From e0a9ba04ea25e3213633c656777c63969b331655 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Philip Sargent Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2024 21:26:11 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Edits testing new template and participants function --- years/2023/logbook.html | 402 +++++++++++++-------------------------- years/2024/logbook.html | 404 ++++++++++++++-------------------------- 2 files changed, 277 insertions(+), 529 deletions(-) diff --git a/years/2023/logbook.html b/years/2023/logbook.html index 0bb39e928..5f43df0ec 100644 --- a/years/2023/logbook.html +++ b/years/2023/logbook.html @@ -7,14 +7,12 @@ - @@ -31,11 +29,10 @@ Slogged down from Top Camp to Homecoming and headed down the entrance series. Wa
T/U: 13.0 hours

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2023-06-22
-
Jono Lester,
+
Jono Lester
Expo - UK Caving Blog post 1
Blog Author: ILoveCaves
CUCC 2023 EXPO BLOG

@@ -115,11 +112,10 @@ RRPC/DUSA/CUCC/FCCC
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-06-25
-
Adam B,
+
Adam B
Expo - UK Caving Blog post: my first expedition
Blog Author: Adam 63
A little something on preparing for my first expedition,
@@ -135,11 +131,10 @@ In terms of practical preparation, I’ve been trying to get down the bigger and This pretty much sums up my prep for my first time on expedition and aside from the nightmares of caves crumbling just by looking at them and flash floods lurking around each corner I’m psyched as f*** and basically just saving up money working, and getting down caves.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-01
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
basecamp - Just arrived
Blog Author: honorata @@ -150,21 +145,19 @@ Blog Author: honorata The first expoers arrived at Bad Aussee and we started setting up base camp. The instruction says setting up the kitchen tent is a two man job but we barely managed with six...
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-02
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
plateau - water collection


12 people went to top camp. We hauled most stuff out of the storage cave (had to rig some out of the snow) and set up one water collection tarp.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-02
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
Expo - UK Caving Blog post 4
Blog Author: honorata
Progress after the first 3 days of expo

@@ -182,11 +175,10 @@ Pic: Janis Huns attaching stuff to the rope for hauling up.

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-03
-
Philip Sargent,Martin Green,
+
Philip Sargent,Martin Green
basecamp - nerding
Philip arrived by train at lunchtime. Joined Martin for serious nerding to get WiFi internet working in potato hut. @@ -195,21 +187,19 @@ serious nerding to get WiFi internet working in potato hut.

Tried both routers, Netgear and TP-Link, and saw the same problem.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-03
-
Honorata Bogusz,Will Kay,Mike Butcher,Jana Podbelsek,Radost Waszkiewicz,
+
Honorata Bogusz,Jana Podbelsek,Mike Butcher,Radost Waszkiewicz,Will Kay
plateau - second water collection tarp


Me, Radost, Mike, Jana and Will went to top camp to set up main tarp and the second water collection tarp (which was a success).
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-03
-
Harry Kettle,Emma Caspers,Christian Kuhlmann,Janis Huns,Charlotte Payne,
+
Harry Kettle,Charlotte Payne,Christian Kuhlmann,Emma Caspers,Janis Huns
Balkon - Rescuing Balcony ropes


A crack team of expo's hardest cavers was assembled to take a rope out of balcony that was left there last year.

@@ -221,21 +211,19 @@ Charlotte derigged. at about 5pm. Charlotte and Harry were both very grumpy walking back with very heavy bags and returned to top camp at 11pm.
T/U: 5.5 hours

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2023-07-03
-
Amelia Oliver,Jonty Pine,Emily Mabbett,
+
Amelia Oliver,Emily Mabbett,Jonty Pine
Fishface - Digging the snow out of Fishface entrance


After a carrying day on the 2nd, we suspected ff would be snowed in. A faff morning of acquiring shovel. We got to ff with shovels, discovering it did need digging. Jonty got particularly into this, producing quit the snow trench.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-03
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
Expo - UK Caving Blog post 4
Blog Author: honorata
Progress after the first 3 days of expo

@@ -254,11 +242,10 @@ Meanwhile, the new shiny rope that we got from the sponsors (thank you!) was was

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-04
-
Philip Sargent,
+
Philip Sargent
basecamp - nerding again


Everyone due to come down from plateau due to bad weather forecast. Much shopping for food being done.[Netgear router seems to have got into an IP6-only state. RETIRED @@ -267,11 +254,10 @@ pending further investigation. non-working internal wifi on netbook causing config problems even though it was not being used.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-04
-
Wassil Janssen,Sarah Parker,Ashley Gregg,Philip Balister,Amelia Oliver,Merryn Matthews,
+
Wassil Janssen,Amelia Oliver,Ashley Gregg,Merryn Matthews,Philip Balister,Sarah Parker
topcamp - Carry and set-up


Ash, Merryn, Amelia in [com?] Philip B., Sarah and me @@ -280,11 +266,10 @@ helped with some top camp tasks (tarp, electrical system, carrying rope around) came down the mountain.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-04
-
Harry Kettle,Will Kay,Alice Kirby,Christian Kuhlmann,Charlotte Payne,
+
Harry Kettle,Alice Kirby,Charlotte Payne,Christian Kuhlmann,Will Kay
Surface - Rope carry to Homecoming + Trial walk from Garlic Cave to Car Park on painted track


After more faff from Chi, we set off about 10AM to carry gear and check out the route to Homecoming. Fishface to Homecoming was well cairned and fairly straightforward to follow.

Gear ledt at Homecoming entrance: @@ -292,14 +277,13 @@ came down the mountain.

83 hangers, most with maillons

17 krabs

1 sling -

Then tried the painted track back to car park from Garlic Cave. Track was very easy to find from Homecoming. About an hour and a half from the plateau followed by treacherous cliff traversing - would be very unsafe with a heavy bag/in bad weather. Around halfwat becomes quite pleasant, 3h30m from Homecoming with empty bags. Route very hilly. Heavy carry with bagsfrom car park to Garlic cave likely to be at least 5 hours. Everyone agreed path unsuitable as route to Garlic Cave - takes longer and more dangerous than going via top camp. +

Then tried the painted track back to car park from Garlic Cave. Track was very easy to find from Homecoming. About an hour and a half from the plateau followed by treacherous cliff traversing - would be very unsafe with a heavy bag/in bad weather. Around halfwat becomes quite pleasant, 3h30m from Homecoming with empty bags. Route very hilly. Heavy carry with bagsfrom car park to Garlic cave likely to be at least 5 hours. Everyone agreed path unsuitable as route to Garlic Cave - takes longer and more dangerous than going via top camp.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-04
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
Expo - UK Caving Blog post 4
Blog Author: honorata
Progress after the first 3 days of expo

@@ -308,11 +292,10 @@ Blog Author: honorata
Progress after the first 3 days o The weather forecast shows rain and thunderstorms today and tomorrow, which jeopardizes caving. People are hiking down to base camp. Meanwhile, Martin, Jana, and I have put the second tarp up at base camp, while Radost and Phil have been setting up electronics here.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-04
-
Rob Watson,
+
Rob Watson
basecamp - re Honorata's post
Blog Author: nobrotson @@ -321,11 +304,10 @@ Nice write up [re Honorata's 3-day update]. The rope there now is stuff we bough :)
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-04
-
Buck Blake,Ashley Gregg,Joel Stobbart,Janis Huns,Jonty Pine,Amelia Oliver,
+
Buck Blake,Amelia Oliver,Ashley Gregg,Janis Huns,Joel Stobbart,Jonty Pine
Fishface - Carrying rope to Fishface and failing to rig entrance
After the complicated operation of handling the solar panels out of the storage cave, the six of us packed kit, rope and a rescue bag and set off for Fishface. It was a hot but pleasant walk and the route was well marked. We arrivced and stashed bags under a nearby overhang then entered through the hole dug through the snow the previous day. @@ -341,11 +323,10 @@ minutes, we left the cave. Mealy kicked an icicle at Jonty on the way out. We le left our caving kit under the small overhand near the entrance, then headed back to top camp.
T/U: 0.33 hours

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2023-07-05
-
Sarah Parker,Maddie Kirby,Lizzie Caisley,Joel Stobbart,Philip Balister,
+
Sarah Parker,Joel Stobbart,Lizzie Caisley,Maddie Kirby,Philip Balister
Surface - Reflecting the Homecoming -> Fishface route, scoping out a Homecoming to col route


Joel, Lizzie and Philip fettled the tarp (where some water had pooled overnight) whilst I had a go at attaching the big Daren drum (filled with the solar panels and cables) to my rucksack, ready to carry from top camp to Garlic Cave. @@ -366,22 +347,20 @@ return.

Rest of the walk was atmospheric, with lots of gusts and rolling, ominous clouds. We had just gotten back to the car when it started raining.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-06
-
Janis Huns,Maddie Kirby,
+
Janis Huns,Maddie Kirby
Plateau - scoping out a route from col to Garlic Cave


We set out to improve the direct route from the start of the plateau to Homecoming. The way down the wall after the second pole was suprisingly nice. This was followed by an easy flat section until the bunde and tiny cliffs obscured all the alternative paths we tried. Most of the way was already cairned, but we did find some nice fresh transitions through the bunde walls separating the easy-to-walk-on slabs. At Homecoming, we met Harry, Christian, Alice, Merryn getting ready to rig the cave. Then we visited Garlic cave - a massive above ground hole that leads to a bridge below which are the entrances to the cave itself. There was loads of snow - just as in every entrance - but there was a nice campable bit , plenty of water dripping. I sensed some garlic smell, remembering the story that this smell gave the name of the cave, but was still mysterious. Then Maddie realised we were surrounded by chives! Mystery solved.

On the way back we met Jono, Evelyn, and Oakem who were on the way to Garlic. At Homecoming, Honorata and Radost told us they had found 3 intriguing holes while prospecting. We found a baloon with a sweet note on it and read it to them.

Just after, we found a loose wellie which now acts as another cairn [reflectoring trip on 11th noticed that this is "size 9", so therefore a UK wellie]. The final pathwe made is quite nice except for one climb over a ravine tha t seems to be unavoidable without drastic changes to the route. It was a nice day. On the way back, we saw the Dachstein for the first time , complemented by all the numerous kinds of mountain flowers.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-06
-
Joel Stobbart,Jonty Pine,Buck Blake,
+
Joel Stobbart,Buck Blake,Jonty Pine
Fishface - Rigging and pitch-measuring trip


An ambitious day which slowly went increasingly wrong. The group departed base camp at a stunning 8.20AM, blitzed up the plateau and promtly became mired in several hours of faff which soon descended into more festering. The plan had been to rig the entrance series of Fishface down to the bottom of Blitzen Boulevard (4th pitch), from where we expected everything to be left rigged. However, confusion about rope lengths and metalwork and some impressively long grike trips meant that the two shallow pushing groups planning to explore from Blitzen and Liquid Luck caught us up at Top Camp. Uncle Mike was not amused. We swiftly bombed down to FF in 25 mins and started rigging. Joel was left to do everything as Jonty's light 'broke'.

The entrance pitch/spiral traverse thing was completed on a 40m rope. Tasteful noods (2nd pitch) didn't quite go on a 27m due to rerigging around the top rebelay to avoid rub, so Joel initially reached the bottom on a knot pass and Jonty rerigged to the bottom on a 32m. The traverse at the bottom of Tasteful Noods (2A) and pitch 3 both had rope left from last year but not rigged - some of the knots didn't line up and required rerigging but the lengths were fine. Pendulum pitch needs some more bolts at the bottom, possibly as a traverse, to make getting on and off the pitch less deathy. Uncle Mike rigged Blitzen for us as we got too scared, he insisted the step over the huge rift with no traverse was fine, so we left him to it. There may or may not be a bolt there now @@ -389,11 +368,10 @@ return.

Having decided we'd held eveyone enough, we joyfully skipped back up the Plateau to bed.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-06
-
Emily Mabbett,Emma Caspers,Charlotte Payne,Mike Butcher,Lizzie Caisley,
+
Emily Mabbett,Charlotte Payne,Emma Caspers,Lizzie Caisley,Mike Butcher
Fishface - Surveying around Benign Bubble Baby Bypass


After hiking up to plateau to arrive for midday, we discovered the advanced rigging party still above ground... In order to leave them time to start rigging the first 4 pitches of Fishface, an ungodly amount of faff began. We finally arrived at the cave at 3pm, thinking we'd left plenty of time for the riggers, we quickly changed and headed underground. Alas, our hopes were crushed as we came to the bottom of the first pitch to discover the other pushing party sat freezing their tits off at the top of the second pitch as the riggers rigged just below them. Needless to say, it took some time to descent to the bottom of Blitzen Boulevard with Mike taking over the rigging of the 4th pitch after a debate over placing another bolt at the pitch head. Once arrived at Benign Bubble Baby Bypass, we conducted a quick something time to refresh our surveying technique before splitting into 2 groups. Me and Mike went ahead through the tube leading on through the bottom of the climb heading towards the liquid luck ptch head to bolt the small pitch at the end of the traverse whilst the others began surveying from said turn off. As me and Mike arrived at the pitch head, I asked if I could begin my bolting lesson before a big scary hole. I was refused. Instead I was told to tie the rope around a small head sized bolder wedged in the rift, which were currently both stood on. I thought this was a silly idea but obliged. The actual bolting of the pitch went well (I think?), however comments about placing bolts higher were made which was somewhat impossible given my height. The final bolting and rigging became passable so I decended the large (4m...) hole.

@@ -404,11 +382,10 @@ return.

Once regrouped, it was approaching 9:30PM so we decided to leave the small drafty tubeand started to make our way out of the cave eventually making it back to top camp just before midnight.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-06
-
Honorata Bogusz,Radost Waszkiewicz,
+
Honorata Bogusz,Radost Waszkiewicz
Prospecting


We prospected between Fischgesicht and Heimkehr entrances. We found 5 caves, which I will refer to here using the temporary number and names entered in expo.survex.com. Small drain (2023-hbrw-01) and medium drain (2023-hbrw-02) were surveyed completely and they both strecth for about 20-30m, a small stream passing through each of them.

We also found 3 new caves which seem to continue but we couldn't survey them since they all begin with large pitches: @@ -419,22 +396,20 @@ return.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-06
-
Zac Woodford,Ashley Gregg,Emma Caspers,Amelia Oliver,
+
Zac Woodford,Amelia Oliver,Ashley Gregg,Emma Caspers
Fishface - Surveying the top of liquid luck


Gave the rigging team ~3hr headstart but we still caught up with them at the bottom of first pitch. Emma and Zac then sat around while Ash and Mealy calibrated the disto. We were waiting so long that Uncle Mike's surveying group caught up. We waited in a a bothy for them to pass us before slowly, one-by-one, following on. We then caught up with them again at the top of Blitzen pitch and had to bothy again (after Mealy led us on too low in the rift).

At the beginning of BBBB (Benign Babble Baby Bypass) we talked with Mike's group pushing the other lead and descending some small pitches to push ours. We faffed around a while trying to find it, but when we did, we found it just looped back around to Mike's group's lead. We surveyed it anyway.

Zac and Mealy surveyed the top of the rift and the pitch (Mealy on notes, Zac on disto) while Ash and Emma bolted and rigged the pitch. Once surveyed and linked to Mike's group's stuff, we packed up and headed out. Ash raced ahead while Mealy and Emma got stuck behind Zac who was very tired and slow and sweary. Eventually, they exited. Trip started at ~15.30 and ended at ~00.30. A very tiresome dark hike to top camp.
T/U: 9.0 hours

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2023-07-06
-
Wassil Janssen,Alice Kirby,Harry Kettle,Merryn Matthews,Christian Kuhlmann,
+
Wassil Janssen,Alice Kirby,Christian Kuhlmann,Harry Kettle,Merryn Matthews
Homecoming - Rig faff


This was a long day that started at Base Camp with the intent of rigging the entrance series of Homecoming cave. We set off only slightly later than the planned 8:00 [illegible] some faff. Quite surprising since Will was not part of the team.

The walk up to Top Camp took almost 2 hours, just as expected. We were also carrying drills, string, food, and other Top Camp equipment. We followed the reflectors to Fishface. They were white on both sides, which could make it frustrating if you are someone who is lost on their way to Top Camp. Instead, it should be red that leads to Top Camp, while white leads to caves and the car park. @@ -443,11 +418,10 @@ return.

In the meantime, Merryn, Alice and Wassil were waiting in the group shelter practicing the fiddle.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-07
-
Christian Kuhlmann,Wassil Janssen,
+
Christian Kuhlmann,Wassil Janssen
Homecoming - Foray into the Second Coming
Ropes used:
    @@ -477,38 +451,34 @@ Bolts used: Following a new set of bolts placed by myself (the first bolt is at a funky angle and could be replaced but is likely fine), a new traverse line is followed up the roof of the rift along steep-walls. This is easy with a traverse line but is more thought provoking to bolt, rig, and de-rig. Much like the top of The Lizard King, a Y-hang is reached (there is another bolt further used for exploring but was deemed to be useless) and is descended into War of Attrition. A 95m rope was used to righ from the the top of The Salamander Queen 2 (previously named "The Lizard King") to the Y-hang dropping into War of Attrition. A 1-bolt rebelay is reached and a deviation is used on the opposite wall. This is finally descended to a ledge with another 1-bolt rebelay. Here the intention is to continue down to reach a to-be-bolted Y-hang in the right in an attempt to decrease rope-rub. This would be descended about 7m to a vague ledge system and followed further into the large phreatic tube via a traverse line (later called The Salamander Queen).
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    -
    2023-07-07
    -
    Philip Sargent,Jonty Pine,Janis Huns,Nadia Raeburn,
    +
    Philip Sargent,Janis Huns,Jonty Pine,Nadia Raeburn
    Garlic - Hiking to Garlic Cave


    Jonty's car: Jonty/Nads/Janis up to Garlic and return this evening. Taking new reflectors made this morning.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-07
    -
    Honorata Bogusz,Radost Waszkiewicz,Mike Butcher,
    +
    Honorata Bogusz,Mike Butcher,Radost Waszkiewicz
    1623-290 - pushing deep Fishgesicht


    We pushed 60m at the top of "Clap My Pitch Up". Pushing required bolting ~20m of a traverse ( Mike adds: 20m ish of the traverse was new passage surveyed this year but there was about 30m of traverse bolted this year which was naughtily pushed by me - Mike - and Luke last year in the Red Light Spells Danger trip so the traverse is about 50ish m long). The final few metres of the traverse go above a sizeable pitch (30m?). We names the bolted traverse, "European Federalists". At the end of the traverse, we continued walking for another ~40m until arriving at the top of a massive pitch - further pushing would require bolting. The distance from where we were standing to the furthest point down the pitch measured with the disto was ~40m. We kicked rocks down the pitch and the sound continued for 10s, giving rise to a presumption that the pitch may be very deep. If it connects to "Clap My Pitch Up", it's at least 100m deep. IMPORTANT: the traverse passage and the walkable continuation are muddy and slippery; posing a hazard of falling down the pitch. Ash, Jonty, Mealy and Janis want to push the lead further on Saturday 8th July.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-07
    -
    Emily Mabbett,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle,
    +
    Emily Mabbett,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle
    Homecoming - Rigging towards Watershed in Homecoming


    We wandered down to the cave around 10am, making it to the entrance around 12pm. The entrance series went pretty fast ... at least it did for me as Harry and Charlotte were carrying the heavy bags. On the way we made a quick stop to rerig a knot pass. As we reached the bottom of Wallace and Grommit where they had finished rigging the previous day both me and Harry experienced fizzling as we glazed the dry rope on the final 55m. I did not enjoy this part. We then made our way up the climb and Harry began rigging the small pitches before the long pitch series. The most notable part of this was when Harry appeared the wrong side of a pitch head after following the description and getting lost. It was highly amusing. As Charlotte began rigging the final pitch series me and Harry huddled in a shelter and watched Mathilda the musical. As it came to replacing a bolt Harry left to go help Charlotte and I was left along ... until it was discovered the drill battery was dead and I had to come down with a back up. As 8pm approached we made our way out leaving rope to finish the final part of rigging. On the way out we made a noodle stop at the top of Wallace and Grommit but with no fork a knife had to suffice. The walk back was miserable as we started following new reflectors towards the col and had to turn around and start again. We finally made it back to top camp at 1 am.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-07
    -
    Ashley Gregg,Alice Kirby,Amelia Oliver,Will Kay,
    +
    Ashley Gregg,Alice Kirby,Amelia Oliver,Will Kay
    Fishface – Surveying Stalagtite Loop to the top of Liquid Luck


    Following our previous shallow trip into Fishface we set out to continue the previous combined leads from the day before. The journey across the plateau and into the cave was uneventful, aside from @@ -533,11 +503,10 @@ at the same time. One by one people left the bothy and headed up Blitzen to the camp for curry.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-08
    -
    Nadia,Philip B,Oakem,Jono,Jana,
    +
    Nadia,Jana,Jono,Oakem,Philip B
    Garlic - Garlic Cave Set up + First Nights
    After doing a big bounce carry yesterday, we now had sufficient supplies to spend the night and begin the proper set up of camp.

    @@ -560,11 +529,10 @@ Still need to find a grike.

    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
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    2023-07-08
    -
    Philip Sargent,Martin Green,
    +
    Philip Sargent,Martin Green
    Basecamp - Nerd faff


    Another frustrating day with network. WiFi router refused to allow connections - rebooted at ~0830. Ok.

