Rigged entrance pitch as far as second deviation but found deviation tat (meant to be in-situe) had been removed along with hanger. Dickon spent 10+ minutes swinging to find bolt but it could not be found. Returned to surface leaving rope and rigging gear at last rigged Y-hang.
Rigged Tunnocks to start of Caramel Catharsis (or thereabouts). In the words of Anthony: "Nothing to report, just tell everyone how great it was!"
After the first spit had been set we realised that we'd forgotten the bolts, doh, so the tags for these caves have been hammered into cracks and only cucc-2018-ms01 has a hole drilled.
cucc-2018-ms01
Becka's phone GPS 33+ 410730 5274320 Alt 1698m Accuracy 4m
Description: Rubble slope with snow plug down to a jammed boulder. Wriggle down next to it to a 45°
ramp down. This levels off to a tight squeeze down to a small chamber. Around 30m long with no draft.
Sketch: see notes and photo on Becka's phone at 09:30 on 13/7/18
Notes: tag hammered into crack near to placed spit
Photo: Becka's phone at 14:00
cucc-2018-ms02 Blitz Baum Schacht (Lightening Tree Shaft)
Becka's phone GPS 33+ 410635 5283186 Alt 1724m Accuracy 4m (see also Mark's GPS)
Description: Around 30m NNE (say 020) from distinctive, large, dead tree struck by lightning. A
30m+ shaft, rocks rattle for several seconds. Hole ~5m long x 1m wide.
Notes: tag hammered into crack on flat area on long side
Photo: Becka's phone and Mark's phone at 14:56
cucc-2018-ms03 Zufall Hoehle (Coincidence Cave)
Becka's phone GPS 33+ 410376 5283124 Alt 1714m Accuracy 3m (see also Mark's GPS)
Description: Squeeze through boulders then drop down c2 and along a tall, narrow rift for ~10m to
head of ~7m pitch. Weak draft out. This was re-found by Dickon and Jon later the same day and they
said there was also a phreatic tube visible from the pitch head.
Notes: tag hammered into above entrance boulders
Photo: Becka's phone and Mark's phone at 16:10
cucc-2018-ms04
Marks's phone GPS 00409613 5282951 Alt 1680m Accuracy 3m
Description: 10m+ shaft, approx 2m long x 0.5m wide, in a line of similar shafts
Notes: tag hammered into crack
Photo: Mark's phone at 17:00
In via usual route to head of String Theory. Found Three ropes (~35m, ~45m, ~60m). Used ~45m and ~35m to rig String Theory (Crossley Rigging). Found ~90m left at head of Procrastination. Used ~20m rope (brought in from top camp) to rig traverse and ~90m to rig pitch of Procrastination. (Densham rigging).
Left tub of flapjacks, snickers, 4 curries with bothy bag at base of Procrastination. Also left 90m 9mm rope for Kraken with slings, snap gates, hangers and maillons.
Returned to Top Camp ~5 mins before callout - blame my (Crossley's) slow rigging of String Theory. Brought ~60m rope out of cave.
Prospected along side of Kleine Wildkogel along South edge heading West. Little but choked shafts for most of the day, but promising end of the day with two good leads. Conveniently, another team claimed to have discovered one of the better finds 2 hours before we found it. This is heavily disputed and questionable.
CUCC 2018 DM01 +
Jon's phone DD 47.69781N 13.81647E
4m climb to cobble floor. Crawl under arch leads to 2m deep hading rift. Choked.
CUCC 2018 DM02 -
Jon's phone DD 47.69756N 13.81331E
8m climb in narrow shaft. 8m climb in wide rift to snow plug. Squeeze past snow plug horizontally
10m leading to small chamber w ice formations. Small window with cobble floor leading to undescended 10m pitch. Rocks rattle at bottom.
CUCC2018 DM03 +
Jon's phone DD 47.69813N 13.80967E
Large open shaft leads to snow plug, undescended. 30m? Continuation unknown.
CUCC2018 DM04 -
Jon's phone DD 47.69714N 13.80618E
Large undescended open shaft. 25m? Continuation unknown, potential passage on.
CUCC2018 DM05 +
Jon's phone DD 47.69665N 13.80597E
Large open shaft. 10m. Small rift at bottom leads on another inspected 10m drop. Almost certainly chokes.
CUCC2018 DM06 -
*THIS CAVE IS A DUPLICATE OF CUCC2018 MS03, which was apparently explored by Becka 2 hrs earlier (or so she says)*
Jon's phone DD 47.69514N 13.80591E
Climb down boulder tickle 5m leads to 2m climb. Rift continues to 4m pitch into chamber, unpushed.
