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<center><font size=-1>CTS 94.2037: BCRA Caves &amp; Caving 63, spring 1994, pp 18-22 [ISSN 0142-1832]</font>

<h1>The continuing saga of ... CUCC in Austria</h1></center>

<p>In 1991 the club had explored Puffball &amp; Icing Sugar Cave (Bovist und
Puderzuckerh&ouml;hle) to -230m or so, and it was left going stonkingly in a
big rift. Meanwhile Kaninchenh&ouml;hle had been slowly giving up its
secrets, revealing extensive horizontal development at -250m, and the
extreme vertical complexity of its upper regions. Going deep in Puffball,
and going long in KH were our targets in 1992. The first of these objectives
was thwarted, the second largely fulfilled. In the meantime also had great
fun with our Austrian hosts.

<center><h2>1992</h2></center>

<p>Most of the expo was fitted into two vehicles. The Battlewagon, an
ancient, graffittied Princess, and the long-suffering WookMobile II, a
Citroen C15 van. Even after packing the battlewagon to the gunwales, it was
clear that the rest of expo wouldn't fit in the van. So CUCC was mobilised
and extracted a trailer from a dung heap twelve hours before the ferry was
due to leave, bolted a handy towbar to the bumper, filled the whole thing
with gear and set off. This bodge actually lasted until 20 miles from Calais
on the way back, when the bumber welding failed and the trailer had to be
Y-hung from the roof rack for the last 150 miles.

<p>Those who had gone to the Alps first were washed out, so expo started
early. The snow levels were so high that Puffball had to be dug into, and
the searchers for the Kaninchenh&ouml;hle entrance had a narrow escape; the
three cavers wandered across a snow plug. After crossing it they looked
behind and realised they had just walked over the top of the 37m deep, 4m
wide entrance shaft on 6 inches of snow!

<p>So the caving was underway, quickly rigging down the 1991 route as far as
the bottom of the second pitch. At this point a branch off to the right
('Piezo') was followed in the hope of a drier, safer rig. Two
washouts after thunderstorms in 1991 had given everyone a healthy fear of
water and much effort was put into keeping as far from the water as
possible. Mark 'Fixit' McLean had built a new drill battery
("Small Paul") which could drill at least fifty holes but weighed
more than a full Goldflash tacklesack. This masterpiece of over-engineering
came to be something of a liability as the expo went on. 25m down was a
choice of the obvious wet pitch or a dry route 5m up and across over a rib,
and down against the ceiling the far side. With much use of skyhooks, the
drill and bolts placed then removed, a remarkable bit of rigging across to
the appropriately named Crows Nest and down the roof of Chimney pitch was
achieved.

<p>All the caving was in Puffball (apart from one trip down KH to retrieve
some co-ax for our new hi-tech aerials) until a large boulder in the
Puffball entrance moved as one exiting trip climbed past it. It was at the
bottom of a steep, constricted boulder slope and people were very concerned
about the potential for death. This provided an opportunity for KH to be
started and for lots of new arguments - about gear split between the caves,
and whether Puffball was actually safe. 

<p>The Puffball safety issue was eventually resolved as Dave Fearon was
trying to put a tape round the offending boulder and it rolled a few feet
down the slope with him nimbly 'treading rock' on top of it. He
survived, and after a few hours gardening, the route was declared safe
again.

<p>The next trip meant business, laying 600 metres of cable for the radio
(for communication in case of flooding), and carrying 200 metres of rope to
the pushing front, now at the 1991 limit of exploration. Unfortunately the
next trip added 40m to the cave before it ended in a nasty washing-up bowl
sized sump 'Waste of Effort'. The place was very oppressive with
mud-soaked walls rising 10m above the sump. The only lead was a horrible
tube just above the sump level which looked lethal if it rained. This was
eventually explored, merely leading to another sump. So that was the end of
Puffball, a rather disappointing 292m deep, and we had to fish all the gear
out, whilst checking the remaining leads. 'The Twelve Pitches of
Puffball' was written, to commemorate the end.