    Rebooted network for a reason I can't remember - failed to re-establish routing to router. Much faff standing on chairs typing at netbook as cables all duct taped to the wall with it in final operating position up by ceiling. Found the missing rune, edited into 'runfakenet'. Redocumented everything in handbook. By which time the morning has gone and no progress achieved. @@ -574,20 +542,18 @@ Looked at printer again. No clue as to why printer is not showing up on network Afternoon: added lots of expoers to folk.csv and adding lots of mugshots. Particularly good one of Merryn.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-08
    -
    Janis Huns,Ashley Gregg,Jonty Pine,Amelia Oliver,
    +
    Janis Huns,Amelia Oliver,Ashley Gregg,Jonty Pine
    Fishface - Pushing deep Fishface


    We went to where the group - Honorata, Radost and Mike - had left off the previous day. European Federalists was a very tough traverse that required the use of ascenders. We bolted and rigged (my first bolt!) the pitch at the end of the muddy passage about 10m down to a choke of boulders. At the bottom of it we saw that there is a large, smooth crack continuing east leading to a large, deep chamber that seems to be the same one we saw on the right. If it is it would be elongated roughly in a north east to south west direction. Ash and Mealy also explored some C leads which did not go far.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-08
    -
    Will Kay,Emma Caspers,Mike Butcher,
    +
    Will Kay,Emma Caspers,Mike Butcher
    Amphitheatre - Following up on Radost and Honorata's prospecting leads (Unlucky Gemse cave and Amphitheatre cave)


    Radost and Honorata had found a few promising entrances that they could explore with just a hand line on Thursday so me, Mike and Emma set out with caving kit, bolting kit and a few ropes to investigate further (ropes were slightly out of date ones - ropes were very hard to come by at Top Camp so we pinched two 20m ropes from the stash at Fishface entrance).

    @@ -604,11 +570,10 @@ The next lead was Radost and Honorata's. Amphitheatre cave, which Nadia and some We then walked back, attempting but failing to find Garlic Cave. On the way back we did find a nice looking camp spot (flat, grass, ????, would be good for a tne) at 47.6925722 13.8087777
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-08
    -
    Sarah Parker,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle,
    +
    Sarah Parker,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle
    Homecoming - Beyond Watershed in Homecoming Flowstone Canyon


    I carried my caving and bivvy gear from Top Camp to Homecoming whilst Harry and Charlotte carried Top Camp's second shovel and a camp bed (surprisingliy heavy) to be picked up by the Garlic Cave people.

    @@ -621,29 +586,26 @@ We surveyed for about 100m through sandy rifts, down a few climbs (that were muc Slow, tired progress out saw us leave the cave at about 1am. I stumbled to Garlic Cave to sleep on the slabs outside the camp whilst Charlotte and Harry bivvied in a group shelter at the entrance.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

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    2023-07-09
    -
    Bier Tent,
    +
    Bier Tent
    basecamp - Nothing happened today at all


    Nowt, apparently.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
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    2023-07-10
    -
    Philip Sargent,Becka Lawson,
    +
    Philip Sargent,Becka Lawson
    basecamp - Becka arriving


    She is arriving at 0941 at the station, would like lift.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-10
    -
    Honorata Bogusz,Ashley Gregg,Harry Kettle,Christian Kuhlmann,Radost Waszkiewicz,
    +
    Honorata Bogusz,Ashley Gregg,Christian Kuhlmann,Harry Kettle,Radost Waszkiewicz
    festering - Canyoning Strubklamm


    We went canyoning on a rest day. The "Strubklamm" canyon is located near Saltzburg, approximately 1h of driving from Bad Aussee. The canyon is graded V1A3 (vertical 1, aquatic 3). It's very aquatic, with many small jumps available and a 300m swimming passage. There are 2 bigger jumps: approx. 8m and 10m, both can be abseiled (topo can be found online). @@ -655,11 +617,10 @@ The canyon had pre-rigged pitches and handlines, all of which were quite dodgy ( The weather was good, sunny and hot. The canyon seemed quite dry, as though there was usually more water there (e.g. some slides were only drippy as opposed to full with water). The canyon has at least 2 escape routes.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-10
    -
    James Waite,
    +
    James Waite
    UK Caving Blog post: Cardiff Canon Ball Run
    Blog Author: Babyhagrid
    Canon Ball Run - Austria (Attempted)
    @@ -675,21 +636,19 @@ This was until a black bmw slowly changed into our lane with the feared follow m Yet again a black bmw slowly moved in front of us with their sign flashing. Another check without the fishing for drugs. After this whole ordeal we arrived at base camp, one day late, with a breakdown and two stops from the police. A beer was cracked with relief!
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Philip Sargent,Thomas Phillips,Honorata Bogusz,James Waite,Radost Waszkiewicz,Ely Brookes,Ashley Gregg,Will Kay,
    +
    Philip Sargent,Ashley Gregg,Ely Brookes,Honorata Bogusz,James Waite,Radost Waszkiewicz,Thomas Phillips,Will Kay
    plateau - walk in


    Will and Phil went up as part of the 2-car lift to the carpark. Others all going to topcamp. Cardiff contingent (Ely, James, Thomas) arrived the previous day (at last)

    Dep. carpark 10:06 we walked to the col but got spread out, 2 Cardiffians particularly heavily loaded so Ash dropped back to accompany them while James headed on with Radost and Honorata.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Philip Sargent,Will Kay,
    +
    Philip Sargent,Will Kay
    plateau - Garlic and reflectors


    At the col, Will, Philip and ? followed Philip B's col-to-garlic GPS track. Somebody else was with us (memory hazy, is this true? [correct later editorially]). All OK until we hit the hill in the middle where we followed cairns instead of the GPS track, and got in a bit of @@ -722,11 +681,10 @@ hours of walking. [MISSING SCAN OF PHONE CARD DETAILS]
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Wassil Janssen,Oakem Kyne,
    +
    Wassil Janssen,Oakem Kyne
    Homecoming - Five and Flying


    I managed to steal Oakem away from Harry, Charlotte and Becka just as they were preparing to depart from Top Camp. After a quick breakfast @@ -775,11 +733,10 @@ in time for the sunset. At the surface, Will was waiting for us. The poor man ha his own logbook entry.
    T/U: 9.5 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Honorata Bogusz,Ashley Gregg,Radost Waszkiewicz,
    +
    Honorata Bogusz,Ashley Gregg,Radost Waszkiewicz
    1623-323 - Dropping Amphitheater Hoehle


    The Amphitheater Hoehle is named after its entrance which resembles an amphitheather. There are a couple of meters of an easy climb from the very top to the boulder where we started rigging. Rigging starts with an approx. 5-6m down climb, where we put a handline. It's followed by a traverse (10m ?) above the entrance to the first pitch. We rigged a Y-hang at the end of the traverse. @@ -787,11 +744,10 @@ The Amphitheater Hoehle is named after its entrance which resembles an amphithea

    We surveyed the cave to the end of that traverse with a few splays directed at the pitch below. Ash bolted the second pitch halfway down while Radost and I were surveying. The second pitch is slabby, drippy, and has ice patches on the sides. A stoney bridge lies underneath the traverse that leads to the second pitch. In total, we surveyed 70m of Amphitheather Hoehle on that trip.
    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Becka,Harry,Charlotte,
    +
    Becka,Charlotte,Harry
    Homecoming - Watershed
    Slogged down from Top Camp to Homecoming and headed down the entrance series. Wassil had snagged the rope on the longish pitch near the entrance (just after snow ends, beyond short crawl). It was so tight that Charlotte had to downprussik to free it. Steady progress to the pushing front in ~2.5 hours.

    Charlotte rigged a traverse down and across 2m so Harry and I could survey a side passage that quickly reached a pitch whilst Charlotte remained to finish rigging the pitch. We all descended the pitch to 2 routes. @@ -800,11 +756,10 @@ Slogged down from Top Camp to Homecoming and headed down the entrance series. Wa

    We exited in ~4 hours with a disturbing find on Gromit (the 50m at the base of the entrance series) – I saw a lump of mud on the rope, tried to flick it off but argh, the sheath had gone from a chunk of rope. I cautiously jammered above it, shouted down to warn the others, and tied it out in a butterfly. It was ~5m below the rebelay and many metres from any of the walls so hard to know what caused it – sharp jammers? Rockfall? Previous damage? Out 11pm and then a disappointingly long slog up to Garlic Cave to enjoy the new facilities.

    T/U: 13.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-11
    -
    Emily,Harry,Charlotte,
    +
    Emily,Charlotte,Harry
    Fishface - Kresh Konnection exploring and rerigging
    The day started fairly quick and we arrived at the Fishface entrance at 10:30am, making our way underground by 11. Joel and Lizzy went around to re-bolt the first pitch in the connection with me and Merryn following after to measure and record rigging diagrams. Due to an odd mixture of rope the first 9m pitch ended up being rigged with a rope from 1999… As we went on Joel and Merryn rerigged P4 and P5 with separate ropes to free up the 50m currently being used so we could bring the 50m down to where we were planning to push. During this time Joel rearranged the ropes and went back to remove the 1999 rope and replace it with an in-date rope. Essentially a good few hours were spent rearranging ropes, during which time me and Lizzy took a nap in a shelter at the bottom of P5.

    @@ -813,11 +768,10 @@ For the rest of the trip we actually ended up dropping to the bottom of the seco [INSERT SCANNED IMAGES RIGGING PLAN]

    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-12
    -
    Emma,Mike B,Jonty,Mealy,
    +
    Emma,Mealy,Jonty,Mike B
    Fishface - Camp in Fishface - pushing Redlight & Persied Showers
    10-07-23 - We wake up early-ish with the goal of leaving at 9/10 but quickly decide MUCH more faff is needed. A stop is made at the shops to buy biodegradable bags and a magazine, eventually Jonty, Mealy and I made it to the car park. It is very very warm and we worried about dehydration. We get waking, faffing more by running into many groups coming off the plateau, and Mike catches up quickly. Once on the plateau the weather seems more pleasant - a cool breeze is present now - when I see the cause - a huge could of rain hanging over the Dachstein. "Nah, that's just mist" says uncle Mike. We make our merry way, not forgetting to bow to the plateau monster (Mike doesn't bow) until we hear a rumble of thunder, "Nah, just a plane" says uncle Mike, soon, to vertical rains start, which we are not dressed nor prepared for, so we hide by crouching against a wall in the plateau. Then, wind turns and we get very soaked so we huddle under Jonty's 1-man emergency bothy. Anyway sun returns, much more faff is had, I take a fall... we don't make it into Fishface until 20:45, carrying LUDICROUSLY large bags! Mealy and I lead the way in, made a little clumsy by our heavy loads - though not as heavy as jonty's, and not at all as bad as mike's whose "side bag" is a full-sized tackle sack containing lots of rope. The first pitch was not my Friend and I dropped a plastic bottle - after that I enjoyed myself - esp. impressed by TK Maxx, a super cool pitch!! Mealy & I get down just after 23.00, followed soon by Jonty and a little later by Mike who had stopped to get even more Rope. Mealy goes of to faff with Cavelink, Jonty & I head over to help and we send the important message "camp creche want more peanut" - it sends. Mealy & I share warmth & noodles. Jonty & mike eat curry, we whip out the mini-Jagermeister, all take a little sip and head to sleep. I apparently caused some disturbance by snoring (sorry) and we all sleep intermittently.

    @@ -834,11 +788,10 @@ Author's note: MB would like me to include that we discussed the most likely po Transcribers note, 21st July 2024. Whilst I do appreciate the write up and the narrative of my friends going caving, this has been the most horrifically punctuated account I have yet had to digitize. I am aware there are typos in my version, I can't be fucked to change them currently.

    T/U: 0.0 hours

    Edit this entry
    -
    2023-07-12
    -
    Merryn Matthews,Thomas Phillips,Lizzie Caisley,Emily Mabbett,Joel Stobbart,
    +
    Merryn Matthews,Emily Mabbett,Joel Stobbart,Lizzie Caisley,Thomas Phillips
    plateau - Prospecting between Homecoming and Fishface


    We started by walking to Unlucky Gamse Cave, mostly following the path to homecoming, as Radost and Honorata had told us there was an exciting looking entrance around 50m North of it - Rose Blumen Hoehle (2023-hbrw-05). We dismissed their cave as choked by snow, however it @@ -865,11 +818,10 @@ Caves found:
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-12
-
Ashley Gregg,Janis Huns,
+
Ashley Gregg,Janis Huns
Amphitheatre – Surveying Frozen Unknown


We went back to continue exploring Amphitheatre. Since we were now pushing decently underground, we kitted up and then headed in. Adjusted the initial traverse line rigging slightly. @@ -888,11 +840,10 @@ and nothing to rig off other than ice anyway, I retreated. was no evidence of a draft at the bottom so not particularly promising.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-12
-
Mike B,
+
Mike B
Fishface - Persied Showers 2023
All on through bolts, about 300m of rope, taken in 1 bag to much regret.

@@ -901,11 +852,10 @@ All on through bolts, about 300m of rope, taken in 1 bag to much regret. Can't really remember the rigging exactly. Continues for about 200 m of rope to a boulder floor, dropped a 15M pitch to the left side of a house sized boulder. At least five streams converge in this area. below the 15m pitch the floor is choked by boulders with a pool/ gravley sump at the downstream end. Still a strong draught but not obvious way on. Could be many side passages on the way down. As I was alone with no disto and with a thunderstorm forecast (rightly) for the next day, this was not surveyed so a return visit to survey, drop the parallel shaft, and de rig is required. I was wearing a new AV hollock over suit which still had it's water proofing as well as a gimp mac over the top. Just about able to stay dry enough but a PVC would be better. This was a fantastic bit of cave, really enjoyed the splashy Yorkshire nature , even though I was a little scared of flood pulses at times. Was rather sad that it didn't break into the next horizontal level. Might still be worth pushing the parallel shaft from the end of the fist rope. - Mike

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-12
-
Emily,Thom,Merryn,Joel,Lizzy,
+
Emily,Joel,Lizzy,Merryn,Thom
Plateau - Prospecting near Fishface
After consulting the weather forecast in the morning and seeing 50mnm of rain forecast from 8pm onward we decided the best use of our day would be to prospect. Our first port of call was a previously scoped hole of the path between Fishcace and Homecoming. With no photo and only a rough location we looked in a few holes climbing to the bottom of a couple that looked possible but to no avail. After marking the holes we decided to continue in a vaguely North direction following a passage in homecoming below us. After some impressive Bundah walking we found another prospect in which Joel eagerly descended only to find it also choked out - it was therefore nicknamed Joel's disappointment , which later changed to sunglasses disappointment after he figured out he lost his sunglasses somewhere into the hole.

@@ -914,11 +864,10 @@ Yet another Bundah battle later we emerged to 2 rucksacks on the plateau and rea From here we began to circle back towards FishFace, on the way we found a large flat expanse of limestone with one semi hopeful prospect but after a large amount of gardening and some dodgy free climbing down from Joel it was decided it was far too chossy to look into any further. Finally we found our one true promising prospect - a hole temporarily name crucifix as it's buried in a bundah patch next to a cross. After putting one bolt in and preparing to start more bolting / rigging we looked up to see a large thunderstorm approaching. We left our bolt and rope we started to leg it up the hill. Tom did not enjoy this part. Finally we arrived, drenched in sweat and wheezing for oxygen, but not burnt to the bone by lightning, we arrived at top camp as the storm hit. We spent the next part of the night cowering in the one only corner of the buivvy as the predicted rain poured. 5 of us sheltered in the animal shelter and watched Matilda the musical - a good storm pass time!

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-13
-
Honorata Bogusz,Jonty Pine,Radost Waszkiewicz,Oakem Kyne,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle,
+
Honorata Bogusz,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle,Jonty Pine,Oakem Kyne,Radost Waszkiewicz
festering - Via Ferrata "Panorama Kletterstieg Sisi"


@@ -926,11 +875,10 @@ We went on a via ferrata located close to the Loseralm parking lot. The via ferr

The via ferrata route goes up the mountain (it's vertical) and it is very exposed. It requires using the upper body quite a lot and does not have many aids besides the metal wire. The route ends next to a metal cross at the peak of the mountain. One hikes down to get to the car. The description says that the via ferrata takes between 1 and 2 hours but it took us 50 minutes, with a 5 min photo break in the middle.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-13
-
Honorata Bogusz,
+
Honorata Bogusz
UK Caving Blog post: two weeks on
Blog Author: honorata
The first two weeks of expo have been quite eventful, with exploration proceeding in Fishface and Homecoming, and a new camp being set on the plateau.
@@ -982,11 +930,10 @@ Pic: Oakem Kyne (L) and Jonty Pine (R) on Panorama Kletterstieg Sisi.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-13
-
Zac,Will,Sarah,Jono,
+
Zac,Jono,Sarah,Will
Homecoming - Investingating around Radogast
The day started out bleak with the plateau overcast and still soaked from the night before. Zac and Sarah set out from top camp while will and Jono came from base. We all bumped into each other at homecoming which was excellent timing. We proceeded to garlic cave for some lunch where Zac and Sarah got very cold. Phillip joined us there also. we waited for the rain to die away then headed over to homecoming. Sarah followed by Zac, then Will then Jono. The plan was to re-rig the small pitch and traverse after Radogast as well as investigate a phreatic tube 5m bellow the Radogast pitch head. each of these were to be done in pairs but the plan was scrapped when Jono needed the longer rope from Sarah (exploring Radogast) to re rig the pitch and the traverse. In the end Zac re-rigged it under Jono's supervision while the other 2 stood around.

@@ -996,11 +943,10 @@ We then all exited the cave to the tying light, Zac and Sarah first followed by One the way back to top, Zac slipped and pulled his arm/ scraped his arse meaning Mike had to apply cream to it at top camp. A bit of a faffy trip but an important step for making progress.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-14
-
James Waite,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle,
+
James Waite,Charlotte Payne,Harry Kettle
Homecoming - pushing down homecoming from flowstone canyon, into alpine showers


after a heavy afternoon at the tatty hut, Harry asked if i fancied coming to @@ -1086,11 +1032,10 @@ so i stripped off and got into my sleeping bag and had a few hours of uncomfortable platau sleep.
T/U: 13.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-14
-
Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
basecamp - UK Caving Blog post: Rain at times
Blog Author: CUCC Austria Expedition @@ -1100,20 +1045,18 @@ Administrative note: a few days of rain, heavy at times (1 tent bent, 1 flooded) Full details at http://expo.survex.com/expedition/2023
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-14
-
Honorata,Radost,Chi,Oakem,Wassil,Merryn,
+
Honorata,Chi,Merryn,Oakem,Radost,Wassil
Basecamp - Floating down the river to Bad Aussee
Floating down the river to Bad Aussee. Me and Radost are leaving today so we wanted to do a fun rest day activity on our last full day. Chi, Wassil, and Oakem agreed to go canyoning to Grabenback (VZVZ)(?) with us. We decided that we wanted to be in the canyon in the hottest moment of the day. We were ready to leave at noon but chi realised he'd lost his car keys. 2 hours of searching for them around the potato hut yielded no results. Disappointed, we decided to float down the river to Bad Aussee where we later had ice cream. Floating down the river has been definitely the most dangerous and stupid thing I've done on expo. Don't do it and if you have to - wear a helmet, gloves and shoes unlike us. I stated rolling on one waterfall and was really afraid I'd hurt my head. Then, I hit my lip really hard on a rock. I'm not gonna do it again. Ice cream was nice though.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-14
-
Will,Sarah,Mike,Nadia,
+
Will,Mike,Nadia,Sarah
homecoming - Shallow Homecoming and pushing beyond Hobknob Hallway & Dead Flied Passage
Having seen 2 A-leads at the end of dead flies passage on the big survey we headed down to investigate & push. Arriving at the end of the survey, we reached a small 3x1.5m chamber with a streamway passage (?2018-26A) back to the left and a more rifty passage straight ahead (?2018-25A).

@@ -1128,11 +1071,10 @@ Back at base camp Nadia looked up the survey points that weren't on the survey a Speaking of, towards the end of Dead Flies Passage we found a tacklesack presumably from 2018 with a rope and some incredibly rusted maillons & hangers . It was slightly wet but presumably mostly from dripping. The rope may be viable but the metalwork won't be.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-14
-
Becka,Jono,Harry,James,Charlotte,
+
Becka,Charlotte,Harry,James,Jono
1626-359 - Homecoming . Watershed . Alpine Showers
Walked from Top Camp to Homecoming + headed down quite efficiently, split to 2 groups at the previous survey limit, below CHarlotte's 2nd pitch, Harry, Charlotte + James started surveying downstream. Jono + I surveyed upstream for a mighty 3 legs ("Alpine Waterfall") to where the stream spouted down from on high. We went up the pitch with the rope + drill aiming to bolt a vertical lead but Harry caught us up to say they needed it so he took the drill + rope + they bolted downstream until they ran out of rope to leave a splashy A-lead continuing downstream. @@ -1144,11 +1086,10 @@ We'd run out of horizontal leads so headed out, luckily beating the jam caused b T/U Becka and Jono 13 hours, the others 15 hours
T/U: 13.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-15
-
Ashley Gregg,Ely Brookes,Janis Huns,
+
Ashley Gregg,Ely Brookes,Janis Huns
Prospecting - Up to Homecoming from the Col

Edit this entry @@ -1168,11 +1109,10 @@ drops approx. 5m with snow at bottom, can't clearly see bottom from top.

