Up at 3.30am (ouch), night bus + coach to Stansted, flight to Salzburg, train to Bad Aussee, total time about 11 hrs. (3.5 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.
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.
Walked up again, with über-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 Bogenhöohle.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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
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.
Decided to split into two partied. Tom + I went to the pitch series off Great Oak (QM 00-29 D) now christened "Riverdance", while Mark + 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 1/4 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!
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 Gösser 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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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!
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.
BECKA - actually two dates given here: 24, 25 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.
We returned the next day with a different set of instruments to survey the passage in a slightly quicker/less exciting trip.
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.
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.
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.
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 1/2 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 Göosser down the hill + left the other to check out Sucker.
(See Pete's writeup).
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.
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.
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 1/4 holes :( so exited the cave.
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.
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 photoed 2005-97 (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 :)
[Rigging guide for Strange Ways (in 78) - needs to be scanned in still?]
I appeared to have had a birthday during expo. Cock! The rest of this page is therefore dedicated to alcohol .... [undecipherable - Mmmm?] beer. It's not my fault the light goes funny. Bollocks - this appears to be turning into a pissed [rant crossed out] exposition. Or indeed expedition.
Having cunningly left our shit at Hauchhoehle, we only had to carry some shit in therefore
Random shit = x
Fuck it
- let's try again
tomorrow
- Goesser is great!
- except when meta-translating German ...
Sensible start
Try again on t'other page when sober, as I seem to be incapable and pissed right now ... gute nachte.
After going down 204e we wemt to Treeumphant Passage first to finish the survey of the other day. We had to survey two legs in Treeumphant passage to complete the survey.
We went further south Treeumphant passage to check out the leads 01-53C and 01-54C.
01-53C went up to a small chamber with [sp] looks like 2 passages. It was tight and muddy. John crawled in first, didn't fit through the right passage going north-ish. Chantalle crawled into the left passage. Had to take her helemt off because it was that tight. Could see around a corner the passage continued north-ish with a little chamber with a pile of mud. Didn't look like the ceiling was going up somewhere, so we got out. Couldn't be bothered to survey it. It was too tight anyway. I think it was about 5 meters.
01-54C went down. Chantalle crawled down and went for a meter or 4 before the already tight crawl went even tighter because of a bridge of stone in the middle of the passage. The passage went on beyond there but nothing significant. Didn't survey this bit either. Didn't look like it was going somewhere.
After checking out these leads we went over to Riverdance to derig the pitches. This all went well on the way back up we discovered why it is called Riverdance. There was a lot more water and a pretty waterfall in the 2nd pitch. It was very tiring for John. There were lots of pitches. At this point it was already midnight and we decided to go back up. We also checked the wall at the 2nd rebelay for loose bouldedrs. John kicked some bolders [sp]. It all looks alright now.
Went looking for 2002-X18 to tag the cave. Followed Mark and Sandeep to 204G to continue from there. Walked along the mountain. Got soaking wet. Couldn't find the bloody cave. Walked back alongside the other side of the mountain. There was an open area with lots of holes and snow. Couldn't find any tags. The GPS had a listing called M3? in that neighbourhood - marked it as 7NB in Aaron's GPS. Walked further. Found a promising hole, marked it as 7NB1. Big entrance shaft about 5-10m deep. Probably somewhere between the stone bridge and Tunnockschacht. Will go back on Friday or Saturday. Will name it "Eienhoehle" when it's any good.
I went for a wander on the Nieder Augst Eck. I found an important cave which we've been pushing all Expo. But I couldn't be arsed to document it properly because I'm a slack git. Fuck off.
Chantelle sex
Reminder to myself:
Don't go on holiday with 10 men even again!
PS except when you're pissed yourself again
Went for a wander in the vicinity of the dig 01-35D in Choc Salty Balls. Directly above there is sod all.
A little further south we found a winding canyon / hole ending in a boulder choke. Shifted boulders for a while but it didn't do much. On climbing out I suddenly noticed it had a tag! Turns out this is 2002-05, which is presumably something to do with Duncan. {This has since beeen surveyed by Matt and Phil and named "Rhubarb Cave"]. Slightly lower down is another tagged hole 2002-06, which is a freeclimable shaft (with care - Aaron fell off when his handline parted company with the wall). At the bottom it degenerates to a crap too-tight chossy hole. I believe this is Matt and Phil's "Custard Hole".