<p>So: next cave please:<br> Ah yes - Elchfalle/Mooseh&ouml;hle. This was
investigated as it was close to Puffball, and only so many people could go
down Puffball at once. The boulder slightly blocking the entrance was moved
with a huge pulley system, and the way was clear for the cave to go! Which,
after a few pitches, it didn't, ending in a scrofulous tight crawl. While
derigging Olly and Clive heard the sound of rushing water, and memories of
Puffball tales came flooding back. Quick, brace yourselves ... here it comes
... ... trickle. What an anticlimax. The pitches were rigged well out of the
water too - it wasn't even awful.

<p>Then there were the Austrian cavers. They invited us to the festival at
Bad Mittendorf, where the freshly geartaped van driven with a pair of
shreddies hanging off the waving windscreen wiper seemed to amuse the
locals, and the commentator said our presence made it a truly international
festival! Once more their portable mountain with a seemingly endless supply
of beer inside provided amusement and lubrication for the subsequent gear
and survey inspection in their hut. 

<p>It seems that Austrians get up earlier than Englishmen: we arranged a
trip down a couple of their caves and they agreed to meet us 15km from
Basecamp at 6am! The night before was Clive's birthday so getting up in
time was a harrowing experience, leaping into the car coffee in hand and
driving like looneys to get there. Most people went on a pleasant trip down
Grubstein Eish&ouml;hle, a complex system with 27 entrances, and a very long
walk to all of them. The other group went down Sonnenleiterschacht, which is
basically a 368m pitch (in 20, 93, 10, 53, 88, 57m sections) down to lots of
horizontal cave. Even though this was a tourist trip a traverse over a pitch
was made to find another 300m of cave leading to a huge rift - duly named
'Cambridge Corner'. 

<p>Kaninchenh&ouml;hle was finally rigged to the pushing front and the first
trip found 150m of very windy 3m diameter phreas 'Pipeless',
doubling back down-dip to a big chamber 'Satan's Sitting
Room'. Also France was rigged down to the 1991 limit at -120m in one
solo trip, and a trip back to an old question mark in Gnome Passage found
'Deep Sleep' instead on the way. This (uncharacteristically for
161) stopped after three pitches of 20m, 5m, and 17m. Gnome passage was also
extended through a very tight squeeze to a small pitch.

<p>The next trip was also sidetracked. Not far down, on their way to the far
end they started gardening a couple of loose rocks in the floor, soon having
a pitch requiring a traverse line, where before there had been a perfectly
good trade route! With the aid of the newly released (from Puffball) drill
battery AndyA and DaveF, variously accompanied, pushed down through a maze
of parallel shafts for three trips, eventually coming out at -250m in
Niflheim. This route passed right through two other routes, without
apparently sharing any shafts with either of them, despite them all being
enormous. Quite how is not clear!

<p>A couple of trips explored The Dungeon, a question mark left since the
very first trip into KH in 1988, and found the editor's molten zoom
where it had been dropped when it caught fire. This connected to the new
(1991) 'S'not Pitch' quick route into the system, showing
that it could have been found the first year had the circumstances been
different, and the squeeze route wouldn't have been necessary. Meanwhile
trips to the end rigged into Satan's Sitting Room finding 'Silent
Fellow' chamber at the bottom, and another 150m of passage
('Mostly Mud') beyond, leading to the base of a big aven.

<p>Mishaps. There were a few. We had to start a vomit tally, as it was so
prevalent, although a surprising number of the entries were due to
over-exertion/dehydration, and illness, rather than the more usual
over-drinking.  One unfortunate got strung up with the battery, spending an
hour and half hanging around before her whistle was heard. The next France
trip involved two severe cases of 'BELOW!'. The first was a rock
landing squarely on AndyA's head, doing his helmet significant damage,
and making him throw up. The second was a whole ledge which disappeared down
the pitch just as he clipped in having traversed all the way across the
pitchhead and back on it. After these warnings of impending doom they
retreated. 

<p>Slightly more serious were Glen and JulianS. Glen fell through the snow
down a shakehole and dislocated his shoulder, his companion helpfully
enquiring "Does it go?". The injury was later aggravated by
getting washed down the river at the back of Hilde's. JulianS was
slightly more cunning - he waited until derigging had just begun, and fell
off a small cliff on the way back from the cave, bruising his back enough so
that he couldn't carry anything.

