Frontispiece
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 höhle (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.
Lower Snakebite - Pitch series starts 20m beyond the awkward free climb below Snakebite
pitch following water down free climbs
P5 (8m) undescended due to lack of rope.
Numbered station 9 at head of P5 is lower snakebite 9 station. Station 10 is not marked station 8 at boulder is also numbered, same survey
P6 visible from P5
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?! ]
Took photos, Mike and Michael go down to crystal crumble, found stalactites, pretty. Tom bolted coral corner, pretty formations. Traversed round Toto chamber on a false floor to the continuation into conintuation of free attic flys called phreatic becomes meander rift, (bolted) and dind a large opening with left and right junction (very false floor) called odious odium. Taking a right turn along the false floor leads to a vast floor now called Ulysses (after the Frans Ferdinand song Michael was singing). Yet to be dropped due to its very unstable nature. Did some gardening but a lot of work needs doing. Left turn at odium, leads to a true floor, leads to multiple boulder chokes and meander in approximately the direction of Ulysses with short pitches not dropped. More photos on the way out. Michael gets ill. Wees a lot.
lots of pee, very loose, less ice than last year, lots of key-hole passage.
Still to do (by Mike Butcher):
- Drop pitch from entrance chamber to bypass ramp and climb of ice plug pitch = more direct.
- Investigate meander at end of windy tube (?c)
- Possible alternate route opposite pendulum pitch (?c)
- B. Boulavard rope needs changing (40m)
- Leads in Benign Bubble Baby Bypass needs looking into
- Drop 15m at far end of B. Boulavard
- Piss Pot resurveyed
- Survey bottom of liquid luck
- survey after Toto
- Toto traverse line
- KEEP PUSHING!
Spent over an hour trying to calibrate top Camp's collection of distox's (my two, CHECC and ULSA). I won with 0.35 and 0.5. Luke at 0.65 was way off and two Distox's refused to pair with George's PDA. Eventually underground and swiftly to Kathedral Kazam. 2 traverses were still in but short pitch needed rigging. Luke then rigged Wild Honeycomb shaft. Ash has - audaciously - rigged this off naturals last year but it hadn't been surveyed, leaving George and Rachel's Nature Calls surveys at the base floating. George and I followed Luke down surveying, with Luke concerned he'd taken the wrong route, but all was well.
At the base, there's a sort of horizontal level which we rigged a short pitch down (7m) and then what George and Rachel had done as a 13m chimney down which Luke and I declared a pitch. This led to a ledge with a vast, perched boulder next to it. The Hangman.
the pitch had a massive echo and stone rattle. We drilled the pitch head spits but were out of hangers, so headed out.
Luke was off-colour so George and I returned to the Hnagman and I rigged down the pitch then we surveyed it to a spacious ledge, from here the shaft continued (offset) but it looked damp and we were keener on the horizontal otions - a window visable part way down The Hangman's Pitch and, from the base, a climb up on the left and a traverse to the right to s vhossy climb.
George went for the latter option, and got up via some shonky bolts, boulder balancing and clambering. The entered what we've called Hangman's daughter. I followed and we surveyed into what initially looked really unpromising: narrow, catchy, little passage.
However, it took a draft. We surveyed a loop round (given that George had scooped it) then got to the only proper lead, a small pitchead topped with mostly nasty perched boulders. George heed kicked quite a few down leaving a small hole. We only had one hanger and I dithered about whether to use the massive flake as a backup but used it in the end. The ~15m pitch led to a small chamber. I climbed to the bottom where a ?c crappy hole led down and then -!!!-
noticed a survey station! WHat the hell? I shouted to George who bombed down, forgetting to bring the Dostox so I had to go up the hideous rubby pitch to fetch it. After some searching, George found another station, 7, and we finished the survey. Then tried to work out where the survey had come from. Som2018-07-19e shreds of an oversuit on a tiny tube 3m above the floor of the chamber gave it away. The draft through had coated it in catchy popcorn. We took our SRT kits and tried to crawl through, but George didn't want to commit to going headfirst (I told him I couldn't be able to fish him out). He couldn't get through feet first so we gave up and headed out, finishing off the survey of the traverse on the way. At the top section of the Hnagman's Pitch 1 realived the rope had got hooked over a hideously sharp flake of rock and crystal. I wailed at George and down [prossiked until I could un-weight the rope and he could free it. Argh.
Hangmans's Traverse is not here: redrawn later. See 20/7/2018.
Homecoming entrance and first pitch rigging guide:
Radagast rigging guide and handclimb below Radagast (poor natural belay):
Traverse over hole and up the pitch in meander. Probably best left rigged for next year to save hassle on rerigging.
First meander pitch. String around boulder in roof to protect traverse over rammed blocks.
2nd meander pitch.
Rigging guide: Wallace and Gromit
traverse into the second coming
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.]After acrack of 11:30 start we had a steady descent to the bottom of Hangman's then added a 2nd bolt to give a nice,non-rubby Y-hang downHangmans to the connection we'd found to"fecking tight" in mid-level Tunnocks on Mike and George's last trip. We explored and surveyed the 2 leads there.
The hole in the floor joined the pitch down which I rigged some huge spiky boulders + an overhanging mud floor. We derigged+ George pulled through on the ring hanger at the top of the climb at the end of Hangman's traverse.
George looked at the tube at the top mud slope half way along Hangman's Traverse
+ asked for a drill so he could put a rope on it but I'd already snaffled the
drill to bolt up the mud + boulder slope further along Hangman's Traverse ("Snail Trail")
so he had to down climb.
I made slow progress (hence the name) + finally gave up + asked George to do the final climb over a wedged boulder only for him to find an easy thrutch up on the right side. From here we were in narrow, deep rift. I rigged a traverse + short pitch to a horizontal rift.
Philip headed out whilst George & I surveyed horizontally into the draft until the passage narrowed to face-sized. The next day we dropped the Snail Trail pitch series here from the far side of the Snail Trail Traverse. The whole area is cold + drafty but it wasn't clear where the main air comes from. George pulled out Luke's Hilti fromt he RHS final Y-hang on Honeycomb pitch - it only seemed to have set on one side.
A swift hour's caving with minimal gear got us to yesterday's pushing front. The first 3 hours were spentdropping two pitches (the Snail Trail pitches) + surveying in drafty, awkward rift. They [the pitches?] started the far side of the Snail Trail Traverse. We ran out of rope so left a decent lead continuing across + down with a decent lead continuing across + down with a good draft but it would be hard going, climbing up + rigging up + downin tall, narrow rift.
We then deriggedall of SNail Trail+ wentto the tube above the mud slope on the main Hangman's Traverse. George strolled up the steep mud slope to the tube + put in a bolt for mefor a handline up then abandoned me with 2 bags and a loose rope to worm my way along a little tube until it opened out.
We surveyed then dropped a ? p15m + dropped thenext, deeper hole. At the top level + down the pitch were amazing large beds of ginger crystals (see George's photos) at all crazy angles. The pitch turned into a biggy so it was lucky that I'd brought all 3 ropes along.Finding a clean hang among the sharp spikes,slopy walls + shit rock proved toomuch of a challenge for George :-).
We surveyed downwhilst George was rigging until we hit a big ledge where we'd run out of rope. There were huge boulders so we had fun crashing them down (though one monster he videoed headed the wrong way when I pushed it + I thought I was going to crush him) + I gotnearly 50m distoXshot further down so we're still well off the bottom.
Tired ont eh survey on the way out. Took 90 min from bottom of Hangman's to get out.
Pitch below Prangman's (rigged 19/7) [6]
Hangman's Traverse ( redrawn from 17/7/18)
and Snail Trail Traverse (20m after Snail Trail climb)
[10] Mongol Ralley Pitch - rigging guide - 1 of 3.
[See continuing Mongol Rally rigging guide]
First section, Second section
3rd section:
The plan was to get all the gear to camp so that we could spend the night there. I rerigged the top half of Number of the Beast with the rope left at Usual Suspects whilst Luke battered his way in with two big bags. Luke then proceeded to rig Infernowhile I bagged up the camping gear.We didn't have enough dry bags for all 3 pits so one was left in a bin bag at the topof Inferno. After a bit of shuffling the rest of the gear made it to Upper Kraken. Luke rigged the Kraken pitch and I followed.
The tent was very damp but not mouldy. There was a bit of slime in the water collection Daren drums. Luke set about drying out the tent using much of our bog roll. I started rigging Tentacle Traverse including putting a couple of extra bolts in the slimy part. Rigging Infernoand Kraken had required more hangers than stated in the rigging guide, mostly due to some of the rebelay bolts having been climbed up. As a result we were a little light on hangers, and I got as far as the little drop before running out.