After this we returned to the bivvy for soup and noodles and me, Tom and Aaron went to 204 (see writeup) and Mark went prospecting to the north, finding 2005-04 (Tunnockschacht).
Mark showed us the way to his new hole, 2006-04. Entrance is a very annoying loose, chossy steep ramp. I knocked in a bolt at the entrance and backed up to a boulder. I abbed down to a point where it steepened and a rebelay was needed. From here it went to a snow slope and a tedious bit.
[sketch of entrance, showing bolt, steep ramp and section where it doesn't hang right]
I just chanced it - the rub was against snow anyway - but it wasn't great. Continued to the end of our 50ish m rope, snow slope still continuing beyond. Aaron came down to the rebelay and we did a couple of legs of survey.
While I was bolting, Mark and the others had been surface wandering further north and found a drafting pitch, 2006-05. (I believe this has not yet been tagged).
Rigged down the lower half of Pie Series and carried a 71m rope to the top of Monster Munch. Phil and Matt set off to survey the continuing horizontal stuff over the top while I descended to the ridge I'd reached last year and continued bolting from there.
A rebelay at that ledge gained a boulderous platform at the top of the main shaft. Placed a horrendously awkward spit ahead of me on the right wall, which sort of gives a hang down the shaft.
The shaft proper is roughly round, clearly phreatic and slightly sloping, about 8-10m across at a guess. Descended until I ran out of rope and turned around and came back up. About 10m below the last rebelay there is a window into what looks like a small chamber with a rift in the floor - maybe this might be a slightly less intimidating alternative rig?
On the way out we did some ferreting. The following information is recorded in the survey notes but I may as well put it here as well.
05-09C doesn't go
05-06B doesn't go
05-04C links back to the beginnning of Pie R2 (but not at 05-02B which is not pushed)
05-05C goes up a horrible mud slope and ends at a dig (we did some survey legs up but I'm not sure if those got entered)
05-08A downgraded to a C - horrendous tight bend over a 3m drop, not nice (maybe
05-03C links to the other side of this?)
04-35B (at bend just at top of Flashgun Ch) becomes awkward - descending tight boulderous tube
Tom and Pete showed me the way down their new stuff from the previous day, in a big trunk passage we've called "Rib with Knoedel". Pete started bolting the next traverse while Tom and I surveyed.
I was rather impressed with the scale of the place. We were reeling off 10m+ legs one after the other, and one of the legs up the passsage was 28.84m.
After some while Pete came and found us, reporting that the traverse was pretty much done. I went across just to check it was possible and saw that the passage continued in fine style beyond, with a nice pothole in the floor.
At this point Tom and I went back to surveying while Pete cooked soup on my Trangia. After drinking the soup we debated what to do next. I was keen on sending Pete back to camp to extend our callout and surveying on across the traverse but then realised I was out of survey note paper, so we surveyed up slope to the other end and went out.
Woke up feeling desperately unenthusiastic after a very cold, damp night. Aaron managed to persuade me underground and we got going. En route Aaron checked 04-20B which doesn't go anywhere.
Surveying Monster Munch was a pain in the arse as it is slightly too sloping to plumb. Got to the bottom using a 94m rope, in place of the 71 which we derigged as we went and carried down to use on the next pitch.
Surprise, surprise, at the bottom is yet another pitch. Aaron placed a traverse bolt and a hang bolt and deviation off a convenient rock spike and we got down to a big ledge where we could admire the next shaft, maybe 15 or 20m but a fine round clean phreatic pitch. In the floor there looks to be a trench which presumably leads to the next pitch after that. Only 300m to go to Razor Dance!
