out, & then we got lost on the way to 161a & I ended up taking 40 mins & going via Vd1 to get my bearings - doesn't limestone look like limestone a lot.
My attempt to go on the ouigee trip largely failed as we were still eating tea at 2 am.
Nice bit of cave though, and having possibly reached the phreatic level it should go like a train.
[grade I sketch of chamber]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-30
+
Aggy Finn, Jerry Williams, Andrew Atkinson,
+
161 - Repton
+
+Jerry & Austrians arrived @ Top Camp 8:15. After waking up, got down cave by 10:00. Went down to Repton, Pipeless & to top of Satan's Sitting Room. Robert strung a type of traverse over a big hole (6' long) & Jerry, trusting Robert, went first. Drilled 2 holes above new pitch, while Jerry went to Repton for rope. Sep/Robert wanted to see daylight, so we left for the surface. Robert & Jerry went ahead (Jerry behind !). They were far enough ahead to suspect they had got lost. Fran on surface, with already changed Robert & Jerry. Humans Aggy, Andrew, Sep 7½hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-07-30
+
Clive George,
+
Puffball
+
+(has no friends, sob)
Joined the ever increasing gang of solo cavers to look at crawly bit at bottom of 183. Yes, it goes, but it's shit ! Very Mendip crawly (eastwater ?) follow stream, small climbs occ. all in an angled rift (or fault ?). A bit mazy so if one way doesn't go another will. Scared after trying to descend climb head first with crap hand holds, so got out.
Then go to Puffball to retrieve bags of rope JulianS went to get, but Olly & Wooks had got before. Found this out descending 8ft & 10ft pitches at beginning of Piezo "but I'm sure there's a rope here normally". Climb out just, exit, fester a while in sun & met callout 3 hrs early coming to rescue me. scary sometimes.
Tony Rooke, Gill Lindsey, Rachel Hunter, Sam Lieberman, Tina White, Mike Richardson,
+
161 - Dungeon
+
+Photo trip/pottering. Some photos of 2nd pitch from Big Sainsbury's, showing eyehole from entrance and boulder slope down to S'not. Sponsorship photos on a high slab in Big Sains - having a brew not 20m from the bottom of the 2nd pitch. Trangia works really well underground; brew good moraliser. Then split 3 parties: Mike + Tina more B.S. photos, Sam + Tony down to Dungeon to inspect leads, Gill + Rachel down S'not to explore ?'s and go touristing. Explored uphill from bottom of S'not -> 2 leads (which AndyA and IainM have also been down) choke up, but possible small uphill crawl. Draughts.
Explored holes down right hand fork to Arrow Chamber, without actually getting into the chamber (I think). Rachel scurried down lots stoopy passage/crawls/holes down, some which go quite a way. Worth another look, ie. go towards Arrow Chamber and duck down beneath huge boulder blocking high rift.
Tony + Sam + Mike + Tina proved that Dungeon connects to S'not via a window under a big boulder. 7m pitch at bottom too tight at bottom and choked.
Aggy Finn, Fran Lane, Jerry Williams, Clive George,
+
Surface
+
+/~TU 1hr~\ /~ TU ½hr ~\
Quote "Small depression near 164" in logbook.
Found this cave when prospecting, & found it to be a cavern full of pretty ice. This time brought cameras. Looped tapes over a couple of lumps of rock & Aggy went down. (All were wearing shorts & tee-shirts). Removed SRT gear & passed up to Jerry. Fran descended, then, eventually, Clive. Bloody Cold. Then Jerry. Landing area is sunk in under level of snow, so large kick from side is needed to land on snow. Took loads of pics. Still bloody cold. Came out to heat shock. Best part is it is 10 mins from Top Camp.
No. is 189, name GLITTERSTOMPF.
Prospecting (sometime in the middle) Aggy, Julian S, Fran & Jerry ½ HR
Found lots of holes - generally wandered in the direction of the huge piece of limestone on the far side of the Hinter Schwarzmooskogel (?). Including Glitterstompf, 164, 107 an old path. As suspected, most holes blocked w/ snow but the limestone has lots of biggies - but only had a 26m rope w/ us so didn't go down all. Worth going back to the limestone w/ lots of rope - couple of very large drops. Didn't bother doing more than + the ones that we actually bottomed - headed back to 161 path. Came across a large hole on the hillside - can be seen from the large piece of limestone on the Wook path. Went over snowfield to the top - looked down - saw no bolts although so<?> sany[?] it may be Tantalschacht - needs going down - huge chamber below - very close to path - found an S [???].