Small passage in roof above pitch ledge to left continues 30m through narrow crawl to 4-way intersection. Unexplored further.
CUCC2018 DM07 -
Jon's phone DD 47.69429N 13.80534E
Large open shaft. In, down over snow plug 30m. 2 consecutive pitches. First 5m, 2nd unknown.
Headed off to drop DM07 followed by DM06. Started with DM07 as the closer of the two. First pitch/handline 5m down from surface to large hole in ground. Into hole in wall, 1m down and 2m traverse over a drop of 3m leads to top of snow plug that can be followed down 8m to passage. Crawl for 10m leads to first pitch, 5m, closely followed by longer pitch (10m?) into a rather large chamber. The way leading back against the direction of progress quickly chokes. Way on leads to large boulder. A hole on the left side yields a safe continuation (the rope also leads this way) on to the next pitch of another 10m into yet another chamber. From here, an impressive pitch was observed(8m diameter) which a 27m rope was insufficient to descend. Probably 40m deep. Strong draft, predicted by the majority of CUCC to be larger than Tunnocks [citation needed].
Surveyed out of cave, tag left on small shelf right under surface level. Lack of pencils led to ditching of DM06, though this is an interesting cave. DM06 still unexplored.
Jon sprained ankle before cave entrance, the effects of which showed up shortly after arrival to top camp, and which subsided by the next day. Strange stuff which unfortunately led to me being unable to push further the next day. :-(
Cycled and walked to N. end of Altaussee lake to try to look at the Weisse Wand area of likely location of hole from the other side of the valley (Trisselwand side). Failed to get far enough: only 1km away but 500m too low and surrounded by 600m cliffs.
IN FUTURE go to this area via SOUTHERN SIDE of the lake as the N. side has a long section where bicycles are forbidden. MAPS DON'T SHOW THIS.
The N. end of the lake has two restaurants and there is road access via the S. side; and then the track towards the Appelhaus is drivable (and certainly mountain-bikeable) for quite a way. Return trip planned early in the morning on another day.
On return, looked for the site of 1982 base camp. Probably at the Madlemeir landing station for the tourist boat. Photos taken [and posted to Facebook Expo2018 page].
Whole trip (and a glass of most) 4 hours.
Snakebite lands in large rift passage with waterfall entering from LHS. Water drains down to Lower Snakebite (this starts with an awkward free climb next to water; themore obvious passage on L of this (as you face downstream) is main Snakebite passage (dry) that connects to Song of the Earth.
[many detailed diagrams - see scanned imageswhen done]
Lower Snakebite - Pitch series starts 20m beyond the awkward free climb below Snakebite pitch following water down free climbs.
Found the entrance* - but it is 60m away from where the GPS says it should be.
Attempted to get to the location the GPS says it is but it's impenetrable bunde.
Stashed in 115 ent: 1 2-man tent, 2 karrimats, 1 litre water (a bit brown - filled in gents loo at berg restaurant), small bag muesli.
I rigged a smallwater collection poly sheet which may get 2-3 litres if we're lucky.
The walk along the Stoger Weg (201) from the turnoff to the col & top camp is much more rugged than the part closer to the carpark: many granny-stoppers.
Photos taken from turn-off point [from Stoger Weg]: "a barely discernable trod" to cave. This "trod" is much more overgrown thanit was in 1982.
*POSTSCRIPT - on 17th July found a 1981 photo of the entrance which shows that the entrance I found wasn't the main entrance. I had found the upper (smaller) entrance CUCC-PS01-2018 at N 47.66743 E 013.80945 alt. 1547m (WGS84 Garmin Venture Cx) 7
Carried 2x 45m ropes and a 80m rope over to Heimkommen. Dickon rerigged the pitch then ran out of rope on, now named Radagast.
Pushed through a small meander to an up pitch (3m). From there is was navigating a large meander, dropping a pitch (5m) and traversing through some boulders. Another pitch (10m) before a climb up and a traverse along the top of Wallace (40m) which landed perfectly on a boulderabove an estimated 50m-100m drop, named Grommit.
Out of rope so we surveyed out.
[DIAGRAM of tarp rigging in bivvy]
Hacked out on the cairned path to Organhöhle to look at some holes found on a 2012 prospecting trip, and see whatever we could find:
The ambitious plan was to rig Tunnocks as far as camp. This was never on after I misread the log entry from last year and believed the rope for Widow Trankey's was in the cave - it wasn't so we were a rope light. The Number of the Beast rope went down the wrong hole when I threw it down the pitch and got stuck, neccessitating much faffage to retrieve. The rope had also been cut and retied* necessitating a knot pass - this rope should be replaced by the 45m rope currently at the top of String Theory. In the end made it to the top of Inferno. Dumped camp stuff (3x pits + stove) and headed out. [ * Becka: using an EDK (European Death Knot) with 8cm ends - who left it like this last year?! ]
11:00-18:00 up the hill.
