===15/7/06 | Journey - Dave travels out, absence-of-courtesy of Ryan Air | Dave

Up at 3.30am (ouch), night bus + coach to Stansted, flight to Salzburg, train to Bad Aussee, total time about 11 hrs. (3 ½ getting to airport + waiting for flight; 2 flight; 1h waiting at Salzburg; rest trains + buses.) Wet quite smoothly modulo getting on the wrong train at Salzburg + ending up on an express that didn't stop at Attnang-Puchheim + having to get out at Linz + pay E8 for a train back again. T/U: N/A ===16/7/06 | Loser Plateau - Carrying lots of Stuff | Dave, Mark, Aaron, Tom

Walked up the hill to find lots of snow lying around – snow in 204a, snow at the front of the bridge, all over the shop. Tediously shovelled snow for ages to clear a way into Traungold. Found a very pretty icestal; less pretty was the rest of the ice freezing half the gear down. On the way down, went slightly further downhill from usual route past 195, and found a new hole, not yet tagged but in the fullness of time it will be 2006-01. GPS: 36283 E 83223 N 1773 alt. ===18/7/06 | Loser Plateau - More carrying lots of stuff | Dave, Aaron, Mark + Tom

Walked up again, with u**ber-heavy rucksacks this time, wasn't too bad as we went in stages, stopping at 157 to take a photo of it + one of nearby Bogenh*ohle. Slightly further up, just before the slabs, are two holes that are well-known but not documented: -2006-02, no obvious markings: long rattle on dropping rocks. Photo taken. GPS: 36086 82919 1707. -2006-03, marked “CUCC 2987+”. GPS 36081 82911 1706. Photoed. ===18/7/06 | Loser Plateau - Carry to 76 | Olly + Jenny

Arrived at basecamp early in the morning after driving out. It was really hot, so spent the morning sorting stuff out and walked up in the evening. Failed to find the 76 path several times and so took ages to get there. The stuff stored in the bivi was fine – had obviously been frozen in for most of the year, but was free (mostly) of ice now. The camping spot had way less snow than last year, so loads of camping space. The 76a entrance was full of snow (like last year) + will need clearing, but 76main is draughting lots, therefore hopefully not blocked lower down. Walked back much more quickly but it still got dark too soon (especially for Olly who was wearing prescription sunglasses). 148 was noted to be completely full of snow – if it wasn't for the paint, you wouldn't know there was a cave there. ===19/7/06 | 204 - Carrying + first push of expo | Dave + Aaron + Tom

Walked up the hill with another tediously heavy load. Arriving at the bivvy, Mark opted to do some surface work + the rest of us went to rig 204e. While waiting at the base of 204e for Tom+Aaron, I had a ferret in the Qms in the chamber there. QM 01-12C is too tight; higher level rift has sound of water but would require capping. QM 01-13C is also too tight, although it required Aaron to tell this – I couldn't get round the first bend, but he did the 2nd and got to a point where no normal person could go on. Also at the base of the pitch is a low passage not marked on the survey, on the left from the point you land, This goes by a short crawl to a right-hand bend. A short gallery leads to a climb down into a winding rift which goes on underneath Boulder Coaster; the limit of it is a boulder choke at a high level, or a dodgy QMC climb down (probably needing ghastly bolting). T/U: 4hrs ===20/7/06 | 204 - Random Pitch Series in Great Oak | Dave, Mark, Aaron, Tom

Plan was to go to Choc Salty Balls and bolt the pitches there. En route we stopped at Great Oak Chamber. Mark descended to the bottom (on a very dodgy rig) + announced it didn't go so 00-32C is dead. Mark decided to take a look at 00-29D which is not a dig, a rift going down a perfectly climbable pitch, a short sequence of cascades + a second rather bigger pitch. At the bottom is an awkward S-bend leading to a tight pitch head. I bashed in a bolt for half a Y-hang while the others surveyed down. T/U: 8 ½ hours ===20/7/06 | Loser Plateau - 76 carry | Jenny + Olly

