CUCC Expedition Handbook
Expedition Handbook
The pages which make up this handbook were originally based on the paper documents you might find lying around the Potato Hut or Top Camp. These web pages are now the master documents. They should tell you everything you need to know about Expo. Please update them/add info as required.
Basic Beginnings
- Rescue
- You fall and break your leg – probably need a little help to get out of the cave ? How would you feel if everyone at this stage took the rescue guide into Hilde's bar and started reading about what to do ? Not a happy prospect, is it – so in the hope that it is not you who gets hurt, we suggest you read this now so you know what to do. It may well help you if it is you who gets injured, and may even help prevent that from happening. So don't skip it !
- First Aid
- Info on expo first aid kits and caving first aid course.
How do I...?
Where and How
- On a matter of stooling
- Seriously, this quite important. Do read this document, and when you have finished having a laugh, remember it.
- Base camp operations
- To attend expo we need to know who you are and what you are doing. This is where we keep the formal records of who is where and what they are doing.
- History of Camps
- Base camp and History of high camps
- Weather
- Unpredictable in the mountains. Local thunderstoms with rapid run-off are the biggest danger.
- Cave data management
- The biggest surprise for new people on expo are the intense efforts on recording and
managing cave data. This tells you why.
The most basic data we keep is the record of your trip in the logbook and then
typing that in online.
When you discover and survey a new cave we have a good process for recording the discovery and the cave data.
- Prospecting Issues
- The printable new prospecting guide (slow to load) is a list of all known cave entrances and is essential reading before you wander the plateau stumbling across holes of potential interest.
Do now read plateau prospecting: issues and explanations.
Vast amounts of work have been wasted in the past through inadequate recording. It isn't very much extra work,
but ensures that your hard work gains some recognition in the future rather than making lots of tedious work
and the cursing of your name...
There is also a graphical prospecting map guide which shows
the caves and cave entrances we know about (This is currently broken in that it is not showing
a map background so is rather incomprehensible unless you already know the plateau quite well.)
There is a separate page with pictures of surface landmarks for
taking bearings, and a new guide to getting a GPS fix.
- Surveying
- Once the cave starts to get significant (ie. anything which requires getting changed or rigging), it needs good documentation. This is mostly a matter of
- doing a cave survey,
- writing a guidebook description
- tagging the entrance
- taking photographs of the entrance, and
- recording the GPS location of the entrance (or doing a surface survey).
The first time you go to explore a poorly documented question mark ("QM"), you will realise how important this is, and it also makes for having a pretty survey on your wall to support your bullshit. The surveying guide has been split into easily digestible chunks, including pages specifically intended for people who haven't surveyed before. See also the prospecting introduction for how and why we identify and tag entrances.
- EXPO Phones
- How to use and update the base camp and top camp mobile phones on expo. (Not your phone.)
- Charging
- How to charge the 14.4V Makita Drill batteries.
- Rope
- History of our ropes and our retirement plans.
- Solar Panel system
- Description of setting up and putting away the solar powered battery charging system at the stone bridge
- Bivi Rigging Guide
- Pictorial guide on how to rig the tarps at the stone bridge bivi site.
- Photography
- - embryonic photography handbook.
- SRT Rigging
- This one's also minimal – but links to useful info on another site. There is (Jan 2000), however, in addition to the rudimentary page above, a few pages towards a full Austria-specific guide. The contents page links to an Introduction and a useful section on placing bolts and it may be useful to refer to the expedition Fixed Aids list to see what gear has been left in place from previous years. See also Sherry's Alpine Rigging guide (beta release)
- Useful vocabulary
- This is hardly a "section", but contains a possibly useful table of translations of climbing (mainly) and caving (some) terms into German, Spanish and French. It's here mainly because I had the material to hand and it would be silly not to make it available.
- Expo Planning Guide
- How to plan and organise an expo.
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- Checklist for expo leaders
- Expo organisers usually haven't done it before, so a list of the necessary jobs is useful. This section is a side-effect of the entire expo leadership being neophytes in 1998. Despite much support from previous leaders, a few odd things got forgotten, like envelopes for survey notes. One of the good things they invented was an annual suggestions file for making things better next time. One of the suggestions was a handbook section telling them what to do! We hope that this checklist will become useful for "experienced" leaders as well as vital guidance for anyone new to the job. However, do not rely on it being complete or uptodate, at least, not yet.
- How to be Expo Treasurer
- How expo accounting works in theory and practice, the treasurer's tasks, and how to accomplish them.
Computing stuff
- Expo Computer
- Details on how the expo computer and network is set up and administered.
- Website and Data Manual - Experts only
- This tells you how the website and cave data are arranged, accessed and used, including entering new cave data.