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-01
+
Olly Betts,
+
Surface - Various holes: Prospecting, (re)numbering and mobile festering
+
+to 1992.08.05
Found various caves which were already numbered, renumbered 90/1 = 1623/171. Found & numbered 171b (entrance approx 50m away which connects non-trivially). Numbered 189 ("Glitterstompf") with a "-" because although marked with a "+" on the other side, I don't believe you can say it doesn't go when its so full of snow. (Also renumbered 90/13, 90/14 and 90/15 as 183, 184, 185, (183 and 184 on 92.07.17)) Bottomed 4 blind shafts on walk to 182 (Puffball) _&_ marked with "+"'s. Also found 2 going caves. One is next to 189 & is numbered 190, the other marked "CUCC -" 'cos we've run out of numbers. This one is where the 2 Puffball route variants merge/split. A map:
[grade 1 sketch]
This one has a 2 second drop with a rattle for a bit. Worth a look. I'll draw another map when I find the call-out book (it's sketched on the back).
At long last, here's the picture from the call-out book:
[better grade 1 sketch]
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-02
+
Wookey, Andrew Atkinson, Jerry Williams, Aggy Finn,
+
161 - Arrow Chamber
+
+All trailed to end, very efficient - taking only an hour to get to the end of Yapate where we took some photos - Andy being impressed by alertness & capability of his team. (Wook checked out Gill/Rachels bit in LH Route on way down - then popped into Arrow Chamber to see Del/DaveH's QM from a couple of years ago - looks extremely promising and draughting with only a 7m pitch to negotiate.) Took a few more photos in Pipeless & then continued climb in SSR. Aggy volunteered (foolishly) to man the drill & put in another bolt before clipped everything to everything & going for it - he got to a precarious position before running out of cows tail tinsel. He had to hang there for a couple of mins while Andy went along the traverse trying not to pull on the rope & thus Aggy off. Thus released he made the final move & floundered onto the shelf gibbering. Throughout this process 'useful' advice had been given by the 3 onlookers, so the climb is called '3 wise men'. Aggy had had enough after putting in the top bolt so Wook went to have a look & Tony & Andy went to get some gear from Mostly Mud & rig tension traverse at start of SSR properly.
Rather than gaining miles of horizontal passage, Aggy had gained a 1m wide shelf between 2 pitches. Wook abbed down & discovered they connected so put in a bolt for mega swing to gain window across this pitch. This was just poss & this led to a chamber with accessible passage out of it, leading to another big (30m) pitch and a draughting passage. Andy & Wook started SSR survey up her silly rigging whilst Aggy & Tony went to rig pitch in Mostly Mud - fused drill due to shagged cable & trailed out.
Andy & Wook got cold & bored after a bit & went exploring - found heaps of cave, including beautiful big phreas with Jet black floor - pity to put footprints in it. Another pitch at end & then narrower passage to more QM's - ridiculous cave. Too tired [?] to survey on return so buggered off out.
See over for diag. T/U 15 hrs (Wook & Andy) 14 hrs (Aggy & Jerry)
+
+Arrived at Top Camp just as everyone left (I can take a hint) so after sitting in a tent making pancakes in a thunderstorm for the first night I got bored and went caving. Pushed up inlet in entrance slope 'til it got too awful for words (really quite awful, believe me.....), then solo surveyed over top of fisrt pitch to top of Shell. _Don't_ try solo-surveying. If you do, you won't get cold 'cos you'll spend ¾ of the time putting rocks on the end of the tape and walking gently back down the passage praying that it'll stay on. Also a candle makes a good sighting point (lit of course) unless you're in a pitch series. Got bored two legs from end so checked out a daft area and looked at the crawl over the top of Shell. In a maelstrom of ennui I took a bearing along it and went to derig. Derig up to Shell (greasing the bolts !) and finished survey. Entrance rift is paradise with only one baggy. Broke end off tape and dropped ladder spreader and had to go back down for it. That's about it. Oh - exit coincided perfectly with dawn as intended.
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-02
+
Clive George, Olly Betts,
+
Elchfalle attempted survey & derig
+
+After waiting for Clive to appear so I could go surveying with someone to hold the other end of the tape, we finally got down 183 late in the evening. We reached the bottom, I tried the rift downstream & hated it so came back.
NO-ONE SEEMS TO HAVE TRIED GOING _UP_STREAM !!!