Decided to drive up the the night before + sleep in the car at the Bergresteraunt carpark in order to get an early start before it got to hot. Met some very friendly German cavers in the carpark -> their area is a 5-6hr walk away past Apelhaus. Swapped email addresses and websites. Walked up to bivi and set lots of things up: water tarp, other tarp, tent etc. Took photos of 97 and 148 cos they didn't have any photos yet. Waited till it was less hot to walk back. Got distracted by a “new” cave -> marked by a cairn, but no evidence of exploration (the cairn may just be marking the path). this will be 2006-70 it is a crawling/stooping horizontal entrance that draughts out. After ~10m there is a restricted pitch head that appears to open out into a ~5m pitch. Currently un-descended, but seems to land on a snow/rocky slope. Having been distracted by this cave, we got back to the car too late to do another carry back up, so slept in the car again. GPS for 2006-70: Also surveyed the bivi cave 2004-01 T/U: ½ hr ===21/7/06 | 76 - Loser Plateau - Final Carry and 76 caving | Jenny + Olly

Carry up the final bag in the morning. Took our time because our bags were heavy and Olly was suffering with a cold or hayfever. By the time we got to the bivi Olly wasn't feeling well + needed to patch his oversuit, so I went down 76 to rig the first 30m rope. Initially more snow than before – pretty ice round the walls in the entrance passage. Had to clear snow out the way to find the 2nd bolt + worried that things would become very tedious... Large snow slope to head of Draft Bitter (which is nice cos it holds the loose rocks in place), but below this considerably less snow. The top snow plug was only ~1/4 there and the second not at all. So the rigging spirals round the side somewhat unnecessarily this year! Came back out when the rope ran out. T/U: (Jenny) 1hr 30 ===21/7/06 | 204 - More Pitches in Great Oak + Cave Tree | Mark, Aaron, Tom, Dave

Decided to split into two partied. Tom + I went to the pitch series off Great Oak (QM 00-29 D) now christened “Riverdance”, while Mrk + Aaron went to Cave Tree Chamber to bolt the pitch there + see if it goes anywhere. In Riverdance, one more bolt gave a Y-hang down a 9m pitch, then another Y-hang led to a 6m pitch. Here there is yet another pitch with 1 ¼ bolts in it at present. After getting this far we opted to go back up to the last survey marker + survey back down, as I couldn't work out how to survey awkward pitches upwards. Five legs got us to the pushing front, but when I got to a dry point + started to sketch I realised there were some rather weird legs. Cursed loudly. While prussiking out we worked out between us that the first two compass readings and been read from the wrong scale and were effectively reversed. After checking Mark was still alive I went back down to make a proper sketch + Tom headed out. Got to surface to find it was raining slightly – yay! water to drink! T/U Dave+Tom 9hrs ===21/7/06 | 204 - Go*sser Streamway | Mark, Aaron

Mark started bolting+rigging the pitch out of Cave Tree Chamber (QM 00-39B) on 20/7/06, alone. We (Mark + I) returned in force the next day, finding several pitches, a streamway and a particularly nice chamber. Yorkshire-style meander. Headed back after many hours leaving the next pitch for another time. Area dubbed Go*sser Streamway for it's smooth character + tipsy trajectory. Surveyed back to cave Tree but failed to locate point in chamber + so linked survey to point at end of passage into Cave Tree from Great Oak. ===22/7/06 | 76 - Plugged Shaft/Strange Ways | Jenny + Olly

