Rope should be labeled at both ends with "CUCC", the year of first use and the rope length. Where the manufacturer specifies the maximum end of life date, this may also be specified, eg CUCC 2016-25. Rope without a specified manufacturers lifetime, shall be retired after 5 years and one expo. The exception to this is where we have guidance from the manufacturer that the rope will last longer and drop testing results indicate the rope is OK.
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Rope should be chained only when it is washed and checked. Dirty or unchecked rope may be coiled. Rope should be washed, checked and measured at the end of each expo. Ropes should be retired, when they have received a fall with a factor of greater than 0.5, when there any defects detected (examples bottom left corner) or are older than 5 years without a maximum end of life date. The maximum end of life date may be determined by cutting of a section of rope and finding the plastic strip that should contain the manufacturer and date of manufacture. This may then allow the manufacturers guidance to be determined.
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Rope should be chained only when it is washed and checked. Dirty or unchecked rope may be coiled. Rope should be washed, checked and measured at the end of each expo. Ropes should be retired, when they have received a fall with a factor of greater than 0.5, when there any defects detected (examples bottom left corner) or are older than 5 years without a maximum end of life date. The maximum end of life date may be determined by cutting of a section of rope and finding the plastic strip that should contain the manufacturer and date of manufacture. This may then allow the manufacturers guidance to be determined.
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The stress study was part of the new expedition emphasis on science. More than a year before expo, I began to think about conducting the research for my undergraduate geography dissertation on the expedition. The idea of becoming the lone researcher in a den of cavers made me nervous. Then one evening at the pub, Djuke started talking about milking cavers for spit. Whether or not it was drunken babble, she stood by it. I began speaking with scientists who were expo alumni and realized that expo had tremendous unrealized potential for science : excellent infrastructure, undisturbed environments, and intelligent minds. Despite talk of how tradition runs deep and major changes were likely to meet resistance, I encountered only support for my attempt to re-invent the expedition. In hindsight, someone could have pointed out that "The Cambridge Austrian Cave Science Expedition Two Thousand and Seven" doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue.
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The stress study was part of the new expedition emphasis on science. More than a year before expo, I began to think about conducting the research for my undergraduate geography dissertation on the expedition. The idea of becoming the lone researcher in a den of cavers made me nervous. Then one evening at the pub, Djuke started talking about milking cavers for spit. Whether or not it was drunken babble, she stood by it. I began speaking with scientists who were expo alumni and realized that expo had tremendous unrealized potential for science : excellent infrastructure, undisturbed environments, and intelligent minds. Despite talk of how tradition runs deep and major changes were likely to meet resistance, I encountered only support for my attempt to re-invent the expedition. In hindsight, someone could have pointed out that "The Cambridge Austrian Cave Science Expedition Two Thousand and Seven" doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue.
Studying the Microclimate
@@ -35,12 +33,12 @@ Djuke's achievement could probably use further clarification. Spit samples were
Aaron Curtis with a weather station on the plateau. Photo: Andreas Forsberg
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-Polysyllaby aside, the expedition under that name was approved and supported by the University Expeditions Committee, the Royal Geographical Society, the Ghar Parau Foundation and BCRA's Cave Science and Technology Research Initiative. I was fascinated by how airflow, humidity, and temperature were all portrayed as part of one interconnected system. My dissertation, on cave microclimates and condensation, would use an array of purchased and homebrew electronic equipment. I intended to extend the work of other authors who had drawn connections between condensation and cave temperatures. At the club annual dinner, I got a stern look from Martin Green when I flippantly described my project as "buying a lot of expensive electronic toys and playing with them."
+Polysyllaby aside, the expedition under that name was approved and supported by the University Expeditions Committee, the Royal Geographical Society, the Ghar Parau Foundation and BCRA's Cave Science and Technology Research Initiative. I was fascinated by how airflow, humidity, and temperature were all portrayed as part of one interconnected system. My dissertation, on cave microclimates and condensation, would use an array of purchased and homebrew electronic equipment. I intended to extend the work of other authors who had drawn connections between condensation and cave temperatures. At the club annual dinner, I got a stern look from Martin Green when I flippantly described my project as "buying a lot of expensive electronic toys and playing with them."
It seemed I would have some very expensive toys indeed. Nial unfurled the 2005 survey with such dramatic gusto at our Royal Geographical Society interview in London that they offered us £2000 towards the project for thermistors, dataloggers, and a new set of top camp solar panels. Club members would also put long hours into the construction of two devices designed by Dr Neville Michie, an Australian cave climatologist who was instrumental in assisting our plans. Additionally, the geography department offered to lend a weather station and a thermal camera worth £30,000 for observing cave wall thermal gradients.
In the field, those toys provided very little opportunity for playing:it was exhausting work transporting, setting up, troubleshooting, and collecting data. Some of the technology disappointed us. The thermal camera was unavailable because it malfunctioned while in use on a volcano in Ethiopia shortly before we left. The sonic anemometer which I had put months of work into building proved too finicky for underground use. Olly Madge's micropsychrometer never made it underground : I broke the fragile thermopile assembly at top camp while trying to attach a wet wick. A week of weather station data was lost during a battery change.
@@ -49,7 +47,7 @@ Polysyllaby aside, the expedition under that name was approved and supported by
Julian Todd in The Silk Road beyond the Razordance sump. Photo: Andrew Atkinson.
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@@ -64,7 +62,7 @@ Nevertheless, hundreds of thousands of thermistor readings were collected, showi
The Silk Road in Steinbrückenhöhle. Photo: Andrew Atkinson
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@@ -79,7 +77,7 @@ Razordance was a captivating lead for several reasons. It was the deepest sectio
Eisehöhle. Photo: Mark Shinwell.
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@@ -96,7 +94,7 @@ Eiseh
Photo: Andreas Forsberg.
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While we'd like to say it was teamwork and cooperation that led to successes in two deep leads simultaneously, it seems that 'friendly' competition worked just as well. Un-British rope grabbing and name calling began when it became clear that the budgeted 2.5km of rope would be used to the very last metre. Nial Peters mustered a group of cavers who felt that Razordance ('Pussyprance') was for wimps, and the real action was in the stratigraphically deepest, maze-like levels of Steinbrücken, accessed via the 80m Gaffer Tape pitch and following series.
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Becka Lawson surveying in The Silk Road with the Shetland Attack Pony. Photo: Andrew Atkinson.
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Continuing south, far past Stienbruckenhöhle, Olly Betts and Jenny Black continued their work from their plateau camp. Warm invitations had been extended to the Steinbrückenhöhle crew, but we were all wrapped up in our own projects. Olly and Jenny miraculously turned four of our caves, 81, 82, 85, and 148, into one and a half by finding connections between 82 and 85, and 81 and 148. 81 and 85 could be seen as connected because they discovered a new 81 entrance in the same doline as the 85 entrance.
Eislufthöhle (76), yielded a new pitch series, the Sea of Holes , as did Marilyn Munroe Höhle (148), called Deep Space. The latter cave had admitted no human beings since 1987, and upon entering, Olly and Jenny made an intriguing discovery. There was a page of survey notes on the floor of a passage, still legible after 20 years. Safely removing them from the cave appeared impossible, but photos were taken. We have so far failed to figure out what part of the real world the survey corresponds to. The legs are very long, suggesting a surface survey. Personally, I suspect they lead to buried treasure.