Entrance photos were also taken. (Note: These caves are all entered on website).
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-15
-
Ashley Gregg,Ely Brookes,Philip Balister,
+
Ashley Gregg,Ely Brookes,Philip Balister
2018-DM-04 – Prospecting, exploring, surveying


The plan was to do some prospecting in the relatively uncovered area around Garlic cave. We met up with Philip at Garlic cave and had some noodles for lunch. Philip had already done some @@ -1192,11 +1132,10 @@ mostly vertical. Then back to garlic cave to drop off rope (and Philip) before w Top Camp.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-15
-
Christian Kuhlmann,Wassil Janssen,Merryn Matthews,
+
Christian Kuhlmann,Merryn Matthews,Wassil Janssen
Homecoming - In Search Of Salamanders


Following an impromptu pre-expo-dinner dinner the night before, we all arose with a tinge of hangover. Rapidly consuming breakfast and packing kit, we set off at 8:30am, only 30 minutes after we said we would which in all fairness is very good going for us. After a smooth ferry to the Loser car park by our wonderful chauffer Alice, we set off up the mountain. Almost immediately after we left the car park a navigational faux pas was made and we found ourselves on the wrong path, and with a small section of off-roading, we headed up to top camp with no other further obstructions. @@ -1226,20 +1165,18 @@ The escape was awful and became briefely less awful upon leaving the bolting kit Overall, a great trip with over ~294m surveyed and more promising leads found. Couldn’t recommend camping in the second coming more!
T/U: 32.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-15
-
Becka,Sarah,
+
Becka,Sarah
2023-BL-01 - Prospecting N of Garlic Cave
We walked under the flanks of the Kleine Wildkogel to the ridge at the top where you can see down to the tiny hut in the bowl between that ridge and the next. The gps track for Becka is [?] downloaded and I logged four caves numbered 2023-BL-01 to 04. Two were horizontal and are katasterable (02 and 04) and the other two (01 and 03) are open shafts that would need to be dropped to be checked out.
T/U: 0.17 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-16
-
Ashley Gregg,Evelyn Surman,
+
Ashley Gregg,Evelyn Surman
Prospecting - Much prospecting near Balcony


Deciding I wanted to go prospecting but didn’t particularly want to walk back over to garlic cave, so recruited Evelyn, our resident non-caver to go wander around near balcony. Armed with known cave @@ -1269,11 +1206,10 @@ yield any new caves.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-16
-
Mark Shinwell,James Waite,
+
Mark Shinwell,James Waite
surface - Walk from Gschwandt Alm
Walk from Gschwandt Alm below the western edge of the plateau. [note taken from gps23.svx] @@ -1285,40 +1221,36 @@ Walk from Gschwandt Alm below the western edge of the plateau. 2023-jw-04
2023-jw-05
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-16
-
Becka,
+
Becka
Homecoming - Hobnob Hallway
Alice and Buck came from top camp with a drill, batteries, and hammer... but sadly no drill bits. We hoped we might meet the camping trip exiting and be able to take their drill bits so we took all the kit down but sadly didn't see them so Sarah rigged as far as she could without bolting but couldn't bottom the pitches. Meanwhile Alice and I surveyed 'Golden Goose' to finish centreline(station 901) and we then resurveyed down to Sarah's pitch (Survey name 'Goose box') because Frank and Nadia's data for this had disappeared... unlike their survey stations which we largely reused.The survey is now nearly to the pushing front. We looked at 2018-20B and it ends. The ready replaced, new red rope on Gromit is already worryingly not good after so few trips

Ends at an aven QMX about 20m beyond last survey station after m'10m of tight rift.

T/U: 8.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-16
-
Joel,
+
Joel
Tempest - The Tempest Diaries
Having arrived at top camp we decided to go and poke the hole we had found at the end of the day on the 12th. Given the workinjg title of tomb of christ by Tom due to its situation under a large metal cross. It was agreed that if the cave went it would be renamed Tempest in honour of Lizzie's favourite primary school performance: The Tempest: The musical. Emily had begun bolting a traverse in before we were scared off by weather. So I connected this to a Y hang which dropped - 20m onto a snowy slope with passage leading both left and right. Tom dropped in and started bolting a rebelay while I dig through the snow to look at the more promising RH lead - this turned out to be a [?] slope - 45 degrees which confirmed for 15m. Sadly the drill fucked up before Tom could finish the bolt and with more weather approaching we turnedaround, vowing to return.
T/U: 2.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-17
-
Jono Lester,
+
Jono Lester
basecamp - I Drank Beer


Today was a good day, i nerded and drank beer. Why should i cave anymore? Maybe i am a armchair caver after all.
T/U: 8.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-17
-
Ashley Gregg,Emma Caspers,Oakem Kyne,
+
Ashley Gregg,Emma Caspers,Oakem Kyne
Fishface – Kresh connection confusion


Joel had discovered an exciting new cave, unfortunately this left us with rope and a lead down in the Fish face – happy butterfly connection which no-one was going to. I was naively convinced to go and @@ -1334,11 +1266,10 @@ a large loop – kreshconnectionconfusion. It turned out half of this hadn’t b worthwhile on an otherwise pointless trip.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-17
-
Harry Kettle,
+
Harry Kettle
Homecoming - Pushing Watershed

@@ -1426,20 +1357,18 @@ Annoyingly further thunderstorms were forecast but three days later we returned Despite ~300m of passage being surveyed minimal progress was made in getting closer to Fishface but there are lots of excellent leads to explore and four weeks left of expo so hopefully lots more cave will get found .
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-17
-
Joel,Thom,Lizzie,
+
Joel,Lizzie,Thom
Tempest - The Tempest Diaries
Rearing to go and with many promising leads to explore we raced down to Tempest to continue the work we finished. Tom's bolt which means the scree slope was marginally safer to descend. I continued down to a choke above a short pitch with a ledge to LH whilst Lizzie and Tom surveyed from the entrance. Some serious gardening was required which occupied me until the other two arrived. Thyen we bolted a traverse into the short pitch and entered the chamber now known as Narnia. Due to the impressive frozen waterfalls and other ice formations we surveyed into this chambers noting again exciting leads to both left and right of the pitch base, then headed back to the surface.
T/U: 5.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-18
-
Ashley Gregg,Zac Woodford,Merryn Matthews,
+
Ashley Gregg,Merryn Matthews,Zac Woodford
Tempest – Touch of Death


Excited to go and see (and kill) this new cave, two groups set off to push the two ‘A’ leads at the extent of Tempest. Arriving at the cave we prepared the bags and realised we’d forgotten a hammer, so @@ -1461,11 +1390,10 @@ as this was just the ceiling of the main passage below. which we’d left lying around. Once out we packed up and headed back to Top Camp.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-18
-
Amelia Oliver,
+
Amelia Oliver
Expo - UK Caving Blog post 11
Blog Author: Mealy
Written as we (Mealy, Jonty, Emily) made slow progress through endless traffic in Germany on our route back to the UK. Finished at home with working internet.
@@ -1519,20 +1447,18 @@ Post camp we have learnt that we should have visited Keanu Breeze as it is now s tldr: Camp: Effort does not equal success.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-18
-
Joel,
+
Joel
Tempest - The Tempest Diaries
The hype was growing and not one but two groups went to push (or kill in Ashs case) this cave. Congregating at the base of the Narnia Pitch after I had added a rebelay on the entrance pitch. Ash and Zac set off to survey the LH passage and scoped an impressive 100m before reaching a choke - fartichoke was born. A lovely horizontal and almost straight passage with Sandy floor and looping avens in ceiling. Meanwhile, the remainder set off to continue down Narnia bolting another 15m pitch with much faff and surveying up to the top of Tomb Reider. At the bottom which Tom reached first we were dismayed to find a cessation of human sized cave. Tom had landed on a choke with small holes to L and R but nothing easily accessible. Upon seeing this Lizzie turned around and left in disgust but driven mad with disappointment me and Tom began hacking frantically at the boulders either side. Suddenly with a cry of joy, I hearled aside a mighty boulder to find a nearly Joel sized hole in the floor with an excellent echo. After much experimental squeezing we found that feet first sans SRT kit worked best, and I had a quick look to see a large and impressive rift below. We had left Lizzie waiting long enough so turned around and retired to the surface. Planning to bring some heavy demolitions kit the next day.
T/U: 6.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-07-19
-
James Waite,Jono Lester,
+
James Waite,Jono Lester
Homecoming - pushing beyond death sump and the heifer
jono and i had spotted an A lead bolt climb off the edge of propane nightmares over the death sump. armed with bolts and mikes drill we set off from garlic cave and after much faff we finally enteretd into homecoming. we got our kit into two bags of very heavy nature and set off down the cave. the entrance pitches went easily and eventually we got to the traverse . this was a interesting with large blokes and large bags stuck in the rift. after a large amount of swearing we got down to wallace. this went easily, and we got onto grommit. this was rather "fun" as the rope was looking interesting, and you had to go very slowly to avoid sizzling. at the bottom of grommit we gathered some bolts and hangers from the bag down there and set off into propane nightmares.

@@ -1545,11 +1471,10 @@ we regrouped at the base of the heifer after adding a bolt to make the pitch hea

T/U: 13.5 hours

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2023-07-19
-
Ashley Gregg,Zac Woodford,Will Kay,
+
Ashley Gregg,Will Kay,Zac Woodford
2023-ASH-15, 2023-ASH-16 - Prospecting – dropping Boring Hole and Dead on Arrival


Took Zac to bolt a cave he had previously found not too far of the path to Fishface. Slight delay as we’d forgotten something important (bolts maybe?), which Will went back to get. @@ -1561,11 +1486,10 @@ rift the were no continuations. Will named it Dead on Arrival (2023-ASH-15). Sur

Headed back to Top camp for noodles.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-19
-
Ashley Gregg,Will Kay,
+
Ashley Gregg,Will Kay
Plateau - Surveying Little Tent and Gollum Grotto


Deciding we weren’t done for the day yet an afternoon evening trip was decided upon to survey some of the caves Evelyn and I had found a few days ago. Will and I gathered the necessary gear and set off @@ -1581,49 +1505,44 @@ boulders, but this doesn’t go anywhere. off on the edges of the plateau. Plus curry for dinner.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-19
-
Joel,Thom,Merryn,Ely,Lizzie,
+
Joel,Ely,Lizzie,Merryn,Thom
Tempest - The Tempest Diaries
On what would really turn out to be our last day in Tempest, two groups went down once more - an intense pushing group and some tourists, me, Lizzie, and Ely attempted to bash a bigger hole to get into the rift at the bottom of Tomb Raider, achieving virtually nothing after an hour of work and deciding once again to drop in without SRT kits, we were joined by Merryn and the skeleton team squeezed in to survey the rift. This sadly crapped out ion chokes at both ends of the rift and along a continuation to the right, but we surveyed and got some good photos before returning out the hole to discover mildly hypothermic Tom waiting for us in his gimp poncho like some frozen wizard. Concluding that despite our best efforts the cave was going nowhere. We de-rigged the cave in stages and left all the rope at fishface. Defeated but content, we retreated to Top Camp. [TOPO TO BE SCANNED AND UPLOADED]
T/U: 6.0 hours

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2023-07-19
-
Nadia,Max,Flo,Kai,
+
Nadia,Flo,Kai,Max
surface - Prospecting near Fishface
We found a cave with 2 entries that linked together in several places. We dropped the first one and it didn't go anywhere so we dropped the second pitch which had loads of ice features which some of which had to be destroyed to stop them squishing people. The second part of the cave sent straight down then opened up slightly with a low flat chamber.
T/U: 2.0 hours

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2023-07-19
-
Becka,Sarah,
+
Becka,Sarah
2023-BL-05 - Prospecting W of Garlic cave
See Becka's track log for route and 2023-BL-05 to 09 for 5 logged caves. Adam descended three of them on naturals but sadly they all ended immediately, as did the two horizontal areas that we logged, we also failed to circumnavigate the Flares wilks kogel which made me both sad and cross. I checked out Paul Walko's lidan hole in the bunde which turned out to be a grassy bowl with no hole whatsoever.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-20
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Jono Lester,
+
Jono Lester
basecamp - I Drank More Beer


Today was a diffrent day. I walked down the Plat and was supose to enter all my 3D data and Nerd but i drank more beer instead.
T/U: 5.0 hours

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2023-07-20
-
Ashley Gregg,Thomas Phillips,
+
Ashley Gregg,Thomas Phillips
Plateau - Surveying Top Camp Band and Bat versus Rat


Decided to go and survey/kill a couple more caves before heading down off the plateau for the year. Aware that I would have a lot of data to sort out and vague plans to go canyoning Friday before the @@ -1637,11 +1556,10 @@ entrance. Good opportunity for Tom to have more practice on book (paperless).

It was then back to top camp to pack up everything to then walk down.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-20
-
Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
Homecoming - I’m very happy that Homecoming is being revisited
[Author has to be an on-expo member, but "Samouse1" (whoever that is) is not on expo this year. So the author is given as the Bier Tent to prevent annoying reminder messages.] @@ -1653,11 +1571,10 @@ Blog Author: Samouse1
I’m very happy that Homecoming is Either way, glad to see it being pushed towards the rest of the system!
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-20
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Sarah,Becka,
+
Sarah,Becka
Homecoming - Goosebox -> Lassitude Chambers
Managed to get underground before noon (!) at about 11:40am, Becka had gone via fishface to pick up her caving kit and some drill batteries. We got to the bottom of Grom,it without incidence and sorted through the drill and drill accessories that had been stashed there. They were in a holey tackle bag with no dry bag so drill was extremely dirty. We repurposed Adams sainsbury's bag to Hobnob hallway, dead flies to the pushing front. We dropped to a large ledge near where I had run out of bolts on a previous trip. I drilled up whilst Becka and Adam layered up. I descended to my previous single bolt rebelay and turned into a Y hand. I abseiled around 1 further sm and put in another rebelay. Here, the initial rift meets a perpendicular canyon with a small waterfall coming in from the side. I descended another 10m and peeked around the corner finally spotting the bottom of the pitch with my spot. I rigged a final rebelay and reached the bottom.

@@ -1667,29 +1584,26 @@ We surveyed until we reached a ~8m small cascade (honestly not very wet, even yo Becka and I tweaked the rigging on the way out, then we headed out of the cave.

T/U: 12.0 hours

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2023-07-22
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BT,
+
BT
travel - Pension talk
After a long drive across Europe consisting of pension, traffic, H52 and car talk we turned up to base camp overrun by all the kresh and their friends prepping for an [?] to Slovenia
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-23
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Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
basecamp - Nothing happened today at all


Nowt, apparently. Again. On a Sunday, again.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-23
-
Adam Baldock,Kai,
+
Adam Baldock,Kai
plateau - Mendip Man & Silver Moth
We set off to the fishface gear strone on a fine sunny day. I was promised some proper mendip esc horizpntal passages, exactly what I came to expo for. Kai showed me into mendip man, past the dollop of snow on the rather impressive entrance and set off down boulder and rock rubble, [?] crawling passage. @@ -1717,11 +1631,10 @@ We decuded to calll the name silver moth as the passage had a lot of moths and t With a great draft draft out of the hole we planned to return with a handline and a lot of psych [?] the rain in 2 days time.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-23
-
Emily,Thom,Joel,Merryn,Lizzy,
+
Emily,Joel,Lizzy,Merryn,Thom
Plateau - Prospecting near Fishface
After consulting the weather forecast in the morning and seeing 50mnm of rain forecast from 8pm onward we decided the best use of our day would be to prospect. Our first port of call was a previously scoped hole of the path between Fishcace and Homecoming. With no photo and only a rough location we looked in a few holes climbing to the bottom of a couple that looked possible but to no avail. After marking the holes we decided to continue in a vaguely North direction following a passage in homecoming below us. After some impressive Bundah walking we found another prospect in which Joel eagerly descended only to find it also choked out - it was therefore nicknamed Joel's disappointment , which later changed to sunglasses disappointment after he figured out he lost his sunglasses somewhere into the hole.

@@ -1730,11 +1643,10 @@ Yet another Bundah battle later we emerged to 2 rucksacks on the plateau and rea From here we began to circle back towards FishFace, on the way we found a large flat expanse of limestone with one semi hopeful prospect but after a large amount of gardening and some dodgy free climbing down from Joel it was decided it was far too chossy to look into any further. Finally we found our one true promising prospect - a hole temporarily name crucifix as it's buried in a bundah patch next to a cross. After putting one bolt in and preparing to start more bolting / rigging we looked up to see a large thunderstorm approaching. We left our bolt and rope we started to leg it up the hill. Tom did not enjoy this part. Finally we arrived, drenched in sweat and wheezing for oxygen, but not burnt to the bone by lightning, we arrived at top camp as the storm hit. We spent the next part of the night cowering in the one only corner of the buivvy as the predicted rain poured. 5 of us sheltered in the animal shelter and watched Matilda the musical - a good storm pass time!

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-23
-
Botcherby,Rob Watson,
+
Botcherby,Rob Watson
Fishface - 4th pitch derig
After storming up to Top Camp, we decided to make use of the rest of the day by de-rigging the 4th pitch in FishFace. I enjoyed learning the route to FF and the progression of alpine flowers. We arrived around 1700 only to discover that Rob's drill was not in the alcove. After having a meltdown and shouting at no one in particular, Rob decided to run back to Top Camp to get a drill whilst I chilled out in the sun. We actually got down around 1800, quickly smashing down to the offending pitch around 1900. While Rob got the drill set up I went down to identify which rope was the new one (Nadia had previously started the re-rig) and show Rob where to head for at the bottom. After faffing about changing ropes, I got down to the bottom, then up the handline to the new bottom of the pitch. As it would take some time, I decided to explore a bit. I ran down a few pitches which was easy due to [?]. Went wrong once when I popped through a little hole to a crumbling slope above a big drop. After a while, I thought maybe I should return, but maybe just one more pitch... This was the massive TK Max. At the bottom it was really time to return (2015) so I quickly stepped it back, returning to a (slightly worried) Rob at 2100ish. He'd been done for 40 minutes and had had the time to de-rig most of the old rope. To my disappointment he'd opted not to pass the rope through the little window. We got back to camp at around 2230 where the other were a bit suprised by our lateness. Ate a massive bowl of tortelloni. Thru bolts used: 5 @@ -1742,21 +1654,19 @@ Thru bolts used: 5 [RIGGING TOPO TO BE UPLOADED]
T/U: 3.5 hours

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2023-07-24
-
Joe Stell,Kai Trusson,
+
Joe Stell,Kai Trusson
Fishface - Tourist Trip to Pisspot


Tourist trip down Fishface to Pisspot. Already more SRT than Joe has done in his entire lifetime combined, hopefully not holding up Kai too much.

Turned around and headed back out after 2 hours or so as felt we had done enough SRT practice
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-24
-
Joe Stell,Kai Trusson,
+
Joe Stell,Kai Trusson
Surface - surveying/prospecting small leads found yesterday by Luke, Becca and Max


Becka checked with Joe Stell and Kai Trusson to clarify this write-up. It does describe Mendip Man albeit confusingly. The paragraph starting "upon leaving" is the main, left route after the entrance. The initial write-up refers the shorter, right route. This was surveyed on this trip but there was a problem with the data collected and so the data wasn't added to the database. It also isn't clear where the GPS location referred to below was taken.

@@ -1766,11 +1676,10 @@ Thru bolts used: 5

This second lead to the left was not surveyed nor fully explored and needs returning to.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-24
-
Rob W,Nadia,
+
Rob W,Nadia
Homecoming - Rigging fixing
Various reports/complaints had made it clear that the rigging in homecoming left a lot to be desired so since the forecast for the afternoon precluded the possibility of derigging Big Bastard or making moves to push Clap My Pitch Up Nadia and I derived to go and fix this. The walk between this cave from FF is one of the most irritating pieces of plateau bashing I have ever had to do. Lots of snaking up and down rugged terrain, through large patches of bunde and dwarf willow, with little idea how close you are to your destination. So SA to a good start. Eventually arrived and kitted up. Headed down the first couple of pitches with banks of snow before arriving at the pitches after the crawl. I installed a new bolt at the pitch head just after the crawl to make a traverse line. Then installed another rebelay near the bottom of this to reduce rub. @@ -1783,20 +1692,18 @@ NB: While I was rigging the new descent to the head of wallace at 1700-1800 we h We turned around at ~20:30. On the way out I noticed that Radagast, forced along a really nice normal fault, a marker had between 50cm thick between 2 shale bands shows it has ~10m displacement walks back was very damp of treacherous, saw many salamanders back at top camp at ~1am after dropping gear at FF. Thru bolts used: 13
T/U: 11.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-24
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Luke,Becka,Botch,
+
Luke,Becka,Botch
surface - Wombling around tidying up the mess
After Becka was finally ready we set off to FF, underground before 11am. Got to camp in 1hr making note of all the equipment abandoned in the cave. 2x ropes, 1xbrew kit, 2x tackle bags. Went to de-rig morning the moths it was dry, no water insight, con-try to previous explorers reports. Both derigged removing the nuts (take note for returning explorers no nuts. After much discussion we decided to go to coconut shy to rejig our memory on the way and jokingly sent Botch down a rat hole, Unfortunately it went and he disappeared for too long and I realised I would have to regrettably follow him to survey it. We started to survey as the passage got progressively smaller and muddier before a final letter box which shot you out into a rift. Well Botch and Becka surveyed. I desperately looked for a way to get back to known passage without going back through the letter box, I succeeded by climbing up through the rift but would need bolting if people return. Went back to see that Botch and Becka had survey to a point that would need rope. I sent them back through the letter box (gerbialhole.sux) and did the dodgy climb one more time. Little scuttle around coconut shy. Then it was time to go home. Fettled the cave link, went out of the cage removing excess and dirty rope above ground before sunset.
T/U: 10.0 hours

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2023-07-27
-
Joe Stell,Frank Tully,
+
Joe Stell,Frank Tully
Surface - Check your bits




Hearing of an exciting new lead, "Mahlstromhöhle", from Frank, Max and Flo, Frank and I embarked on a walk westward out of Fishface gear dump. Upon finding the entrance (which took considerably longer than anticipated) we quickly started kitting up, only to find an absence of any drill bits in the drill bag, contrary to what Frank believed to be the case. Frank then left for fishface gear dump in search of drill bits, whilst I waited patiently, in kit. @@ -1804,32 +1711,29 @@ After Becka was finally ready we set off to FF, underground before 11am. Got to

At some point during our travels, Frank had decided we should attempt to pioneer a new, shorter, easier path between topcamp and fishface, leaving the path halfway to embark on this endeavour. After much time scrambling, bunder-bashing and pathfinding, we finally refound the path, having created a path that was not easier, nor shorter. Frank then got bored and created a new gear rack at topcamp whilst we waited for the garlic cave prospecting group to arrive.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-27
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Becka,Luke,
+
Becka,Luke
Fishface - Rerig clap my pitch up + 4[??] pitch
Down Elizabeth line +rigged the red [light?] for danger traverese, 2 short pitches + then luke rigged clap my pitch up. We exited + luke rebolted the 4th pitch further back giving a hang that avoided the traverese + the awkward rebelay that had previously been tried - this is the 4th + hopefullly the final iteration of the 4th pitch this expo.
T/U: 10.0 hours

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2023-07-27
-
Botch,Nadia,
+
Botch,Nadia
Fishface - Rigging and Gerbil Hole ATtempt
After a freezing night in the cloud at top camp, the prospect of an underground camp wasn't seeming too bad. We got going slowly due to the chill, then walked over to fishface. The camping team was myself, Nadia, Rob and Kai plus a non-camping team of Luke and Becka. We were last so spent some time re-rigging the 4th pitch - removing the footless traverse in favour of two rebelays. I was a bit concerned it'd be too tight but we didn't want to put any bolts in so left it at that. We got to underground camp and had some noodles - no utensils so we ate with a pencil. We then went to bolt down the rift that Luke freeclimbed to the lead in the rift at the end of Gerbil hole. Rigging took a while due to the confusiong nature of the rift and shit rock. We'd used our two ropes to get to the lead so just surveyed out to complete a loop. By the time we got back to camp it was 2100 so we just madesoopy smash curry and ate it with spanners.