Probably fruitless, but maybe worth a look.
Surveyed to bottom of fifth ie. end of last survey, when as Clive was pulling up the pitch I heard water. "Clive, be quiet a mo." Jangle - jangle. "Clive ..." Gurgh, gurgh, _ splosh _ a torrent suddenly appears "Oh fuck !" Clive attemts to cut the rope which had just caught under a rock, as I prussik up the 5th pitch. At the top, paranoia convinces me the water is increasing, so I tell Clive to get up the rope. We exit quickly, astounded that the entire cave is rigged out of the water. Nice one folks ! I only wish Clive would appear before I start worrying where he's got to, but he's sensibly taking it slowly. Ho hum.
+
T/U: 4.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-03
+
Mark McLean,
+
Trisselwand
+
+Got up ridiculously early (7 AM !) to beautiful blue skies, sunshine etc. Drove to Sattel & immediately set off on the wrong path. Having realised our error, we turned back and tried again (the correct path is the left one which is signposted Trisselwand - as opposed to the one on the right signposted Trisselwand !) We then walked along the 233 for a short distance & turned left at the first thing that could just about pass for a path - this again was wrong of course (stay on the 233 until a reasonably sized path on the left - probably the second turning). After about an hour of walking through forests, christmas trees, etc. we turned right into the bunde (again wrong - you should keep on the path which goes down). Eventually, we arrived at the base of the lower left of the two large gulleys in the face - below an obvious pine tree (Wookey). Started climbing at ~11 am by which time the sun was just getting into the gulley. Start at obvious ring around corner from tree - many of these throughout the climb are next to brown/orange splodges of paint. 1st 2 pitches were easy & scrambly but with few places for protection - following the easiest line up. 3rd pitch - walk across to left wall & climb the crack - it would probably be a good idea to belay at the bottom of this (piton) instead of from the top of the second. Protection for this consists of pitons of varying quality. 4th & 5th & 6th straightforward but can't really remember (NB 50m rope recommended/needed for several of thse pitches). Some sections can be done moving together. Eventually arrived below a huge headwall with a large section of loose scree/boulders etc. to the left. Spent a long time faffing around here by going too high - it looks as if you can avoid the scree by doing this but a sheer gulley stops you halfway across. Correct way is to go across to the left & slightly upwards across the scree. This is quite exposed but otherwise not too bad. The point to aim for is a downward sloping slab on the corner of the left wall. There are pitons towards the left wall, honest !
At this point (5pm) Jeremy decided he was suffereing from sunstroke & he wanted to go down. NB there is almost no shade or breeze on the climb so take lots (2 lt per person) of water. Abseiled down as far as second pitch without any problem. I abseiled down to the 2nd and spent ages looking for the belay (someone had moved it around a corner on the right) which Christine then had a minor epic trying to reach. The stance at the top of this is quite small. It was starting to get dark & the first drops of rain from an obvious thunderstorm were starting to fall - all these together resulted in the rope getting horrendously tangled halfway down the pitch. After spending ~5 min attempting to untangle this - hanging at the base of a small gulley - the storm broke. The nice gulley was quickly transformed into a cascade of water, rocks were hitting me on the head. At this point I wasn't very happy. After resigning myself to the fact that I was obviously going to die, managed to move out of the worst of the shit on to a face & spent the next half hour untangling rope and cowering.
Back at the top, everyone else was having a similarly shit time getting pelted with ice and rocks - Christine ending up with a really pretty bruised shoulder. Eventually we all reached the bottom in various states of coldness, wetness, sanity etc. Walked back (right way this time) only to meet the Austrian Mountain Rescue on their way to us - someone had seen lights on the face in a thunderstorm and called them out. They didn't seem too pissed off but they were amazed that we had managed to spend 9 hrs on the face. Arrived back at Hilde's ~ 00.30 to meet the CUCC rescuers (thanks to all involved) who's been driving arpund looking for us before going to call out the rescue.
Good trip - definitely worth doing (quickly though).