Walked up to the col and looked for 36 - was pretty easy to find from the website description. The Schactgruppe seems to refer to multiple nearby entrances to the same thing. The red paint was faded but identifiable. Walked across ~20m and found B4 which had legible paint, a spit but no tag. Olly then found (slightly lower down the Kratzer Valley) an entrance with very old paint which we figure (from the paint and description) must be 75. We will attempt to tag and surface survey next time we go past. Looked for 86 ~SE of 83 and shaft. Only really found 1 possible shaft, but sadly no trace of paint whatsoever.
Went down 76, hoping to rig to bottom of Spent Ledge and leave lots of tackle for the next trip. Underground was pretty wet - I was very glad for the modern SRTing as opposed to ladders ... still got quite damp though, especially going into Strangeways and lower parts of Plugged Shaft. Looks like it won't be impassable at least. Rigged a short handline in Strangeways, then re-rigged the Plugged Shaft stuff to avoid knot passes and to use the rope in the most efficient way.
Lots of water going down Keg Series (this is where the Plugged Shaft water goes). Olly rigged on through Boulder Chamber and Follow Through Shaft while I went through my least favourite bit of cave, Boulder Choke, three times to bring the 3 bags through. Lots of water noise EVERYWHERE! Got to the Tap Room and loads of water. Olly rigged down the short pitch and got extremely wet, so wet and cold he told me not to follow, but carried the bag to Spent Ledge to warm up. I wandered over to the Time and Space stuff and noted that it appears possible to rig the QM A-03A [hard to read this QM number, could be wrong] pitch away from the water. Exiting the cave was even wetter and not especially pleasenat, even in a meander suit.
It had rained most of the night and was still raining. Therefore we suspected 76 would not have got any drier ... We were pretty keen, but didn't want to drown, so decided we might as well do surface stuff. Wandered around in the general direction of 99-0B-02 and investigated some holes. The only ones of any significance at all (ie more than a meter) will be 2006-73. This has two entrances, though the connection is mostly choked. The main entrance is down a very large snow plug into a chamber, on the top RH corner the other (small) entrance enters. There is a cool big ice curtain at the bottom, but also a rock wall not miles of train tunnel passage. However, there was a draughting tube descending on the left to investigate with a rope in the future. Continued on and found (nearish to 2005-43) 99-0B-02 finally! It didn't look very promising, so I scrambled down to look and basically it is a short, wet, cold, unpleasant cave that doesn't go. So I surveyed it and it is now "ticked off" cos use surface survey from it to 2005-93 [hard to read date, could be 2003-93?] and from 103 to 101a to 1998-01 to 2005-9something to 10B to 2005-99. Surface surveying in the rain sucks, I got colder than I have been on this expo yet, and we had to retreat at half time to warm up with hot chocolate at the bivi. 1998-X01 isn't far (and on the same level as) 10h and is only marked with a "+" - we will hope to tag it later.
PS In the halfway point in Follow Through Shaft I saw a scorpion type creature, it looked like this: [sketch of 1cm length insect with 2 longer legs] and it was red. It seemed aware of (and unhappy with) my light if I got close to it.
Woke up to yet more rain, and our text to Base Camp asking the weather forecast got the response "lots of ming, followed by more ming", so we figured that the 1970's route was unlikely to be do-able for a while. Going down the hill seemed the best plan with some surface surveying and tagging on the way. Firstly tagged 108, then 2005-98 and 2005-97, and tied them into the 2005-99 surface survey. Continued surface surveying to 2006-71 and then 2005-08 and 2005-07 then 175 and 176. It was loads better than yesterday cos it was less foggy and so survey legs could on occassion be longer than ~20m. Headed north from 176 to look for 98, failed, but in hindsight the bearings suggest it is a reasonable distance further north than we looked. Continued the survey to 174 and then 200 [this hard to read - 205d?]. Planned to retag 200 but that had already been done (fortunately as it needed a non-13mm spanner). Because of the worsening weather and the time we wasted looking for 98 it was kind of getting dark. We had both thought that the clearly cairned path from 174 to 175 and so on continued the other way from 200 to near the col. If it does, we failed to follow it, and ended up too far west in an ocean of Bunde, followed by more bunde, and it was raining and getting dark and Olly had a bad headache.