[RIGGING TOPO TO BE SCANNED AND UPLOADED]

T/U: 24.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-27
-
Rob,Becka,Botch,Nadia,
+
Rob,Becka,Botch,Nadia
Fishface - Camping without utensils
Did a bit of packing the night before but it was too chilly to want to really to the past. So that had to be done on the following morning, when it was equally cold. Which made us all a bit grumpy. Plan for day 1was for Kai and i to visit the European Federalists area to see if we could work out what was going on there while Like was also there rigging CMPU. After an uneventful commute we arrived at the traverse above red light. This was very much the return of Balcony's Arse. Disgusting sticky mud everywhere and they had used the 8.5mm rope to rig it. Thus making the rope really nasty. One part of the traverse was pretty strenuous and muddy, no one needed that. I feel bad for whoever had to wait while it got bolted. Anyway, got to the end and it was a total minger. Super chossy pitch combined with a mud festival. No thanks. Got a voice connection with Becka at the top of CMPU but couldn't see her light. Decided to fuck off as it was almost certainly just the top of Apis Medicus. Left it rigged for now. A visual connection can be made later. Then we headed back along the traverse to the head of CMPU to try and traverse across the 'free arse' that Luke and I had spotted the year previously. It quickly became apparent that traversing at the level of the 'free arse' would be very difficult, so I decided instead to traverse above and then drop in from the top. Some very muddy and naughty traversing ensured with a handy dose of choss. But a short while later and I was bolting at a rather nice phreatic passage with two junctions visible immediately. Very promising! @@ -1839,11 +1743,10 @@ Then back to camp where we discovered the lack of utensils. Ate some gnocchi/cur Next day we struggled to find motivation to leave sleeping bags but eventuallu made it back towards CMPU and the 'free arse'. Nadia, Botch and Kai began surveying the nice horizontal passage across the traverse while I rigged Apis Medicus. Remembered how poorly/quickly I rigged the traverse last year, resolved to fix it later. Pitch rigged to bottom, I looked at water levels quickly, seemed the same as last year in the rift. Looked at what the others were up to at the top, Really nice horizontal passage outgoing. On the way down earlier rocks were rained on me by the traversers alone so I hid and in the process noticed a canyon passage just before the top of Apis Medicus. So stole Botch and went to survey this. A nice passage that ended at a window onto Apis Medicus. Then Botch headed out while I improved the rigging of the traverse between CMPU and Apis. Much better now, headed out in a big trail of cavers, gettinbg out just before 10pm
T/U: 26.0 hours

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2023-07-28
-
Joe Stell,Frank Tully,
+
Joe Stell,Frank Tully
Maelstrom - Finally Underground




After the brilliant success of yesterday's failed pushing trip, Frank and I returned to Mahlstromhöhle to actually go underground and push. After the entrance pitch, there is a small hole in the floor, from which several small-ish pitches follow. @@ -1851,11 +1754,10 @@ Next day we struggled to find motivation to leave sleeping bags but eventuallu m

The canyon appears to have several false floors which we followed, resulting in several very small pitches which would certainly be a freeclimb if there were actually any holds. Bolting and surveying on the way, we kept pushing until we ran out of bolts and found a squeeze followed by a big wet pitch. We turned around and quickly exited the cave, with much SRT faff from me at the small canyon pitchheads and unusually rigged pitches by the German pair.
T/U: 7.0 hours

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2023-07-28
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Lea,Luke,
+
Lea,Luke
Fishface - Fishface - perseid shower to flaque vente
Descended to camp near perseid showers. Left some of our gear there and continued down Perseid showers. @@ -1869,11 +1771,10 @@ Came out of FishFace, left the rope from Perseid Showers at the junction to the What an amazing feeling to be at the bottom of fishface! WOW!
T/U: 11.0 hours

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2023-07-28
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Becka,Adam E,Ben,Adam A,
+
Becka,Adam A,Adam E,Ben
Fishface - Claw_crane off coconut shy
steady abseil down the entrance series. Ben + Adam EJ decided to head out from there so we had a quick tourist up Elizabeth line then they headed out. @@ -1887,11 +1788,10 @@ We met Luke + Nadia back at the camp kitchen + I exited in the midst of the camp For some reason Adam dawdled at camp + ended up exiting last + was late back to top camp.
T/U: 10.0 hours

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2023-07-28
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Nadia,Kai,Botch,
+
Nadia,Botch,Kai
Fishface - Theopillus Goon, above CMPU
After Rob and Kai travered over the top of CMPU the day before, finding a phrease window, Botch, Kai and I got to reap the Horizontal rewards. Starting at the window we took the small phreatic tube on the left of the window. @@ -1920,11 +1820,10 @@ At least 3m long unclear if it is promising. Also there is another small rift on the left earlier on in the passage that I couldn't decided if it was too small to be a lead.
T/U: 20.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-29
-
Joe Stell,Frank Tully,Nadia Raeburn,
+
Joe Stell,Frank Tully,Nadia Raeburn
Maelstrom - "Undersold"




Hearing of our great success with this shallow lead, Nadia, having returned from a fishface camping trip the day before, decided she would join us for a nice easy surface trip. @@ -1935,11 +1834,10 @@ Also there is another small rift on the left earlier on in the passage that I co

On the drive back, Nadia claimed we "undersold" everything between the pitches, and described Mahlstrom as a "Yorkshire blackbook" cave
T/U: 5.0 hours

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2023-07-29
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Kai,Luke,Becka,
+
Kai,Becka,Luke
Mendip man - Mendip man - Surveying trip
We headed out early ish and headed down to fish face gear store to find becka almost ready complaining about the quality of Distos lasers in the [day?] even tho she didn't [not?] to bring hers. After some above ground ffaffing we headed to the entrance where Becka rigorously ran through propa[sic] surveying techniques with me. @@ -1953,29 +1851,26 @@ Luke managed to climb out of the whole[hole?] but myself and Becka went back in. Luke then showed me a hole he found that drafts
T/U: 2.0 hours

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2023-07-29
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Botch,Rob,
+
Botch,Rob
surface - Garlic Cave area prospecting
We were both tired from 2 days in FIsh Face so went to prospect around Garlic Cave. We took a couple of blue barrels over for GC storage. We stopped via Homecoming to have a look and took some extra stuff to take down the hill. We dallied a bit looking at plants and arthropods and also got a bit lost. Once at GC we relocated the Jape Drum and removed the soup inside then had bread and cheese while looking at the view. We had limited time to prospect so set off quickly. At first we found little but then by levitating over some bunda we located a couple of decent prospects - one hole under a green alder (needs capping due to boulders) and another large slope to a small square hole with a 10m drop below in big area of bunda, no movement. We then headed back and got very lost on the 'well cairned' route back. On the way we located a very good lead, drafting with a snow plug and a massive train tunnel near the path that has leads in the back that could have been blocked by a snow plug before. We were very late to meet our lift back, but so were they. Back down for a swim in the lake with lightning.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2023-07-30
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Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
basecamp - Nothing happened today at all


Nowt, apparently. Again. On a Sunday, again.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-30
-
Sarah Parker,
+
Sarah Parker
Homecoming - UK Caving Blog post 14
Blog Author: Sarah P
Pushing Hobnob hallway in Heimkehrhoehle
@@ -1999,11 +1894,10 @@ Back down the hill with beer and chips in hand, we (and by we, I mean Becka, the Also, it is now our closest cave passage to the neighbouring Schönberg system (it's less than 2km away). If you have read Jono's intro post on this thread, you'll know that our long-term expo goal is to connect our SMK system to the Schönberg, to make one of the world's longest caves. I'm sure that last 1.94 km (and connecting Homecoming to Fishface, and Fishface to SMK..) will be a doddle
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-30
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Rob,Luke,Lea,Botch,Becka,
+
Rob,Becka,Botch,Lea,Luke
Fishface - Pushing The bottom of fish Face - camp #2 - part 1
Headed underground at~10pm on 30/07, arrived at camp around half 11. Good nigts sleep, unike the following night. @@ -2033,11 +1927,10 @@ Called it 'Deutelle de Caca' after Lea said that the flaky calcite precipitates thru bolts used 16
T/U: 48.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-30
-
Rob,Lea,Luke,Becka,Botch,
+
Rob,Becka,Botch,Lea,Luke
Fishface - Pushing the bottom of Fishface Camp#2
Headed underground at ~10pm on 30/07, arrived at camp around half 11. Good nights sleep, unlike the following night. Packed rope, bolts etc before facilitating a quick start. Fixed up the rigging on Apis Mediary on the way down, arrived at the first pitch which was left in the canyon by myself, Nathan and Max last year. Much wetter than last time so decided we needed an additional rebelay bolt way out to the left. Next drop rigged then we were into new territory. Scuttled along the top of the traverse after trying to force a lower route & deciding it was too shit. Reached a big pitch, decided the scuttle needed to have rope so began bolting along while Luke and Lea surveyed, Luke returning to the hang to get additional rope in the meantime . Dropped down the pitch towards a ledge, swung out to avoid the sprat of the pitch with a skyhook. PING! It was off, I swung across the shaft, stopping myself from hitting the wall with my hand which was unusable for the rest of the trip.

@@ -2046,20 +1939,18 @@ We then landed on a big ledge in a large fault zone. Massive piles of choss were Called it Dentelle de Caca after Lea said that the flaky calcite precipitates on the wall looked like the lace on a wedding dress.

T/U: 48.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-31
-
Joe Stell,Ruairidh MacLeod,
+
Joe Stell,Ruairidh MacLeod
Surface - Prospecting alternative entrances for Maelstrom


After a leisurely (not quite for Ruairidh, carrying far too much) walk up to topcamp with Frank and Nadia following a leisurely morning start from me, Ruairidh and I decided that we could attempt to find an easier, quicker entrance to Maelstrom by following the rift from the surface whilst the other two and Sam were actually in the cave derigging. First we found a large basin, containing what appeared to be a large cave entrance, but upon further inspection, choked out towards the back of the cave. Ruairidh did find a nice complete Gaemse skull though, which he seemed quite happy about. Another potential entrance found further along the rift with a steady flow of water disappearing into the ground which could explain some of the bigger drippy pitches after the lovely squeeze. The rift splits into two further on, with some promising, but inaccessible, looking gorges on the right fork as you follow it. The left seemed less promising from memory but this area is definitely worth another look with bolting kit to make sure. Realising we'd actually got quite close to the col, we decided to simply hike towards the slabs and rejoin the carpark-topcamp path and head back.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-31
-
Ben Chaddock,Charlie Crossley,Adam E,
+
Ben Chaddock,Adam E,Charlie Crossley
Fishface - Cocoa Channel Bolting Mission
[Adam E = Adam Erskine-Jones]

On the morning of my first pushing trip deep within Fishgesicht (5 minutes from camp) the nervous energy carried me up and away through the bountiful faff. After triple checking that we had all the equipment for bolting and surveying a rift that apparently continued but was too sketchy without a traverse line, Charlie, Adam EJ and I traipsed across the plateau for even more faff outside the entrance. After a prompt descent we met the camping team who showed us the way to silverback scoop including a stop at the tap and going down a wrong branch. Squeezing through a pitch head to descend 7m into a dusty tight canyon with a tackle sack full of heavy gear, I did wonder what I was doing, but once the drill was out that fell away completely. @@ -2069,11 +1960,10 @@ Called it Dentelle de Caca after Lea said that the flaky calcite precipitates on

The prussiking that then was meant to happen was further delayed on meeting the campers once again for a chit chat. After far too long wondering whether the next pitch was the last, we finally emerged into the warm clear night, comfortably into august. Charlie and I lay contemplating existence, and why the hell we bother caving but feeling very accomplished. All that was left to do after the trip was draw up the survey, continue the lead, input to survex, and write a logbook entry with rigging topo. All of that is now complete, see the topo below.
T/U: 12.5 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-31
-
Botch,Becka,
+
Botch,Becka
Fishface - Fuck Keanu - U/G camp Day 1
After getting underground late the light befroe we got going relatively promptly at 0830. We were supposed to check Keanu Breezze, a wet lead that was supposed to be decent. @@ -2094,22 +1984,20 @@ We made the [keyhole?] bank safe and I [?] bolted the pitch ready for tomorrow. We got back to camp around 2030 and made dinner with a very wet Rob springint in about an hour later.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-07-31
-
Adam Baldock,Kai,
+
Adam Baldock,Kai
Mendip Man - and Silver Moth
We set off to the Fishface gear store on a fine sunny day. I was Promised some proper Mendipesque horizontal passage, exactly what i came to Expo for. Kai showed me into Mendip Man, past the dollop of snow in the rather impressive entrance and set off down boulder and rubble floored crawling passage. At a junction we started to survey a descent lead to the right. I was on disto and Kai on book. The passage was low and surveying was pretty tight. We surveyed on and the passage gently descended with a few turns and low squeezes and a junction halfway on the right. The roof lowers and craps out after about [no number given] metres. The ceiling is decorated with cloud and plume like lumps of calcite. After the passage crapped out we pushed back and surveyed along to the right. This just led us round in a loop to earlier in the entrance series. Before going left at the first junction I attempted to dig out a slope while Kai went for a piss. The dig was fruitless and we proceeded on through a rather rude and grumpy bit of low passage with a sea of rude routes on the floo and pushed into a standing height chamber with boulders in the center. There were two leads here. The first was a small crawling passage, not quite flat out, which ended quickly, and was filled with bat poo and fungus growing up on it. The other lead was after a climb up through a squeeze. After the squeeze a 4m rift appeared, human sized in width! It seemed to descend to floor level and we didnt descend it. It is still a open lead but definitely a D lead, and probably goes back to floor level. We surveyed to the rift and called it a day on Mendip man. Without a good dig it doesn't appear to be going.

Before heading back to camp we checked out a hole which Luke had found which needed some digging near Mendip Man. With energy low but the draft exciting we took turns pulling head sized boulders out of the entrance until we squeezed through to a sitting height junction. The route straight ahead crapped out after 11m but to the right a strong draft and a [?] great echo. The passage started as a sharp calcite crawl then dropped down in a series of free climbable steps descending 40ft to a 4m wide hole. We surveyed tired and excited up to this point and left it as an A lead. We named this Silver Moth as the passage had a lot of moths and took silver from the fact that Luke had found it. With a great draft out of the hole we were excited to come back in 2 days time after the rain.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-01
-
Joe Stell,Manfred Wuits,Adam Aldridge,Nathan Walker,
+
Joe Stell,Adam Aldridge,Manfred Wuits,Nathan Walker
Surface - Hike to Garlic


Woke up to see a sub-optimal forecast. Somehow I was convinced that hiking to Garlic Cave Camp was of course the best course of action to take, so we set off. It was actually dry for the first third or so to fishface gear dump to collect our caving gear, but this did not last.
@@ -2117,11 +2005,10 @@ Before heading back to camp we checked out a hole which Luke had found which nee The path is a little treacherous in the wet, so it was a little slow going and slightly miserable and wet but we made it. Adam started shovelling snow, Nathan joined in, then I did. I believe Adam had some grand design in mind but I think we ruined it. We then decided to rig a third tarp up to stop the horrible drip right next to the kitchen, but we rigged a drippy tarp and so the situation wasn't drastically improved. We all went to sleep pretty early without anything else to do.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-01
-
Lea,Botch,
+
Lea,Botch
Fishface - Bavarian Gentian
Descended big pitch pitch rigged by Both and started surveying the chamber. It was a wet day and we heard the water at the back of the pitch start flowing with more energy. We surveyed a rift at water level. Didn't finish surveying it and lleft it as a QM. We surveyed the rift at the back of the chamber which led bback to coconut chamber? @@ -2132,11 +2019,10 @@ We were limited in time and once in the chamber, it was quite wet so we sent a f Very nice caving day. Went back to top camp after 2 nights in underground camp.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-01
-
Becka,Rob,Luke,
+
Becka,Luke,Rob
Fishface - Pushing the bottom of FishFace - camp #2 - part 2
After a slowish start we surveyed [?] Delicate steve Rob's traverese into a phreatic window opposite the [clap?] my pich up pitch [ahead?], reapeating the Rob and Kai survey that had been deemed inadequate. @@ -2147,20 +2033,18 @@ Luke and I eaded to the bold traverese on Elizabeth line + Luke bolted it as a p I got all the rope back to camp + sorted it to prusik out (beasing bags) + some rope got washed at the spout whilst we waited for Lea + Botch to return out ~10pm
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-08-02
-
Joe Stell,Adam Aldridge,Nathan Walker,Manfred Wuits,
+
Joe Stell,Adam Aldridge,Manfred Wuits,Nathan Walker
Buzzard - dropping Buzzard Hole on the northerly Kleiner Wildkogel ridge


After our lovely sleep, we woke up to dry weather, and set off to the top of the ridge above Garlic. Carrying the thick, wet 90m up the mountain was not conducive to good balance so I did fall over in the bunde and struggle to get back up. We reached Buzzard, Adam rigged it, first to the bunde, then hand bolting whilst we waited patiently. The improvement in weather did give a lovely backdrop of the Braeuningzinken for photos. Nathan went down next, followed by Manfred whilst I stayed outside enjoying the view. Upon Adam's return, I swiftly fell asleep, and awoke to find Nathan and Manfred had finished their survey and were finalising some sketches. Adam spotted some interesting holes beneath us on the plateau, so wet set off to prospect (see next entry).
T/U: 3.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-08-02
-
Joe Stell,Manfred Wuits,Adam Aldridge,Nathan Walker,
+
Joe Stell,Adam Aldridge,Manfred Wuits,Nathan Walker
Surface - Prospecting east and south of Kleiner Wildkogel


After dropping Buzzard, the fours of us decided to drop down the north face of the ridge, heading east at first, then split to form two prospecting groups, Adam and I heading further east to wrap around to the south face of the ridge, and Nathan and Manfred following the north face westwards to @@ -2176,11 +2060,10 @@ useful. that seem to follow a rift along the base of Wildkogel, then back to Garlic camp so as to not miss our callout.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-02
-
Hannah Collings,Nadia Raeburn,
+
Hannah Collings,Nadia Raeburn
Fishface Camp - Pushing Theophilus Goon


Tuesday was another wet day so a day of top camp fettling was had whilst plans were made for a fish face camp the following day. We had a (fairly) efficient morning, departing top camp shortly after 10 having received a debrief from the previous camp group, who had returned in the early hours, on the state of the latest leads. @@ -2197,11 +2080,10 @@ that seem to follow a rift along the base of Wildkogel, then back to Garlic camp

We returned to the traverse above clap my pitch up and due to some misunderstanding believed that all the other leads beyond this point had crapped out so Nadia derigged the traverse. This was a bold move requiring a pull through to derig the last section… shame it transpired to be not as helpful as we had thought. We had a frustratingly slow ascent of the red line pitches as our jammers were more mud than jammer by this point so once back at the tap we had an srt kit cleaning session before making our way out. Nadia found the rope near the bottom of tk maxx was core shot and tied this out. Our way out was otherwise uneventful, getting back to top camp for about 1:30.
T/U: 36.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-02
-
Becka,Lea,Adam E,Luke,
+
Becka,Adam E,Lea,Luke
Plateau - Prospecting around FishFace
A mellow, pleasant wander in the sunshine, we found + sechecked 2019-CUCC-RH-01 (GPS 47.69156 13.81210 alt 1659) - this was (still) a p4 to a ramp fown to a choke. We then [found?] 2023-BL-10 Lea + Adam EK dropped a p5 to a 5*5m loose chamber with a crwal to the N to a 2*4m chamber 4m high with no way on. @@ -2209,11 +2091,10 @@ Finally Beck explored 2023-BL-11 which was a 10m bouldery ramp to a cave with a Luke then [...] a more direct, better route to Homecoming as he and I ferried our gear there.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-02
-
Botch,Rob,
+
Botch,Rob
Plateau - Cold Shallow Holes
prospecting N of FishFace After gettinng out of a 48h camp we were a bit knackered so wanted t do some prospecting. @@ -2232,11 +2113,10 @@ They showed us a promising potential bivvy site too.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-03
-
Joe Stell,Nathan Walker,Adam Aldridge,Becka Lawson,David Botcherby,
+
Joe Stell,Adam Aldridge,Becka Lawson,David Botcherby,Nathan Walker
Garlic - Fettling