By 19:30 wehad completed all our jobs. Since it was nowhere near bedtime, we decided to cook up a curry and head out. Apart from horrible jammer slip on the Kraken pitch, Iexited without incident. Luke's footloops snapped on the Kraken pitch, so he had to come back down to replace them with a sling.
We set off from top camp,full of optimism for the day. Nadias's ankle was sore from the previous trip, so we wanted to take the shortest route to the cave to minimise stretch on it. With this in mind we set off along the path which went via fish face.
Arriving at fish face in good time we found another group that were about to go underground.After a chat, we set off for Homecoming with our glasses remaining half-full. Without a GPS we weren't entirely sure how to get there, but with morale high we were confident of bodging the way. I had already got lost going from FGH to HC, surely it couldn't happen again.
Fast forward an hour or so we were standing on the side of a sharpsloping wall of a gully. Looking in two different directions (our tone starting to resemble the internal monologue of a child who's lost their mum in Asda). We both said the same thing, 'I remember going this way'. After trialling the two options we discovered, with sinking morale, that we were both wrong.
My watch produce a nagging beep to signal mid-day; another pin-prick in the already deflating balloon that was my confidence. Our plan of action started to fragment;a staring chicken lost on a plane of fine brown gravel.
'It might be this way' I wouldsay 'no, maybe it's this way'.
Feeling a bit spent wedecided to rest. Over some flapjack crumbs we discussed our plan of action.
Setting off again, our plan A, B and C ready to go. We had at last cometoterms with our situation.
Bags on we walked around the bunde that had provided shelter for our break, a cairn, two, three,
the familiar path to Homecoming.
With regards to the cave, we swung into the window at the top of Gromit, bolted the pitch Anthony had startedthe day prior. It lead into two continuations; one horizontal, one vertically down. We crapped out the horizontal and left the other labelled as a QMB. Reason being: it's clean washed, and it looks like it will connect to cave already found below.
The top camp (Steinbrucken) set transmits perfectly with the antenna as arranged in both locations.
The camp Kraken set receives perfectly but has a defective microphone contactor, so cannot transmit.
A third (spare) set needs to be taken to Kraken to see if it will transmit and receive.
It needs to be connected to the external battery pack, at camp Kraken. The battery pack needs to be switched on to operate (buttons on battery itself).
The antenna wires need to be connected, and pressing the button on the handset should transmit.I don't know which transmit mode is best (A, B or C)- compare with the set.
PLEASE RETURN ALL 3 SETS TO CHRIS DENSHAM, OXFORD. ALSO PLEASE RETURN THE 3 ALPINEXES.
Having elected not to camp in Tunnocks the night before,Luke and I had a bonus extra day's caving. I wasnotin the moodfor anything too epic after emerging at 2am; a trip to a shallow level in Homecoming sounded like just the job.
Ladened with all out gear we set off following Frank who confidently asserted that he had followed a cairned path back from the cave via Fischgesicht the day before. It rapidly became apparent that these caves were a figment of Frank's imagination, so the stetch beyond Fischgesicht wasnavigated by GPS and involved much bunde bashing.
The cave itself looks like the real deal,and we quickly found ourway to the lead in a pleasant, small phreatic passage. Equipment-wide the trip was a mixture ofancient and modern: Frank and Luke went off surveying in full paperless mode with a DistoX and PDA, whilst I had to hand-bolt a pitch. I even used a clown out of choice rather than necessity. By the time Luke and Frank had finished surveying, I had descended to a ledge with a couple of ways on - later to become 'Snagged & Shagged' when revisited by Nadia and Adam.
Out nice and early, suckered Frank into walking back to Top Camp via the bivi cave on the flank of the Kleine Wildkogel. At a mere 50 mins longer in time than our route to the cave, this would go down as a less-than-successful short-cut.
An opportunity presented itself to visit the "other" new cave and - despite feeling a bit broken - I opted to give it a go. This proved to be a good decision.: Fischgesicht is one of the more pleasant caves I hve been to in Austria. The rig is mostly excellent: high bolts and tight traverse lines prevail. I would have beemn inclined to stick in an extra bolt at the heat of the Blitner Boulevard pitch to protect the step over the massive void, but that is a merequibble.
Headed in to a running commentary from Lydia about what everything was called that went in one ear and out the other. Eventually made it to Ulysses and left Michael bolting his way across the void under Luke's supervision. Our job was to clear some fo the surveying backlog. It would be unfair to identify the perpetrator of this unfortunate state of affairs so he will henceforce be referred to as Bik Mutcher.
Having said that Fischgesicht is a nice cave, the bit we eventually got to survey falls some way short of this standard.. There was a strong draght, but mostly emerging from the sort of boulder choke you don't want your head to be anywhere near. After connecting the survey in, we elected to head out to give ourselves the option of walking down the hill. This meant we didn't get to survey to the alleged active stalagtite seen in photos the previous day, which means that I remain convinced that that it is actually an inflatable formation procured from Blackpool Pleasure Beach,or some suitable Photoshop wizardry.
Day 1
A leisurely start saw the intrepid team heading in with rather more gear than had been anticipated. Dumped one of the new brew kits into the dry bit below Procrastination, then picked up a pit at the top of Inferno which necessitated some re-packing. Arrived at camp where Chris proceeded to set up the radio, placing one end of the antenna in therwater hole and the other end in a convenient mud bank at the downhill end of Kraken chamber. Meanwhile, I completed the rig of Tentacle Traverse and Octopussy.
Reunited, we headed on towards Beckoning Silence.Teekering(?) up the parallel ramp from the bottom of Octopussy was entertaining due to some over-enthusiastic derigging that had left it ropeless - we had a spare length of rope that was installed. Arriving at the climbup into Beckoning SIlence, we found the same rig as had been put on two years ago when an equipment location error had rendered putting bolts in impossible. On this occasion we had a drill, three batteries, plenty of hangers.. and no drill bits, so the problem remained unsolved.
At this point Chris returned to camp to set up the radio for our prearranged call to top camp. Lydia rigged the remaining pitches to get us to the pushing front, which was the wrong side of a tedious muddy tube, but looked very promising, draghting strongly.
Arriving back at camp we discovered that Chris could hear top camp perfectly on the radio -so the antennae were a success. However the handset that had been working perfectly during the surface test was now incapable of transmitting, so we achieved one-way communication.
Day 2
Fortified by a breakfast of noddles and custard with flapjack crumbs (highly recommended) we headed back to Beckoning Silence. This time we had distributed three drill bits between us, which proved to be a good move since Chris's drill bit was later found in camp about 1.5m from its storage spot having failed to make it into his pocket in any meaningful sense.
Some extra bolts were put in on the top-climb and also on the last drop. before the pushing front. Then on into new territory, which proved to be substantially vertical. Everyone got a turn with the drill whilst th eothers cowered from the howling draught in a bothy bag.
Rigging proved tricky due to shit rock, but eventually we found ourselves at the bottom of drops of 6, 17 and 12m sliding down a thrid drop with nothing more in the way of rope, hangers or enthusiasm. Surveyed out and headed back to camp arriving at ~23:00
Ultimately, a little unrewarding in terms of passage in the book, but we had definitely run out of gear. The lead is good (very good in fact, draughting and out on a limb) and is all set up for the next team (bolts placed for the next descent). Pitch is called "Radio Silence" in keeping with the "silence" theme and our technological mishaps.
Day 3
Prussicked out. The only inceident of note occurred in the camp before setting off. In the interests of documenting camp life, Chris was trying to compose a photograph comprising myself,nthe stooling stool, (complete with bag), a Daren drum prominently labelled "Poo" atop which was perched a bog roll with the visage of Donald Trump. Im the process, Chris nearly performed a backward-somersault into the ladies pissoire. Fortunately his un-helmeted head was unharmed and the shot was duly obtained [and is posted on the caving.uk blog - ed.]
Rigging in Beckoning Silence/Radio Silence
All rope lengths estimated
Typhon and I went for a walk to find and assess the new bivi cave which Anthony found earlier this expo. We walked via Fischgesicht (FGH) and Homecoming (HC) and spent some time cairning the path from FGH to HC. It needs reflectors to be added to the cairns soon.
