Expo 2024
2024-07-06
Charlotte, philips, Jacob C, waite,
Basecamp - Setup day 1
Arrived in the afternoon and got keys from gasthof. Fridge full of other people's beer sadly. Picked up Philip S from the station and set up outside tarp and bier tent. Bier tent missing it's door ATM with a tarp rigged instead??????? Where has it gone ? Who knows?????? Gas hose fell off burner whilst cooking dinner, large plume of flame in bier tent but crisis averted
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-06
Philip Sargent, Charlotte,
Bad Aussee - Shopping trip
I was walking into town from the station (from Vienna this morning) when I was intercepted by Charlotte and taken shopping at the big Billa, thence to [otato hut, nerding etc. Hot day, sunny,not rain.
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-07
Charlotte, Jacob, PhilipS, Waite,
topcamp - First visit to top camp
Charlotte, James W and Jacob C going for a first carry to top camp to look at amount of snow etc., departed Gasthof at 11:00 expected back about 20:00. They are not taking the new top camp tarp up this time - it weighs 21 kg.
Post script
James, Charlotte and Jacob found top camp with minimal snow around. Route from carpark onto hill is blocked by large concrete block. Route can be found going round the right hand side but maybe not possible with building work happening. Otherwise route up hill on left of carpark at bottom end takes you up the hill and then a right turn by the big building on the left takes you back to original route. Cairned route up from col to top camp. Broke into storage cave and removed bits and bobs for an hour or so and stored them in stony . Got cooker running and cooked some pasta. Found a mouldy container of tortellini (act with care) . Walked down and placed some reflectors on the walk back. Got to carpark at 18:30 . A very damp day out.
Karin and Hilde came and said hello.
Tarp is partly up at side of hut as there was a caravan parked there yesterday.
T/U: 1.0 hours
2024-07-08
Julia, wassil, PhilipS, sieds,
basecamp - WHo went where
Everyone went up to the plateau except for Julia and Philip S. Wassil and Sieds arrived during the day.
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-08
Waite,
Top camp - Carrying
Carried the new tarp up to top camp today (25KG bag) rigged the tarp reasonably well. Water collection is started but needs rain. Storage cave emptied and some bits dried out.
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-08
plateau - musings of a tired boy
I'll fill this out later, food has just been announced as being ready and I am bloody starving!
Best,
Isaac
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-09
Philip S, Wookey, Sieds,
Basecamp - Nerd *
Sieds has graduated (demoted?) to supernerd. Wookey spent a couple of hours last night failing to get the scanner working with Debian, and Philip was tearing his hair trying it with Ubuntu and Windows this morning.
Sieds calmly checked the online documentation, did the three-fingered salute to reset the firmware on the scanner, and it worked.
T/U: 0.0 hours
2024-07-09
charlotte, waite, jacob, , issac
fishface - collecting rope
no reflectors left on spits.
4th pitch left rigged
With major Faff we set off from top camp towards Fishface to collect rope that had been left there last year. Our bags were very heavy with lots of ropes, hangers and all our caving kit to get to the store of ropes at the bottom of the 4th pitch. James and Jacob found the cave with minimal snow and cleared and flattened it whilst Charlotte kitted up to go in and rig.Jacob hadn't brought a chest harness to expo so some macguyvering of a sling was in order. Rigging went smoothly past the chossy death pitch and tasteful noods until we got to the icy tube pitch. Charlotte rigged the wrong way here as the topo from Jonty had confused hiltis for expansions. Cue an hour of going down the wrong pitch and then back up and fruitful searching for hiltis (unreflectored) eventually the rest of us got into a group shelter and started singing, hugging, shivering and eating flapjack to stay warm. We even wrote a new verse of Hard Caver.
The plateau is perfect for caving they say
as long as you find them and don't lose your way
we went down to fishface to collect all the rope
but missed half the bolts and we lost all our hope
.....
Eventually we heard rope free and quickly made our way down to the rope store at the bottom. As I passed the deviation at the bottom my light decided it didn't want to work anymore meaning i had to use my spare which fortunatly was around my neck! Large tacklebags were filled up with large quantities of rope which then were prussiced out by this years expos first and keenest cavers. we emerged after much fighting with bags (charlotte really likes having three bags whilst derigging) to a lovely evening with the sun just having set, and enjoyed a relaxing walk back to top with the milky way looking over us. (The walk was much less relaxing for me as the spade handle kept getting caught on things and tried to kill me multiple times).
T/U: 8.0 hours