Found p115x the main "train tunnel" hole. Did a 200+ averaging GPS reading on p115x, Windloch, and cave 88 on the Stoger Weg.
Carried safety gear from the entrance I found 4 days ago and stashed inside:
It took 2 trips and lots of bunde bashing to carry the stuff as I only had a small daysack.
Route to p115x in old logbooks has been destroyed by 35y of pine growth.
The new route is:
go along Stoger Weg past Windloch (32) and further past the next cave (marked 88 in faded red paint) in LHS of path.
Go [10m] further
from there along Stoger Weg and leave path descending limestone karren down to right.
Proceed back along foot of karren slope and push aside
3-4 branches of bunde to reach a "path".
Follow along this until you can descend steeply to the left (a few more branches of bunde) to steep "rockery" scramble
bank. Make your way with care down this and you should be able to see a truncated pine tree [4m high] on the
other side of a small gully. (When seen from the other side, this pine tree has branches in the shape of a figure "4".)
Descend and traverse round
to the right and climb up to this pine tree across the gully.
Now follow "path" down and to the right across 2 areas of soil/grass/loose stones to eventually reach a big pine tree
with a bend in the trunk at ground
level and a small cairn on the bend in the trunk. Continue down right through bunde with a little climb until you can
see a large dead twisted tree root across a gully. Descend and get to this via via lush grass and flowers on steep slope and loose soil.
At the twisted dead tree root there is an obvious route leading to the right. At this point you are only 13m from p115x but
you can't see it as it faces S. and you are approaching from the N. 10m on you pass a large anthill and then 3m further
and you're there.
You may see a water collection poly sheet a lot earlier but use this route to get to it. (I did it 3x today and lots of
other routes are worse.)
Oh yes, on first visit to CUCC-PS01-2018 this morning I went in: climbing down a 30 degree straight tunnel. Roof is solid rock and floor is blocks and rocks [and relic vadose features]. I counted 1m steps coming out and it's >14m long. Continues deeper but I was in t-shirt and shorts. Slight cold outwards draft.
[Photos and GPS tracks and locations recorded.]Using Garmin eTrex Venture Cx GPS (WGS84)
"lookfutile.svx" was surveyed by Chas and Planc in 1983 following the discovery of the futility series in 1982.
This entry includes recent emails which don't otherwise have a good place to record.
[Discovered a photo on the website of Planc doing this survey.]
Much bunde going directly down from the p115x entrance. Don't do that,go back along the route to Stoger Weg and go down gully at the tree with the small cairn on it (see 115 route 18th July 2018).
Generally failed to find lookfutile.svx waypoints (not even the last one with all the red paint). Something odd with GPS mismatch - needs nerding to resolve.
Found ent. * (doesn't go) obvious above grassy slope. It is up a 2m climb in a cliff. This is wpt A11 in gpslog: N 47.66629 E013.81128 alt.1407m. This was looked at by Chas & Planc in 1983 and doesn't go: "big phreatic entrance further east up the valley" from the 1983 logbook entry 1983-07-27.
Many photos of this area in photo archive 2018/PhilipSargent.
Survey station lookfutile.23 is apparently in open air due east of cliff top (which extends N-S).
Water collection system at 115works well: decanted 3.5 litres of rainwater into bottles. About 6 litres now stashed in 115, plus a karrimat and one-man does of flapjack and another dose ofmuesli.; also large orange plastic survival bag. All other gear removed.
Walked back to Löser Hutte where I managed to catch the sunset drinking crowd and got a lift back to Staudnwirt at ~21:00. Lots of big open cliffs, no bunde, grass and camping areas.
Recent emails from very old lags on this:
On 18 July 2018 at 19:46, Charles Butcher wrote:
Philip
Thank you. I’m sorry you had trouble finding it. Even the traditional route to the main entrance is quite a slog,
and if you don’t remember it – I certainly couldn’t – you could be in for a real epic. As you probably found.
I hope the server repairs went well.
Thanks also for the GPS data in your previous message, and to Andy and everyone else who has worked to
preserve this stuff. I’m astonished that we still have good records of all those muddy survey pages
from so long ago. And to see it all connect with Google mapping is really impressive.