After a record length change we finally got underground, with the plan for Olly to rig on down Plugged Shaft, with me following with the drill in case we wanted to add anything. Got as far as the rock-bridge-rebelay, and Olly remembered the leads below this; firstly QM 04-09C (on the snow slope, which was incidentally lots snowier this year, and Olly spent a while kicking snow+rocks down). Anyway, QM04-09C trivially doesn't go, and QM04-08C doesn't actually exist. Next, rather than swinging across to the deviation and The ledge, Olly went down to the rock bridge below. We briefly visited here in 2004, and as it is easier to visit on the rigging or derigging trips, we hadn't yet returned. Olly descended the side pitch while I drilled a spit for a new deviation higher up. Olly's pitch led to QM04-06C and QM 04-07C which turned out to connect at a short pitch down to a snow slope which I rigged + descended. “Upstream” at the bottom leads after a few meters to vertical oxbows leading back to the canyon above. “Downstream” led to a junction, right oxbowed back to the pitch, left quickly led out to a pop out in a big pitch, which pretty much has to be Plugged Shaft. This is probably QM04-15B. We must have been looking down at Yesterday's Terminus, which has way less snow this year. Didn't have survey kit, so came out (leaving it rigged for future survey trip) and went down the hill. T/U: 4 ¼ hours P.S. The new section of cave is called Strange Ways cos the way everything connected back was confusing. On the survey trip we will consider its merits as the main route in (asaposed to Plugged Shaft). ===23/7/06 | Loser Plateau - Failed Attempt on Bivi | Dave and Sandeep

Decided to go up to walk even though the weather looked exciting but we wanted to try anyway. We got as far as the col. It had started raining about 20 mins in but we kept going for another half hour till we realised it just wasn't going to get better. Just after we turned round it really started to piss down. Once we got back to the car park we realised the at the car wasn't at the car park to pick us up we went into the restaurant to wait and for a drink. Eventually they shut and by now we were wondering where the cavalry was. We ended up resorting to hitch-hiking down the hill with a rather unconvinced German couple. Many thanks whoever you are. It turned out we had the number wrong for basecamp and that's why no-one came to pick us up. [in a different handwritting] M U P P E T S LUV THE PHANTOM ARSHOLE ===24/7/06 | 204 - Stuff in Near End | Dave + Deep

Much staring at the survey over the last year had left me convinced that the right place to look for the connection from the Near End to the Colonnade was Kidney Bean. So me and Deep got up ridiculously early (for expo) + got the 9:25 bus up the hill, rig [Mao break] going down 204a + wandering thru the Near End. Snow plug was lower than I've ever seen it before which is odd as all the surface snow plugs are actually higher than usual. Kidney Bean turns out to be shite. The route to it involves an upward crawl over loose boulders, a contortion through a body-sized tube, and finally a turn downwards head-first into a muddy puddle. So Deep + I decided we'd tick off the QM's in ascending order of promisingness. Deep climbed down into a scrofulous hole in the floor – 00-71C – and announced it didn't go. I crawled up 00-70B until I was sure it connected to 00-69A. Finally we checked out 00-69A, which went – crawling for a while, squeeze under an arch, then a shitty boulderous chimney. I shifter boulders until I could poke my head in, at which point one about the size of two breeze blocks decided to toll over my shoulder. ouch. Meanwhile Deep was looking around a bit and found a chimney which landed just the other side of the boulder pile, in a chamber with a waterfall. I was a bit confused, but Deep pointed out that there was a tube leading up with a really strong draught. This emerged in big trunk passage, and not far beyond I located a boot print. A large column established that this was indeed the colonnade. Returned to Kidney Bean to fetch survey gear, transpired that neither of us could really read them, so we fucked off out instead. T/U: 4 ½ hrs [THIS SPACE ACCIDENTALLY LEFT BLANK] ===28/7/06 | 204 - 204 | Dave, Pete, Chantalle, John

After surveying a random side passage of Treeumphent as a surveying lesson under the tutorage of Dave (cleaning up leads 16-22 inc) we moved onto looking at Sucker. Pete was in a feretting mood and the following was concluded: fereting is not that much fun. Also 01-26C goes 6.5m straight ahead to a dig. 01-28X and 01-27X are one and the same – 28X was climbed and joins at a higher level. 01-31C and 30C are bloody tight and unlikely to proceed far beyond visible range without stopping to undress! Pete also crawled down 01-54C and the way is semi-blocked by a small rock bridge (i.e. it is probably physically possible to get past but you wont find me doing it!) FRIDAY 28th JULY OOPS! ===24/7/06 | Tunnocks Trips | Tom, Mark, Aaron

