Alice and Jonty then went for a mega shop whilst Hamish and I began unpacking the loft.
Charlotte, Harry, Hannah C, and Chris arrived, shortly followed by the return of Alice and Jonty, finally getting us up to the eight people apparently required to successfully set up the bier tent.
Alice and I (successfully) tested the Blue Box's number plate on the toll road, then returned to basecamp to admire the now completed bier tent, which shortly thereafter facilitated the frying of 2025's first batches of basecamp chips, shortly before Russell and Joel.
Evening came, accompanied by some splashing around in the river and much packing of top camp bags. Jonty got the tatty hut wifi working shortly before Dan and Dylan arrived by train. No Ella in sight, however, as she became separated from them during a particularly faffy train changeover, and is now due in an hour later. Lara and Hannah UG due by car past midnight.
Then we arrived at Linz, with dan and Dylan exiting the train. Ella however, was hit with the most egregious faff ever seen. And then suddenly, the beep of the train, the rising of the step, the closing of the doors…and the train rolled away with Ella onboard. RIP.
After, a slightly mad panic and laughs at the nightmare of a situation, it was worked out that Ella could get the LAST train to Bad Aussee. Thankfully, all worked out, with us arriving in two groups after 18hrs and 19hrs. This was followed by some unsuccessful putting up of tents in what felt like a car park, but a good night’s sleep despite the tent looking like an old man’s ball bag.
The hope: to be done with this early enough to go and push Joel, Jonty, and Julia's newly discovered cave SE of Balkon: 'Reflectorists'.
We set off up the hill along with Harry, Hannah, Ella, and Hamish, with Becka and Chris a little ways ahead. At the col we parted, with the latter two walking to Topcamp and the rest of us heading straight towards Homecoming. On the way we passed many very enticing holes, most of which had been logged in 2023 but not dropped. The plateau along that walk is practically swiss cheese!
Upon arrival at Homecoming, we had a break and some flapjack before packing rope (and a few bolt hammers and through bolts) whilst Harry, Hannah, Ella, and Hamish headed up to Garlic Camp to collect useful gear. We managed to take the majority of it, but there was still a considerable amount left.
We then set out across the plateau towards Topcamp, the sun absolutely sweltering hot, but very fortunately obscured intermittently by clouds.
We had a break at Fishface, spending awhile enjoying the cold breeze in the entrance. After saying hi to Becka, who was on her way to Homecoming to pick up more rope, we started back on the path.
This section of the walk felt like it went much quicker, since most of it was taken up by Joel and Jonty trying to remember all the many sections of the path they'd named on previous expos.
It wasn't until we got to the top of Mount Densham that Joel realised he'd lost his phone. We feebly attempted to locate it on google maps, but all this told us was that he was as Basecamp 13 hours ago, and we determined it had no signal by attempting to send it whatsapp messages. After a little discussion, we determined it had most likely been lost around Fishface, since it was the last place we'd stopped. Joel and I dumped our bags and headed back to Fishface whilst the others continued on towards Topcamp.
Oh my god, walking across the plateau is SO much nicer without a bag. You can jump!!! It was a lovely walk back, and we found Joel's phone almost instantly in the entrance to Fishface, propped against a wall. I refilled my now emptied waterbottle with some snow from the meagre snowplug at the entrance, then we headed back to our bags and onwards to Topcamp. Once we got back, we dumped rope and had some food. The Garlic Camp group arrived, having also taken some rope back from Homecoming.
Given that it was already around 2, and Julia needed to be down the hill for her train at 8, and Jonty had injured his ankle, we decided to head down the hill early, unfortunately abandoning our hopes of pushing Reflectorists for another day. We substituted Joel for Ella, as Joel was planning on sleeping at Topcamp, and started on our way.
The walk down went smoothly, but was incredibly hot. We passed Becka on the way back, who had managed to take the last of the rope back from Homecoming, leaving only the drum of metalwork there. After sweating through the rest of the walk, we finally returned to the carpark, did a quick shop, then headed to the lake via Basecamp for a very lovely and refreshing evening.
During the walk up to Homecoming, we found a few promising holes that we thought would be worth prospecting further in a few days. Once at Homecoming, we donned our caving gear, and Ella rigged the first 3 pitches. This then allowed us to haul the ~1.2 km of rope out of Homecoming, which was left in a nice pile under a tarp to be transported to top camp the following day.
A rather tiring walk from Homecoming to Top Camp with caving gear and some rope was then done - rather exhausting in the heat of the day. The cool offered from the top camp tarp was enjoyed by the party, and noodles and a yap to the other groups offered a nice break from the long day's walk.
Finally, a nice stroll down from top camp - 18 kilos lighter this time - allowed us to get back to the car park and bottom camp in good time to enjoy Becka's delicious risotto.
A very fun but tiring first experience of the plateau. It is hard to imagine what the plateau is like to someone who has never been before, but it is far sharper than I imagined. It felt a bit like what I imagine the surface of the moon would be like, just with more gravity and less spacesuits :( Same lack of aliens though, unless we find them down the promising holes we saw on our walk.