It takes ~30 minutes to walk to FGH and then another ~30 to get to HC. From HC, walk northeast past the rope and through a break in the bunde. Follow this around to the left and aim for some slabs. Once on the slabs you should see green/white stripes of spray paint which mark the hunter's path. Follow this north, up the hill, for about 30 minutes until you reach a 1.5m high obvious boulder near a lone pine tree and the plateau levels off a bit. Garlic Cave (GC) is in the large depression ~20m in front of you. A GPS tracklog is available containing our prospecting route for the day in /loser/gpx/2018 . A waypoint marking 2018-ad-02 (GC) is in essentials.gpx. 2019-ad-03 is a small hole in the side of the depression ~10m NW of GC which could potentially be used for storage. Photos of both have been uploaded to expofiles/photos/2018/PhilipWithnall.
Sketch survey of GC (grade 2, total bullshit):
[annotations on sketch transcribed below]
[] 6m climb up dripping chimney to rift with sump(?). WOuld need 2x2m tarp for water collection.
[] Head height tunnel, sunlight at N. end.
[] Meandering aven, open at N end, chokled with boulders at S. Dripping 3x6m water tarp (min.) needed for catching water.
[A] Sleeping area? 4m high. Easily accomodates 8with minimal digging required to flatten floor.
[B] 1.5m high scrot hole. Storage? Or sleeping for 4 troglodytes if dry.
[C] Cooking area or communal area. 6m high. Could do with a terrace - half a day's work. Space to bolt a stove to the wall.
[D] Drippy end of the cave. Probably best for water collection? Lowest floor. Aven to N. probably too hard to tarp.for sleeping but should be OK to tarp for water collection.
Overall, bivi cave is a little smaller thn the stone bridgein floor area but much roomier in height. Needs some floor landscaping but not as much as the stone bridge! Water collection is not a problem even on a sunny day (still dripping) - leaves some question of how wet the cave gets when it rains and how permeable thewhole of the roof is. Most of it looks dry but some walls are damp.
Lovely views of the ridge and slabs. Would suit an owner looking to invest in redecoration. On the market for 3 packs of noodles, a bottle of port and a jerrycan of water.
Typhon named it Garlic Cave because the entrance smelled of garlic.
[Editorial addition from GPS positions in survey data] 2018-ad-02 is
47.698686 lat., 13.807960 long.
or in more usual terms:
47 deg. 41.921 min. N 013 deg. 48.478 min. ECRUSHED GARLIC CAVE
Small crawly tunnel 10m NW of GARLIC CAVE
10m up a 45° boulder ramp.
Entrance is 3m below lip of the depression. Philip has some photos on his camera
.
Entrance is waypointed as 'bin cave' in Philip's phone.
Cave is stooping passage on 12m toa small open chamber with bunde at its top.
A flat out crawl is visible for a further ~6m to sunlight.
Could be used for extra storage for Garlic Cave.
Now numbered 2018-ad-03 and in essentials.gpx.
Not physically tagged yet.
LES TRES DENTS
Grade 2 survey
3 holes in a rift aligned E-W, immediately NNW of an obvious knobble of bunde (20m x 20m round). There is a lone pine tree 20m east of that.
Each hole ~20m deep, pebble bounces a few timesafter hitting the bottom -
may be a hading passage accessible from the rubble pile.
Significant snow block in eastmost hole.
All 3 holes look to connect.
Small cliff on surface
Pine tree and marked path to east.
Only available as a waypoint in the prospecting GPX file. Not physically tagged or dropped yet.
2018-pw-02
2x1m shaft with 3s drop when rocks bounced off E wall. Shaft is at S end of a 30x40m depression with cliff tiers on N side. Photos on Philip's camera GPS. Waypoint on Philip's phone.
Shaft is just N of a 10x5m knobble of bunde.
{ We came back on 2018-07-25 with Frank Tully and dropped this.See next page for updated notes and elevation. It craps out. Cave left untagged. Waypoint in prospecting GPX file. }
2018-pw-03 LEFT MY COMPASS IN THE OTHER CAVE
10m horizontal rift. dripping with 90° 'L'-bend 7m in, then dead end after a further 2.5m. Stoopy loose ceiling. Photos on Philips camera. GPS on Philip's phone.
Entrance in the East wall of a large depression (which has 2018-th-02 at its south end), roughly 10m deep. 100m N-S, 10-30m E-W.
{ After discussion with Elaine, the german name for this cave is Verliessmeinenkompassbeideranderenhöhle höhle. Note the duplicated höhle is necessary. Waypoint in prospecting GPX file. Photos uploaded to expofiles/photos/PhilipWithnall. }
Another trip to the bivi cave (Garlic cave 2018-ad-02) to landscape it and install some mod-cons. We put a cut-up survival bag in a poond to collect water from drips. Should collect 10-15l, very slowly.
We then did some terracing to make two sleeping platforms for ~6 people. There is plenty of scope for doing furhter terracing to add ~4 more sleeping places. We installed a tarp over the terrace so it should stay reasonably dry - but we haven't tested it in wet weather.
We left a shovel there for future landscaping. The idea is that a group could spend a couple of days there sleeping and intensively prospecting, before deciding whether to expand the bivi cave accommodation. If so, the water collection system and supplies from Organhöhle could then be moved over.
Once that was done, we had a bit of time left to prospect.
Frank dropped 2018-pw-02 (see previous page) and killed it off. Survey:
6m deep, 3m wide rift, no discernible draft.
Festered and nerded at basecamp. Made various improvements to the GPX system, added syntax highlighting for survex files, thought some more about QM lists, and cleaned up various hg issues for people down here.
Before heading down on the 26th, I replaced the tag on Bad Forecast with a permanent one (1623/277) and took a look at 2010#04's snow levels. Didn't drop it, but put some photos in expofiles/photos/PhilipWithnall/ for comparison for someone who knows that hole.
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.
We walked to Homecoming through Fishface cairning the route with Haydon,Jon, Ruairidh, Phil and Typhon filling in the gaps.Making it a fully cairned route. Went down the hobnob hallway added a handline over the false floor using a thread. Should be made into a traverse with a bolt on the other side of the false floor. We put a handline on the sand slope using a thread at the top.
We carried on down the rift to the first junction on a boulder. The left has not been explored yet. We went right past the water downa tight rift. It opened into a pitch 13m. We turned around there. On the way back Frank saw a lead behind the wet bit. Way out took longer than anticipated.
Due to a missing spit driver we went East to look for it. We found it quite quickly at 2018-MS-06. We carried down after to 2014-MS-14 to dig out the blowing sandy dig.
It was very easy and took 4 minutes of swimming through the sand to get through. The passage carried on for another ~70m where it choked with rocks.We surveyed out.
On the way back it seemed the draft was going down the choss floor right before the constriction. No noticeable draft after the constriction.
We reurned via the triangle big entrance that can be seen for miles away only to find we weren't the first ones there.
We setoff with Nadia and Olly to practice surveying and exploring two nat-explored bits in Fisch Gesicht entrance.
Luke and I were trying to do a bolt climb up a 6m pitch.
The climb was free-climbed by Luke and rigged fromt he top by Luke due collaspsing foothold during bolting.
The bolt climb crapped out after 20m.
After that we had a look fajelleux(?) with the others at a potential dig in Fisch Gesicht which also crapped out after a few metres.
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
mq extension enabled on mercurial by Paul Fox.
We then had >100m of 5m wide phreas drafting strongly in in our face with lots of bat droppings. Towards the end it ramped up steeply then came to a large drippy pitch. A loose looking trove(?) on the right wall would lead lead to the obvious continuation of the phreas but we had no more rope so we headed to the top of Hangmans where we met the others.
George had rigged a 50m rope from the ledge we got to ont he last trip but had reached a freehang of of ~40m that he didn't have rope for. (+ there was apparently a 5s free drop there too). Olly and he surveyed out, met us, then the four of us had a jolly to the snow slope beyond Ice Lock aven. George walked up past Andrew's belay point to the base of the aven where he couldn't safely continue but there was soil and a strong draft so there's hope of an entrance not far above & we should check the LIDAR.
We then headed down Mongol Rally to where Olly & George had got to yesterday, switched the ropes so they were used more effectively then George swung around in free space for quite some time trying the swing enough the skyhook to a wall (?).. then repeated the exercise 30m lower. Finally he got to a large obvious ledge - the Pitstop - where we could wander around + with other passage visible in the shaft at that level.
George finally made it down to a large ledge + I tried to bolt the final ~10m hang but I dropped the Hiltis down the pitch so I went down + passed them up to George to finish the job. He was too droopy (?) to survey so we headed out from Floodland at the top of Mongol Rally after a brief scurry around 2h45 out.
13.5 min up the entrance pitch for me versus 10min then 8min for George other times... but I suspect some SRT shortcuts were involved. A rainstorm started just as we were about to set off so we sheltered for 20min then stomped in the dry to topcamp + 5min after we arrived it deluged so we jammily missed being flooded in Balkon.