Safe trip home
Chas
On Sun, 1 Jul 2018, 10:31 Andy Waddington, wrote:
Sometime before sending, Philip Sargent typed (and on Sunday 2018-07-01 at 08:46:16 sent):
> Any comments on the 115 entrances?
I really can't remember any of this without reading
the stuff on the website - but that stuff is available to
everyone (unreliable memory is exactly why this stuff
was all put there - but in the early days, which would
cover the 115 period, we naively thought we would
remember everything, that the same people would be
going back, and that we didn't need to write everything
down - though actual surveys were properly recorded).
Where survey data was corrected for fridge north, that
should be recorded in the survey notes. That was such
a bizarre correction that I don't think it would ever have
been done without explaining it. The Futility series survey
had two compasses, Suunto 422903 and Chas' Silva 15T.
Had there been a major discrepancy between them, I
think they would have noticed. The bearings seem to
be the same in the Survex dataset as in the notebook.
ie. the first leg is 8.08 m on 320 at -11.5. That's from the
dataset extracted from CVS in 2001 (which is the oldest
I can find in a quick search here). I don't think corrections
to fridge north would have been made more recently
than that... 075 to Trisselberg cross is the same as the
notes, and even if the 115 entrance wasn't located
precisely, that ought to be enough to show if the error
was more than the odd degree or two.
Not sure if the scans of this notebook are on the site.
Notes are a bit muddy, with no passage walls recorded.
Did Arge not resurvey any of this ?
Andy
Philip Sargent (Gmail)
to Charles, andrew, mary5waddington
Chas,
[and Mary, please pass on to Andy as I don’t think any email works for him these days],
Update, as promised.
Through the miracle that is survex, and the diligent curation of data* over decades by
Wadders and Wookey, I have recovered the survey points from your surface walk with Pete
on 27 July 1983 and attach as a GPX file in modern WGS84 coordinates. You can plot this
on top of a GoogleMaps photo using http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/map_input
(or select “OSM (TF Landscape)” in the drop-down on the map to see contours).
I will be re-tracing this slog and looking for more entrances in a week or so.
A bit lower than you went looks promising from the geology.
[snip]
I also attach the Futility series surveyed by us on 26 July 1983 (futility.svx)
and as resurveyed by Germans on 8th August 1999 (nutzlos.svx). But this is less
useful as GPX on Google maps as it is inside the hill of course and you would need
to use Survex/Aven itself to see it. They also seemed to have found another entrance
in 2000 which drops eventually into the phreatic stuff which they called the
Nebukad series (Nebukadnezar) and is now p115b (ent.) in the survey data.
I hope a find a cold draft coming out of rocks at least, even if I can’t dig it out.
Philip
* http://expo.survex.com/repositories/home/expo/loser/shortlog/b6c8d59090c3 is an online
look at the version control system used for cave data on Loser these days.
From: Philip Sargent (Gmail)
Sent: 21 June 2018 17:28
To: 'Charles Butcher'
Cc: andrew@pennine; 'Wookey'
Subject: RE: Aha - futility series entrance search...
Chas,
Unbelievably, that surface survey you and Pete did (“lookfutile”) is a standard part of the SMK dataset.
I can see that your final survey position was 11.7m above the drafting hole in Futility
(contrary to Andy’s notes in the file below), and 157m away horizontally. Maybe some
fridge-north corrections have been done since then.
You were also spot-on the line where the bedding plane of 115 intersects the hillside.
So going downhill from there, maintaining a heading of 118 degrees (if possible) would
track further down that bedding plane. As I remember, the survey legs may have been
ascending, but the passage roof was coming down to the sandy floor. So the draft
connection (“Utility Entrance” ?) would be lower down.
From: Charles Butcher
Sent: 16 June 2018 23:11
To: Philip Sargent
Cc: andrew@pennine
Subject: Re: Aha - futility series entrance search...
Thanks Philip. When you told me about your plan the other day it brought back memories of
thrashing around on the hillside, but I couldn’t remember what we were looking for.
I do remember that it was harder work than being underground. I suppose a Laplander pocket saw
would be frowned on in the Naturschutzgebiet, but useful all the same.
I assume those coordinates are relative to the entrance, or to whatever else we used as a
main datum. So if you have an accurate GPS fix for that datum, wouldn't it be quite easy
to locate the hole Pete and I made? Not that that is likely to be much use, since it’s
probably the one place we know there isn’t an entrance…
Anyway, good luck and keep us posted!