Decided not to go and tag 101a and aimed ~ south. Every so often the mist cleared enough for us to see the col and the scree below the Brauning Wall which helped a bit, though the bunde made it hard to pick a direction to walk in. Mostly followed a fault line / gully and eventually hit the old Top Camp to Puffball path which was (a) well cairned and (b) remembered by Olly. Got to old Top Camp as it got dark which was relieving.
From then on it was dark, raining and foggy and we only had one light, and Olly's head hurt too much to wear it (cost it was attached to his helmet). Thus it took us an hour and a half to get back to the car, and was one of the more epic car to col walks I have done yet.
Struggled to find the way out of the car park as the visibility was so poor! Fortunately after ~ the 3rd hairpin we dropped out of the fog and could drive at more than 5mph! Surprised base camp by arriving at ~11.30pm when it had been dark and raining for hours.
Derigged out from the bottom of Monster Munch. John and Pete were having multiple lighting fuckups (including filling the whole of Three Cookies Chamber with fumes) and were getting cold so they left and I stayed to derig the Pie Series stuff. Annoyingly, it wouldn't quite fit in one sack so I carried a 50m coil out as well. Everything else was going fine until I dropped John's spanner down the entrance pitch. Had to rerig the deviation to go back and look by turning the bolt with my fingers. Couldn't find it so I undid the last two bolts with my stop.
First headed to Goesser Streamway. I started placing a bolt for the next pitch but my hand was playing up so Pete did most of the work. Unfortunately when I passed the spits and cones pots along the traverse line to him the string broke, so that was all the bolting we did. (Still had cones, but no spits). From our bolt one can descend ~15m to a very small ledge, from which the vast scale of the shaft around the corner is annoyingly clear. One for next year.
After derigging Goesser I suggested we amble over to Choc Salty Balls and do a linking survey to sort out the mis-linked Fingerbang survey. Did this and headed to Crowning Glory. There is lots there - a horizontal passage, draughting, intersecting avens at intervals. I did a slightly bonkers climb up a slab into continuing passage. Turned around and surveyed out from 20m beyond there due to lack of time but there is lots of potential there.
Final tally of survey:
| Cave | Before | After | New |
| 204 | 11.628km | 12.104km | 422m |
| 234 | 879m | 1002m | 123m |
| Tunnocks | - | 506m | 506m |
| 2006-09 | - | 14m | 14m |
| 2006-08 | - |
Walked up the hill and stopped at the col. Walked down to 134 and surface surveyed across to 36 and 75 and then to 2005-89 (which we set the hilti for). Walked down the Kratzer valley looking for the other B [or 13?] caves. Surprisingly few holes that go more than a few meters. Failed to find paint on any that might have gone then we noticed the time so set off to the bivi to get there just before dark.
Also on the way up we stopped on the toll road where the open parking area on the left by a small shed (presumably a building associated with a ski lift that no longer exists). Walked along a little path to a stream which we followed to its spring (near a shepherd's hut). Apparently this is cave number [blank left in text] though no paint or tag visible. Olly duly photoed and GPSed it.
Couldn't decide whether to look at Razor Advance, the Time and Space pitch or the 1970's Route. Picked Time and Space as it was nearest. Olly bolted down as I fed out the 150m rope from the big bag. Surprisingly it only needed 2 bolts (as well as the pitch head it shares with the pendule / traverse rope). The 150m rope was very fast - even with a breaking krab I didn't need to hold the handle in on my stop at all .. sadly after 31m the pitch got very drippy and ended - a tight slot dropped away in the floor but wasn't very big. It may be passable but from its position looks like it will [?trivially? or finally?] appear in a too tight inlet in Keg Series. This ptich is called "Waste of Time". So that lead was ticked off in a very dull way. Surveying and derigging got us back to the Tap Room where we set off to rig down Spent Ledge stuff. I got very cold (partly cos I had spent the time Olly bolted Waste of Time sitting shivering) cos Spent Ledge is really draughty. Also, [?but?, ?bit?] brain thought it was bedime as it was nearly midnight. I got very cold and useless and made Olly turn round. Eventually prussiking warmed me up and I felt better, but I have never been that cold before and it was crap.