[See previous Mongol Rally rigging guide (part 1)]
MONGOL RALLY - Part 2 of 3 - rigging guide
Total rope for Mongol Rally = 23+40+40+22+100+65 = 300m (290m) approx.
[12] Pitch to enter Myopia from the top of Hangmans
[13] Myopia traverse
[14] Littleboy pitch
[moved from later in logbook:]
MONGOL RALLY - rigging guide - Part 2
[15] Suction cup pitch in Grand Prix,beyond Littleboy pitch rigged on 3/8/18
[16] Scum of the earth pitch below radio silence rigged on 4/8/18
MONGOL RALLY - rigging guide - Part 3
[17] Traverse above Horrible Pitch (Luke & Rachel)
[18] Horrible Pitch level of Indy Rally, 8+9 Aug.rigged George & Becka
[19] Horrible rift Part II - from horrible pitch Part I - climb down large
muddy passage to corkscrewing around,to obvious pitch head.
[NB rigging moved back here from later in logbook as it belongs here]
My last chance of being underground for a few days so I was even keener than usual.It took 1h20min to get to the bottom of Mongol Rally.
George rigged Littleboy pitch which dropped us into a round chamber where we started he survey + we headed off into 20m wide phreas once we'd spotted the moushole leading off. Implausibly there werenomoreobstacles for hundreds of metres whilst George's brain frazzled trying to keep up with the boulder drawing + my splays.
Eventually we got to a thin rift that blowed a gale where, after some furtling, we foundan easy climb down... and a survey cairn! We found two other old stations (one numbered) so surveyed between them whilst George got moody because his cave had been absorbed.
We headed back to Littleboy pitch to tie in the survey but spotted a side lead just before the chamber and ran through some fast,staight, long legs there until we got to a wet pitch. We were oh so close to a kilometer in the book/PDA so, rather than wrapping up at 6pm when we made the connection, a 8.30pm colem(?) we tied int he survey we tidied up the area at the final ledge of Mongol Rally tomake it 100m (albeit with a dodgy, cheeky leg or two).
On the way out we drank at the pool on Piystop as I was losing it with dehydration - it's dry, dry, dry in Floodland (of course). It took 2.5h out and we were on the surface at 01.30 to a full moon.
I found my second descent of Balkony to be easier than the first. Becka and Luke headed down aghead of George and I to Pitstop to survey that aven while George and I surveyed the rest of Mongol Rally, starting at the ledge we ahd previously bolted and surveyed to.
We stopped at Pitstop so I could eat a Fitness bread and cheese while George said how terrible Fitness bread was. We then went and met Luke and a cold Becka before heading down, agreeing to head back at 5 or 6pm.
I continued marking stations for George to the bottom of the Mongol Rally. We then surveyed bottom and George pointed out where Becka had stopped him and called him evil on their last trip. Beyond this point was a large aven. The only way on we could find was alonga large phreatic, mud-filled passage (still mostly walking). We found a bat which surprised George who thought we'd left the bat level. We turned round when a sketchy mud slope/pitch which required a rope.
Met Luke and Becka at Pitstop for the journey out.
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
Our journey to March of the Penguins was somewhat "exploratory" as weattempted tofind the correct passage forward. The trip was halted at an unnamed pitch.
Unknown to us at the time the journey across the pitch required a traverse. We had mistakenly rigged the pitch for a descent. Having run out of time we started our return journey with the hope of returning.
Additionally the trip allowed the team to resurvey 6 legs which may have been contributing to the survey error in that branch(?).
Having been confused by the pitch that required to be raversed rather than descended, another (?) consulting other cavers, we returned the next day. The journey into the system was quickeras the route had now been rehearsed by the group. As the traverse was being re-rigged additional re-surveying was completed.
After pushing forward it was found that we did not have enough rope to to complete the pitch down into Icecock (even after de-rigging the traverse line).Unfortunately no cave description for this route existed, as such, the amount of rope required was unknown. Future trips should attempt to generate such notes for the interest of future trips.
Once again wew ran out of time, and this timerope. However the trip still provided additional survey results with accompanying elevations (sections).
On the return journey Rory rigged the traverse line with 5 slings hooked one to another (in the interest of speed), however it was debated if this was in fact quicker.
A future trip would require more rope (greater than a 13m and 22m).
At thebottom of FGH had an ~80m pitch that needed bolting, and the idea of it appealed to Typhon and I. After looking for someone more experienced in vain,we decided that our previous bolting experiences (4 bolts between the two of us - as well as surveying experience - I had seen M. Holliday do one survey) was enough. We headed to the cave under the disapproving stares of Nadia and Luke.
We swiftly made out way to the bottom, where we struggled to find some good rock to set a Y-hang; Typhon had to climb down a rift to find somewhere suitable, while I sang every song I knew & tried to fight off the creeping cold.
Typhon got too tired (and needed to pee) to bolt a rebelay, so the 80m rope had to be descended on a single Y-hang. I shat myself (not actually, I hear it's a figure of speech in your language) a little while descending due to the h_i_c_c(?) b_o_u_n_c_e of the rope, but Typhon's grin and general mentality of not giving a fuck reassured me greatly.
The enthusiasm of dropping my very first pitch lifted my sprit up, we wandered around the chamber & found 3 leads;
We left the cave very pleased with all the new leads.
PS we didn't survey because we forgot the notebook up the pitch OK bye.
We started the trip to Fischgesicht with 3 other people (Cat, Cat's Husband, Paul), but they decided to turn back before Liquid Luck because Paul was being slow.
Michael & I made it to the pushing front and bolted the small pitch at the front of the 45 degree slope (the hole in the wall was a dead end, see previous report). We climbed down the slope, squeezed through boulders to the right and landed on a small, round passage leading off to the right, with sand covering the ground.
I followed the passage to a bend and saw that it continued - and it got bigger! I screamed with excitement; Michael was pretty fucking pleased with our discovery. Since we didn't have any surveying gear (Cat realised her disto wasn't calibrated as we were getting changed) we decided to scoop the fuck out of it (or rather, I ran off ahead screaming while Michael was trying to convince me to leave some for the surveyors).
The passage alternated between large phreatics and large rifts, branching off several times. We covered maybe around 200m before we decided to turn around; the passage continued. We had a little time before out turn-around time, so Michael started to bolt the huge pitch that is parallel to Rubble Rumble until we got bored and decided to go back to camp early, giving us enough time to brag about our findings to whoever was still awake.
Followed the lead after Rubble Rumble, surveyed for 6 hours, 60+ survey legs total. Good trip.
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.
A series of 4 trips bolting the Lizard King which is a rift with a strong draft in Homecoming Hole (CUCC-2018-DM07). Reached by doing traverse 10m over floor of Gromit, and taking right/(straight ahead) (not left) at the first junction.
A series of more or less exciting traverses lead to a phreatic maze with a large phreatic tube over a major rift around it. We bolted against the draft, using a 50m rope for the first section, ending on a small ledge (3m pitch). A further (more exciting) traverse along the top of the rift continues to the right until a sudden end after 15 min.
A 40m (?) pitch (1 dev, 2 rebelays) drops into a large muddy rift. From a ledge, a 4-bolt traverse pushed the continuation against the draft,into a further (larger) rift that would require bolting.
Further leads in the opposite direction or further down the rift (BIG RIFT!). Alternatively the opposite direction of the phreatic tube from the Lizard King. Lots of bolting, were were very cold. Haydon says he was a 2 on a 1-10 scale where 1 is frozen solid.I was also very cold. In other words, an altogether excellent pushing front with a brilliant windchill effect.
Set off for Fischgesicht, to survey the shaft scooped on the 1st (See Adelaide 01/08/2018). Surveyed down the 3m rope we put in, and took a right at the crossroads just at the bottom of the scree slope (crossroads at point 5).
Took the left turning we first came to (point 8) and followed nice vedose dry passage until it came into much largber phreas (point 22). Followed left past where a rift came into the floor of the phreas, which we called Bird Arrow rift, because ofa peculiar rock marking. We left Bird Arrow rift for Adelaide & co (02/08/2018), and continued down the phreas.
The walking surface lowered down to the level of the water in the rift, where there was a pool, then climbed back out again. Traversed over the top of a pitch that followed the rift with the water, and the phreas continued upward. Eventually, the large phreas continued up into the ceiling, and the low level route passes through some small boulder choke into a sandy tube. The high phreas would be accessible with a traverse line for a climb up that is too exposed on its own.
2x S,
3x XL,
4x L,
lots of M (some male, some female, no distinction in label)
Returning to Fischgesicht for the 3rd time, quickly descended to the pushing front. Began by surveying large chamber leading to pitch. Rock fall down the pitch timed to 3.8 seconds.