Woke up. 10am. It was rainy :( @@ -2249,11 +2129,10 @@ finger which hurt. This did slow progress but I finished the intended extension, did also later. I took some photos and made some shoddy diagrams of the tarps. Good day of fettling.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-03
-
Lea,Manfred,Adam E,Ben C,
+
Lea,Adam E,Ben C,Manfred
FishFace - Channel number 2 (continuing Cocoa_channel)
Descended fishface antrance series with tourist trip (adam B, Sam Lee, Kai). Had a snack in the kitchen and went to the end of cocoa_channel. Ben bolted new travers lines, adam EJ was on nail polish duty, manfred had Wookey's disto and I was doing the notes (for the first time). @@ -2266,11 +2145,10 @@ We could see a waterfalll from where the rift was too narrow. Adam EJ derigged and we came back to top camp.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-03
-
Nathan,Botch,Becka,
+
Nathan,Becka,Botch
Homecoming - Pushing/derigging trip down Homecoming - Goosebox - Sticky trigger
Having no plans to cave at Garlic camp I set off for homecoming with no plans, a bag full og gear of hope. I met becka as they were descending the entrance and joined their pushing/derigging trip to their evident relief. @@ -2287,11 +2165,10 @@ I caught up with Chi on the way out who had left Rob and luke in the insanity of We surfaced near 10 and I returned to Garlic with becka.
T/U: 10.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-03
-
Rob,Luke,Chi,
+
Rob,Chi,Luke
Homecoming - Homecoming - second coming shitshow
Chi had come up to top camp hoping to continue pushing 2nd comng with some people who might help him carry the gear out after, unlike some. So we set off in the drizzle for Homecoming entrance, making use of part of the shortcut to the [?] that we scouted when dropping off our gear at the entrance the day before. @@ -2336,11 +2213,10 @@ I exited the cave very dehydrated and still angry thru bolts used: 2
T/U: 13.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-04
-
Joe Stell,Hannah Collings,
+
Joe Stell,Hannah Collings
Basecamp - Garlic Guide
Following a swift departure from Garlic in the morning, and an even swifter (and sweaty) hike across the plateau carrying the thick 90m rope with all my other kit, I partially completed the garlic camp guide. @@ -2351,11 +2227,10 @@ typing out the way. Hannah convinced me to try a Goesser. Not bad as far as beer with continued expo attendance in future years, should this be the case.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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-
2023-08-05
-
Philip Sargent,
+
Philip Sargent
basecamp - Survey progress
Blog Author: PhilipSargent @@ -2364,11 +2239,10 @@ Blog Author: PhilipSargent The website currently on shows 3,233.2 m expo.survex.com/wallets/year/2023 but the new data update later this evening will show over 4km.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-08-06
-
Charlie,Adam E,Nathan W,Adam B,Ben C,
+
Charlie,Adam B,Adam E,Ben C,Nathan W
Fishface - The Three-Day Bound for The Four-Day Week-End
-It all begins in the tatty hut, several gossers short of a brewery. "let's go up in the weather window!" charlie had not done enough caving and wanted to camp in FF. "We'll call it the three-day bounce"."then we'll have a four-day weekend!" "We go to find the four day weekend!" - @@ -2418,11 +2292,10 @@ The website currently on shows 3,233.2 m T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2023-08-06
-
Nadia Raeburn,
+
Nadia Raeburn
Fishface - Underground camp
Blog Author: Tinywoman
My first underground camp
@@ -2448,11 +2321,10 @@ After about 20 legs Rob had finished his rigging and came and collected Botch to (In a subsequent underground camp trip I returned to the same area but Hannah will be telling you about that adventure. I brought my down jacket to underground camp and found that to be a game changer. Not only was I warm at night, somehow that heat carried on to my caving trips. It was amazing)
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-06
-
Hannah Collings,Nadia Raeburn,
+
Hannah Collings,Nadia Raeburn
Fishface - Camp: Muddy Goons
Blog Author: h_collings
Fishface Camp - Muddy Goons
@@ -2488,11 +2360,10 @@ A pleasant evening was had in camp with Ruairidh and Frank, who had been explori The pitches back to camp were painful, despite their shortness, due to our mud caked jammers. We reached the ‘tap’ near camp with relief and had a good gear cleaning session before making our way out. We were greeted on the surface with the impressive sight of an almost full moon, bright and low on the horizon, which lit the first part of the walk back before slipping below the mountain peaks - I have definitely missed life on the plateau since last year!
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-08
-
Sam,Adam A,Hannah,Becka,
+
Sam,Adam A,Becka,Hannah
Homecoming - Homecoming push Derig - Watershed
After a big (double noodle) breakfast we packed all three of our through-bolts ... and headed down from garlic to Homecoming. Our mission was simple, push a lead in watershed, then derig Waterershed and the top of the entrace series. Our lack of through-bolts did not deter us.

@@ -2529,11 +2400,10 @@ NO ROPE on entrance pitches up to end of Radagast NO METALWARE on any derigged ropes

T/U: 16.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-09
-
Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
FishFace - Fish Face Rope Inventory
rope left at bottom of 4th pitch
rope lengths are an estimate @@ -2635,11 +2505,10 @@ rope left at bottom of 4th pitch
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-09
-
bier tent,
+
bier tent
Garlic Camp - Garlic Camp - Garlic camp inventory at end of expo
Garlic camp kit packed away in garlic cave on RHS, in corner at front of cave.

@@ -2702,11 +2571,10 @@ Garlic camp kit packed away in garlic cave on RHS, in corner at front of cave. expo suggestion - double sized both container bags 6 no. [?] (current bags don't fit bothies in when wet/muddy)

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-10
-
Rob Watson,David Botcherby,Kai Trusson,Nadia Raeburn,
+
Rob Watson,David Botcherby,Kai Trusson,Nadia Raeburn
fishface - Connecting FF to SMK: a step further
Blog Author: nobrotson
Connecting FF to SMK - a step further
@@ -2744,11 +2612,10 @@ And that was it for my exploration in FF. Lea continued the trend of french name All photos: Stangroom.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2023-08-29
-
Joel Stobbart,
+
Joel Stobbart
Tempest - The Tempest Diaries
Blog Author: El Stobbarto
The Tempest Diaries*
@@ -2822,7 +2689,6 @@ All in all, this was a fun project to have for our last week. It was a shame not All photos mine except where credited.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
diff --git a/years/2024/logbook.html b/years/2024/logbook.html index fae16dbe7..905965f03 100644 --- a/years/2024/logbook.html +++ b/years/2024/logbook.html @@ -7,14 +7,16 @@ - @@ -28,33 +30,30 @@ Becka went to the dentist (temporary filling) and then up the hill.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-06
-
waite,Charlotte,philips,Jacob C,
+
waite,Charlotte,Jacob C,philips
Basecamp - Setup day 1
Arrived in the afternoon and got keys from gasthof. Fridge full of other people's beer sadly. Picked up Philip S from the station and set up outside tarp and bier tent. Bier tent missing it's door ATM with a tarp rigged instead??????? Where has it gone ? Who knows?????? Gas hose fell off burner whilst cooking dinner, large plume of flame in bier tent but crisis averted
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-06
-
Philip Sargent,Charlotte,
+
Philip Sargent,Charlotte
Bad Aussee - Shopping trip
I was walking into town from the station (from Vienna this morning) when I was intercepted by Charlotte and taken shopping at the big Billa, thence to [otato hut, nerding etc. Hot day, sunny,not rain.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-07
-
PhilipS,Charlotte,Jacob,Waite,
+
PhilipS,Charlotte,Jacob,Waite
topcamp - First visit to top camp
Charlotte, James W and Jacob C going for a first carry to top camp to look at amount of snow etc., departed Gasthof at 11:00 expected back about 20:00. They are not taking the new top camp tarp up this time - it weighs 21 kg.

-Post script +Post script
James, Charlotte and Jacob found top camp with minimal snow around. Route from carpark onto hill is blocked by large concrete block. Route can be found going round the right hand side but maybe not possible with building work happening. Otherwise route up hill on left of carpark at bottom end takes @@ -69,29 +68,26 @@ Karin and Hilde came and said hello. Tarp is partly up at side of hut as there was a caravan parked there yesterday.

T/U: 1.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-08
-
PhilipS,Julia,wassil,sieds,
+
PhilipS,Julia,sieds,wassil
basecamp - Who went where
Everyone went up to the plateau except for Julia and Philip S. Wassil and Sieds arrived during the day.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-08
-
Waite,charlotte,
+
Waite,charlotte
Top camp - Carrying
Carried the new tarp up to top camp today (25KG bag) rigged the tarp reasonably well. Water collection is started but needs rain. Storage cave emptied and some bits dried out.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-08
-
Issac,
+
Issac
plateau - musings of a tired boy
I'll fill this out later, food has just been announced as being ready and I am bloody starving!

@@ -99,11 +95,10 @@ Best, Isaac

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-08
-
ZW,
+
ZW
basecamp - To top
@@ -112,12 +107,11 @@ Isaac [Zac, that's not the only thing it does! I have sent you a list of background reading for you to get on top of before you do this sort of thing.]
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-09
-
Philip S,Wookey,Sieds,
-
Basecamp - Nerd *
+
Philip S,Sieds,Wookey
+
Basecamp - Nerd **
Sieds has graduated (demoted?) to supernerd. Wookey spent a couple of hours last night failing to get the scanner working with Debian, and Philip was tearing his hair trying it with Ubuntu and Windows this morning. @@ -125,11 +119,10 @@ this morning. Sieds calmly checked the online documentation, did the three-fingered salute to reset the firmware on the scanner, and it worked.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-09
-
waite,jacob,charlotte,issac,
+
waite,charlotte,issac,jacob
fishface - collecting rope
no reflectors left on spits.
@@ -165,29 +158,26 @@ way looking over us. (The walk was much less relaxing for me as the spade handle on things and tried to kill me multiple times).
T/U: 8.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-09
-
Philip S,Ruairidh,
+
Philip S,Ruairidh
basecamp - Ruairidh arrived
by train
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-09
-
Philip S,Philip B,
+
Philip S,Philip B
basecamp - COVID
Philip B should have been arriving today but has caught covid from NSS in USA, so staying in Salzburg for a few days.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-10
-
Isaac,charlotte,jacob,philip s,waite,
+
Isaac,charlotte,jacob,waite,philip s
basecamp - Bread Making

With an afternoon of festering well on the way after arriving back from our FF rope @@ -245,11 +235,10 @@ Yours to the final Sump,
Isaac.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-10
-
Wassil,Marie,Sieds,Lara,
+
Wassil,Lara,Marie,Sieds
balcony - Rigging balcony entrance series

We were tasked by Antony to rig the entrance series of Balkonhöhle so that he could go and rig Mongol Rally (presumably a more interesting rig).

@@ -271,22 +260,20 @@ decided that it would be irresponsible to keep going and rig the traverse we wer rapidly approaching. Luckily we made it back to camp 5 minutes before it started pouring.

T/U: 5.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-10
-
Philip S,Becka,
+
Philip S,Becka
basecamp - Dentist and Amazon
Becka went to the dentist (temporary filling) and then up the hill. 8kg of mashed potato and 2.5kg of milk powder arrived via amazon.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-11
-
Wassil,Jono,Marie,Becka,
+
Wassil,Becka,Jono,Marie
garlic - Setting up Garlic Cave Camp

It turns out that Garlic Camp is a really good idea. 1h58 from the car park, under 20 minutes from Homecoming, so I'll be spending more time there.

@@ -322,11 +309,10 @@ had to say our goodbyes for the second time after we reached Homecoming.

The walk from Homecoming to the col was actually surprisingly pleasant and easier than the one from top camp. It could definitely become a trade route in the future.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-11
-
Philip S,
+
Philip S
1623-228 - 1623-114, 1623-81 , 1623-82, 1623-85, 1623-148. - Trying to identify entrances
I got an early lift up with Charlotte and went off on my own to check out 1623-228 "Kleine Schnellzughoehle" where the survey looks suspiciously like 1623-114 (Lost Hole) which I know visually looks very much like a smaller version of Schnellzughoehle.

I failed: the GPS position (fairly close to the Stoger Weg) is (2024) in completely impenetrable pine scrub. So either ArGE are incredibly hard, or the path has healed up since 2000, or they have recorded the wrong GPS position. I suspect that it is really the same as 114 and that they have the wrong GPS. @@ -341,11 +327,10 @@ Walked back to Bad Aussee. Had coffee having missed last bus.

Walked back to Gasthof. At which point I discovered Jono had driven down and if I had just stayed drinking beer I would have got a lift. Ho Hum.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-11
-
waite,wook,charlotte,lara,
+
waite,charlotte,lara,wook
homecoming - more naughty rope
We rigged the entrance to Homecoming and rigged ropes down to the up pitch. ropes after this were left insitu. wookey dissapeared behind us to play with his new toy (Sap6) he measured some pitches as far as the 4 bolt traverse at the bottom of radagast. We found the pile of rope at the bottom of the uprope to Propane Nightmares.

@@ -364,22 +349,20 @@ we hauled out the rope and were missing a bag charlotte was the bull and this was the red rag!

T/U: 4.5 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-11
-
Anthony,Ruairidh,Sieds,
+
Anthony,Ruairidh,Sieds
Balkon - Rigging
Set off with the intention of rigging as far as Hangmans if time permitted. I felt a bit ropey, and this sensation did not subside once we started caving. Ruairidh attempted to fettle the entrance rig a bit, and we extended the existing handline on the approach to Natural Highs. At the pitch by Natural Highs I was still feeling nauseous, so elected to turn round. This was a good move as I was even slower than usual on the way out, finding myself sitting gazing into space for minutes on end at various points. Ruairidh and Sieds got as far as rigging the traverse to the head of Honeycomb before heading out.

TU is a guess - two hours less for me

T/U: 6.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-11
-
Wookey,Charlotte Payne,James Waite,Lara Bartleet,
+
Wookey,Charlotte Payne,James Waite,Lara Bartleet
Homecoming (359) - Rigging in

[Main write-up above - This is Wook's writeup of his somewhat separate trip]

@@ -419,20 +402,18 @@ pitches. Out after a very civilised 4hrs, with a tedious slog back to the Stone Bridge.

T/U: 4.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-12
-
jw,lara,charlotte,
+
jw,charlotte,lara
garlic - thunderstruck
we walked to garlic from top and fettled the tarps and kit. then thunder, lightning and lotsa of rain struck. we dealt with this by laying down and trying to sleep under the tarp. we ended up using a bivi bag as a duvet and had a book reading session until the rain had passed. was very warm and lovely.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-12
-
Becka,RM,Marie,
+
Becka,Marie,RM
Balkonhoehle - Rigging Honeycomb
Zero stoke for this trip and a crack of 11am start saw us heading down with the 2 bags of rope to rig Mongol Rally plus associated hardware and some kit to keep us warm, safe and happy. The 2024 rig of @@ -473,22 +454,20 @@ drop Y-hang to remove the rub. We were all out by 10 so T/U 11 hours. Beautiful, walk back to an empty Top Camp.
T/U: 11.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-12
-
waite,lara,charlotte,
+
waite,charlotte,lara
homecoming - silly james gets grumpy
i left my pantin on the surface and then got my feet wet going into the A lead at heifer. cue some grumpy rigging by myself and an early turnaround partway down strained by gravity. on exit we had a a large traffic jam on wallace with people going down to second coming.
T/U: 7.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-13
-
pb,Isaac,Jono,
+
pb,Isaac,Jono
Garlic - Dropped gear at garlic and setup meshtastic
I set out to drop my gear at Garlic and setup some fixed nodes to test the meshtastic radios. We dropped the first radio at the Col, up the slope to the left as use enter the plateau. It was @@ -507,11 +486,10 @@ reporting its location wrong. A mystery for another day. I was at the Car park b Jono and Isaac mode it back a little while later.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-13
-
Jacob C,Wassil,Marie,
+
Jacob C,Marie,Wassil
homecoming - Homechundering
Wassil and I wandered over to top camp to meet Marie in the early hours of the Saturday morning. The weather was unassuming and I felt brimming with eagerness to get underground having spent one day too many days festering at base camp.

@@ -549,22 +527,20 @@ good night. Jacob

T/U: 8.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-14
-
ps,Marie,Wookey,Jacob,
+
ps,Jacob,Marie,Wookey
basecamp - Heute ist Domstag
Delayed Onset Muscle Stiffness my walk up to StoneBridge a couple of days ago.

A bit of a disturbance last night as Marie was a bit ill after coming out of a cave and could not make the walk back to camp and had to bivvy on the plateau with Jacob. Wookey took her a sleeping bag.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-14
-
Jono,balister,
+
Jono,balister
basecamp - A stroll from afar
Today, I got to sit on my seat, relaxing outside, munching on chips, and sipping a Gösser, while Balister hiked up the Tressensteinwarte to see if we could get a signal on our new Meshtastic systems. @@ -573,22 +549,20 @@ This is the first step to enabling me to run the expo from the Tatty Hut 24/7. T Let's see if he gets a parking ticket as he sprints back down the hill...
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-14
-
PS,PB,JC,Isaac,RM,Marie,JL,Sieds,
+
PS,Isaac,JC,JL,Marie,PB,RM,Sieds
Basecamp - Who came down, and went up
Jacob, Marie came down (Phil B got them?) and Marie went to bed in the attic.

In the evening Phil B and Jono went up to play with radios and to find Isaac (who apparently had been taking more than 5 hours to get to Garlic with Sieds), Anthony & Ruairidh went up to stay at top camp. All in PB's car.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-15
-
Lara,James W,Charlotte,Issac,
+
Lara,Charlotte,Issac,James W
homecoming - Failed pushing but excellent sidequests
We set off from Garlic Camp to homecoming vaguely early in the morning which was a very welcome change, 20 minutes downhill walking which was lovely as long as you didn't think about the walk back up. Isaac had joined our motley crew the night before and was very excited for a big trip (read: scared to be beasted by Charlotte and James).

@@ -615,11 +589,10 @@ the entrance series dragged on a bit, especially as James had to isolate a shagg

Outside Homecoming we met Charlotte and Issac who made one final iconic quote: 'being out of the cave feels better than loosing my virginity'. We headed back very tiredly to the sweet damp embrace of Garlic Camp. Great trip.

T/U: 12.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-15
-
philips,
+
philips
Surface - Looking for entrances from the Oberwasseralm path
I cycled up to the far end of Altaussee lake and walked up the path towards Hochklapfsattel (towards Wildensee) to have a good look at the side of the Loser massif below the Stoger Weg. [I am still looking for the entrance making the Howling Draft in the Futility Series in 115, which is 60m from the surface.]

@@ -659,11 +632,10 @@ The photos of the same place from the Loser side in 2018 - description of trip i

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-15
-
Anthony,Ruairidh,
+
Anthony,Ruairidh
Surface - Entrance hunting towards Griesskogel

The objective for today was to head over towards the Griesskogel camp used by ARGE some years ago to find a few of their caves that are in interesting places given what we have recently found in deep Balkonhöhle. We also planned to swing by a few caves that were lacking entrance photos to rectify the shortfall. Ruairidh was also keen to drop an undescended pitch in 2012-ns-07 (aka 2016#01), so we took drill, rope SRT kit etc.

@@ -695,11 +667,10 @@ The photos of the same place from the Loser side in 2018 - description of trip i

T/U applies to Ruairidh only.

T/U: 0.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-15
-
Wookey,Wassil,Sieds,
+
Wookey,Sieds,Wassil
Homecoming (1626/359)- 2nd Coming rigging

Wassil was excited to finally make some progress on 2nd coming, so we walked over to Homecoming from top camp with a nice new rope to @@ -768,11 +739,10 @@ route in the end, as I was now decamping to Balcony to help get that rigged.

T/U: 11.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-16
-
Isaac,Waite,
+
Isaac,Waite
basecamp - My pants
Due to circumstances I would love to describe as 'out of my control', but alas cannot, I ended up wearing the same pair of underwear for a walk up to the plateau, for a night at garlic, down homecoming the next day, another night in garlic, and a walk back down to base camp. Unsurprisingly to some (and by "some" I here mean "everyone but student cavers") they ended up carrying a rather pungent odour into the following day. In the absence of someone inventing a way to send scents through the medium of text, I'll leave you with James Waite's thoughts on the smell as 'ohh that's rather like a strong camembert'.

@@ -783,11 +753,10 @@ Actions carried forward: Null. Isaac

T/U: 12.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-16
-
PS,Lara,AD,JW,
+
PS,AD,JW,Lara
basecamp - More chundering
Anthony had a very bad night last night at Stone Bridge a couple of hours after eating, but got down today feeling a bit weak.

@@ -795,11 +764,10 @@ James was shown how to scan survey notes, put them in a plastic wallet, and crea

Lara was shown how to type up a logbook entry online, but she (sensibly) bailed on typing up the survey data when faced with the full complexity of the survex system in troggle..

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-16
-
Philip Balister,Jono Lester,, *Phil Benchoff
+
Philip Balister,Jono Lester,*Phil Benchoff
topcamp - Trip to top camp
We had a lot of fun, walking up to Top Camp to deliver some supplies, including two Tofu Paneer curries intended for my consumption. Once at Top Camp, I reviewed the behavior of meshtastic nodes about the plateau. Chat performance is good, but some units are not updating positions consistently This needs more study. Jono ran the Stone Bridge fixed node to the top of Niederes augst-eck. This gives the mesh good coverage over Balkon area and much, much further, Jono was giggling like a radio amateur after working Scarborough Reef. I setup mqtt access to a node and packets where sighted in Virginia on a server operated by Phil Benchoff.