Weather wasn't great and Olly woke up with a bad headache so decided to do surface stuff again. Went over to Ice Curtain Cave (2006-73) and I went down to the lead. This is a snow narrow pitch on the left before the ice curtain. I kicked a load of snow out of the way and it was wide enough to abseil down. Got ~ [blank left] m down and the way on was blocked by ice flow (may be passable a different year) which appears from beyond. To get to where the ice comes from requires climbing up a 45 degree boulder slope for a few metres - I wasn't brave enough to step up onto it in case it all moved. A bolt may make this possible. Horizontal stuff appears to continue and then go round a corner. Surveyed out and GPS-ed the entrance.
Moved on to 2004-03. I went through the squeeze which was larger than it looked and got into stooping height passage. Followed this for a few metres till I saw bones. This freaked me out for a bit, but after some reassurance from Olly I continued. Passage continues ~2m further than the disto leg from the last visit and then ends sadly at a small chamber with solid rock walls. I carefuly photoed the bones on Olly's camera. We think it is probably a Gemse but don't know.
Surface surveyed this to 210 which appears NOT to have been retagged but we didn't have any tagging stuff. Returned to bivi, linking in 2005-94 and 2005-96 to the surface survey.
It was raining and Olly had an upset tummy so we decided to do more surface stuff just in case it had got more pleasant in the rain ... Walked down to the 176 area. Took a further north route than normal which is not to be recommended. Walked on and found 111 and 112, red paint still clear, despite being older than me!
Continued on roughly north to look for 110, didn't find it, but the area to the norht of the plateau, before the Wild Kogel and Schoenberg, looks really quite interesting to prospect in a future occasion, though it is a reasonable walk there.
Returned to 111 and headed towards 176 passing 98 on the way (annoyingly very close to where we had looked before). Surface surveyed 176 to 98 to 111 to 112.
Got underground late (3.40pm!) due to moving the tent back out of the bivi cave cos it is wetter there, and much effort at lighting Olly's now broken stove. Down to Spent Ledge where Olly rigged down to last year's end. Rigged the next little pitch on a wide Y-hand to a 1970's spit (in hindsight a new bolt further along will be significantly better). The water drops down lower in the rift, but the way on is up a metre to a traverse along ledges to a wedged in boulder which rocks back and forth if you stand on it ... Dropped down a few metres on a 1970's spit to a ledge. Olly put in a back up bolt and moved over the pitch. Used the 1970's hang bolt as a deviation to get to a ledge a few metres down (this isn't in the best place). Had a nice Y-hang here, and Olly abseiled down for ages. Pitch wasn't as free hanging as we expected - it got a deviation on a natural, and needs rigging better as currently you need to fend off with your feet near the bottom. Then a rebelay for a few metres down to the Balcony. The Greene King pennant was still there, though a bit damaged with age. Olly put in a bolt and we abbed to the floor. Initially we were a bit overwhelmed by all the big boulders - some in the floor, some wedged above as rock bridges. The way on is up the boulder pile, under a few rock bridges and back down the other side (our [?hanging?] Boulder Pitch) which now has 2 bolts, and the rigging starts higher. Followed the passage down over and under boulders and heard water levels rise significantly (apparently a hailstorm on the surface). Decided it was probably an evening storm and so water levels would hopefuly drop after a while. Figured the pitches might well be quite wet, so decided to survey lots at this level so the water could decrease, and pospone surveying the pitch. Continued down the passage to a four way junction. Left appears to be the 1979 route to the stream cuts down and disappears, but you can traverse on ledges above to reach a 17m pitch (which looks nice but we didn't descend). Straight on must be the 1978 route and is initially dry muddy passage to a junction at a pitch (which again we didn't drop). Right is an inlet from above. Surveyed all this, which took a while, back up to the hang bolt from the Balcony. Water levels stil high-ish, but nowhere near as bad as I expected, and the worst bit was the Tap Room. Olly [?having?] carried the drill up the bottom half and me the top half of the cave. Wished we had more water bottles with us - had left one in Strangeways and one in Boulder Chamber, could have done with water lower down. Just made it out with 30 mins to spare before our 8am callout!