Then set off to see which routes Adelaide, Typhon, and Manfred had surveyed the previous day. After following all their routes, we spotted a couple of ~100m linking passages had not been surveyed, so cleaned up all that. Continued to Eldritch Eyeholes chamber and knocked off a few leads to ends.
Similar story for Coconut Chamber, where 1 lead was surveyed back round to link to previous passage, 2 other A leads were also joined together 15m beyond the chamber (rift + small hole in wall). Small passage/rift ends as water falls from roof aven. Draft continues to come from small passage soon leads to rift which would require protection! Outcome of trip was a lot of tidying up work, consolidated into a few good leads. Time in 10:40, time out 20:40
Down to Pitstop + started with the RH lead (pitstop 2) lead at the start. Over the big boulder quickly led to a big pitch which we assumed was Mongol Rally though George disagreed so it would be worth trying to find out where it went. Next went left at the water inlet then left at the T-junction + surveyed some easy, long legs (pitstop 3) which ended in a drafting pitch which is a good lead.
Third we went to the N end of Pitstop (pitstop_4) & it turned out you didn't need to rig it as a pitch, you could crawl down on the right. This led to a drippy chamber with avens. The only lead was the pitch on the left, drafting but smalland the sound of water. Finally I put in 3 bolts for the traverse over the far side of Pitstop whilst Nadia set off out.
[Images here in logbook have been moved to where they belong several pages earlier]
[Goal]: Derig Octopussy & Tentacle Traverse + camp to top of Kraken then derig out of Tunnocks to bottom of Number of the Beast.
Caved 12:00-22:00 on 3rd, 11:00-23:45 on 4th, 10:00-19:30 on 5th, setting off from top of Kraken ~15:00 after ferrying camp to the top of it in 5 prussics.
"This is not a 3-man derig" was Geroge's plaintive assessment. We'll see.
Day 1
in Balkon, George finished off the traverse opposite Pitstop, disappointing Luke who'd bombed down to do it. We then continued to the bottom of Mongol Rally + George put a couple more bolts in the Floodland pitch that he, Jacob+ Olly had started int he previous tripbut it looked like amajor job so he derigged and we went down Grand Prix past Littleboy to the "à cheval" ridge and dropped Suction Cup pitch (rigging topo on previous page). This ledto a rather confusing slopy area which we clambered up steeply until it ended in an aven. We lost George for some stressful minutes - he'd dropped down a steep, muddy phreatic tube + struggled to return. We then packed up + left the 53m rope + some hangers as own own bags still seemed full + I thought we had a long way to go but in fact we were in camp Kraken in under an hour.Day 2
We took our long rope +14m rope to the muddy, drafty end of Radio Silence where the previous (Anthony/Chris/Hydra) camping trip had got to + unenthusiastically started to rig (George) and to shiver (Becka + Adam). After some time (we cracked and got into the bothy) George shouted that he was past the worst of the drips (we're haviung a drought, itwould probably be nasty in the rain) + we should come down.I was really in the mood to jack it off - it was sharp, wet cold and vertical - but George perked up after spotting what loooked like a floor down a c2 gwt(?) after the end of Scum of the Earth. We'd finished the long rope so put the 14m on the final drop end - hurrah - it first revealed a floor and we were in a big complex chamber.
We set off surveying , trying to cheer up a chilly Adam. There were lovely marked - and nippled - and streaked - mud slopes and a proper stream with sandy then muddy banks leading to a small sump. Just before, on the mud bank, I spotted a tiny seedling - "there's a sprout!"
"A what?" We all stared at it, bathing it with light for the first time in its hopeless life, then surveyed the upper sections + finally, down the boulder slope, we got into the upstream canyon. We followed this to a c2 then ate & I suggested it was time to head home but I was overruled by George ripping up the c2 +roving about a beuatiful pool. We followed and there was, indeed, a gorgeous green and blue poollike a weird eye. We took photos then surveyed further until the passage narrowed to a tall rift.
I pursuaded a reluctant George that it was really time to go. We then headed out with George derigging Scum of Earth (big swing on the second rebelay) then me derigging Radio Silence + Beckoning Silence then back to camp with George getting the short straw of derigging Tentacle Traverse which was apparently a struggle given his stature. Worryingly no water had collected duringt he day but I worked out a system using a bin bag tocollect and funnel drips in to the Daren drum + that worked well.
Day 3
"Are we going to do this?" We started with relays up Kraken as we had only 4 tackle sacks. George first with a monster rope bag + drill then me with another monster rope bag + hangers then Adam with another monster rope bag + a bag with the gear we needed to take out of camp including a full to bursting shit drum - George was the last to dump and he grumbled that he'd been set up as he had to squish in the final bag.
At this point we realised that we hadn't nearly enough tackle sacks so Large Marge made an appearance - the massive orange survival bag filled with 3x sleeping bags and 3x Alpinexes and 4x karrimats. George was skeptical + I was racked with the giggles (she was nearly as tall as he was but considerably fatter) but in fact he shot up Kraken with her, leaving me to regret letting him off taking a normal tackle sack as well. That left me to bring up the rest of the camp in two tackle sacks, aDaren drum, + some claptrap, derigging en route. At the top we sorted the pile of gear whilst Adam headed up + out of Tunnocks.
There was a moderate-sized expedition's worth of gear left there - at least 400m of rope, over 100 hangers, drill, hand-bolting kit, slings, tent, sleeping + cooking gear etc.
Adam had the bag own(?) kit then I went and George derigged. I pursuaded him we should take 3 tackle sacks between us onthe derig. Mistake. I broke George. He ended up at the top of Window Twankey's with a fulltackle sack and most of Big Bertha full of disgustingly muddy rope _ got, erm, cross.
By then I'd dumped my bag at the bottom of Procrastination + I'd headed back down to fetch another bag but when I met Adam at the top of Number of the Beast he said I needed to be nice to George so I took Adam's bag & G+A went bag-free then we stopped order(?) and let George escape. Less burdened, we slogged out.I gave the bag to Adam on the entrance pitch then was nearly humiliated as, on a flapjack high, he powered up + nearly caught me up. George was sunbathing on the surface + led us on a forced march back to camp which was ... deserted.
1
We did a trip down Tunnocks to do a resurvey and a connection to "Balcony". We resurvey part in March of the Penguins in Balcony and the pitch dumped into the Frozen North. Also surveyed a new passage there that just looped around.
2
[Editor note: very bad handwriting indeed. Please try harder Max. This is almost useless. The scanned original text is in expofiles/writeups/2018/logbook.pdf if you want to try deciphering it yourself.]
3rd attempt on the penguin fellatio resurvey.Took another 50mof rope & 6mm hangers after not having enough gear last time. And a Monday callout so we had enough time.
Got to the far end with all the shit to realise that we only had 6 hangers due to taking others out last time! Doh! Another failure was just too much so Wook decided to go all the wy back down March of the Penguins, [sqiggle], High & [squiggle] to steal hangers out of the Usual Suspects traverse rigging. Solo speed carry was [squiggle] fun and he took 25 mins there, 20 mins derigging and 30 minutes back.
Max & Ryan got v.cold waiting. Max rigged the pitch whilst Wook and Ryan re-did Pengun Fellatio. Pitch survey [?] was a pain and it wasn't possible to see [squiggle] [squiggle] each other so we [squiggle] a [sqiggle] at top & bottom.
Max did great job of rigging where Wook couldn't reach. Down in Icecockwe joined up survey and went for a look round. Ryan found a scrotty bit not on the survey & got explorationfever so took off SRT [squiggle] to shove himself through & make a loop. So then we had to survey it. Ryan learned a bit about surveying. Decided we couldn't get to the dodgy leg in Frozen North without wire [?] so headed out. Max derigged. Then rerigged MOTP from [squiggle] 32 back to chmaber above spiral around. Rebelay [?] existing points is very time consuming. After a while we couldn't find the [squiggle] & made up out on [squiggle] linking to [squiggle] we could find. Finally staggered out, including the [squiggle][squiggle][squiggle] by 2am.
* Looked up snow slope in Frozen North. Max got up to where there were no more foot[squiggle] ~10m up. Quite [squiggle]. There must be an entrance somewhere.
[Wook:] Went over to Fishface to see if we could connect it to Happy Butterfly. Looked in right direction but didn't find anything very interesting - a bit of [squiggle] [squiggle] [squiggle] [squiggle] to known stuff.