BECKA - actually three dates given: 24,25,26 July

Three days efforts in the face of loose boulders and inconvenient walls – requiring rebelay after rebelay after rebelay landed us at the bottom of the very impressive Tunnocks Schact. On the 25th, we reached “The Col”, a spot between two large steep boulders/snow slopes where one can cower in relative safety from falling rocks. Looking down the second slope, I could just barely make out a dark area in the distance where the monolithic roof slab meets the end of the second snow slope, pronouncing it either a continuation or a “dirty patch of snow”. On the 26th, we put in the final spit, descended to the end of the rope, walked down the remaining few meters, and my “dirty patch of snow” resolved itself into a beautiful pool of ice with a 2-3m ice column and a horizontal passage. This became a mammoth trip, with Tom jotting 10 pages of survey (~160m), the discovery of Three Fried Mice chamber, Bauernknoppen passage, and an as of yet unnamed phreatic tube. A good deal of photography was also accomplished. Speculation: tube probably connects to Hilde's beer cellar. Our return, though triumphant, met mixed reception; Dave seemed slightly miffed by the proximity of our 2344 appearance to our 2400 callout. ===24/7/06 | 204 - Death and Glory | Dave and Deep

BECKA - actually two dates given here: 24th/25th July 06

There were high hopes of a connection between the near end and the colonnade, they were a mere 10m apart and there were several QM's that could go. On Monday (24th) we got to the pushing front via 204a and checked out (00-70) “B” and (00-71) “C” grade leads both of which didn't go. We backed up a bit and tried out a ”A” lead. It went! Crawling flat out on mud and loose stones wasn't pleasant but we were making progress. Dave was the first there finding a dodgy looking boulder choke he slowly started to pull out rocks, it was almost wide enough but not quite, then, one of them, the size of a basketball (it was bigger than that - DL) fell on his shoulder. Things weren't going well but he seemed OK after about 15 minutes. I tried the small rift above the dodgy looking boulders, a few metres in there was a steep chimney into a chamber bypassing the hanging death. We were now in the chamber about the size of a small classroom. Dave was puzzled there wasn't meant to be water here in 204. We decided that the previous survey was shite. We thought we were still in new territory, we named it unimaginatively, Waterfall. We tested out all the leads that we could find but no connection. We had almost given up and were on our way out when I spied a small 7/8m crawl sloping upwards. Dave went up first and I followed. Half way up I heard screams of excitment, we had found the colonnade and the connection!! We had to return through Death and Glory (Note: Death is the boulder choke/hanging death and glory is the chimney into waterfall chamber) to retrieve our survey instruments which we had left in Kidney Bean. But disaster struck once again, it was here, after we had discovered the connection that we found out that neither of us could read the compass or clino. T/U: 4 ½ hours We returned the next day with a different set of instruments to survey the passage in a slightly quicker/less excitign trip. T/U: 5 ½ hours Deep ===25/7/06 | Loser Plateau - Surface Wander | Dave + Sandeep

After emerging from the Death or Glory survey we still had some light left, so we opted for a surface retagging walk. Armed with the marking board, a camera, the pile of pre-made tags, a spanner, we set out from the bridge towards 2003-X14. Did an ent photo + a sketch survey. Then we slogged up the Hinter. View from the top is amazing. Looked at 2003-X15; looks obviously choked. Stupidly didn't get an altitude fix, but got a photo. Descended towards 214. This had a tag “2000-03” as expected so replaced it with a proper tag + took a photo. Cave is a fairly jolly bit of tube going ~20m, stooping size, to a second skylight exit (probably too tight to be passable). Then we went in search of 222,3+4. Walked to where the GPS said 223 should be, but no evidence of a tag; same happened at 222 so we gave up + walked home. Oddly enough the original survey claims unambiguously that the survey points are tag bolts, so either I was being useless or my GPS was foxed by the steep hillside. T/U: maybe 5 minutes in 214 ===26/7/06 | 204 - Bolting in Riverdance | Dave + Sandeep

Tedious long cold trip. Hand bolting is very slow and all the rock in Riverdance is shite. Got to top of 9th pitch – loads bigger than the previous few but that's not saying a lot. T/U: 9 hrs ===27/7/06 | 204 - Surveying in Riverdance | Dave + Sandeep