@@ -809,20 +777,18 @@ Future work: Rename channels so we can pass telemetry over an expo specific chan The tofu curries were consumed when a prospecting trip returned. I was sad.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-16
-
Isaac,Charlotte,Marie,Jono,Lara,Waite,Jacob,Ruairidh,
+
Isaac,Charlotte,Jacob,Waite,Jono,Lara,Marie,Ruairidh
Lake - Marie Hates Swimming
See title.
T/U: 0.01 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-17
-
philip s,wookey,
+
philip s,wookey
basecamp - Elitech datalogger
The data logger had been extracted from Traungold where it had been all winter. Minimum temp -4.9 C which then went up to 0.1 C and was very stable for months when it was presumably buried in snow.

@@ -831,20 +797,18 @@ Created new folder as expofiles/datalogger/ where I have put the data, exported

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-17
-
ps,, *everyone
+
ps,*everyone
basecamp - Lots of basecamping
Tess arrived, and cooked the evening slop + rice (with Lara) for the canyoning [Strubklamm] team. A fine evening with much conviviality. ABout a dozen people down at base.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-17
-
Wookey,Jono,Marie,Isaac,Charlotte,Phil Balister,
+
Wookey,Charlotte,Isaac,Jono,Marie,Phil Balister
Canyonning - Strubklamm

A canyonning trip was suggested, and as I'd done it a couple of times before and thus knew where it was, and what to look out for, it @@ -906,11 +870,10 @@ nicely. Good trip, and it's a lot nicer with 5 than 10 but still takes a solid 3 hours. We got back about 7pm.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-18
-
Lara,Charlotte,Jacob,James W,
+
Lara,Charlotte,Jacob,James W
homecoming - There and there and there and back again
When I emerged from homecoming and realised the stars were only just still visible because it was dawn I seriously considered if I'd left some of my sanity down by the pushing front. We had finished faffing and started descending around midday the day before, a solid 16 and a half hours ago.

@@ -947,11 +910,10 @@ It now being 1am we were a bit delirious. Jacob went the wrong way and took a de

The sun shone off the mountain and through the wild flowers as we walked up the hill to Garlic Camp. Despite how my legs felt, at that moment I was extremely happy.

T/U: 16.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-19
-
Philip S,Sieds,
+
Philip S,Sieds
basecamp - Laser printer
Sieds has sorted out the printer properly. We have new Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black cartridges in today. The Blue cartridge is at 10% and there is a new Blue cartridge in an OPENED box and bag under the bench which should be used to replace it at the end of Expo 2024.

@@ -960,11 +922,10 @@ There is also a completely new OPENED Black cartridge under the bench in a box.

So we are probably good with this printer and have enough toner for expo 2025.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-19
-
PhilipBalister,IsaacNeale,
+
PhilipBalister,IsaacNeale
2024-pb-01 - Descend a shaft by dm-04 #2
In 2023, I was poking around the area around dm-04 while Ash surveyed it with possibly Eli from Cardiff. There are several interesting shafts in the area, including the one I dropped today. This shaft was under a fissure with a few boulders in the roof. Rocks dropped in create an impressive BOOM.

@@ -983,11 +944,10 @@ Isaac went to drop the drill and rope back at Garlic while I did a quick survey The tag for p2018-dm-04 is in the foreground, the tackle sack is near the beginning of the rift and the actual shaft is under the darker area after the tackle sack and before the Bunde.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-19
-
Wookey,Jono,
+
Wookey,Jono
Balconhoehle - Rigging Mongol Rally

Walked up to top camp in the evening ready for trip down Balkonhoehle to get Mongol Raly rigged with Jono. I was somewhat @@ -1050,22 +1010,20 @@ almost zero stress, and we'd done enough to make a camping trip feasible next time.

T/U: 10.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-20
-
PS,Harry,Christian,Colin,
+
PS,Christian,Colin,Harry
Bascamp - New arrivals
Christian, Harry and Colin arrived.
Becka came back too.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-20
-
bier tent,
+
bier tent
basecamp - Cheese banned from expo shopping?
A breach of our human rights!

@@ -1084,11 +1042,10 @@ In the event of inaction on this issue, I am afraid we will be forced to conside Signed: The people of the plateau.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-20
-
Marie,Wookey,Anthony,
+
Marie,Anthony,Wookey
Balcony - Camp Set up and the Pushing Begins
I love camping in unusual places and so I was excited, if not a little apprehensive, for an underground camp. This would be my first surveying trip and first trip after becoming quite ill in Homecoming and so the fear of everything that could go wrong so deep underground for so long was quite high but luckily the thrill of adventure triumphed in the end. I was in good hands with two very experienced expo goers who offered great advice whilst packing for the trip - a special shout out to the raisins and seeds that Anthony packed which made our morning porridge significantly more palatable and nutritious. I was worried we would be stuck at top camp in the pouring rain for the day but it turns out I never fully understood the meaning of caving faff until I helped pack for an underground camp. We were only just about ready when the rain lessened up around 4pm and so we took advantage of the weather window and scampered across the plateau under ominous clouds, hopes high that nothing too important had been forgotten.

@@ -1113,11 +1070,10 @@ I had no awareness of the passage of time until I was struck by hunger pains at We were greeted by a few rays of sunshine when we finally exited around 5pm before the rain started to fall on our walk back to top camp where Becka, James and Colin were waiting for us expectantly to begin their own journey. We gave them the inventory of the camp whilst they updated us on base camp happenings and world politics (Biden had dropped out of the presidential race!) I had remarked to Wookey and Anthony somewhat jokingly underground that the apocalypse could happen and we wouldn’t be aware of a it until a couple days later but was not expecting such big news. It was nice to have escaped worldly problems for a 48 hours and replaced them with underground ones.

T/U: 48.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-21
-
Philip S,Tom,Rosa,Aidan,Dickon,
+
Philip S,Aidan,Dickon,Rosa,Tom
basecamp - New arrivals today
One car arrived:
@@ -1125,11 +1081,10 @@ Tom and Rosa were in it. Aidan came by train and Dickon drove here.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-21
-
Philip S,Charlotte,lara,harry,chi,
+
Philip S,Charlotte,chi,harry,lara
plateau - Surface walk from col to Geschwantalm
@@ -1163,11 +1118,10 @@ ADDENDUM 26th July:
Bing aerial photos show the forestry track and much of the path from Geschwandalm, it shows that the track does not go to Bla Alm at all, but apparently ends only about 150m beyond where the path joins it.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-21
-
Lara,Harry,Charlotte,Chi,
+
Lara,Charlotte,Chi,Harry
Homecoming - A satisfying but not very useful result
Slavedriver Payne woke us up early and we got up the hill vaguely fast (despite Chi's moderate faff). Unfortunately further faff then occurred at the entrance to Homecoming. This included further effort towards the Gordian Knot from the first Homecoming trip, which concluded in Chi doing an Alexander the Great. We ended up with two ropes. Chi also spent some time reconstructing a pantin from two broken ones (it didn't work). Clearly one person was the issue here. *editorial note: it would transpire that Lara concluded faffing a good 20 mins after the futile pantin was birthed*

@@ -1190,11 +1144,10 @@ I forgot that Harry's water bottle was in the bottom of my bag, and may have sli Harry and Charlotte slowed themselves down by doing some more Wallace fettling. Chi and I got out at the lovely hour of 3am and napped for the 15 minutes before they caught up. I got deja vu as we headed up to Garlic and immediately passed out. A very long, very fun day.

T/U: 15.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-21
-
Becka,Sieds,
+
Becka,Sieds
Homecoming 359 - Second Coming Re-rig
A hot, heavy walk up from Base Camp saw Sieds and Becka underground at 14.30. At the short drop with a high rebelay before Wallace and Grommit Sieds had accidentally dropped a large, loose rock on his last trip. Unfortunately, he now realised that the huge rock next to this previous rock was also extremely loose. We were aware that there was already a trip below us in Homecoming but the other rock was extremely loose so I derigged the next rebelay and prussiked up to the high rebelay and held the rope out of the way. Sieds then gently pushed the giant rock and it immediately toppled. I then headed down cautiously. The rope initially looked fine but at the Y-hang rebelay for the final long hang the Y-hang arm had been cored and the knot also looked to be damaged. I painstakingly got the knot out and tied out as much as I could then we headed down, leaving a warning not for the other group.

@@ -1203,11 +1156,10 @@ We went to Second Coming and, at the first traverse, wondered why it was rigged We got out of the cave at midnight and Sieds walked to Garlic camp and I walked to Top Camp with a full moon and no wind. I could see and hear Sieds as he approached Garlic when I was almost at Top Camp, it was so still and silent. It was nearly 2am before I got to Top Camp and I crept around making food trying not to disturb anyone - I didn't realise until the next morning that there was nobody else there.

T/U: 9.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-22
-
Colin,Becka,waite,
+
Colin,Becka,waite
Balkonhoehle - Rack Vs Rally
This is my first logbook entry so may need fettling.

@@ -1228,20 +1180,18 @@ On the way back to camp we replaced the old (2012) rope from the Northern Powerh A very early morning and a relatively faff-less start was achieved. Mongol Rally was quickly started by Becka. I tried to make my life easier by abseiling out of the window on an Italian hitch with my jammers on the up rope. The plan failed when the carabiner failed to open, resulting in me having to untie the rope from the natural it was secured to in order to feed it through my carabinier to then try again. James was not impressed and made sure to hold onto the rope. Once this first obstacle was passed I was off, being chased by James and trying to keep up with Becka, which didn't happen. My pantin and croll weren't being helpful, making my life very unpleasant. Much suffering was gone through trying to exit, much to everyone else's entertainment. The exhaustion caught up at the bottom of the entrance series. Much flapjack was consumed, giving me a second wind. I exited to Becka going telling me that we were behind schedule and cracking the whip.

T/U: 65.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-22
-
Philip S,Shinwell,
+
Philip S,Shinwell
basecamp - Arrival and rain
Mark Shinwell arrived in an electric van (hired) and in the early evening Jono's new huge tap at the end of the hut (put up yesterday) got tested by a downpour.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-22
-
Jacob,Phil S,Isaac,
+
Jacob,Isaac,Phil S
Basecamp - Festering and computers at the end of time
Isaac and I were tasked with writing up 2023's unfinished logbook writeups. After overwhelming Philip with website bugs and general stress we each decided to go on missions of self discovery to stave off a complete mental break.

@@ -1252,31 +1202,28 @@ I went for a a quick walk up the nearby Gallhofkogel, lovely views(which I would I need to go caving.

T/U: 1628458.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-22
-
Rosa B,Aidan K,Jacob C,Jono L,
+
Rosa B,Aidan K,Jacob C,Jono L
Menstrual Tunnel - My first underground trip abroad
I asked Jono for him to teach me to survey and which he enthusiastically agreed. The next morning he came up with a grin telling me to grab my helmet and my swimming costume????? and get in the landy. We arrived in a car park with Jono keeping the plan quiet and walked us alo0ng the river opposite a chinese. Across the river under the chinese was a small tunnel. It was a battle to get into the tunnel with the strong torrent of water trying to push us down. I mistakenly volunteered to go in to mark the survey point with my finger and was instantly hit by slime underfoot and a grotesque smell. I concealed my disgust and headed in. The others took their time learning about the survey device and choosing their spot. Then they entered with much dramatica, Jono gagging and threatening to throw up, Aidan doing his best to avoid the slime and Jacob quietly disgusted. At this point we noticed the used menstrual products next to me and the strong scent of fecal matter. We sped up the process with Aidan valiantly fighting the cobwebs. Much surveying was learnt and ready to try in an actual trip. We made a quick escape all taking time to wash thoroughly in the river.

Lesson learnt: Be wary of Jono's ideas. Ask more questions.

T/U: 0.2 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-22
-
Aidan K,Rosa B,Tom P,
+
Aidan K,Rosa B,Tom P
Plateau - First Plateau Crossing
It's Rosa and I's first expo and it was Tom's first time up to Garlic camp. We had lots of fun navigating our way across, mostly playing join the dots orienteering style. We bumped into Rosa, Lara, Chi, and Harry who had finished prospecting just before the Homecoming junction. It took us about 3.5 hours to get to HC where I left my caving kit and Rosa and Tom left their camping kit. On the return journey we found the autobahn and followed it, but lost the trail around the traverse climb. The route needs more reflectors but we had a good day and I saw a tiny snake that Rosa did not like at all!
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-23
-
Philip S,Isaac,Jacob,
+
Philip S,Isaac,Jacob
basecamp - Troggle: Seem to have fixed logbook overwriting problem
Yesterday Jacob and Isaac got round a duplication problem with logbook entry by overwriting an existing entry - which meant that a dozen entries from 2023 were typed up, but all overwriting the same entry. (So these now need to be recovered from the git records).

@@ -1290,11 +1237,10 @@ Nope: the duplication problem is still happening on the server (but not on the d [PPS fixed again, differently.]

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-23
-
Philip S,Jacob,Jono,
+
Philip S,Jacob,Jono
Basecamp - They typed up the survey training exercise
Jacob created a wallet and survex file which have since been removed from the system entirely. The survey notes are here: @@ -1308,11 +1254,10 @@ Note that these notes have So as for training in survey technique, for recording the data this counts as a COMPLETE FAIL.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-23
-
Aidan K,Rosa B,Tom Phillips,Lara B,
+
Aidan K,Lara B,Rosa B,Tom Phillips
Homecoming - Swinging into the Tube
Following the walk across the plateau with everyone and Isaac (who watched us go in before heading off to Garlic), and a lot of faff, we went down the entrance series. Lara lead the way, followed by Rosa, Tom, and then I. Tom had a battle with the entrance pitch - unaided by the 5om of rope I had given him to take down - which required teamwork and feeding him chocolate role like it's an apple to free him.

@@ -1333,22 +1278,20 @@ A very cool bit of SRT bolted for me & setup for the future, but unfortunately a Tom's Note: Whoever rigged the entrance series should be shot. Also rotating D-rings is not a fun thing to see.

T/U: 3.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-24
-
Rosa B,Aidan K,
+
Rosa B,Aidan K
Homecoming - Exploring leads above Radagast
Following yesterdays bolting trip myself and Aidan headed back down to explore a couple of QMAs. We had a smooth entry with no more than the usual level of faff. A couple of slippery climbs down and we reached a pitch that had been surveyed but obviously by much more ballsy cavers than ourselves so we bolted it and rigged the approx. 13m pitch. I got to place my first bolt ever!!! It was very exciting, and I loved it. We had some flapjack and layered up for some surveying. We began surveying down to two QMAs passed the Oxbow. Down to the left was steep and needed rigging so we opted for the right which was down climbable. It resulted in another pitch below but with a slippery "Banana skin" like mud just in front so PROCEED WITH CARE. When we looked up the pitch we could see that we could make a loop closure!! and as first time expo novices this is quite fun! (and spoiler, loop closure all meets on the survey). We had a peek down another lead we anticipate to join the stream way below the pitch and the plan is to return on Saturday to descend the pitches and continue surveying.

Aidan's Note: Unfortunately there was a loop closure error of 13%. :( A week and a half later I have learnt the SAP 5's reference point is different to where I thought it was which explains that. (I thought it was a nail polished corner on the box. It is in fact the brass ring on the back for a keeper cord that kept unscrewing itself.)

T/U: 6.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-24
-
Isaac,Harry,Chi,Lara,
+
Isaac,Chi,Harry,Lara
Homecoming - The Aborted Camping Trip
Before this entry begins I'd like to make it clear that I feel truly ashamed of my performance (or lack of one) on this trip. I failed to meet the standard expected of one signing onto a trip of this nature, and by this failure I caused a lot of negative attention to be bought onto the trip and my companions.
@@ -1397,11 +1340,10 @@ We all zoomed (read with scepticism) out the entrance series to Chi's pounding D A good but chaotic trip
T/U: 7.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-25
-
ZW,
+
ZW
basecamp - Arrival

I have Arrived

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-25
-
ZW,Nat,Sarah,
+
ZW,Nat,Sarah
basecamp - Arrival #2
Nat and Sarah also arrived
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-07-25
-
ZW,
+
ZW
basecamp - Zac Breaks the log book
Zac did break the log book, while waiting around. But Phil got very grumpy about it so he replaced his awesome styling and text with this very boring message.

[Ed. This action has the approval of the Troggle software maintenance board. :-) ]

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-25
-
Philip S,PB,Zac,Sarah,Nat,Becka,, *Sandy
+
Philip S,Becka,Nat,PB,Sarah,Zac,*Sandy
plateau - Entrance spotting
Lift up with Nat, Sarah and Zac, they went off to topcamp and from the col I wandered down and around the near plateau photographing whatever entrances and tags I could find.
@@ -1447,11 +1386,10 @@ The little orange squares are the geolocated photos* I took during the day.

* Using GPSPrune Photos->Add photos

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-25
-
Jono,
+
Jono
Gasthof Staud´nwirt - Jonos Expo Dinner Speech
Hello Y’all,

@@ -1487,20 +1425,18 @@ Yours in Caving, Jono

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-25
-
ZW,Colin,Nat,James w,Philip S,Sarah,
+
ZW,Colin,James w,Nat,Philip S,Sarah
topcamp - Top camp bounce
Sarah, Nat, Zac and Phil drove up the loser. We then hiked up to the Col. It being Sarah, Nat and Zac's first time up since the installation of the new cable car, we were quite taken unawares by the new path from the car park. From there it was plain hiking up to the col. Once at the Col, Phil s parted ways and headed off on his own adventures. Sarah, Nat and Zac, meanwhile hiked on to top camp. Once there we caught Becka as she was leaving and James W and Colin as they were thinking about leaving. After a little faffing and some noodles, we rang down to base camp to ask what kit we should carry down. We were told only some some roll mats and camp beds for Garlic. Packing these, alongside some tackle sacks from a recent Balkon trip (See report), we began to head down. Zac Lagged behind a lot of the way as his new shoes were wearing on his feet. But eventually we reached the loser car park where we all packed, tightly, into Sarah's car and drove down the hill.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-25
-
Wassil,Marie,Dickon,Chi,
+
Wassil,Chi,Dickon,Marie
basecamp - Grabenbach Canyon

On the day of expo dinner a rag-tag group of cavers gathered under the tatty hut tarp. These cavers were all here for all the wrong reasons. Firstly, supreme leader and trip planner Marie had bailed on caving in preference of washing her undersuit. Next we have Wassil who was both procrastinating his masters thesis and feeling sorry for himself about killing his own lead. Finally we have Dickon who decied to go on a caving expedition despite hating caving, and as a result elected do go canyoning. Proceeding the formation of this glorious trio, Chi decided to show his face following a disasterous camping trip which did not result in a camp occurring and was at a lost end. Apparently Marie, Wassil, and Dickon looked like a suitable group to go canyoning with and somehow they decided Chi would be a suitable accomplice.

@@ -1517,20 +1453,18 @@ Sarah, Nat, Zac and Phil drove up the loser. We then hiked up to the Col. It bei

The next few pitches were far simpler and did not claim any further injuries. We did however, stay quite cold and began to desire the end of the trip. En-route we discovered various excavator parts strewn across the canyon and eventually reached the main river. After a brief walk back to the car, houmous feast and faff, Dickon decided that the bridleway signs were clearly intended for motorised vehicles, much to the dismay of literally everyone else, including pedestrians. Three cyclists showed their gratitude in the form of various facial expressions and during our adventure we passed through an interesting tunnel and multiple bridges which did not appear suited for a car of four. Despite the passengers' protests, Dickon did not turn around and was adamant that his "route" was faster. It would transpire that his "route" was in fact 6 minutes faster and we all made it to the expo meal on-time.

T/U: 0.01 hours

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2024-07-25
-
R Brew,Aidan K,Thomas P,
+
R Brew,Aidan K,Thomas P
Plateau - Crossing for expo dinner
After our first stay up on the plateau we made a crossing back across the plateau after some breakfast. Got a bit disorientated and lost trying to follow the markers and Gaia on the way back but eventually got back en route. Our bodies were in pain from the vast change of physical exercise they had endured. We met an adder which started heading towards Aidan. Aidan hopped onto a rock and tried to keep track of it for me. I was not a fan at all and took a very roundabout way around. It started raining towards the end and we made a dash to the car. My Achilles heel is playing up which is quite hard on the plateau! We got back in time for a swim and a wash before a lovely dinner.
T/U: 4.0 hours

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2024-07-25
-
Wookey,Jacob Chuck,Anthony Day,
+
Wookey,Anthony Day,Jacob Chuck
Surface - Fixing Guten Morgen Höhle

My adopt-a-cave for this year was GMH (Guten Morgon Höhle), having failed to sort it out last time I was here in 2022. And this was the @@ -1614,11 +1548,10 @@ more than 7km of that ridiculous pointy terrain. We even arrived in good time for Tess to rescue us and take us to a fine dinner

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-25
-
Dickon Morris,Marie,Chi,Wassil,
+
Dickon Morris,Chi,Marie,Wassil
basecamp - Grabenbach Canyon #2

Ar ddiwrnod cinio'r expo ymgasglodd grŵp tag rag o ogofa o dan darp y cwt tatty. Roedd yr ogofwyr hyn i gyd yma am y rhesymau anghywir i gyd. Yn gyntaf, roedd y goruchaf arweinydd a'r cynllunydd teithiau Marie wedi mechnïo ar ogofa yn hytrach na golchi ei danwisg. Nesaf mae gennym Wassil a oedd yn gohirio ei draethawd meistr ac yn teimlo trueni drosto'i hun am ladd ei dennyn ei hun. Yn olaf mae gennym Dickon a benderfynodd fynd ar alldaith ogofa er ei fod yn casáu ogofa, ac o ganlyniad yn cael ei ethol yn mynd canyoning. Wrth fwrw ymlaen â ffurfio'r triawd gogoneddus hwn, penderfynodd Chi ddangos ei wyneb yn dilyn taith wersylla anghysbell na arweiniodd at wersyll yn digwydd ac a oedd ar ben colled. Mae'n debyg bod Marie, Wassil, a Dickon yn edrych fel grŵp addas i fynd â'r ceunant gyda nhw a rhywsut fe benderfynon nhw y byddai Chi yn gyd-chwaraewr addas.