[Ryan takes over writeup:] There was a hunting [?] [squiggle] potential lead, after some rambling to decide to [squiggle] a 'fishermans hole' on route to a rift choke ahead (there we had [squiggle] [squiggle] dear bits). The hole that we were interested in appeared to have been previously dropped - a hanger and bolt we insitu, even if slightly rusted. We dropped the pitch (20m?) into a large rift with a distinctive largesquare boulder wedged in the passage. Ryan [squiggle] the lead to the left; a rigt heading down which choked out, however when surveyed by Wook [squiggle] [squiggle] survey stations were found. Nevertheless they re-surveyed the passage.
The second pitch was drilled and better to drop a new pitch, again about 20m down to a false floor in the rift. After descending Wookey declared Ryan's gardening (the removal of loose and potentially dangerous rock) as [squiggle] and proceeded, assisted by Adam, to kick down the loose rock-garden.
At the bottom of the pitch we found leads in both directions, however decided to push down the rift (following the airflow). A traverse line was rigged across a ropey section of false floor which dropped down onto a larger pitch. Another test conducted by Adam measured the rockfall from topto [squiggle] impact as 2.1st~20m a distance we could not reach with the rope we had. We used the left-over rope to assist in rigging a Y-hang and setting bolts, however, did not push the mystery pitch. We left the pitches rigged. Afte Wookey [squiggle] the survey [squiggle] conducted throughout the trip to [squiggle] if the new passage connected (potentially) to the existing system or could be pointing in a new direction.
All in allthe trip was a [squiggle] learning experience for both Adam and Ryan to both survey technique, rigging, bolting and most importantly gardening!
[Mongol Rally rigging guide here (Becka's handwriting?, in the written logbook moved back to this location in this online version]
8th, 9th, 10tgh August
Balkon -> top of Kraken, collect camp, move it to Littleboy, ->Push in Indy Races (8th Aug.) then push Horrible Pitch in Indy Races (B+G) + push One Direction (L+R) (9th Aug.) then exit with big bags (10th Aug.)
[Caved 11:00-21:00 on 8th, caved 11:00-20:00 L+R, 11:00-23:00 B+G on 9th, caved 07:00-12:00 L+R, 08:00-11:00 G, 08:00-12:00 B on 10th.]
In with food + dumped it below Littleboy pitch which we thought could make a good camp then to the vast dumpof stuff at the top of Kraken. L+G already shuttling gear by the time R+I arrived(we took 2 hour to bottom Mongol Rally)(G took 15' to descend Mongo Rally + they took 2h to the top of Kraken). Large Marge + 5 tacklesacks plus the drill bag + some claptrapwere ferried across the traverse then we slogged them up the climbs to get them into Grand Prix. That broke the back of it. We took one load each to Little Boy (surprisingly Large Marge made it intact all the way) + found a campsite against the wall looking out to the pitch.
R+I made a levelsleeping platform, dragging out the mud + putting in a retaining wall of boulders whilst L+G scoped out water, finding a good source midway down Indy Rally. Needs a scoop (e.g. a mug) but only ~10' to fill a Daren drum. We laid the tent flat as a groundsheet then mats. No draft + we weren't cold at night. We then all headed to the end of Indy Races. Rachel boltedthe draftng traverse but this immediately led to the head of the wet pitch so she + Luke surveyed then derigged it. George started to rig the pitch (Horrible Pitch), grumbling lots about shit rockwhich led to someugly, rubbing drops. We surveyed + then Luke + I fetched (?) the rest of the camp gear from the start of Grand Prix whilst George + Rachel surveyed 2 loops near camp.
Luke + Rachel headed to leads in Grand Prix which led nowhere but then they hit paydirt in the QMC on the left in Indy Rally before the water source. This gave 50m crawling then a junction. One way led in good-sized passage back to Grand Prix + the other way was drafting + left-going. George + I returned to Horrible Pitch + George quickly rigged down to a big ledge. This gave a short corkscrewing passage that led back to the conclusion (?) of Horrible Pitch but we were diverted for some time by some smaller tunnels off the horizontal route that I found. This led to some interesting, drafty tubes + possible leads. I put in some lousy bolts + then found the rope too short so, with relief, handed the rigging back to George + I returned to camp to fetch another bag of rope.
George got down to a double ledge by a bridge with water flowing in. Here he ambled up a steep mud slope (er, do you know how far above that last bolt you are?) + put in a bolt (er, youv'e got loads of Hiltis, why not a Y-hang?) + ambled back down the slope, over a sharp rock ridge and dropped inelegantly (i.e. with rubs) to the floor. You could also go directly down from the double ledge to the floor. All of Horrible Pitch is dry despite lots of watery bits nearby.
We ran around at the bottom + George managed to temporarliy strand himself up a climb up a mud bank. Geoge was pretty much surveyed-out by now but he steeled himself for one final slog doing the bottom + then the 2 pitch sections. We left it rigged. We found the otehrs asleep by the time we got back to camp.
Rudely awoken at 06:00 when Luke + Rachel got up to head out (I can't complain, I'd spent an hour or two yesterday morning rustling bags and shining my light at them trying to get people going). They had packed the muddiest rope the night before + headed out at 07:00. By then George + I had given up on sleeping so we got up + packed more junk + headed out at 08:15.
George caught the others at the top of Mongol Rally and was out in 3h - yeah, yeah... Luke + Rachel took 5h and I took 4h (I ditched a rope at the top of Hangman's as I seemed to be going at snail's pace and both my jammers + my pantin slipped all the way up - poor technique according to Luke, sigh).
End of my caving for Expo 2018 -221h underground for me :-) Off to Plonkermira [??] with VHO tomorrow to see how things look from the other side of the hill...
As well as being my first caving trop of the expo, this was also the first Balkon-Tunnock's through trip made. George changed the hang at the top of Mongol Rally, added a rebelay and fixed another at the bottom of MR. Olly began to bolt the right hand wall of Floodland. He got so far down the pitch but didn't bottom due to time constraints.
The connection between Balkon and Tunnocks is very impressive. Large chamber after large chamber.
The Prusik out was a laugh! It was an introduction and a half to Austrian caving. 10/10 would do it again.
Arrived at Pitstop to find George who was in the group in front to have finished bolting the traverse around to the other side. Passage was large walking passage with nice mud formations in floor. Passage ends at a pitch with a dodgy bridge. Half way-ish between the traverse and pitch was a flatout crawl on right. Crawl was unpleasant and sharp (I forgot kneepads!!) and was sloped upwards. Passage (including crawl unitil become too tight) was surveyed.
Pitch wasn't dropped.
We then head back to Pitstop and then attempt to bolt a rift but then the floor fell beath and scared me and we decided to call it a day.
The trip was to push Fish Face further following a low-level lead in Gardening School. An exchange was agreed with German cavers whereby they would offer us a trip if we offered them a trip (an agreement arranged by Alex and Jacob during the bottom base camp BBQ). The trip also allowed the German's to experience top camp, both who were incredibly impressed by the arrangement, declaring, "You English are mad!" The international caving group encounted a language barrier in the especilly crumbly and loose passages of the Fish Face entrance pitch and traverse. WHile descending Alex had one of the Germans (Pi) shout "stein!", somewhat confussed he looked up to find the German caver was not offering him a beer, insted a number of rocks had been kicked down. A system was then proposed by the Germans to overcome the language barrier. The sylable count of words would indicate the cave command, therefore the language used would be rendered pointless.
It was also agreed during the trip that signiifciant space woudl be left berween cavers on th epitch/traverse series leading on from another due to the daners of very loose rock and the potential of injury. The gardening school passage was pushed beyond the unnamed and unknown pitch that offered a lead. Originally we believed that a shaft 3/4m down would be best for a rebelay, however on investigation this appeared to be a large boulder wedged between a large rift. Furthermore, the placement of the boulder, nicknamed 'coffin lid', appeared to be only secured by small boulders. The decision was made to drop the Y hang down through a squeezy pitch, although tight, the pitch is easily accessible. The newly found Pirate Pineapple Pitch (PPP) ~50m and decends down further into the rift. Multiple passages can be seen coming of this pitch which may be worth future exploration. The pitch bottoms out in a small chamber ~10m^3. A smaller interesting chamber is to the right, nicknamed 'mud hole', here a variety of interesting geological features are found. ALso at this point a small pool of water has forned. Directly in front of the dropped pitch after a smooth step the rift can be seen to bottom out. However, at this point, we had ran out of rope. An additional 15/20m (unreadble word) have allowed us to reach the bottom. We assume this amy be the bottom as its the collection point for many of the smaller dropped rocks. The rift appears to curve around the corner offering a potential easy lead for those who are willing to push this further.