On the way down the hill we placed hiltis on 2006-73 and 1998-X01, then put tages on 101a, 75 and 36.
Trying again, this time more sober.
So having cunningly left our caving gear at Hauchhoehle, we only had to carry some rope to the entrance. We rigged down the entrance pitch and Flashgun Chamber. Shortly afterwards, Matt said "You must be joking", and I knew we had reached the traverse. Much swearing [or smearing?] later, we got to the top of Pie Series. Rigged down start and then came out, pausing only to swear in Tacklesack Blues.
Went to 2002-05 (a free-climable 3m pit, with about 6m of meandering canyon, stopped by too many rocks). Photos taken, survey done, tag placed.
Went to 2002-06 (a 3-4m shaft about 10m from the above). Survey done, photos taken, tag placed.
Then back to bivvy for soup.
Next we went over the back of the bivvy in search of 2005-08. Unfortunately the snow plug looks a bit high and the rift looked a bit awkward. 30m downslope of this is a set of 2 shafts ~5m deep, not free-climbable, but have a 45 degree passage angling down from them. No noticeable draught, but the shafts are fairly large. Placed a bolt, intending to go down, but a big black cloud full of rain and thunder and lightning told us not too. And so we ran away. Cave is tagged on Dave's GPS as p06-07. Tentative name - Infrared Spectrometer.
Went in e, wandered up to Cave Tree, then down to Insignificant Chamber via the "Gormalions" [unsure what this word is] in the Colonnade. Then to have a look at Gaffer Tape, and throw rocks down it. Giggle. Up through Magic Roundabout to look at the bottom of it - quite full of snow this year. Then up to Cresta Run and placed a permanent rope 24m on the way down to Crest Run. Then out via Bouldercoaster, which was nice.
Epic
On the walk up to the bivvy, Deep and I wandered off-piste to try and find a flatter route to the bivvy, avoiding the choss-bowl just before the bivvy. And bugger me, we accidentally found a cave. To get there, turn left in the open bit just before the choss-bowl, and its up a little gully. I decided to introduce Chantalle and Deep to the delights of surface surveying. We went over there, and I placed a tag bolt (2006-08), while Deep took photos and then explored. The cave is a 13m long 45 degree inclined passage to a small chamber, where light can be seen coming through a too-tight hole at floor level. Two survey legs later, we went home.
Surface surveyed from 2004-18 to Tunnocks. Then surveyed to Chantalle's hole "Random shaft" (2006-09). Placed tag and bolt. Descended parallel shaft off big natural for 12m. Blind shaft. Shame.
Despatched to finish off stuff in 204. Went to Crowning Glory and placed a 12m permanent rope on the airy climb up at the end. This could do with a bolt placing to eliminate a rub point and make it a proper SRT pitch. 98m rope collected. Big Cross [wrong word? cairns? crocs?] at conservation tape placed in aven under 2002-07. Derigged most of e entrance pitch, but left Y-hang at the top and coiled the rope over it. Knots also left in to ease rigging next year.
This was to be our final deep trip and we hoped to de-rig the majority of it, so managed an early (for us) start of 1pm. Got down to the bottom of the Spent Ledge fairly efficiently and started off the missing section of survey from the previous trip. Managed to get from the Y-hang at the top of HofGK [Hall of the Greene King] to the very bottom in 2 legs which was nice - the disto helped a lot, though sadly there was too much water drops for it to get a plausible height for the aven (though it must be lots ...). Carrried on the to the p17 (1979 route) and dropped it (rigging from a natural and old spit as we didn't have the drill). At the bottom the stream went the "wrong" way, i.e. not what we expected, and must be a new inlet not the one that drops down before this pitch. Had a little look upstream and it is soon a waterfall but looks straightforward to climb up.
