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 +last day available to get it done, so research was done down at base +to make sure I had the necessary info - email threads, purported +locations, cave descriptions, lobbook entries, GPX tracks, and +Martin's 'mappapp' local copy (ish) of the website. And I went +shopping for stainless screws and HSS bits so we could put in tags, +and had drills, and instruments. We tried hard not to forget anything +important so this would actually work.
+ +The weather was a rare case of a bit overcast, but not actually +raining, which is perfect for this work. It warmed up later in the day +but was relatively gentle on us, which is good because we walked for +bloody miles!
+ +Tromped past Balkony following vague line of cairns, checking the +points on our map. Checkout 2023-ASH-10 and 2023-ASH-11 which defo +look worth investigating. Then got +to 2012-OK-01 which +is of course one of mine, from the fabled 'Wook and Olaf walk to +Appelhaus' trip of 2012. There were a couple of obvious shafts which +we photoed, but they didn't fit my recollection of OK-01 which was a +smaller shaft under an alcove. Soon we found the right hole just 6m +away, but not obvious due to being 'tucked under' a small cliff.
+ +We put in a new concrete-screw tag for "2012 OK 01", only to find +it already tagged just round the corner as +. So in fact +it has been explored, tagged, located, photoed and sketch-surveyed for +7 years, so we can kataster this one.
+ +Next we passed 2012-OK-02 which still needs descending so far as we +can tell. Easy job. We put our cave-blinkers back on in an attempt to +actually get the job we intended to do done. Wook had carefully put +the alleged GPS of GMH on his phone (neither it nor shagged-spit was +in the 2024 entrances list). The back-up plan was that Anthony had +been there before a mere decade ago so could hopefully re-find +them. Fortunately the GPS was spot-on for the GMH entrance, which had +a nice tag saying "2015 +DL 02" so one wonders quite how "Chossy Death Slope Höhle" got +renamed and no-record of this correspondence made it into a logbook. A +short wander up-cliff found the +also-tagged 2015 DL +01 (Shagged Spit Höhle). We GPSed (GPS on the eponymous shagged +spit for about 40 mins) and photoed that location whilst also doing a + 'from-the-surface' SAP6 survey.
+ +So now both 2015-DL-01 and 2015-DL-02 are explored, located, +photoed, tagged and surveyed sufficiently to get +katastered. Result. Job done.
+ +Time was moving on and we had a dinner to get back to this evg so +we headed back, looking +for 2012-dd-04 on the +way back. Despite our best efforts we stumbled onto an entrance too +fine to ignore and so spent 40 mins GPSing, tagging and surveying +(from the surface) 2024-JC-01. (See how the wiley old lags carefully +made this one Jacob's responsibility :-) It's quite a big +hading shaft entrance about 12m x 2m with a 4m cliff behind and at +least 17m deep. There was a nice boulder for a survey station but it +looked a bit dodgy and shove sent it crashing down the hole so we were +wise not to use that one. Tag is to LH end of the hole. GPS point and +intermediate point are red nail-varnish marked.
+ +dd-04 was a tiny bit elusive, although Anthony's GPS took him +nearly straight there whilst Wookey's took him 20m away jus tthe +wrong side of a ridge and then he was marooned by bunde for a while, +but eventually re-found the others. jacob had shoved himself into the +hole but it was about 1.5 cavers long and thus not big enough to be +katasterable. We tagged it anyway.
+ +Now it really was time to hot-foot it home so we headed back, +passing the (tagged) caves 277, 272 and 2012-FT-02. There really are +quite a lot of holes round here.
+ +Anthony and I collected the rest of our shit and we all headed +briskly down the hill for the final time this year, which was good +because I really did have quite sore feet by the end of the day after +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
+ +