@@ -1638,20 +1571,18 @@ good time for Tess to rescue us and take us to a fine dinner

[See other logbook entry on this date]

T/U: 8.0 hours

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2024-07-25
-
Becka,
+
Becka
basecamp - Expo Dinner
Everyone came down the hill for the expedition dinner. Jono was thrown in the river, as per tradition, and Hilde got tipsy sharing her schnapps with us.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-26
-
Isaac,Marie,Jono,
+
Isaac,Jono,Marie
basecamp - Bread making part 2
After a great deal of consideration (7 beers) I decided to give bread making a second crack. This time I followed the "Numpty Dumpty bakes a loaf of expo bread 2016 version" by Antony Day, and I will confidently say they are by far the best version of the instructions present at the hut!

@@ -1660,20 +1591,18 @@ I am very proud of my loaf, and indeed Marie said that in her opinion it was "th How well do you trust the expedition leader?

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-26
-
R Brew,Aidan K,James M,
+
R Brew,Aidan K,James M
Plateau - Return to Garlic Camp
We waited until the evening due to the hot weather to go up to Garlic camp. This was James' first crossing of the plateau and he got very sweaty but had a really good pace. Mine and Aidan's bags were heavy carrying across ropes and bolts. Having got very drunk the evening previous our bodies were feeling a bit sluggish. The weather was hot but lovely weather and clear views. I enjoyed introducing James to the camp and plateau life. We prepared for our trip the following morning.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-26
-
Todd Rye,Harry Kettle,Aila Taylor,
+
Todd Rye,Aila Taylor,Harry Kettle
Eishoehle - Cooling off on a hot day
We weren't going to have time to go properly caving, and we had heard good things about the ice cave. So, armed with Shinwell and Wookeys expert guidance, we set off to find what we were hoping was going to be an impressive chamber.

@@ -1684,11 +1613,10 @@ Kitted up with ice axes and crampons, we headed down the snow slope and into the After this, we headed back, creating a GPX track to make it easier for future expoers to find. We were told that sadly, impressive as it was, the formations were a shadow of their former selves. Go sooner rather than later.

T/U: 1.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-26
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Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
basecamp - Expo Dinner
It seems best that an article about expo dinner should be written during the expo dinner celebrations itself and so I task myself with the task of doing such a job. Yes I jacob chuck choose to take time out nof the celebrations to write this article(many of people have gone to bed I will igrnore that aside from : sorry i hope you can sleep wel;l my heartfelt condolences go out to you)

@@ -1739,20 +1667,18 @@ anyway bier tent out! o7

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-27
-
Rosa B,Aidan K,James M,
+
Rosa B,Aidan K,James M
Homecoming - Bolting and descending pitch
Myself and Aidan wanted to return to homecoming to explore our leads above Radagast further.Our main aim was to descend a pitch we have named 'tiered gherkin' into the stream way we could see below. The pitch was drippy with a few re-belays required. Unsure of how passable pitch will be in wet weather. Some 'fuck no's from Aidan when bolting as the wall made some dull noises when hit with a hammer. Whilst Aidan was bolting myself and James M tried out our opera singing skills with a range of languages. We initially descended down the left side of the pitch as it was drier but there was not an obvious way down to the streamway so Aidan went to bolt in the other direction. Whilst he was doing this I tried to climb down via a few routes however overcommitted and got myself jammed in a rift for a good while. Lengths of pitches were recorded and a couple of extra bits of survey data was collected to solidly connect our surveying from a few days ago to the main data. Aidan is to explore Banana Boat Stream way with James M and Colin on Monday.
T/U: 6.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-27
-
Todd Rye,Christian,Aila Taylor,Harry Kettle,
+
Todd Rye,Aila Taylor,Christian,Harry Kettle
Homecoming - Watershed Murder Camp
I was so excited to go back into Homecoming after six years, and Harry promised caverns measureless down Watershed. A camp was needed to make it more pleasant, so off we went with sleeping bags and mats. Faff ensued, with Aila breaking her toe at Garlic, and us having picked the wrong sleeping bag up, We got underground at middayish in the end.

@@ -1769,11 +1695,10 @@ We deliberated on what to do, and finally settled on scooping and then coming ba The next morning, we slowly got ready, dismantling camp. It was going to be a long slog up, and starting on the traverses was a tiring way to start. Strained by Gravity went by vaguely quickly, and soon we stopped to fill up bottles and have noodles. We got up the entrance series relatively quickly and exited finally around 1730 on the 28th. Not the best trip, but no one died. I'm sure there will be other trip reports for this trip.

T/U: 31.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-27
-
Aidan K,Rosa B,James M,
+
Aidan K,James M,Rosa B
Homecoming - Sauruman Pot
With James having replaces his mentor in our trio of pushing in the upper area of Homecoming, Rosa and I returned to our pushing in the big drippy Aven in the 4th Pitch Tube area which we believed would lead to what we were looking down to from Banana Slip.

@@ -1788,20 +1713,18 @@ We named the pot Tiered Gerkin and the Streamway Bannaboat Streamway at the time Note for clarity: the streamway was too short because it immediately descended into the two pitches that precede the Eye of Sauron.

T/U: 6.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-27
-
Becka,Jono,
+
Becka,Jono
plateau - Prospecting to Stone Arch
After walking up from base camp Jono and I made the most of a beautiful afternoon and evening to stroll north from the Tunnocks col through the Bunde to the north ending up at a very fine natural stone arch (possible camp location though rather breezier than Top Camp as both sides are fully open) then back around to pick up the Balkon path. Becka has uploaded the gps track. Only one possible cave was noted at 33N 411455 5283602 - photo on Becka's phone
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-27
-
Becka,Chris,Ellie,Sam,Nat,
+
Becka,Chris,Ellie,Nat,Sam
Plateau - Prospecting north of deep Balkon
We waited until the rain mostly cleared then headed off in low visibility. The day gradually cleared. See Becka's GPS for locations. Our only significant find was a 15m deep rift that Ellie bolted and said there was no way on ... only for Christopher to find a nearby horizontal entrance that connected in to it ... and then a further horizontal entrance. Our 3 entrance cave was, though, only ~45m long. This was 33T 411543 5284219 Elev ~1888m. Finished and can be katastered, photos on Becka's phone.

@@ -1812,11 +1735,10 @@ Also Gemse Graveyard, 33T 411542 5284276 Alt ~1920. This was a small choked cham Finally there were a series of snow plugged shafts in the area of 33T 411482 5284210, elev ~1882m. We didn't have time to look at any of these.

T/U: 0.5 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
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Becka Lawson,Tom Phillips,
+
Becka Lawson,Tom Phillips
plateau - Damp day prospecting W of Northern extent of Balkonhoehle
The weather conspired against us, drizzly and low cloud, so Tom and I hung around Top Camp hoping it would cheer up before finally heading out after lunch. We used the good route to the stone arch that Jono and I walked to the previous day, ie up to the Tunnocks col then turn left and keep to the left side of the valley to avoid the Bunde to drop down low enough to skirt around the bottom of the Bunde then turn right and go up on easy, open pavement to the col with a ski pole just beyond and left of the stone arch.

@@ -1829,49 +1751,44 @@ We logged three entrances, all with pitches. We had no gear so couldn't descend 3 An 8m x 3m shaft drops around 8m with a possible passage off from the bottom. GPS - 33N 411252 5283485. Photo - Becka

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
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Isaac,
+
Isaac
basecamp - minesweeper
I am the best player at minesweeper on this expedition and in the history of this expedition. 5.41 for 16x16
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
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Isaac,James W,
+
Isaac,James W
basecamp - Minesweeper 2
I am now the second best at minesweeper in the history of this expedition. James got a time of 1:21 on 16x16.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
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waite,
+
waite
garlic - bad day
walked to garlic. once at homecoming it started pissing with rain. then landscaped garlic as the weather was too shit to prospect. had an incident with the garlic grike involving some lost underwear and a large amount of soil and grass being used as cover up. walked down the hill commando!
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-28
-
R Brew,James W,
+
R Brew,James W
Garlic - Failed prospecting
I woke up excited for a day of prospecting for the first time but instead had a very disheartened day with pretty low morale as the plateau was full of mist and it being determined unsafe to go off exploring the plateau as well as making the task more challenging. Colin decided we may do some prospecting but we'd find the caves earlier than expected by falling down the holes. Got permission to descend to base camp that evening due to a large number of blisters on my hands and low morale. Due to James W becoming unwell he joined me on the journey to be collected by Jono and Christopher.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-28
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lucy h,zac,lara,nat,sarah p,jacob,
+
lucy h,jacob,lara,nat,sarah p,zac
balcony - 26th-28th bloody balcony
26th - 28th

@@ -1931,11 +1848,10 @@ I was dizzy trudging back, Jacob kindly, patiently accompanying my stumbling. We We slept out under the shooting stars and milky way. Every time I woke, relieved, to have escaped balcony, and see brightness in the night's dark, under starlight.

T/U: 50.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
-
ZW,Sarah,Nat,Lucy h,Jacob,Lara,
+
ZW,Jacob,Lara,Lucy h,Nat,Sarah
Balkonhoehle - Who needs ascenders anyway?

Lucy having already covered much of the trip in I will only fill in the gaps alluded to

@@ -1955,11 +1871,10 @@ All our cleaning work was undone by the small crawl to the base of Hangman. I al I was so happy to find that we had made it out in time to catch the sun and spent the night out sleeping on the plateau.

T/U: 50.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-28
-
Aidan K,Colin Foord,James M,Rosa B,James W,Dickon,
+
Aidan K,Colin Foord,Dickon,James M,James W,Rosa B
Garlic - Landscaping and Festering
We woke up to some pretty miserable clag that around 10am developed into rain - Colin had fortunately arrived about 40 minutes prior from SB so stayed dry, Dickon and James on the other hand weren't so lucky! They both got fairly wet on their walk over.

@@ -1968,11 +1883,10 @@ With not much to do - no desire to explore a drippy lead with a very uncertain f In the evening, when it finally brightened up a bit, James, Dickon and I summitted the Kleiner Wildkogel. Dickon enjoyed tumbling the big loose rocks down the slope for the hell of it and it gave us a very interesting view of the plateau and an insight into the comples nature of the folding in the rock. We tried to assess new prospecting areas and it looked like along and up from Balkon and don the plateau to the thick Bunde areas would be the most promising. This was with a view to help Dickon with his prospecting the next day.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-29
-
Sam Tittensor,Jono,Ellie D,Becka,Chris H,
+
Sam Tittensor,Becka,Chris H,Ellie D,Jono
Balkonhoehle - Happy Campers (eventually!)
After 2 hot trips ferrying kit up the plateau, a late start, and a great deal of faff, motivation to get underground was low. This resulted in a (very necessary!) talking-to from the drill sergeant (Becka), before we bucked our ideas up, and kit was assembled for inspection on the rocks at top camp and packed into bags. @@ -2030,22 +1944,20 @@ In the morning, Becka & Jono raced ahead, whilst Chris, Ellie & I plodded up, ar Having vowed I was done with deep caving for this expo after the prussik up, it took all of 12 hours for the rose tinted glasses to go on, and back at base camp planning began for a return to the newly discovered shaft...
T/U: 68.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-29
-
Todd,
+
Todd
Basecamp - Minesweeper sweeping
Having been addicted to minesweeper previously in life, to the point of dreaming about it, I decided to take on the challenge of beating Hagrid. Between writing up Logbook entries and swimming in a lake, I defeated all records on all sizes of board. All top 10 on 8x8 are mine, sub 10s, 5s being the top. On 16x16 all 10 records are mine, the best being 46s. No one else has tried the 30x16 board, but my record is 2mins 36s. I throw down the gauntlet to anyone who wants a go.

I am a very sad man with too much time on his hands...

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-29
-
Colin,JamesM,Aidan,
+
Colin,Aidan,JamesM
homecoming - Welsh Engineering
I was sold a nice easy surveying trip with a short pootle down a stream way. little did I know how wrong we were. we packed a single drill battery some short ropes and a few hangers just in case a few short drops were encountered. Once underground I was given the guided tour of what was known as the below Radagast series.

@@ -2064,11 +1976,10 @@ The new pitch head was bolted with a combination of me and Aidan resulting in li This bottom bit was bolted badly due to my frustration although it is still safe. We promptly called it a day and ran out of the cave trying to conserve energy. Exiting at 11:30. The eye of Sauron is pleasantly easy on the way out even with the knot pass. Resulting in an exit in less than 45 minutes. Once at garlic we clattered around trying to get to bed as quickly as possible waking Adam and disturbing Fiona sorry guys.

T/U: 12.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-29
-
Aidan K,James M,Colin F,
+
Aidan K,Colin F,James M
Homecoming - The Eye of Sauron
I was starting to lose psyche for my lead after the day of festering in Garlic and realising I might spend the entirety of my first expo in a small pointless, upper level of the system. The believed order of the day was mostly a surveying trip so we didn't bring many bolts or much rope.

@@ -2093,11 +2004,10 @@ Before I had left I'd told Colin I'd wait 45 mins for him at the surface before What. A. Day.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-30
-
Adam,Aidan,Colin,Fiona,
+
Adam,Aidan,Colin,Fiona
Homecoming - Homecoming Round Trip
Colin and Aidan arrived in Garlic camp at around midnight, exhausted from their own day of caving prior. Upon all of us waking Fiona and I solidified our plans for the day, deciding to help the pair survey the rest of their new entrance series down into Homecoming. It'd get us into the swing of surveying again after a long break and it would also be a good introduction to the Homecoming cave, which I hadn't been in for a year and Fiona hadn't been in before.

@@ -2120,37 +2030,34 @@ I liked the look of the rift going off to the left, hoping to visit it again. We headed back up, eventually getting to a rebelay named Rivendell. This had a green rope traversing to the left that lead to the main route. This had many awkward, horizontal passages. I remember shuffling on my butt to the left for a good while, trying to keep my position good whilst also not getting my bag stuck. At one point, we had to go down again to go up again! I should really know the names of the pitches here. Eventually we came back up Radagast and, being very tired, I was very happy to hear that we could see the other rope for the Welsh Engineering Route. We came out and saw off Colin and Aidan, who were heading down the hill. We updated our callout with basecamp and set off, getting to Garlic camp safe and sound, but still tired from the cave and the plateau walk. Curries never taste better than after a caving trip.

T/U: 7.5 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-30
-
Colin,Aidan,Fiona,Adam,
+
Colin,Adam,Aidan,Fiona
Homecoming - what a way to spend a Tuesday
Having scoped our lead the day before having failed to survey it, sorry Becka we dragged Adam and Fiona down with us to help. the SAP however couldn't do long enough legs so was a mainly pointless exercise. I blasted down to the bottom to re-rig Dickon's traverse so we could exit out of the entrance series for a bit of variety and compare routes. We pointed Adam and Fiona in the directions of the good leads I'd seen while waiting for them to join me at the bottom.

we then decided to leave by the normal route to end up doing the round trip to do a sporting trip. which is ironic on an expedition. there was much cursing of how bastardly and awkward some of the pitches are. I had all of the bolting kit along with a 40m rope that we had de rigged a couple of days ago so that was a heavy bag resulting in some slow prussiking. I also waited occasionality to tell the others where to go for some of the navigation required. we were out of the cave for 18:00.

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-07-31
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Sarah,Nat,
+
Sarah,Nat
Plateau - Prospecting north of Tunnocks
After scrounging together prospecting gear from Stone Bridge, Nat and I set off north of the Tunnock's col searching for new entrances. Some bunde bashing to a first rocky valley yielded some nice looking holes, but all pinched out after less than 5m. Wandering further along, we found p2013-cucc-pit. Finding no info on this entrance on the website, we assumed it hadn't been dropped yet. Nat rigged a rope on with a sling and 2 hexes, and I abseiled down (approx 8m), past a choked boulder, to the bottom. Unfortunately, it choked with rocks and ice at the bottom. Further along, Nat spotted another hole (2024-ND-01) - I poked my head in, to be hit in the face with a strong draught. Dropping rocks down gave 4-5 seconds of rattle. Nat began gardening the rocks and boulders suspended above the entrance. I came to help, but ended up dropping a boulder into the entrance, blocking it. We then spent the next 2 hours trying to unblock it, with the hammer, and some slings and my pulley. But to no avail. We eventually admitted defeat and decided someone would need to return with a crow bar and lump hammer. We began heading back to Stone Bridge, via the Tunnock's col, feeling hot and grumpy. Part of the plateau disintegrated on me and I twisted my ankle. We slowly continued, and found another good hole (big hole in side of cliff, with horizontal bedding planes - 2024-ND-02), but it was too late in the day and we were too dehydrated to drop. 10m further north, we found another hole (2024-ND-03) and made a note. Made it back to SB, dehydrated, took some vitamin I, and headed down the hill.
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-07-31
-
Adam,Fiona,
+
Adam,Fiona
Homecoming - Bolting the Brandywine
-

We left Garlic camp at around 9-10am-ish. Time can blur on these expeditions. I messaged Signal to give our plans for the day. These were to check Homecoming for any drill bits. If we couldn’t find any, we would prospect. If we could, we would go down Homecoming to bolt and rig the rift we’d taken a small look at the day before. After putting these plans into the signal chat, I received a very welcome message from Harry saying that he had drill bits outside of Homecoming that we could use. After the short walk to the cave entrance from Garlic, Fiona and I gathered our supplies and I set a callout at Basecamp for 10pm with Colin. Upon packing the rope into my tackle sack, Fiona made some concerns regarding how long it was and how much we'd be able to properly explore with it. I too was a bit worried, but given what we had available, it was the best option for the time. We entered the cave at approximately 11:30, going down the Welsh Engineering route, as Colin and Aidan had shown us.

+We left Garlic camp at around 9-10am-ish. Time can blur on these expeditions. I messaged Signal to give our plans for the day. These were to check Homecoming for any drill bits. If we couldn’t find any, we would prospect. If we could, we would go down Homecoming to bolt and rig the rift we’d taken a small look at the day before. After putting these plans into the signal chat, I received a very welcome message from Harry saying that he had drill bits outside of Homecoming that we could use. After the short walk to the cave entrance from Garlic, Fiona and I gathered our supplies and I set a callout at Basecamp for 10pm with Colin. Upon packing the rope into my tackle sack, Fiona made some concerns regarding how long it was and how much we'd be able to properly explore with it. I too was a bit worried, but given what we had available, it was the best option for the time. We entered the cave at approximately 11:30, going down the Welsh Engineering route, as Colin and Aidan had shown us.

-

On going down the Eye of Sauron, I told Fiona to wait and shine her headtorch down the great pitch after a minute of descent, at which point I leaned over the hole, attached to the traverse line of course, and took a picture with my own light off. All the while very worried I'd drop my phone. Fortunately this did not happen and we got a really good picture out of it, though I'm disappointed at the actual camera quality, but what can you do? +On going down the Eye of Sauron, I told Fiona to wait and shine her headtorch down the great pitch after a minute of descent, at which point I leaned over the hole, attached to the traverse line of course, and took a picture with my own light off. All the while very worried I'd drop my phone. Fortunately this did not happen and we got a really good picture out of it, though I'm disappointed at the actual camera quality, but what can you do?

We arrived at Urinal Rock at around 1:30pm and we looked into the rift that we had seen the day before. I remembered on the journey down that the rebelay onto the rock had some coiled up rope at the end and so instead of starting our rigging at the rock, we simply extended the pitch down to the rift. We used the hammer on various sections of rock on our way down, but neither of us liked the sound of them. Eventually, I got to a small platform in the rift. I walked to the edge of the platform and tried the hammer on two opposing rock walls. Success! The rock sounded good! I got to work drilling the bolts and setting up a Y-hang. I made some small mistakes during this, such as not flattening the rock properly for the anchor and bolting at a slight angle. Simple and really annoying stuff. It ate much of our time as I used the sharper end of the hammer to correct my mistakes. After I rigged these, I descended from them to a further platform down below, wanting to be the very first to know if my Y-hang was insufficient. Fiona then followed me down and took the bolting gear to set up the traverse along the rift. At the first traverse bolt, the rope had ran out and we set to work using the short rope we'd brought down with us. As Fiona bolted, I ascended to Urinal Rock to grab some more gear. As I did so, I noticed a glaring problem: the rope rubbed. The thought of someone being on this rope I'd rigged and it snapping would haunt my dreams, so I knew a deviation was needed. We didn't have the gear for a deviation at this time, but I still tried to find a suitable natural. There was a sizeable flake that I liked the look of, but I wasn't sure. I tried climbing up to it to get a closer look and pulled on it.

@@ -2168,14 +2075,12 @@ My ascent of Eye of Sauron before Fiona had given me a bit of headway, so I took

A good trip, we'd made progress though not nearly as much as I wanted to make, my main goals for the next trip were to survey it and to rig a deviation. Due to me giving the SAP away for the next day, the former would prove difficult.

-[Philip re-save]

T/U: 7.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-08-01
-
ZW,
+
ZW
basecamp - Magic Button

This is a magic button that will take you to the bottom of the page!


