And so it was that at 12.41 on Monday 5th July did the weighbridge at Madingley Mulch pronounce one white Citroën C15D van, by the registration mark of L852 MFL, to be 400kg overweight – weighing in at nearly two tonnes. Mark and Olly were not best pleased, the previous days and morning having been spent cramming Expo goods into every nook and cranny about the van.
It was a combination of the appaling handling and the measly < 1cm of suspension clearance at the rubber stop which persuaded us to have the van weighed. It was cearly far more overweight than in previous years – so much so that it was more than 200kg over the total maximum load on the tyres!
We returned to the Tackle Store having summoned Martin and Dave, and soon began the tedious task of emptying about 300kg of shit out of the van – each item being monotonously weighed on Martin's bathroom scales. Many, many phone calls ensued and after various silly plans (including driving to Expo and then coming back the next day for a second load, utilising a cheap day return on the ferry from Calais!) we settled on a haulier who would transport it to Munich for 300 quid. Not too bad in fact, given it would cost well over 200 quid to do the two-drives plan. (In fact, subsequently a cheaper company were found.) We declined one company's quote of three thousand pounds, refilled the van with lighter items and set off for Milton Tesco's, to collect journey food. At about 5.40pm all was ready (minus the various tasks which we hadn't had time to do due to the massive hiatus). We set off for Earl's place and arrived without mishaps, planning to leave for Dover at 4am. Expo had begun.
Arose at 3.30pm and left Earl's place just after five past four on Tuesday morning. The ferry was at 6am and we arrived just at the right time after a stop for fuel. (Got to the port around 5.20am.)
The ferry was on time and we set off about 8.20am French time onto the motorway. Driving in shifts, there were no mishaps until Mark's shift around Nürnburg.
[The Nürnburg incident, which apparently involved a high-speed emergency stop with inadequate brakes, never got written up in the enormous space left for it on the page.]
All went v. smoothly; up at 3am (ouch!), coach to Stansted, Ryanair to Salzburg, tram, train etc to arrive at Bad Aussee at around 3pm. Bus timetable appears to be beyond the comprehension of mere mortals, so I walked. Then fell asleep, woke up and spent four hours watching German TV. (Something important has happened to the state governor of Steiermark, but I have no idea what.)
Walked up hill. Snow level very high. Had considerable fun hauling gear out of Traungold (caving gear + some digging were needed).
More getting stuff out of snow-choked holes.
Rigged down to bottom of A ent pitch. Owing to lack of rope we didn't get any further than that + ran out of excuses for walking downhill in the rain.
Det er veldig variskelig â snakke [illegible]. Men jeg mâ prøve. We left Anthony's office at 3.00pm on Friday (I remembered the guitar). Getting out of Norge not easy, but achieved eventually. 6 hours Oslo to Gøteborg. Then lots more hours through Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Sweden + Germany go on far too long especially. Our stereo died, but it only cost 20 NOK so it's fair enough. No traffic jams once outside Sweden. It took ages, Dour ate lots of chocolate, I didn't fall asleep too much, Expo is great + so is Gösser.
[In different pen and Dour's handwriting]I say chaps, it's a dashed long way from Oslo to expo, what?
Oh, so caving songs get written in the rain, right. Well, plenty of rain here, so let's have some inspiration. There's Duncan's first bit:
When I first came to Cambridge I was only 18
With a fiver in my pocket and my old dangly bag
So I went down the Panton to check out the scene
But I soon ended up as a beardy old lag.
Still Duncan:
When the Mornflake + the Tunnocks bars were stacked in great piles
With the old Expo trailer we would drag them for miles
Then me:
To the arse-end of Austria we carted our load
Knowing free schapps awaited at the end of the road
INSPIRATION NEEDED HERE
Last verse:
And now I am lying here, I ain't had no booze
I've been pushing and caving, and I'm all sore and bruised
I feel like I'm dying, and I wish I could beg
For a stretcher to carry me to old base camp.
We set off for our 3rd carry to Top Camp, and for the first time it wasn't raining. As we got to TC it got much darker, and just as we started pitching the big expo tent it started to hail horizontally which was really quite grim... Eventually we got the tent up and went to look for Eislufthöhle (76), Olly knew where it was, but couldn't remember quite how to get there so we walked around a lot in the erratic boulders just below where 76 turned out to be.
Carried up our final load to TC, noticed that the tent had lots of big puddles. Perhaps optimistically, I assumed it had come into the tent whilst we erected it in the hail storm, so I bailed out the water + we set off for 76, armed with a GPS. We got the [illegible] the GPS point and wandered around and found 97 which still had paint marking it. This gave us an idea of where 76 was which we then found. About 50m from 76, towards the ridge, was a very very good potential bivvy site – a big arched entrance maybe 15m across and 1.5m high with a snow patchand a skylight. Probably room for ~6 people without too much rock moving + more people with more work, quite sheltered as well as it opens out into a small sheltered valley (with room for a small tent). We walked back to TC laying cairns as we went.