Best
Chas
You wrote:
stumbled on this:
http://expo.survex.com /years/1983/log.htm
1983-07-27 | Surface survey and Prospecting below 115. | Chas, Pete
The aim was to find the end of the Futility Series popping out of the hillside below 115.
We surface surveyed down to a permanent station, marked with bolt hole and lots of red paint: P1983/1.
This was almost directly below 115 and on the edge of the big trees.
It was at E77.2, N-237.3, H -195.8, whereas the end of the Futility Series was at G30: E 139.7, N -54.2, H-187.8.
So we were (!) at the right place, but the cave end was 180m into the hillside.
We had a good look round but didn't find any signs of caves there.
So we looked at a big phreatic entrance further east (up the valley) and ~50m higher.
This was looked at in 1982, but a bit of proddling released lots of boulders + we were able to
follow up a narrowing bedding plane at ~60°, for 10m until it got too loose/small.
Very difficult descent on scree to the end of the Altausseer See + then the Schniderwirt for Weizen Bier.
Pete
and Wookey thinks some Germans had a look around there too in later years
Unfortunately we use WGS84 GPS lat./long. these days so I’m not sure I’ll be able to find this
35-year old red paint.
I’m hoping to use better geology and modern surveying to find where the bedding plane intersects
the surface this year. I’m going out for 4-5 weeks.
Philip
Tested Wookey's TP-link 200 Mbps HomePlug devices between potato hut & mains socket above the washing machine in the gents' toilet at the Gasthof. It works: the 2nd green light lights up indicating communications OK.
Previously had tested between potato hut mains and socket in potato hut loft - also worked.
To do: repeat test with a laptop at each end (needs ethernet socket in laptop) to test actual useable bandwidth.
mq extension enabled on mercurial by Paul Fox.
Saw entrance in hillside 30m higher and about 1km on Loser side which might be a wet-weather resurgence.
Track up is very cyclable to a (locked)hut [Stumern Alm, 813m] where it stops & there is a steeply ascending rough path (signposted to Appelhaus) up the Trisselwand side of the valley. I parked bike.
I decided to go directly up the Loser side: "Oh Yes", I thought, "10-15 minutes and I'll be past those trees and into the clear grass/rock/scree area". 1 hour later I was in a rock shelter [wpt C05 in gpslog N 47.660271646 E013.804951357 942m], still in the trees, and I could now see that the track I should have been on was much higher, and I also had no easy safe way on up this side of the valley. The dry rock shelter is completely hidden by trees until you are close to it.
The geology is very promising though - at the hut the big face [Pfenningofen] is well-bedded with a couple of useful-looking faults.
I had got to within 600m horizontally of where I wanted to be to look for entrance, but also 600m too low.
Aborted cycle ride home in Bad Aussee for emergency ice cream.
Philip
PS Nettles! Flies !! aarghhh !!! PPS The better way to do this approach would be to take a jeep up the correct track (the one that says "No Bicycles") all the way to the road head at Oberwasser Alm at 1353m, and then traverse round to the right area above the tree line but below the bunde line.
Departed base camp 06:35, returned 13:05
Walking and scrambling on the hillside/cliff below the main entrance to 115 (Schnellzughöhle) to try to find an entrance to the Futily Series (again).
Up at 6am with Luke and Rachel, hitched back to Bad Aussee at the end of the day and Wookey collected me from there.
On the mountain I finally got tot he right area where it was possible to explore and make progress: several limestone cliffs and benches - all below bunde level - with dappled shade of beeches and pine trees, lots of artfully arranged rocks & short grass & wild flowers.
Found several dripping slots but no sensible entrances in this area. I don't trust the altitudes (and sometimes the positions) from my GPS in this area - which on average is tipped 30 degrees from the vertical - i.e. it's really all just a broken cliff. Several game and hunters' tracks. Lots of rillen karren clambering.
After climbing up a little cliff - easy enough but something I didn't fancy reversing - I found myself in tick bunde. After a bit I tried going underneath the bunde and found myself looking at a tiny entrance which was giving a slight draft [N 47.66729 E013.80959 alt.1526m using my Garmin eTrex Venture Cx]. It is almost possible to get into it but it is only 15m east of cucc-ps01-2018. NB it's not the choked pit, it's 5m east of the choked pit, over the edge of a bunde-bedecked ledge.
I went into cucc-ps01-2018 for 6 minutes to get 20m in (it descends due west (270 M) at 30 degrees from the horizontal) vadose relic with lots of boulders. I got to a big rock I couldn't quite be sure of climbing back up. Needs surveying and tagging.
Removed water-collection poly-sheet from 115 ent. Now only has 9 litres of water and some flapjack & museli in it.