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 the other group catching up with us. Dropping down into Blitzen Boulevard we continued along the rift and dropped Mike and teams previously rigged pitch (as we had de-rigged fivemoose), getting to the pushing front.
Since the PDA had officially died, it was on to sexytopo on phone, with Mealy keen to do more on notes. Alice and Will were both (unusually) keen to survey which allowed me, as the most experienced, to take on the role of chief scooper / co-ordinator.
The rift continued, bending slightly to the right as we surveyed along, soon becoming a sandy crawl. Passing a tight deep hole (likely connecting into Liquid Luck) we reached a junction. Right quickly crapped out at a puddle below a blind aven. Left, crawling continued with stalagtites and popcorn/coral formations. In hindsight we should have taken photos. The passage became more rifty again with a few more formations.
We could hear voices seemingly ahead, which did not bode well. I scooted ahead to find the rift connected with the far side of the top of the Liquid Luck Pitch. Unfortunately, this was Jonty and teams lead for the day so they were quite annoyed, although hadn’t started bolting their way across yet.
We finished off surveying and I went round the long way to the far side of the pitch to ensure we could close the loop. Done for the day, there was now a clusterfuck of people all trying to leave fish at the same time. One by one people left the bothy and headed up Blitzen to the surface. Back to top camp for curry.
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.
I started bolting the second pitch, hugging the left-hand wall to avoid the steadily dripping water at the near end of the pitch. Unfortunately the slope of the wall was not ideal and a couple of re-belays were required to avoid rope rub. This was about as good as we would get so dropped down the remaining 25m or so onto a large snow and ice pile. To one side this dropped steeply down to a wet puddle, joined by the drips from the near end of the pitch, with no continuation. Travelling along the chamber down the snow slope became increasingly treacherous, climbing down large appliance-sized ice boulders. Carefully tip-toeing under an iceberg wedged 10m up in the ceiling the continuation became more like a boulder choke, but made of ice. This became steep enough that rope would be required, but with the treacherous conditions, and nothing to rig off other than ice anyway, I retreated.
We both then surveyed the extent of the cave and de-rigged on the way out. Janis de-rigging for the ‘learning experience’. Unfortunately, cave killed until a future year with very low snow perhaps. There was no evidence of a draft at the bottom so not particularly promising.
Deciding I needed to get into this prospecting lark and find some new caves we kept an eye out for undocumented potential on our walk up to top camp. The intention was to walk up from the Col to Homecoming and then Garlic cave (also dropping off supplies). Janis GPS trailed the route (being vaguely sure of it having done it the other day). There were several confusing bits and many cairns which were mostly helpful.
The following caves were found on the way up:
Entrance photos were also taken. (Note: These caves are all entered on website).
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 looking around the area and suggested we go look at 2018-DM-04 and 2018-DM-05.
We had one caving helmet between us (the rest of my kit was at top camp). We only got round to looking at 2018-DM-04, following a slightly up and down plateau route to get there. The tag was found underneath a rock. Got Ely to practice bolting and place the first back up bolt. Then I started down the cave -an open shaft approx. 4x5m. A big flake made a suitable hang point, with with a further deviation put in allowed a good hang down to a large snow plug. This mountain of snow could be carefully passed down one side between the cave wall. A re-belay was necessary with the cave dropping down and to the side. A further re-belay and past the snow now led down to a rocky floor. Unfortunately, there was no further continuation.
Headed back out and then we surveyed before derigging. Named cave Bunderstruck, and is approx. 50m, mostly vertical. Then back to garlic cave to drop off rope (and Philip) before walking across to Top Camp.
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 entrances on OSMand plus the cave/plateau overlay developed by Martin, we set off. The path to Balcony is more pleasant than the one to Fish with plenty of cairns meaning we were soon there.