<p>The next trip down France found old bolts, apparently having re-joined
the route the French had taken down here, although we couldn't work out how
they had done the last 100m without going the way we had. These allowed some
high-speed rigging down to a stupendous chamber 'Algeria' at
-240m, which had several leads, including a stonking 60m freehang at one
end, 'Orient Express'.

<p>This year we spent several hundred pounds on CB radio gear for camp to
camp and cave to camp communication. We had a repeater on top of the hill
between the camps, which after a great deal of fettling worked for one day,
two weeks into the expedition - just long enough to allow its creator to
escape without being lynched! The cave to camp stuff was postponed till next
year.

<p>Robert the Wonder Caver (a super-hard Austrian caver) came and gave us an
excellent outdoor slideshow, showing some of his remarkable exploratory
efforts. He invited us to the beer festival (where a number of people got
thoroughly 'Schnappered'). We retaliated by inviting him to visit
the end of KH.

<p>A few lags then turned up, intending to climb the Trisselwand. Yet again
an epic was had. They roped in a volunteer to make two ropes of two and set
off, getting within two pitches of the top of the 700m face, before Jeremy
decided he had sunstroke and could climb no further. That was 5pm. They
descended to within 2 pitches of the bottom before a thunderstorm hit and
the rope tangled simultaneously. They were out of the lethal main gully but
the one they were in soon turned into a small torrent containing a lot a
rocks. They could do nothing but cower, especially MarkF, hanging on the
rope in the waterfall, trying to untangle it. They eventually escaped with
the worst injury being a severely bruised shoulder, and another damaged
helmet. They were just in time to meet the mountain rescue who had been
alerted when someone saw their lights.

<p>Robert TWC, when taken to the end of the cave, performed a remarkable
traverse to the other side of Satan's Sitting Room allowing Aggy to do a
stunning bolt traverse (see photo) and climb to a big window beyond SSR. He
made the last move with both cowstails in the last bolt, and so was unable
to get off at the top, having to hang there for several minutes until he was
unhooked. He refused to move again for the next two hours! This was named
'Three Wise Men' after those who sat around proffering advice and taking
photos. Beyond this window another chasm had to be crossed by penduluming to
rig a tyrolean into genuine new passage. Here we found another 250m of
passage: 'Tinkle Rift', 'Black Velvet', 'Far too Far' and 'Wellie Scraper'.
There were also 5 big pitches to be dropped, but there was only time for a
long survey trip before derigging.

<p>DaveF soloed down 'The Hole Below The Pitch Below The Squeeze',
now called 'Bladerunner' rigging down 120m to yet more complex big
vertical stuff.

<p>So we derigged, having found and surveyed another 2.0km of cave, finished
off Puffball &amp; Elchfalle, whilst increasing the number of question marks
in KH to 41.

<p>Cast of thousands :<br> Aggy Finn, Ali Morris, Andy Atkinson, Clive
George, Chris Leveridge, Dave Fearon, Dave Howes, Fran Lane, Gill Lindsey,
Glen Long, Henri Welbourne, Jane Herries, Jeremy Rodgers, Jerry Williams,
Julian Haines, Julian Shilton, Justin Powell, Lone, Mark Fearon, Mark
Mclean, Mark Scott, Matt Keeling, Mike Richardson, Olly Betts, Richie
Perotton, Ruth, Sam Lieberman, Tina White, Tony Rooke, Wookey.

<hr />
<!-- LINKS -->
<ul id="links">
<li>1992 Expedition info:
<ul>
<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
<li><a href="report.htm">Cambridge Underground Report</a></li>
<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
<li><a href="182.htm">"The Twelve Pitches of Puffball"</a> (expedition song).</li>
<li><a href="sponsr.htm">This year's</a> sponsors<br><hr />
</ul></li>
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1992">Index</a> to all publications</li>
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expeditions intro page</a></li>
<li><a href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home Page</a></li>
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