NB: the pitch was named Pirate Pineapple Pitch due to the consumption of a pineapple by some rugged looking cavers at the bottom of the pitch. The carrying of pineapples to inappropriate places is a tradition upheld by Alex Sterling (sp?) of Nottingham University Caving Club in reference to the Pineapple on Tour (sp?) - a society at Nottingham University which took pineapples up munrows in Scotland. The society was dispelled by the university and folded into other outdoor societies.
While drunk and making friends with some Germans, one of them, Andt, gave me a proposition: "You take me caving and I'll take you caving in an ice cave... with a snow volcano." I liked this idea! Despite the cave being less than 1k from top camp, due to Losser's 'I'm going to kill you with every steo you take' nature we had to walk accross the plateau toward Applehaus and then take that path. After negotiating some traverse, beating some bunde and safely avoiding the caver grinding we arrive at some dead larch... and a misty cave entrance! THis was to be our exit point. Pi headed up the hill to start rigging the top entrance while Andt gave me a quick lesson on how to walk with crampons. When crampon school was over, we too head to the top entrance. An oblong entrance of 10m-ish by 4m wide entrance pitch to the top of the snow volcano was probably 40/50m. When on top of volcano, daylight can still be seen. 'Tis quite impressive. When on top of volcano the size of the chamber starts to become apparent. In the distance ice stalls can be seen glistening through the mist. We continue the descent, this time down the side of the snow volcano for ~3-m until we reach the bottom.
Ice is hit.
Rope free.
Wow!
This chamber would be impressive even without all the ice. We wander around for a bit and I amazingly manage to remain standing I literally cannot stop smiling. Some of the ice pillars were easily 15m high! Eventually, Im forced to live by the call of nature. We exit through what was once called the Elephant Arse - cos there was a formation that like an elephant but has sadly melted since. I emerge from the cave, breathe, appriciate life and then have a piss!
Went 100m NW of top camp to put a tag on a possible cave (located previously on 8-9/08 by Nat and Paul) numbered 2018-NTU-01. We practiced hand bolting to install the tag and picked wild chives.
As water was needed at camp, snow was collected for the bivy. While Ryan efficiently poured 5 tackle sacks of snow into the rain tarp, Nat and Alex and Ruairidh proceeded to practice drilling a Z-rig to try to haul an overfilled bag of snow vertically (see separate write up). While taking 2 ropes each down the mountain, we successfully crosses the plateau in fabulous perfect weather, only to be hit by a sudden bad storm at the col. An hour of super heavy rain and lightening was upon us. We were forced to emergency shelter in our double-bivy baf near a rock.
Several very close lightening strikes (with 0 second gaps) reminded us how quickly the weather can turn against you on the mountain.
Lost 1 and half hrs of time waiting for lightening to subside, so final hour of walk down was in darkness and driving rain and winds.
REMEMBER: Check the weather, kids!!!
We aimed to re-locate several caves that had been recored in 2004/5/6 and were within 300m of Top Camp. How hard can it be???
Well, 8 hours later, lost and dehydrated, we managed to get back to Top Camp just 20 minutes before our callout!
Entering the coordinates into the GPS and walking in a direct heading was met repeatedly by either thick bunde or sheer cliffs going up or down! While we were lost we found several new caves, which we duly recorded and surveyed. They are very close to the path to Tunnocks, so we suspect they were either ignored or not recorded when first explored. We left the big pitch for another time and surveyed the small free-climbable hole. Then we got lost again looking for 2004-18.
Finally we located it and 2004-16 and -17.
The next day we returned to 2004-18 with Wookey and descended it. Luckily the spits were in place so we just had to chuck a rope down and a rope protector. A huge snow cone met us half way down on a ledge we could walk around. Paul drilled two holes and installed 2 hiltis and rigged the way down. We climbed down the ice slope (with rope) and landed on the boulder floor at the base of the snow cone. My first ice climbing experience - and I hope my last! We got hypotherimc while rigging the cave (Eiskeller - Ice House) and we got heat exhaustion while on the plateau. Lovely day at expo! Wookey was very helpful while we located 2004-18 (on an easy path not far from Top Camp) and again while rigging the cave - always great to have an experienced oldie on the team!
Derig was going to be a big job. Tonnes of rope still down several holes, and most people had already buggered off, and a fair few of those still around had buggered themselves in some fashion! So we had maybe 6 decent cavers to do maybe 20 bags worth of rope from 3 different entrances in two days. The real hard nuts had done most of Balkonhole on a camp/push/derig the day before, and half of that group were quite deservedly taking a day off. Ruaridh's broken arm had mysteriously 'Got better, honest' until we made him prove it by climbing into the Animal house, so he was out. Fishface/Fischgesicht was the next biggest project, with ~300m depth and vague rumours of a drill left at the bottom for the "unclimbable" leads.
I'd always known it was goin to be a little bit cheeky turning up just for the end of Expo and still hoping to get a chance to push something, but as it turned out I wasn't even the most jammy of the lot! I'd had a couple of days to acclimatise to camp life and reacquaint myself with the hypothermic delights of Alpine caving when Radost finally arrived (Actually, he had been there earlier, but was just showing his Dad around and wasn't caving), making two of us who hadn't pushed anything. So, the priorities for this trip were to be
Anyway, after the standard intrepid hike across the plateau, all looking super-cool if I don't say so myself, we change and Luke and Rad zip down while Max waited for me to get changed. Max and I had already been all the way to Ulysses earlier that week, so he assumed I remembered the way and shot ahead. I have a terrible memory for complex junctions and my light casts a very sharp throw-pattern, so I still got lost a couple of times and found them all taking a leisurely rest at that nice picnic spot, below the free-climb pitchy thing, where left goes to the way on and right to that disgusting traverse across Ulysses (which Max had derigged two days before and left 70m in a pile in case people wanted to bolt leads below).
There was a brief discussion of what we should expect, and we settled on the priorities listed above. Luke declared 4pm(?) to be our turnaround time. He wasn't keen on taking more rope deeper into the cave, but given Rad's and my keenness to push the two of us decided to pack it anyway once Luke and Max went ahead. It was only ten minutes later that the shout was relayed to us "Guys! There's more rope down here anyway! DEFINITELY don't bring that other rope!" I duly returned the bag to its original position and retrieved the survey gear, which I had of course forgotten to put back in the bag.
The lower shaft of Fischgesicht is a truly marvellous black hole - One of those can't-see-the-bottom, can't-see-the-top ones. In stark contrast to the rest of the cave above, it was extremely poorly rigged. Well, I suppose it could have been worse, but even on the way down I was thinking "Should I retie that knot? It really looks like it rubs. No, it's probably just me being a wuss and it's like that for a reason". This was looking at a lop-sided, 2-metre wide Y-hang that required a sort of acrobatic climb down to access. New rope, at least, though it was quite dry and required a lot of patience to avoid glazing. Plenty of time to look around the blackness and ponder the geological mysteries of metamorphosed Carboniferous sediments.
We needn't have brought in a drill battery, as together with the drill there were 3 high-capacity ones already there. Rad informed me that Luke and Max had gone up the slightly more obvious (right turn at both junctions) of the labyrinthine passages in this new horizontal level to check that the dead end really was one - apparently the small climb Max did crapped out very quickly. We met back at a junction, I picked up the survey gear from the previous junction, and we headed off (left at second junction) to check the other end of this slightly-larger passage. Everyone agreed that this was a cracking horizontal level. Very nice walking-sized!
The previous group (whose identity remains to me as nebulous and vague as their cave descriptions) had apparently concluded that "you'll need bolts and rope to push any of the leads". Total bollocks. We did find a quite sketchy looking climb overlooking the virgin passage floor, but there were two different crawling ways to bypass it! After this initial reccy we reconvened and distributed survey gear. I was to get to grips with the CHECC disto, entrusted to me by Luke that morning. Rad wanted to do the drawing. I had forgotten to pack any station-marking stuff, but luckily Luke had some nail varnish in his pocket. We reckonned we had an hour and a half to push, and with no bolting necessary, the excitement of potentially hundreds of metres of 3x3m phreatic tube became evident in everyone's voices.