Woke up to find just how un-waterproof the tent was – lots of leaks through the ceiling and 3 puddles a couple of inches deep, wet sleeping bags and other wet stuff which wasn't nice at all. Eventually got going after a short delay to dry out the lighter before we could make breakfast. We walked back to 76 carrying lots of gear to relook at the bivvy with a view to actually using it – and it looked a whole better [sic] than the tent. We carreid another load from TC adding more cairns as we went.
Olly taught me how to bolt by demonstrating to drill a tag spit for 97, then I put ones in for tags for 76 and 76b (76a was already tagged). Then I went underground in the 76a entrance, it goes approximately horizontally for about 15m over a step on the way, there was quite a lot of soft snow on the floor but no ice visible till near the pitch, where there was a small ice-shell. The pitch continues down below where the 76 ent shaft comes in (but this looked too loose to be worth using). I placed my first two underground bolts, then looked round the corner and saw an old spit which suggested that in the 70s the snow level was higher. I carried on down the sloping gully with snow on the floor, the gully flattened out to a ledge with loose rocks. Just round the corner was a nice looking 10-20m pitch which looked to land on a big snow ledge. Time was running out so I came back up and added a bolt to the top to make the rope hang in a nicer place. Then we got changed and walked back to the car via TC to collect our wet sleeping bags to dry them. On the way back we realised that Olly's GPS was still getting a fix by the bivvy... Oh, whilst I was caving Olly cairned a path from the bivvy to the 204 path.
3rd verse
Oh, the chill winds at night through the bivvy would blow
But there were boys at the stone bridge to guide you below
If you didn't fancy caving you could go and get drunk
There was always lots of festering down at old base camp
Wandered in down 204A re-rigging on Dave Brindle's rope. Dour put in a bolt enabling me to get close enough to the 2nd pitch to see that it was open, which was a pleasant surprise seeing how much snow was around generally. At this point Dour returned to the surface while Olly, Stuart and I wandered down Ariston. Ran out of rope at Steel Toecap and headed out.
Had much difficulty finding the entrance, it was further than I remembered. Took ages to rig the pitch, then went out.
Continued rig down bottom pitch of Ariston (which is shite) and 54m pitch in Kiwi Suit. Realising we had only three hangers left, we put in the next 8m pitch but didn't descend, + buggered off out. Nial + Mark apparently got lost in the crawls at the bottom of Wolpertinger Way and were out an hour after I was; I really ought to have hung around to point out the route – sorry guys, but I was cold + knackered + wanted to go downhill.
[Mark D's handwriting] Scientific note: air temp measured at Pot-U-Like 2°C.
Early start – underground by 10:00! Speedy descent to Kiwi Suit, where we picked up the bag of rope left on the 15th. We now had 3 1/2 bags of rope between us, which was considered A LOT. Mark rigged the bottom 2 pitches of Kiwi Suit, then Dour took up the cudgels and proceeded to rig Razor Dance down to the 2002 limit – the Steady Now pitch. Left the rest of the rope at that point and turned round at 16:00. Uneventful ascent, Mark D out at 19:45, Dour 21:15. Dour must buy a magic foot jammer!
Scientific note: the gravel in the crawl between Ariston + Kiwi Suit is very interesting and is in different sizes in different passages, which gives some indication of the water flow during phreas. This should be (a) recorded and (b) taped off to avoid damage. MSD.
We bolted on down from the head of Draught Bitter (where the draught was so fierce it made my eyes water while drilling a hole for a bolt). A deviation off a 70s spit got us to a little rock bridge, and a rebelay off another unusually well preserved and flush 70s spit to the "rock bridge lead". Rebelay off a natural spike (shape enhanced with a bolt hammer), and we're at our first lead. I poked out the looser rocks, and peered down into a serpentine rift below. I put in a spit, gardened more, and squeezed in, Jenny feeding rope from above (the bag was too fat). Along the rift, an aven intersects, and goes down a shaft. Another spit, and another awkward squeeze, and I dropped the pitch, but it was blind. Back up, and the rift seems to form a U, both ends look like the end at snow slopes, presumably out on the pitch (though we're yet to confirm this). We ascend to the rock bridge, and head on down. I can see a ledge which will keep us away from falling snow & rocks, but after two spits I'm still not there and my legs are losing feeling. Jenny is cold too so we exit.