We ambled around on the plateau finding several caves of interest and recording photos and gps points. We generally followed a loop, heading East then North, then West, then South, then East again ending up back near Balcony. Recorded 10 new caves. When heading back to Top camp we detoured through the bunder up to the top of Niederes Augst-Eck, bushwhacking around and eventually making our way back. This did not yield any new caves.
The following caves were found. All entrance details (description and photos) are now on website:
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 look at this lead which needed another y-hang to drop into potential new stuff. Looking at the survey didn’t reveal much information, and none of our group had been here before which wasn’t ideal.
We set off and made our way down the cave, through the rifts until reaching the end of the previous rigging without much difficulty. I rigged the last y-hang and this dropped down to traverse rigged with a mixture of hilti’s and through-bolts above a large hole, with a boulder wedged across the middle. (We later found out this is the ff-hb connection). Ill prepared and confused by the mixture of different paint/survey stations and assortment of rigging options, we decided to traverse up into some side passages and explore round. Half this had been surveyed, but it was unclear what hadn’t so we re-surveyed a large loop – kreshconnectionconfusion. It turned out half of this hadn’t been surveyed so was somewhat worthwhile on an otherwise pointless trip.
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 I went over to Fishface to fetch one that would hopefully still be there, allowing the other team some time to get down the cave.
We all convened at the bottom of the entrance series, after descending on rope down the two snowy slopes. The final pitch was narrow and loose, dropping shortly down into a passage heading both left and right. After some discussions Joel/Lizzie’s team decided to head right down an icy slope to what would be another pitch. Zac and I headed left.
Job done we headed back to the junction where we met up with the others. Despite being gone probably hour they were still yet to do anything? Snacks were eaten in a bothy and then Zac and I headed out where we met Merryn and Ely on the surface, who had walked up the plateau.
Merryn joined Zac and I to scope out a couple of side passages just as you start going down Tempest. One of these a snow slope heads off into a side rift which can be squeezed up through boulders, but then loops back around to the same (Tempest) pitch at a higher level. Surveyed as Fartichoke. The other was a very short arch in the ceiling joining immediately back in, and not going anywhere further, as this was just the ceiling of the main passage below.
It had rained whilst we were in the cave and Ely had conveniently covered over most of our stuff which we’d left lying around. Once out we packed up and headed back to Top Camp.
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.
One bolt wonder dropped over a tackle-sack rope protector 5m to a snow slope. Cave then crapped out. Zac named it Boring hole (2023-ASH-16). Surveyd and then de-rigged.
Found another cave just over an escarpment, a large rift in the ground. Excellent opportunity for Will to learn/practice bolting so he set to gardening, before installing a y-hang. At the bottom of the rift the were no continuations. Will named it Dead on Arrival (2023-ASH-15). Surveyed and then de-rigged.
Headed back to Top camp for noodles.
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 towards Balcony.
Upon trying to re-find the triangular rock arch from a cave before, I led us slightly too far to the south to find another arch -this was only a metre long so not a cave. However we then found a new cave. 20 or so metres of horizontal development with a crawl also linking in the side. We explored and surveyed this cave (2023-ASH-17) which Will named Gollum Grotto.
We then found the triangular arch I had been looking for originally. Surveyed this short cave (2023-ASH-07) and named it Little Tent. The cave is very short with the addition of a climb down through boulders, but this doesn’t go anywhere.
With the threat of thunderstorms, we headed back, making it back in time to then watch some lightning off on the edges of the plateau. Plus curry for dinner.
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 dinner, this needed to be an efficient trip. Las as is always the case with caving we didn’t get down to the car park until around 5pm.
The caves we surveyed near Balcony, Evelyn and I had previously found a couple days ago, 2023-ASH-08 and 2023-ASH-09 now correspondingly named Top Camp Band and Bat versus Rat by Tom. They are both quite short with horizontal routes in. Top Camp Band was the more extensive of the two, with a second entrance consisting of a tight 10m high aven down to the main chamber, which a crawl leads back to the first 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.