Surveying went impressively smoothly modulo the usual crap instrument problems; took ~3h to get to pushing front! I wanted to do more bolting but I wasn't hyper keen + Deep was less keen still so we decided to turn round. At 2nd pitch met Mark's team doing photos – I posed on the pitch, came out rather well I think. We were informed that thunder was audible in Cave Tree, so rather than go out we went to Choc Salty Balls for a look at the dig 01-35 D. Sandeep crawled in first + after rearranging some boulders we squeezed out into a little chamber. I climbed up into the ceiling where the draught whistles out of a boulderous chimney. I moved more rocks + got into a horrendously loose chamber – floor is a critical angle boulder slope. Draught comes down from the top but I'm not going up there, it looks bloody lethal. Went back out for survey gear + surveyed in, amid much ranting at the extreme crapness of the pencil I was using. Couldn't find a good point to link to so the link is a bit of a bodge. T/U: 9h ===28/7/06 | 204 - Surveying QM's in Treeumphant | Dave, Pete, Chantalle, John

Team novice had managed to arrive at the bivvy at exactly the same time team old-lag were planning to leave it, so I stayed up a few more hours to show them how to push new cave. We attacked QM 00-21C, a tube on the left-hand wall of Treeumpant. Chantalle climbed in + determined that it went, at which point I realised I'd forgotten the survey notebook. Got back ½ an hour later to find that P+J+C had found a parallel horizontal gallery linking together 00-21, 00-22, and 00-17, which were duly surveyed. 00-19C doesn't go, and 00-16 and 00-18 join up in another parallel gallery on the other side. All now thoroughly ticked off and not going anywhere. Unfortunatly we linked the survey to the wrong point (my fault – oops). At this point I buggered off to drink G*osser down the hill + left the other to check out Sucker. (See Pete's writeup). T/U: 4 ½ hours (Dave) ===26/7/06 | 76 - Strangeways | Jenny + Olly

Drove up the night before again to sleep in the car at the Bergrestuarant. Worked less well than last time 'cos there was a group of people collecting bugs or moths or something using a really bright light. Olly needed to wait for the Bergrestaurant to open to go to the loo, so I set off to carry my bag to the bivi, then returned to meet Ol at the col. Collected the 150m of rope we left there a week ago and went to the bivi. Caught up on sleep for a couple of hours in the tent, then went caving. Took survey kit to survey Strangeways. Started at the lower end and progressively made our way back out. Due to the small + wiggly nature of the passage + the oxbows we got cold before we had surveyed it all, despite draughting less than Plugged Shaft it was still distinctly cold. Came out to find the bivi had become moth city, lots worse than last year. T/U: 3 ½ hours ===27/7/06 | Loser Plateau - Surface Stuff (near 76) | Jenny + Olly

Planned to continue down 76, initially Olly wasn't keen, shortly after i had infected him with sufficient keen-ness I felt ill and was sick, decided that whilst being sick on the surface wasn't much fun, it was a dam sight better than being ill underground. So we changed plans. Headed towards 2004-08 to tag it, en-route I realised we had everything required except the drill battery (we don't have a hand bolting kit). I returned to the bivi to retrieve it and returned to find an Olly who had located an entrance that seemed to fit the description of 177. Sadly after descending it, it did't match the survey, so it is 2006-71. Olly placed a bolt to descend on (we used this for the tag). Apparently it draughted out, was quite tight, but did continue. Olly ascended and we phototed, gps-ed, tagged and Olly surveyed it. Moved on to 2004-08, Olly descended while I took photos, it is basically a large chamber with most of it's roof missing. Olly abseiled in the largest entrance, used his trekking pole to walk around the snow plug, and climbed out of the other two smaller entrances (both ~5m shafts). Despite being full of promise, the cave barely went further than you could see. Olly surveyed it and we tagged, photoed + GPSed. Moved on to tag and photo 2004-07 (which was surveyed in 2004). Also surface surveyed 99 -> 2004-01, to close a loop and improve loop closures in 99. T/U: Olly: ===28/7/06 | 76 - Strangeways | Jenny + Olly

