On this date, with the exchange of geartape Julia "the bloke" Bradshaw and Dour "the beardy one" Day were in the sanctity of the tattiehut joined in Holy Bondage until the day that one or the other fall apart.
Registrar: Martin Green
Witnessed: Jessica Stirrups
Emma Wilson
Rope for rigging down to pushing in 204 A => 48 (up), 30, +70 (up) [Last item annnoted 'wrong' in pencil] King Carbide => 50/60 Brians phat shaft => 82+30 Painted Lady => ~30m Puss in bolts + on the prowl traverse => 30+27, rope protector, deviation Fat Cat => 80, (or 25,45,12) may need more for swing off -> log book states "QMA would require swing & prob more rigging to assist swing" Actual ropes => A: 41m, 11mm, chop from 92m King Carbide: chop from 92m 10mm Brians : 92 + 38 11mm Painted Lady => 140m 10mm Puss in bolts => 34 9mm On the prowl => 29 9mm Fat Cat => 140 10mm
Wook & Serena filled the van with lots of food & gear & set off for expo. Remarkably traffic-free trip in the UK & across europe. Relised at dover that we'd failed to bring a map of europe in physical or digital form, so did a quick download + make plan on cheap UK data. Worked very well offline so failed to get lost at all. Had 4hrs kip en-route.
Very hot all the way here until thunderstorms from Reid in Imkreis onwards. _Very_ wet. Got to Bad Aussee having heard that there was a big concert on but traffic had cleared. Main Rd to Grundlesee was closed & we were sent the back way, only to find it was totally packed with drenched pedestrians & vehicles coming the other way. Eventually got to the main rd to find totally stationary traffic. Went nowhere for about half an hour before finally inching down to camp site which was utterly heaving.
Left 5:30pm, arrived 9:30pm.
Martin rigged Fat Cat and explored the wrong way to solution pocket 8m long & 10m high
Dour sat at the top for 3hrs and got quite cold.
Rigged the entrance pitch to 204. Found that the snow was quite low. My spanner made a descent of the 2nd pitch, at which point I went out
Popped down the hole to top of Fat Cat. Jess pointed me towards Emmas alternative hole, using backup of Fat Cat started on a quick pootle downhill. Realised quite quckly I'd been sandbagged into a hard bolting nightmare. No slings so cut end off rope to make one and head down in tight rift.
Ended in rift that opened, placed bolt and headed down. Some minor rubs that probably didn't damage the rope... Found a nice loking natural and destroyed it one hit. Didn't make the mistake a second time and cut end off rope to make a sling, arrived at sharp eyehole looking for deviation - Jess called down from Emmas 'actual' hole 'which was nice'. Lost confidence in rock after dinner-plate fell off. taking note of natural above. made 'Y' hang but [unreadable] with hand bolts. Wish I had not lost drill bit at bivvy.
PS pitch heads back under and appears to connect to Fat Cat pitch.
Decided to have a quick look in 101 to see what it did. Much as described in 1977, pitches all free climbable. Just after 101 and 101a join there is a tight pitch lead to the right into a canyon - we didn't descend. Followed to near the end in 1977 - gets quite small, but continues. Another small tube leads off to right - Olly went for a short way down this and it continues.
Got out survey kit, discovered the disto battery was flat. Didn't survey... passage is roughly SSW and descending slightly. Walked back via looking for 99-OB-01 which we found. Easy to locate if you assume Schoenberg bearing is for 2 peaks further east, and Zinken is a different peak.
Lesson learnt - check disto batteries.
I was still feeling full of cold so we went to have a poke at the dig at the end of 82's top level. Olly successfully dug and got more passage, but sadly it didn't go very far - I suspect it is too near the surface. While I sat on the surface and coughed, Olly had a look at 85, and concluded that there is still a lead.
Went back into 82 and surveyed the new bit.
Olly rigged and bolted down 157. We went down the parallel rift and concluded the bolts of unknown origin spotted in 1987 are not in 107. Cave doesn't continue. We surveyed out, via a brief warm up on the surface. On redescending Olly realised his rack was still underground. Opps! Fortunately I could rescue it for him! We didn't descend the main shaft as it was quite full of snow. There is also another parallel rift we didn't visit.
Lesson learnt: don't prussic out leaving your rack behind.
This cave is right by the path to 204 ~ opposite 157. one day this cave would have had a long section of big passage heading for 107, but is today missing much of it's roof. Off this main 'passage' are several short sections of cave heading off. Sadly they all either get too small, end, or are choked with rocks. Surveyed most of it - will go back and finish off later.
(The cave name is because we saw a pair of gemse twice on the way).