@@ -2184,11 +2089,10 @@ A good trip, we'd made progress though not nearly as much as I wanted to make, m Add Log book entry
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-01
-
Lara,Chi,Liam,Colin,
+
Lara,Chi,Colin,Liam
Homecoming - The First Rule of Alpine Caving
I'm not sure exactly why I decided to end my expo with a trip that was specifically designed to be a derigging sufferfest but it seemed like a good idea a few Gossers deep at basecamp. It did indeed turn out to be an epic but very much not in the way we expected.

@@ -2232,11 +2136,10 @@ It sounds crazy but it was a brilliant trip, fun in adversity becomes more fun a * addendum: Colin (fairly) pointed out that he was responding to me asking if he was okay and all irony was unintentional.

T/U: 15.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-01
-
Todd Rye,Isaac Neale,Aila Taylor,
+
Todd Rye,Aila Taylor,Isaac Neale
Homecoming - Simple Pleasures
After a bit of festering at base camp, it was decided that a rescue mission was needed to recover Isaac’s simple. Luckily, the A lead he had dropped it down was above Strained by Gravity, which meant we could get there and out relatively quickly. So off we went!

@@ -2247,11 +2150,10 @@ It didn’t take long to drop, and soon we were treated to the sound of Isaac wh Unfortunately and fortunately the SAP battery died, and we realised that we were at our turnaround time. So we headed out having surveyed ~100m of passage.

T/U: 9.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-01
-
Adam,Fiona,
+
Adam,Fiona
Homecoming - Back to Brandywine
I woke up in Garlic to many new faces, these being Chi, Lara, Liam and Harry. Their trip was going to be derigging Watershed, but they would be going down the Welsh Engineering route and then ascending into the Watershed through Rivendell. I was spending much of the morning trying to figure out the logistics of Fiona and I's trip to push and survey our lead, so we needed more rope and a disto/SAP. After seeing that all the rope that was at Garlic was there because it was not to be used, I was a bit despondent. Chi told us however of some rope that had been left in the Junction between the Watershed and Second Coming. We didn't know how to get there, so the other group volunteered to lead us. After some contemplation, I resolved that a proper survey simply wasn't possible. We'd promised the SAP away, it'd have to wait. We also had the added complication of wanting to head down to basecamp that night. We figured with what we planned to do and the

@@ -2274,11 +2176,10 @@ But in any case, I got out in 2 hours at 5:30pm, popping out of the cave entranc 10 minutes after leaving, rain started to pour down. Even further into our hike, we saw flashes of light and the distant rumble of thunder, some of it being worryingly close. We knew, however, that it was faster to just walk back to the carpark from where we now were on the plateau. As the rain continued and we got more and more soaked, our spirits got more and more dour. We got a tad lost a few times, but these were trivial compared to our prior mistakes and we got off the plateau in only a few hours. After an hour of stoic walking against the wind and rain, we arrived at the Loser Alm at about the same time as Sarah, being very glad of the sight. The walks across the plateau had pained my knee greatly, the downhill track to the Loser Alm being agony. I was glad to be going down to Basecamp for a couple days rest. Hopefully the next journeys on the plateau would be less agonising and we'd be able to push our lead further! Next time, the callout would be 8am.

T/U: 7.5 hours

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2024-08-01
-
Jacob,Lucy,Zac,Tom P,
+
Jacob,Lucy,Tom P,Zac
plateau - Digging and Thunderstorms
What had planned to be a cool, early walk up to the plateau invetably became a more middle and hottest part of the day sort of deal. Drenched in sweat we made our way to base camp where we stopped for a quick lunch then headed off in the Tunnocks direction.

@@ -2293,11 +2194,10 @@ Around this time Zac informed us that the distant thunderstorm in the datchstein Cue a rather exciting plateau walk with sound of thunder encouraging quite a brisk pace all the way back to Stone(y) Bridge.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-01
-
colin,Lara,chi,liam,
+
colin,chi,Lara,liam
Homecoming - Alpine Torrent
Originally I was meant to be doing a shallow lead to rescue Isaac's descender. Hence I walked up in the morning from base with Todd Aila and Isaac. At the entrance the watershed de-rigging team were down a harry who was feeling very sorry for himself due to not being very well. So I asked to come with the de-rigging team wanting to be beasted at least once and see what all the fuss of a homecoming bounce trip was like.

@@ -2314,11 +2214,10 @@ I clipped the tackle bags we were abandoning in favour of speed to the pitch hea Following Liam up watershed who did a lot of angry swearing to get up some of the climbs I was exhausted and hot. My shoulders were starting to build up lactate from all of the pressing I was doing along this rift. Lara went up strained by gravity first as she was the coldest I followed up quickly so that she could take some of my excess body heat. I topped out to a very cold Lara asking if I could sit very close to her to warm her up which she seemed really guilty about which was ironic as she was doing me a favour of stopping me getting heat exhaustion. Once the others were up we caved individually out of the cave being chased by Chi's d&b, very cool experience that. The gauntlet had become much wetter on our way out actually requiring a run to avoid a soaking. We exited for 2am and walked to garlic to find a very relieved Harry where we could tell stories of daring doo and near death.

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-08-01
-
Lucy,
+
Lucy
topcamp - Bunde Tea
Recipe for bunde tea:

@@ -2333,20 +2232,18 @@ It is debated whether to seperate the needles or leave them attached. The sap ha 4. Share

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-02
-
Harry,Dickon,
+
Harry,Dickon
Pepper Pot - Huge shaft with deathy entrance
We went to drop Pepper Pot, a promising looking entrance shaft with ongoing passage Dickon had spotted near the Col-Homecoming path. The entrance drops 20m to a short downwards crawl with a very loose floor, leading to a huge shaft approx 100m deep (4.5 second drop). Unfortunately it is impossible to exit the crawl without pushing rocks down the shaft and quantity of loose rock makes gardening everything infeasible. We started bolting hugging the wall to avoid the path of falling rocks but later decided it should be abandoned as there was no way of making it safe. A shame but there are several drafting holes nearby that may provide a safer way in.
T/U: 2.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-08-02
-
Jacob,Liam,
+
Jacob,Liam
Eishole - Icy Caves and Stormy Weather
Liam and I set off to Eishohle from the col at around half 2. We had been on the brink of heading straight to the car park and skipping the cave on account of already being rather wet and more rain being potentially on the way, but managed to convince ourselves to try it anyway.

@@ -2359,11 +2256,10 @@ Towering sentinels gathered in council rose up from the icy floor towards an imp After a bit more wandering and contemplating how long I'd last in any of the icy-cold pools dotted around the chamber we decided we should probably head out if we wanted to back at basecamp at a reasonable hour. The walk back would've been uneventful were it not for the second thunderstorm of the day catching us halfway. Now truly sodden we made it back to the car park where we had a short but lovely conversation with the Loser sheep herder before a jolly Christopher, blasting his pirate music arrived to drive us down the hill.

T/U: 0.5 hours

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2024-08-03
-
Dickon,Colin,Becka,Harry,
+
Dickon,Becka,Colin,Harry
Homecoming - Second Coming Derig
While the second coming of Christ will probably be quite exciting and very much not inevitable as far as your average atheist is concerned, the same cannot be said for the derigging of the Second Coming.

@@ -2372,11 +2268,10 @@ Enthusiasm was surprisingly high at the entrance but had mostly been extinguishe The positive outcome of the trip was the realisation that the traverses may well have been unnecessary in the first place as the rift that passes through Swiss Cheese drops a short distance to a pleasant descending canyon which will probably connect to the base of Salamander Queen.

T/U: 10.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-03
-
Lucy,James M,Zac,Tom P,Rosa B,James W,
+
Lucy,James M,James W,Rosa B,Tom P,Zac
below promised land - Promises undelivered
It appears that James' logbook entry for our prospect day has gone walkabouts, so I am writing again.

@@ -2404,20 +2299,18 @@ Arrived at stoney as the first rain drops fell, througoulyu punished for our hub I have uploaded a gpx file of my approximate path this day, made 3 daya later, called 'Prospect_day_3.8.24.gpx'

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-08-04
-
Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
basecamp - Sunday
Nothing happened, apparently. Odd.
T/U: 0.0 hours

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-
2024-08-05
-
ZW,James W,Rosa,Dickon,Harry K,Tom P,
+
ZW,Dickon,Harry K,James W,Rosa,Tom P
saltmine - We go to the gulag

The Plan

@@ -2452,11 +2345,10 @@ Overall a good afternoon out.

T/U: 1.5 hours

Edit this entry
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2024-08-05
-
Adam,Fiona,Liam,
+
Adam,Fiona,Liam
Homecoming - 'Twas a simple pleasure
Today we were finally going to survey Brandywine Overpass!... right?

@@ -2479,11 +2371,10 @@ It was a long journey back, with me just being the most tired I'd been in a cave We got out of the cave at half past midnight, getting back to camp at 1:30am. A very tiring day, ending with curry and noodles. I grew worried about potential derigs of Welsh Engineering that would thwart (or at least slow) our attempts at Brandywine, but that was a worry for another day. Or at least, the same day but after some much needed sleep.

T/U: 11.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-05
-
wob rotsonw,Sarah Parker,Colin Foord,
+
wob rotsonw,Colin Foord,Sarah Parker
264 Balkon - Final Balkon Camp of 2024
I was not expecting to be here, however climbing plans fell through and I was shoehorned into a 3 night camp by Becka with a bunch of expo youngers. Good opportunity to see some new cave and get some fitness ahead of the VHO trip, so I was easily convinced.

@@ -2502,11 +2393,10 @@ Very long day later and we were back at camp around 2 - 3. Very hangry and my un Next day we derigged the camp and Mongol Rally (I'll let someone else tell about that) and that was my expo done, aside from a bit of top camp derigging. A very good trip, thanks Sarah and Colin!

T/U: 80.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-06
-
Becka,Chris,Nat,Liam,
+
Becka,Chris,Liam,Nat
Plateau - Circumnavigating the Greisskogel
On our second day of prospecting we returned to yesterday's area (see Becka's GPS track). Liam hunted us down later in the day from Garlic (we were based at Top Camp), chasing us down using the Meshtastic device.

@@ -2527,11 +2417,10 @@ We also checked out a huge, obvious hole in a rocky slope at 33T 410850 5283971 Finally, as we had almost finished our circumnavigation we found a series of about 5 holes that were 10m or more deep in a line around 33T 411127 5283781 Elev ~1891m.

T/U: 0.5 hours

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-
2024-08-06
-
Adam,Fiona,
+
Adam,Fiona
Homecoming - Finally
We woke up late that day, the previous night having us only go to bed at 2:30am. As such, we only managed to get to Homecoming at about 1pm. We parted ways with Liam shortly after descending the first steep hill on the way to the Homecoming entrance, giving him my Mesh as he was going to be prospecting with Becka.

@@ -2550,11 +2439,10 @@ The rift went on until it became evident that bolts would be needed; the bits by We reached the top at 8:45, finally having surveyed Brandywine Overpass! I emerged to see amazing clouds in the sky, crowning the mountains that marked the col, tinted a beautiful red by the evening sun. A wonderful end to a trip!

T/U: 6.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-07
-
james m,Lucy,Zac,
+
james m,Lucy,Zac
Homecoming - Welsh Engineering - not much deriging or surveying
The trip began a bit unorganised at around 11 am. We had the task of re-surveying welsh engineering however we didn't really know where it began or ended or where the survey quality diminished hence we came to the conclusion that we would link our survey back to the top of Radaghast when we exited.

@@ -2606,30 +2494,27 @@ At 5 am i got to the surface just in time for lighting up, followed shortly by Z We had managed to de-rig 4 pitches, had created an unlinked survey and spent 10 hours in a emergency shelter.

T/U: 20.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-07
-
Harry,Becka,James W,Christopher,Liam,
+
Harry,Becka,Christopher,James W,Liam
Homecoming - Derigging Watershed
Myself and Becka went in first and derigged from My Favourite things to the top of Flowstone canyon. This timed well with meeting James, Liam and Christopher to help carry bags along the traverses. Becka and I headed out with bags, while the others continued derigging to the start of Propane Nightmares, replacing old ropes on the handline climb and up pitch.

T/U: 7.5 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-08
-
Harry,Liam,Lucy,
+
Harry,Liam,Lucy
Homecoming - Derigging entrance series
In good spirits after her flood pulse epic the previous evening in Welsh Engineering, we convinced Lucy to come along and help derig Homecoming. Welsh Engineering still looked too wet so we went down the entrance series. Everything went fairly smoothly and we derigged to the top of Radagast.
T/U: 5.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-08
-
Adam,Fiona,
+
Adam,Fiona
Balcony - Ferrying for the Balcony derig
Only Fiona is listed in the "Other names" field as the others involved in this derig had very different experiences to us, with different hours underground. They were Chris, Becka, Rob, James, Colin, Nat and Sarah.

@@ -2656,11 +2541,10 @@ The excess of mud made things difficult to pack away nicely and I just got used An interesting caving journey to end expo on.

T/U: 9.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-08
-
Becka,Rob,James W,Colin,Nat,Sarah,Chris,
+
Becka,Chris,Colin,James W,Nat,Rob,Sarah
Balkonhoehle - Derig from Pitstop camp
The final camping party (Rob, Sarah and Colin) packed up and headed out in the morning whilst the Top Camp derig team (first Becka and Nat, heading in around 11, then Chris, James W, Adam and Fiona, heading in around 4) came in from the surface. Nat and I met Rob at the top of Hangmans with 2 drills in bags and a third lighter bag. We arm-twisted him to derig Mongol Rally with Colin as neither of us felt 100%. Nat then headed back up with Rob's bags whilst I went to the top of Mongol Rally to break the bad news to Colin (who stoically agreed to bounce back down Mongol Rally for more bags) and to meet Sarah who had 3 bags. Sarah and I shuttled her 3 bags and Colin's 2 bags up to the top of Hangmans with me feeling increasingly nauseous and spaced out. I decided I'd best not become a liability underground and set off out with just the one bag. I was relieved to make it back to Top Camp without flaking out and went straight to bed about 8pm. Nat and Sarah were the next out having dragged many bags out with Rob and Colin following later and the rope washing crew - James W, Chris, Adam and Fiona getting out last around 1am I believe.

@@ -2691,20 +2575,18 @@ For future reference, a team of 3 won't be able to derig the Balkon camp - there - no metalwork or tackle bags left at the waterpoint

T/U: 9.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-09
-
Harry,Liam,
+
Harry,Liam
Homecoming - Derigging Welsh Engineering
The Welsh would be ashamed to be associated with Welsh Engineering. After swinging off from the top of Radagast there are a some steep down climbs that are not fun back up with big bags, some handlines would greatly improve these. The pitches have mostly been bolted to put you directly in line with the water, despite going on a dry day we both got very wet. Skinny cord through a sharp drilled thread is not substitute for a bolt and hanger, making for a thought provoking traverse to one of the pitch heads. On the way back up, multiple pitches had extremely severe rope rub, with the ropes sliding back and forth across sharp edges whilst prussiking. It gave a difficult balancing act of prussiking carefully to avoid rope rub and prussiking fast to avoid a complete soaking. Moral of the story, don't let new expoers bolt without supervision.
T/U: 3.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-09
-
Harry,Liam,
+
Harry,Liam
Garlic - Derig Garlic cave
It misses some of the creature comforts of Stone Bridge but Garlic was refreshingly quick and easy to derig - perhaps the quantity of gear at top camp is excessive? We took videos and photos of the tarp rigging which I will put into a document at some point.
Inventory:
@@ -2731,31 +2613,28 @@ Various pots, mess tins and utensils
Large gas bottle (half full?)
T/U: 3.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-09
-
Colin,Rob,Sarah,James W,Lucy,Adam,Fiona,Tom,Becka,Nat,
+
Colin,Adam,Becka,Fiona,James W,Lucy,Nat,Rob,Sarah,Tom
Top Camp - Derig Top Camp
As much as I wanted to go down the hill after carrying lots of tackle bags up mongol rally twice the day before I realised I had to do my dues and helped de-rigg top camp. I was a shell of a person making everything very hard. everything was packed away that required lots of people so the tarp and sloar panels. then a car load of people went down the hill as they were leaving very soon. we continued to clean and move things into the storage cave. some people did a bounce to the car park to drop of a load so only needed to do a single carry the next day.

the next day everything not already underground was moved underground into storage and inventoried with great effort where we could all then leave thge plataue and walk toi the car park.

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-09
-
Sarah,Fiona,Nat,Adam,Colin,Lucy,
+
Sarah,Adam,Colin,Fiona,Lucy,Nat
topcamp - Topcamp inventory 2024
Topcamp was set down. The big tarp and solar panels were set down the day before when there were more people.
Inventory:
87 hangers + maillons
~70 maillons
~30 hangers
40 maillons and spit bolts
35 maillons + thru bolts + hangers
5 AS hangers
8 rings + thru bolts
15 slings
42 screwgates
28 snapgates
5 (UG camp) sleeping bags
4 (UG camp) rollmats
17 tackle bags
1 grab bag
rope:
7m (2022)
~15m (2021)
~30m (2022)
79m (2022)
200m (2024)
~10m (2022)
~10m (2022)
~10m (2022)
13m (2022)
Green underground tent
10m deviation tat
Brew kit, noodles and group shelter (from base of Balkon E. series)
1 dry bag
3 hammers
1 whiteboard
24 thru bolts
1 pulley
9 group shelters
16 camp meals (incl. 6 meat ones)
4 UG camp mugs and 6 utensils
UG camp 1st aid kit
UG camp communal pan
1 UG camp gas canister
1 bag ground coffee
1.5 kg mornflake
~2.5 kg muesli
1 kg coffee whitener
~2.5 kg milk powder
sugar
bag of lighters and whiteboard pens
hot chocolate
analogue compass clinos
~33 noodles
milky porridge
poo drum
2 gas canisters
UG camp poo things
~30 curries (mostly saag aloos)
3 water butts
4/5 drum smash
1/4 drum custard
1 drum drill things
4/5 drum tea bags
4/5 drum soup
1 empty drum
1 1st aid kit drum
2 gas hobs
big 1st aid box
1 callout box
4 empty daren drums
1 bag liquid fuel
1 bag utensils
3 pans
1 bag bivvy tat
1 hob rack
1 drum tea lights
1/2 drum oatso
1 bag rope protectors
2 tupperwares
1/4 tin spits and cones
1/2 tin bolts
4 green drills
hoses and funnels
1 shovel
2 crow bars
2 lump hammers
2 drill dry bags
~3 assorted camp bed frames
2 bags of reflectors
2 first aid boxes
1 bag random containers
Jono's donated UG camp tent
1 white water drum
1 bin tin
1 kettle
1 hanger fettling kit
12 rollmats
2 sit mats
1 brush
10 camp beds
2 broken camp beds

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-10
-
ZW,Colin,
+
ZW,Colin
Stone Bridge - Hauling Day

Having spent the previous day at Homecoming fettling rope, I had been unable to bounce the car-park to drop my kit off. This was a problem as I had two carries worth of kit to haul. @@ -2769,11 +2648,10 @@ Just as we were climbing off the plateau we heard whooping. So we stuck around t

T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-12
-
Lucy,Harry,Zac,Colin,Christopher,
+
Lucy,Christopher,Colin,Harry,Zac
Plateau - Homecoming rope haul & Pepper Pot
The final hurdle to finishing expo was a large amount of rope to come in and out of homecoming. We’d planned last night but postponed to today (to my sadness- I hate the heat ). Woke at 7, James MacA was dropped at the train station. Harry giggled and pointed out the very very long rope to me, and I - being a fool - sighed and put it in my bag (big regrets).

@@ -2803,11 +2681,10 @@ We flopped in the carpark and waited for Christopher- who had dropped gas at Top All is now complete on the Plateau -Auf Wiedersehen bis zum nächsten Jahr ;)

T/U: 2.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-14
-
Harry,Christopher,Colin,Lucy,
+
Harry,Christopher,Colin,Lucy
Dachstein - A day out on the Dachstein
For our last full day on expo we decided on a jolly to the Dachstein. We only had 3 via ferrata sets between the four of us so decided to leave that kit behind and do some glacier walking. We had a potentially optimistic plan to leave at 8am - Lucy was ready just after 8 with me and Colin not far behind, but standard Christopher faff ensued and we left just before 9. I checked the cable car bookings in the car and every slot was fully booked, not ideal but a quick look at a map suggested there were paths to the top so we settled on walking up instead.

@@ -2824,11 +2701,10 @@ Passing some unimpressed Austrians at our lack of gear, we were soon at the top Climbing down the other side with some Insitu handlines we soon reached a second glacier. Me and Christopher walked down with crampons whilst Colin slid down while arresting with an ice axe. Lucy initially put crampons on but then decided that was boring and slid down on her bum, using a crampon in each hand to slow herself. At the bottom she said I was boring and sensible for walking down and she'd had much more fun, which I could really disagree with. The remaining walk had lots of scree surfing and a very pleasant forest section, and we were soon back at the car, content with a very fun day out.

T/U: 0.0 hours

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2024-08-15
-
Lucy,
+
Lucy
Basecamp - Inventory
INVENTORY FROM SARAH ET AL (Tuesday?) Base camp rope:
@@ -2934,11 +2810,10 @@ Everything you think you noticed at basecamp
Everything you didn't notice at basecamp
T/U: 0.0 hours

Edit this entry
-
2024-08-15
-
Bier Tent,
+
Bier Tent
Basecamp - Bier Tent
I was very greesy. Last night I sheltered the little grubbey people in a terrifying storm. I didn't shelter them very well and leaked water all over them. This morning I watched some pancakes being cooked and felt hungry.

@@ -2958,7 +2833,14 @@ I fit very nicely because they had thought carfully :)

I will go to sleep for a few months and dream of the smell ov chip fat

T/U: 6319.0 hours

Edit this entry
+
+
2024-12-09
+
Philip Sargent
+
Cambridge - junk
+We had a lot of fun... +
T/U: 0.0 hours
+

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