Went downstream (1970's route) through tedious sideways muddy rift which would (I imagine) be crap with tackle. Got to Gents Pitch which we could again rig with a natural back up and a pitch head 1970's spit but also needed a natural deviation - this was level with an inlet which is presumably the stream that got lost higher up. Followed the big rift downstream, an aven came in on the right (presumably the 1978 route), continued traversing, now on ledges above the stream, contiuned till we realised we had lots to survey and the rift was widening. Surveyed back, which was better than I feared as the legs were a reasonable length. Back at the top of the P17 Olly traversed on over the pitch on ledges (above the inlet) and it contunes - a lead for next year.
In all this stuff (and the 1970's route) the draught was into the cave not out as it is from the base of HofGK upwards, which is kind of interesting and needs more investigation next year. Incidentally it was a very hot day and the draught was normal in the higher stuff on the way in and out, so seems unlikely to be a reversed draught day as they only seem to happen when very cold outside.
Went out the cave de-rigging and carrying gear up to below Boulder Chamber when we got tired and went out the cave. Got out before it got light!
Got woken up by hot sun after only 3 1/2hrs sleep which was crap. Once I had woken up and [?shop? ?shat?] we went for the final derig. Lots of effort and determination got the crawl derigged and all 6 bags out. Had just enough time to carry 1 load each to the col before dark, such that we could pack up the bivi and do the carry's the following day.
Went down Tunnockschacht with three aims in mind: firstly, to link in John and Sandeep's survey; secondly, to derig; and thirdly, to waste enough time that my T/U would reach the magic figure of 100 hours.
All of these objectives were achieved, and more besides ... I had a look round and refound the pencil-marked points from me and Tom's survey, and we did a 60cm connecting leg. At the end of John and Deep's new stuff was a choss slope to a smallish round pitch. I bashed in a bolt (while supported by a ludicrously small natural) and descended 9m to a sloping rock floor. A short clamber down led to a chamber with too many ways on.
Left is a stooping-height phreas which slopes down to a huge pitch (2.9sec drop but also v. wide and long). Shortly before the pitch head is a crawl on the left with bat droppings, leading to another window onto the same pitch.
Back in the chamber, straight on leads past a blind pit in the floor to a section of passage with a sloping floor. There is a climbable hole in the floor (QM B) and byeond this the passage emerges part-way down a large sloping ramp pitch (QM A to descend, QM B to climb up).
At this point we were out of rope and couldn't summon the enthusiasm for ferreting the C leads, and Sandeep had a bad back so we turned round. Surveying the tight tube from Sauerkraut to the new 9m pitch was a pain in the arse. Derigging was very tedious; the higher of the two bolts in the Strudel Crawl traverse is horrendously cratered and really shouldn't have been used. 69m of Lanex 10.5mm rope is enough to fill a sack, so I had to take all the knots out of the second rope and haul it from the pitch head - fortunately it didn't jam.
Emerged to find it was hideously claggy; just about managed to follow the cairns. We *must* make up some more reflectors next year.
I thought it might be a good time to descend 2002-07 and see if the snow slope was any lower than when Ben and Frank first looked at it, as it ends very near known stuff in 204. Unfortunately it wasn't.
I thought I'd kill time while Phil and Sandeep were carrying by looking for Fledermaushoehle. Tried the Kratzer path first and got within about 50m of our best-guess point but that involved lots of tedious scrambling. On the next walk down I left the path higher up (just at the last really steep bit out of Brauning Alm) and bunda-bashed. Unfortunately there are no holes anywhere remotely close to the measured point! Bummer.
(Also saw a hole which could well have been 35, but didn't check it out. Waddington, come back, your expo needs you ....).
[Different hand-writing style]
Wow! I never knew Dunks [Dave? Darks?] was such a lightweight ... yep!
I have missed you, Goesser. Ich liebe dich ....
Oh shit, I am far too drunk.
[Different hand-writing style]
When people are drunk they say the truth :-(
[Different hand-writing style]
I am supposed to be setting a good example here. I am expedition archivist after all. Sarah W. [?arghs ?max? ?randomy? - can't read final three words].
[Different hand-writing style]
Besides, I am still capable of writing quite neatly. Nonetheless, I am writing at a reasonable speed. At least I actually have something to write. This is a content-free rant, but if you look back over the last 6 years, you will realise that there is a certain status that one must attain before one is entitled to make logbook entries that are this inconsequential.