Mark T/E (Time epic) 9hrs
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-03
+
David Howes, Julian Shilton, Olly Betts,
+
161 - France - push, survey, derig
+
+Foregoing the chance of the long walk to Repton and beyond, Dave "I'll carry that tacklesack" Howes, Julian "I'm shit at caving, y'know" Shilton and myself opt for France - -300m with 30 ft of walking. We descend, marvelling at the re-belays which have been breeding in dark corners since last year. Just as I begin to wonder if the universe outside of an endless piece of rope with bolts every six feet is a figment of my fudge-fevered brain, we reach Algeria, DaveH: "Would you like to rig while we survey ?" Of course I would. Try to rig a 50m hang on 9mm rope from two I.R.T. placed bolts in two ?tectors. The hang bolt - just to add to my confidence - is in a boulder larger than a house jammed in the rift. Reach the floor thinking that surveying has its attractions. Rig 2 more poxy rebelays to a smaller chamber where the French spits run out. There's an obvious aqueous way on or a "Driller-killer" traverse over the top of the end wall. Both have big drops (2 sec+??). Dave & Julian come down the 50 & Julian gibbers at the rub. He has a point, but I'd rather he told me at the top. Dave looks at the next chamber and we derig. God it was fun. Dave & I emerge to find JulianS has fallen off a (surface) cliff and badly bruised his back. Ho hum.
Nomenclature: Favourites are: "Orient Express" for 50m & "Titfield Thunderbolt" for [this bit off edge of photocopy]
+
+Having failed to find a new entrance on previous day (and narrowly avoided the thunderstorm mentioned elsewhere), we had to go in the usual way to finish the survey & derig. Did this, finding another 2 QM's & ignoring these as we had plenty to do then started mega derig with 2½ tacklebags, the drill, battery and ladder between us. Despite leaving the battery in Knossus for photos, it took 6hrs to get out - we were fucked.
Also changed Strange Upfall rope for a long enough rope (45m) & staircase 36 one as it has been used for 3 years.
1st trip was aborted due to rain, so Clive went back. God this pen is crap. Olly
+
T/U: 0.0 hours
+
+
+
+
1992-08-05
+
David Howes, David Fearon, Wookey, Andrew Atkinson, Henri Welbourne, Clive George,
+
161 - More De-rigging
+
+Uncle Tom Cobbly & all go to fish all the gear out of KH.
Initially:
Team A: Dave & Dave: Tourist to end & then derig Strange Downfall & RH. Team B: Wook & Henri: Survey & derig Bladerunner. Team C: Andy & Clive: Photo Knossos & fish out battery ('Small Paul')
Started off to plan although team photo had probs & dropped a slave down pitch in Knossos.
Much swearing took place below squeeze as Wook-the-ill & throwing [?] resigned & became team derig whilst DaveF went to finish survey & derig.
Team 1 became DaveH & Clive with baggies, Team 2 Wook & Andy ([can't read this]) & Team 3 Dave & Henri who didn't finish survey & still didn't get out till 3.30 am.
Bloody hard work all round (esp. DaveH who did the entrance twice & shifted 3 baggies & the battery !)
T/U: Dave H: 1-10.30: 9½ Dave F: 1-3.30: 14½ Henri : 1.30-3.30: 14 or something Wook : 1.30-11.00: 9½ like that. Andy : 2.00-11.00: 9 Clive : 2.00-10.30: 8½
diff --git a/years/1999/endmatter.html b/years/1999/endmatter.html
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..575621789
--- /dev/null
+++ b/years/1999/endmatter.html
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+
... and that seems to be it. No write up of derigging trips, nor of a
+photographic trip in 204 (Erin and Earl) so the logbook seems to be an
+incomplete record, Webeditor.
+
+
+
+
After bierfest had streaming shits, probably due to dodgy roast chicken.
Dr. Phil gave me a couple of immodium tablets, and that dried me up for the
@@ -1123,7 +1123,7 @@ medicine. Immodium is good shit.
This entry covers two (or three?) days - written as 2001-08-26/28
@@ -1132,8 +1132,8 @@ limestone uphill from the row of Eishöhle entrances. Coordinates and
notes see Olly. Photos of entrances in Martin's and Olly's camera. 4 caves,
232, 233, 234, 235 were surveyed and have been drawn up.
-
This logbook is now pretty much complete apart from a bit of markup
-and a few sketches
-
+
+
This logbook is now pretty much complete apart from a bit of markup
+and a few sketches
![[extended elevation sketch of electrolytic level]](elvl.png)
![[piccy of hole]](/years/1990/sokb.png)
![[elevation showing Foulness, Candlestick, and Afwatt's - since shown that big pitch is not Candlestick, it is Dinorwig]](pstne.png)
![[elevation and plan showing dungeness coming from below afwat and connection back to afwatit - later shown to be a visual connection only (wook & damage)]](pstnp.png)