Went to Strangeways with the aim of finishing the top half of the survey, derigging and rigging down plugged shaft. Got to the top of the 1st pitch head in Strangeways and decided that moving some rocks might well improve it enough to make it the trade route for this year. Surveyed from where we ended before up through the top of Strangeways to the rubble shaft below the Plugged Shaft rock bridge. I went out to get the drill while Olly moved loads of rocks out the way, both to make it safer and bigger. By careful aiming he was able to throw the rocks down the pitch in such a way as to smash off the worst protrusions on the way through. Once I had returned with a drill we put a bolt in the boulder near the pitch head, and with the aid of a stop, a pulley, me prussiking on the rope, and Olly directing the rock, we managed to relocate it along with a few other rocks. Having made the pitch head considerably more passable, we proceeded to rig down to Yesterday's Terminus in a suitable-for-lots-of-use kind of a way, rather than a pushing-only way. Got to Yesterday's Terminus and returned, on the way out I added a bolt for the little climb in Strangeways and discovered that placing bolts in the ceiling is crap. Attempted to add another bolt near the rock bridge but the drill was flat after only 15 ¼ holes :( so exited the cave. T/U: 9 hours ===29/07/06 | 76 - Strangeways/Plugged Shaft | Jenny + Olly

Returned to 76, and Ol rigged on down Plugged Shaft. Discovered the rope was too short to reach the bottom, so had to use the rope intended for Boulder Chamber. Therefore Strangeways uses ~10m more rope than Plugged Shaft which is a shame. Rigged to Boulder Chamber, took some photos and surveyed out. Finally tieing in the Strangeways survey at both ends which made me happy. The new route in seems drippy but no worse even after lots of rain which is good. T/U: 5 ½ hours ===30/07/06 | Loser Plateau - Surface Stuff | Jenny + Olly

It finally stopped raining so we could dry all our gear on the slabs + do some useful surface jobs. I went over to 2006-71 to retrieve the blanking plate for the drill battery. Then we tagged 2005-99 (Coatless), and phototed 2005-9*7 (Fluted). Packed stuff to go down the hill and walked on the old via Top Camp path so that we could tag + survey 2004-03. I went in first and found that the cave didn't stop where Olly thought it did in 2004. But we didn't have any caving gear, even lights. The disto provided enough light from the laser to suggest the passage was small, but not impassable, and I could get a ~10m reading through it. tagged the entrance + surveyed what we could – need to return with gear. Next went to photo 186 (on the col side of the Vord), shortly before 186, and slightly off the path we found a stooping sized horizontal entrance that draughted out. This is marked with a red painted “+” of unknown origin. GPS-ed + photoed the entrance and I surveyed what I could without a light (discovered that the disto is enough to light the compass enough to read it!). It seemed to continue some distance, though presumably is relatively trivial to have a “+”, we will call this 2006-72 though it is not yet tagged as there was no drill battery left. Continued the short way to 186 and photoed the entrances. Then Olly suggested we might climb the Vord as we were “halfway already”. We were going to leave our bags at 186 and collect on the return, but then Olly took his to be able to carry his camera and GPS. Followed a path for a short while, then lots of scrambling up rocks and fighting through bunde which was rather tedious. We got near what Ol thought was the summit, then Olly caught his foot on when a rock moved and hurt his toe. We decided it was worth carrying on to the summit in the hope of a better path down. Got to what we thought was the top but it wasn't at all. Lots of bunde continuing on into the distance... About half way to the top we hit a path and things improved. After signing the book + taking pics we decided to follow the path down, me hoping it would lead to vaguely near 186 so I could retrieve my bag... The path was very good, and went down the north-ish side of the Vord, past 199, 156 and 201 which we photoed, then met the highlevel old Top Camp to 161 path. which was surprisingly easy to follow given its limited use in recent years. Got to the col + got my bag back. The 161 path and forking off it the Vord is way better than going via 186. But Olly's foot hurt so I tried not to complain too much :) T/U: ¾ hour