Back down 76 again, this time it's my turn to bolt. I get down to the bolts Olly put in yesterday (after adding a spit for a deviation on the way down to stop the rope cutting through the big snow plug), and spend quite a while swinging around trying to work out what is attached to what (tacklesack, hangers, deviation...). Eventually I sorted it all out and follow Olly's advice to rig the deviation as a rebelay temporarily to enable me to swing onto the ledge more easily. The rebelay was all exciting and wide and free-hanging, but I managed to cope, then just as I start to swing I noticed the rope would rub, so had to go back up, pass the rebelay, add an extra maillon, pass the rebelay and start swinging.
[Diagram of a stick-Jenny attempting to swing onto a ledge]
I landed on the ledge and did some gardening of rocks, which boomed lots and made the ledge feel really rather exposed. Olly was complaining about the cold so I put in a bolt rather too quickly and he came down to the ledge. Olly took over the bolting so he could warm up, and started a traverse along from the ledge, passing a small lead up a tube on the left. Down and across a bit I think (I couldn't really see from where I was). After warming up outside + drinking some hot chocolate, we returned to survey from the A entrance to the pitches (draft bitter). Then returned to BC, racing darkness + an electrical storm.
I was phoned, "There is a problem", "Please bring your bathroom scales", "400kg overweight", "bollocks" (thought Martin). Solutions ...another car ... too crap .. another trailer ... too long ... DSL ... too expensive ...
After some time trying to find someone to fit a tow bar to Mark's van for a non-existent trailer, a haulier was found to transport from Newton Hall to Munich. This required me to find cardboard boxes, twenty minutes after the bloke came to collect them.
The next day Fast Freight hauliers gave a better quote. If I measured the height, width and girth of the pallet. So on Tuesday, I stacked a fine tower of boxes in the tacklestore. I got a quote, and on Wednesday I stacked a slightly dodgy pile of boxes. The van turned up to collect it, wiht his hydraulic tail gate and his pump hand truck. The pump truck did not fit under the pallet, leaving the truck driver and I to lift the 390kg pallet on to another pallet. After much grunting and straining we lifted the boxes on to a "decent" pallet. On Friday I received a message saying the cheque I sent on Thursday had not arrived. So I ignored it, and it all turned up in Bad Aussee on Monday.
Went in E, noticed rubs (Olly says it wasn't his (threatened with hammer)). Rigged Taking the Piss, with PPE green string. Rigged Wot No Bolts, from first hole using two bolts! (Deviation needed). 03-67B pushed to conclusion, 03-68B, 03-69B pushed to beginning of Faith traverse. Pencil broke, so took some photos.
Walked back up to the bivvy, and sat around for a while feeling too hot. Eventually got underground with a plan of finishing surveying what we have found. We started at Draught Bitter, and surveyed downwards. I realised how crap surveying pitches was, especially really draughty pitches that twist around lots meaning you can't easily do plumbs. Only once did we both need to be hanging from the same rope for a little while. Got down to the higher rock bridge (the one with the rebelay) before we got cold and unenthused. Olly went out whilst I swung around looking at possible leads and so I could draw things better. The big snow plug appears to be partly resting on another rock bridge, with an alternative smaller route down behind it. There were also two smallish (~1 or 2m in diameter) aven tube type things going up from behind. I then checked out the small aven with ice near the top of Draught Bitter - this didn't appear to go too far. Once out we surveyed in the 76b entrance. This was less nice as the rocks are very sharp, the roof is a bit loose and there is a little climb in the middle. Definitely not worth using as an entrance when 76a is so much nicer.
Went back down 76 with bolting gear with a view to ticking off Olly's lead on the ledge and then rigging on down. I lined Olly up the short but exposed climb, then couldn't see what was happening for ages. Olly got to the end of the rope and assured me it was safe to untie, and then went off exploring. I sat on a ledge with my light off (in case Olly's passage came back to the shaft). Ages later, and just as I was getting worried, Olly returned. I convinced him that seeing as he was there it was worth bolting and then surveying. So whilst he bolted the climb I prussiked out for the survey kit.
45 minutes later I was back at the climb to find Olly had dropped my spanner after putting in the backup. I passed him up a maillon and he tightened the Y-hang bolts and I came up. The crawling passage led on past two sharp corners (Pool Sink fashion) and a passage off on the right to a pitch. We carried on, and after the odd lower bit some more passages branched off at a drafty spot: two more tube type things, one high on the left and one on the right, then a narrow (~50cm) crack on the left that appears after a few metres to lead to a snow slope. (Looking at the locations, we suspect this might be part of 99.) Continuing along the passage + past another low bit I suddenly emerged in the top of a big vadose passage, several metres high and going in both directions!