So, on to the description itself. The phreatic tube trends uphill, with a vadose trench in the bottom taking the water gradually deeper and out of sight and earshot. Where the passage jumps up a dodgy climb, the safer way on is through one of two little holes down and to the left - the leftmost a low crawl, and slightly to the right of that a narrowish slot. After these, a small chamber with boulders on the floor
Crawl. We managed to shoot the lazer straight through a tiny window, avoiding the need to survey the crooked oxbow crawl round the right. Now in another small chamber, but open both forwards/left up a slope, and vertically/right into the big tube, where we were later able to survey the loop (seems to be a near-oxbow of the phreas, which was undercut to make this 3-way big junction with a fourth crawly way that we had just come through). We progressed forwards up the slope, and the 3x3m tube meanders around for m. The floor of the tube is covered with sandy mud that seems to have a darkened crust. Very easy to follow the path established by the first person. About halfway along Luke dropped his nail-varnish, so we resorted to scratching in the mud on the walls. There is a bit of a climb up before a steep slide down a sandy slope. Take care to avoid falling in the hole at the bottom - it looks like a soft landing because of the pile of sand, but I've no idea how you would get out of that chamber - it looks a bit like the whole tube has a false floor in that area. Anyway, the tube continues, eventually changing in profile to more of a tall 2x5m elipse. The noise of the stream can now be heard again - far below, but I suppose cascading more steeply and so making a louder sound. Eventually we reached a sloping-sided hole in the floor, obviously wet at the bottom, QMc, with the same old tube heading up to the right, QMa, and a bottomless traverse on the opposite side of the hole, QMb. All of these will require either bolting of a traverse across the hole or a spiderman-like grip and balls of steel. I would prefer the bolted traverse option.
We still had over half an hour to go, so we returned ot one of the side passages we had noticed earlier. Climbing back up that steep sandy slope was interesting - everyone had a different method; running full pelt, desperate scrambling, chimping up the wall, etc. Rad was about to zoom off when I called him back - "You do know I won't be able to do anything from up here, don't you?" he observed. "Yes, but I don't want to die alone!". Cautiously attempting to disturb the sand as little as possible, I delicately levitated myself to a position of safety.
It was only a couple of legs into the side passage that it started going crazy. A-leads to the left, A and B-leads to the right, leads below - way too much to do any justice to in the time we had left. Clearly the polite thing to do was to leave it for some lucky bastard next year. There's enough down there for two simultaneous survey groups.
Derig - I was to go up the big pitch with one bag of rope, Radost to follow with the drill and batteries, then pass it to me to put in the top of the 70m bag at Ulysses. I was so mentally beasted from prusiking with a palpable twang on every bounce, at least until I passed the rub-point, and then He-Manning it past that rebelay, that I completely forgot about Rad's bag until I was about to go past Ulysses. I backtracked and hauled his bag up the little pitch for him, packed it in the top of the rope bag there, and with two heavy bags proceded up the free-climb. I had a bit of a sense of humour failure at the top, and having overheard Max "so how many bags do you have, Rad?" "At the moment, precisely zero!" I foisted the heavier one back onto him, selfishly thinking that it would be better for the first person to travel light and quick. Even one bag on that traverse was troublesome, and so when at the top of the next pitch I heard Rad swearing his way through with two, I decided to redeem myself and took back one of them.
It was slow progress up the rest of the cave, barely keeping ahead of the deriggers (Luke and Max). At another free-climb I reaslised after >10 minutes of struggling that it was much easier to just throw the bags up and then chimp up after them. At the surface, I debagged and lay looking at the stars for a couple of minutes, before returning to the first pitch to take Rad's bag. He was decidedly less talkative than usual, and had the look of a man who needs a break - "it's just quite a heavy bag for a first trip" - I was inclined to agree. I saw another 3 meteors in the space of 20 seconds before going back to sketch a rudimentary diagram of the entrance traverses and take one bag from Max, and then back again for another. Realistically, it was the easiest bit of the bag carry, but it was hard thinking of Luke and Max doing all that work and not rying to help out.
The decision to leave all the tackle sacks at the entrance was endorsed unanimously. I poured myself a large Schnapps and followed everyone in double-curry dinner and falling asleep immediately.
On the way back from KH entrance, Chris and I detoured to 115 to get 6 litres of water as we were very thirsty. Also took out the museli and flapjack. Left ~4 litres of water and a orange polythene swirl (sp?) bag.
New cave 2018-NTU-01
Paul had prepared a list of some caves found in 2004 which were within 300m of Top Camp.
In the blazing heat of morning, Nat and Paul set off with packs full of SRT kits,
50m rope, hangers, drill, bolting kit, oversuits, helmets and lights.
First we went the wrong way and ended up meandering through bunda above top camp.
Finally we set a bearing towards one of the caves in question, and this took us on
a scramble parallel to (east of, uphill from) the path to Tunnocks.
We bumbled onto a small cave entrance which we named 2018-NTU-01 located in a
gully filled with wild chives.
No noticeable draft, but it was hard to get my head right in. The shaft is definitely big enough for a person to stand in comfortably. With a bit of tidying up the big loose boulders inside the entrance, one could get into the shaft and see where the rift goes.
Data from Nat's GPS (Garmin Oregon 650):
1834m, N47°41.518, E13°49.298
UTM UPS: 33T 0411579, 5282737
GPS accuracy not noted for this point, but the other points this day had 3m accuracy.
This cave was tagged by Nat & Neil a few days later on Aug. 13.
To reach this cave easily from Top Camp, just follow the Tunnocks path until
the cave marked on GPS as "1623.p2001-02", then turn right (uphill) and go up
a small chive & boulder-filled gully until you see the big boulder with the tag on it.
Rift hole to descend
Several meters downhill from 2018-NTU-01, in passing we waypointed on the
GPS a "rift hole to descend", which looked like a promising hole that is
nowhere near any already-catalogued waypoints.
1846m, UTM: 33T 0411511, 5282847. (no photo)
We finally rejoined the path to Tunnocks (which we should have used all along) and after a while, we waypointed on the GPS another hole that's most likely the same as catalogued 1623.p2002-07.
2018-PF-01,02,03
2018-PF-01 Tag: 1857m, UTM: 33T 0411526, 5282885
2018-PF-02 is an impressive, open surface shaft about 3.5m diameter and 11.5m deep (as measured by Disto). It looks like it continues horizontally into a rift heading upslope. There is a good spot to drill bolts for rigging where we installed the tag.
2018-PF-03 is an open rift between PF-01 and PF-02 about 5.6m deep, 1.75m wide, 4.6m long (as measured by Disto). Paul climbed down PF-03 and found it was choked at the end nearest (heading towards) the big shaft PF-02. Thus, it dashed all our hopes of finding a free-climbable access to the big shaft.
2018-NTU-02
Afterwards we circled painfully through obstacles of
larch and cliffs until we stumbled across another interesting
hole, which we named 2018-NTU-02.
1861m, UTM: 33T 0411522, 5282905, GPS with 3m accuracy.
It is a window in the side of a surface shaft filled with
grass. Nat climbed down into it using a handline tied with
loops, which proved essential.
Freezer Hole
In the lowest point of the eastern bowl of Cubic Valley is a small
hole in the rubble which emits freezing cold air.
We measured the temperature just inside the hole as 9°C,
compared to 18°C just outside the hole (in the shade)
(- and the temperature in the sun on the plateau that day
was about 30°C). This hole is choked with rubble, but it would
certainly be an interesting digging project for future Expos.
2004-18 and Mystery Shafts
2004-16 and 2004-17 and Maybe Hole
As it was getting late and our water bottles were empty and
it was very hot, we left our heavy caving gear in a hole and
tried to head back to top camp. On the way out of the valley
we found the other 2 caves 2004-16 and 2004-17, which we
waypointed on the GPS (1878m, N47° 41.594' E13° 49.150' and
1881m, N47° 41.608' E13° 49.150', respectively).
Then we struggled on through thick larch and sheer cliffs,
passing by a potential hole to explore (UTM: 33T 0411410,
5282786), in our dehydrated and grumpy state, until we saw someone
walking on the Fischgesicht path in the distance, which we could
eventually reach and thankfully followed back to Top Camp, arriving
just 20 minutes before our callout time!
We surveyed back up the pitch [see our survey and notes in wallet 2018#44] and emerged gratefully into the blazing sunshine, where Wookey had been sunbathing the whole time. Then we took the easy hike back to Top Camp, which we'd found on the way in [see our description in Approach and our GPS track].
Twin Caves
Along the northern edge of the valley approaching 2004-18 we waypointed
two shafts with snow inside. UTM: 33T 0411527, 5282982.
Summary: go back to Cubic Valley!!
Given the number of deep shafts in this valley, it's the most exciting
place to return to. The Cube-shaped boulder sitting above 2004-18 is
an easy landmark to find [see our photos]. The hike to/from Top Camp
is so quick & easy that it makes a perfect few days of rigging and
surveying for Expo novices or for people who don't want to go deep.
According to our GPS track, the hike is 670m and takes 23 minutes.
Be sure to wear an oversuit and layers!
Neil and Nat practiced hand-bolting and installed the tag for the cave Paul & Nat found previously.
,