Upstream led to a choke, so we sureveyed out from here, passing another couple of passages on the way. We had a quick look downstream, but didn't survey. Soon an aven joined and the passage increased in size and became looser. In front a pitch dropped down and the passage seemed to continue above. To the left another couple of passages left! Amazed and and pleased at our finds we continued to survey out, getting very annoyed with the crappy compass. After 35 legs we eventually tied the survey in with the previous one, and could leave the cave!
Wandered down Gaffered, while Nial + Becka touristed up Swings and aparently pushed a QM somewhere. (Becka: where was it?) ([Becka's handwriting] By station 12 on RH wall, wasn't down as QM. Didn't go. Surveyed 2/8/04. Also looked at QMs on Colonnades, nothing easy.)
Met up again at the bottom of Tape Worm pitch, where Becka and I just about contrived to find the bolts between us. (Becka added a bolt to the traverse below Tape Worm.) Ran out of hangers after Eyehole pitch, so turned around and came out.
Becka suggested a wander up Treeumphant to Chocolate Salty Balls. It's very nice passage; we poked around for a while before heading out. On the way back, had a stare at what may be QM 00-34C - it's rubbish, a tube at roof level which might be climbable into with one or two bolts, but all the rock is awful.
Carried in the pushing rope, and rigged the pitches beyond Steady Now. Ran out of hangers at the top of Yeast. Also placed a hand bolt at the top of Mystery Wind, so as to replace existing dodgy thread, but didn't have a hanger for it. Headed out without a great deal of speed (I was very cold and Olly very knackered).
NB The roof tube below Mystery Wind could do with a bolt and a sling or something as a handline - climbing out of it on the downstream side is very awkward if you don't get yourself into the right orientation to start with. (I did a bizarre Superman-style dive out of it which could have been very nasty. Fortunately I succeeded in landing on the tacklesack!)
An exceptionally early start (9.30 am!) and a quick trip down to the start of Razor Dance. Reached the pushing front at about 13:30 after rigging Yeast pitch. Dour bolted the traverse while Mark quickly dropped the pitch on naturals. The continuation at stream level was really nasty. So we voted for the high traverse, which goes into a level with a real floor, The Nordic Traverse. We surveyed into this, eventually reaching a small climb/pitch down (approx 5m). This was duly rigged and it lands in a small chamber, Thirteen Year Itch. From here a further pitch of 18m was dropped back into the streamway. This pitch, Pepper Pot, was a real stunner - best pitch in the cave (imho)! Below the pitch, the rift continues in the same awkward style. By now it was 16:30 so we quickly surveyed the pitches and then headed out. Mark was out 20:15, Dour at about 22:45. See my note from the previous trip about Dour needing a foot jammer!
This was a fantastic trip, one of the best I have ever done in Austria. Home tomorrow, but a great memory to take with me!
Earl put in a Y-hang about 40% down from the top of Gaffered to help speed up using it + take us a bit further from the spray. Becka replaced the two ropes Dave rigged yesterday with a 9mm (bit too skinny) 91m then Earl continued to rig down Gaffered, adding a backup bolt to Eyehole and bolting the traverse up to Gaffered. Not long at bottom so we surveyed QM 03-8A which soon choked and went out. Takes ~2hrs from bottom.
Finally ready to roll pushing: looked at 03-29A rigged handline to edge of large chamber - no rope so leave that, plus 03-30B which needs a high-level traverse. (See our 22nd July trip.)
Ticked off + surveyed 03-28B, 03-27B and 03-26B. I think 03-25B can be downgraded to a "C" QM. Then up to crystal pool. Surveyed chamber at 03-31B. Nial climbed up to the mud filled pocket on the left of the chamber - apparently choked with mud. The small pit in the floor of the chamber is blind except for a miserable boulder-filled hole whcih you can get to the other side of from a small passage on the opposite side of the passage as 03-25B. There is a hole over your head in the chamber but Nial said the banks of mud would make it very hard to get into, plus a miserable little hole on the opposite wall. Then surveyed from 03-21B to 03-22C to complete a small loop. 03-20B doesn't exist, just mud-filled, though there is a miserable thin rift in the floor of the chamber it's in. 03-19C is still there (actually there are two roof tubes but the more promising, higher one would be tough to get into). Re-checked 03-23C - not at all promising, and 03-24C likewise - a v.steep climb.
That seemed to tick off all the horizontal leads in Sirens (boo-hiss) so we went back to Eeyore and Earl started to bolt 03-3B. Whilst he started, I checked 03-5B - it's a blind pit, only 4m down. I also went down to 03-4B - it's a smallish pitch/rift whcih looks like it would connect to 03-2B + big, chossy boulders at the top. Once again not at all enticing. Neither 03-7C or 03-6C look to be much.
[Extensively annotated copy of 2003 Underworld survey with ticked-off leads noted.]