mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-11-22 07:11:55 +00:00
318 lines
18 KiB
HTML
Executable File
318 lines
18 KiB
HTML
Executable File
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf8" />
|
|
<title>1993: Cambridge Underground report</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<center><p><font size=-1>Cambridge Underground 1994 pp 35-39</font>
|
|
|
|
<h1>Austria 1993</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p>"Oh yes, I'm pretty sure it must have rained,<br>
|
|
The day before you came"</center>
|
|
|
|
<p>It did. Lots. Every day. For four weeks. At the beginning it had seemed
|
|
like the glorious excesses of last year - Spencer turned a peculiar shade of
|
|
lobster after the first carry, and we were even permitted to put our tents
|
|
up in peace. Exhilarated with the joy that is Austria, Adam's tale of a
|
|
knife wielding, stone throwing, psychopathically criminal Bulgarian driver
|
|
was much appreciated, and we settled into the beer and Hilde's free
|
|
schnapps.
|
|
|
|
<p>Adam's presence forced some enthusiasm into the first arrivals (Clive,
|
|
Spencer and Nick) who had been worrying about finding the cave, since Clive
|
|
had been there only once the previous year and the other two were novii.
|
|
This worry was justified as Nick and Clive continued their run of
|
|
directional disability - first Juniper Gulf via Clapham, then the awful
|
|
escape from Salzburg, miserably failing to find S'not, and finally the search
|
|
for rucksack cave.
|
|
|
|
<p>Adam had found this while prospecting, abandoning the traditional
|
|
technique of throwing a rock down it, preferring to lob his rucksack
|
|
instead. Eventually retrieving it, he ran out of ladder, so he marked it
|
|
with a cairn, 'for future exploration'. Exploration of the plateau maybe.
|
|
The attempt to find it by Clive, Nick and Spencer was put off first by Clive
|
|
being desperate to avoid caving and going into the pleasant ice cave,
|
|
"Glitterstompf", instead, and then the rain beginning. A measure
|
|
of the optimism of the expo up to that point was shown by Spencer leaving
|
|
his cag at base camp, "because it hadn't rained the past few
|
|
days".
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile AndyW arrived, bringing MikeTS and a van of crap, even bringing
|
|
a spare tent for his gear, if you can call it that. His light was so ancient
|
|
(when was the last time a stinky made an appearance on expo?) it gave him
|
|
the excuse to leave the cave early while Adam and MTS carried on rigging in.
|
|
He then lent it to Tess for her tourist trip to Knossos, along with his
|
|
"novel" SRT gear, which turned a pleasant trip into a rant. She
|
|
left fairly quickly after this.
|
|
|
|
<p>Team France arrived from Dauphiné, JulianH, Ali, Petel and Hugh
|
|
packed in one car being noisy with their lungs, and much later that day,
|
|
Wookey and Tess being noisy with the van's freshly broken exhaust. After a
|
|
day to recuperate and drink beer, the first portion were swiftly off to
|
|
France, although unfortunately this time it was the cave. They set up the
|
|
new improved radios at top camp, and carried on down the cave to run out of
|
|
rope at the top of the pitch. After ranting at the rope while escaping, they
|
|
found Austria showing it's teeth in the shape of lightning bolts steadily
|
|
advancing their way, and decided to make a run for the car, claiming it was
|
|
awful when they arrived back.
|
|
|
|
<p>Adam was not quiet during this time - he had an old question-mark hacking
|
|
away at his mind, took MTS to go and look at it, and found 'Final Cut' in
|
|
Gob. However this was all a bit active, so a short pause was in order to
|
|
carry some more crap up. Clive's tent poles finally arrived, allowing top
|
|
camp to be set up with all the piles of flapjack, veggie meals and the one
|
|
flavour of Vesta we had this year. The radios were fettled as far as they
|
|
went, with the new booster providing more opportunity for us to broadcast
|
|
all over Austria except to top camp.
|
|
|
|
<p>A few souls pushed back the inevitable onset of more caving by taking the
|
|
new 200m rope to a big cliff above Toplitzsee where the Austrians said there
|
|
was a 200m freehang. This involved a strenuous walk up the side of the
|
|
cliff, then a tentative walk down the steep wooded slopes, which would have
|
|
been alright has it not been for the immense slipperiness of the surface
|
|
(but the leaf mould provided surprisingly good grip in the end) and the
|
|
knowledge that there was a drop just past the trees. When they were within a
|
|
sensible distance, Wookey was volunteered to tie the rope to a couple of
|
|
trees and go down to see if the rope reached. After the usual faff he set
|
|
off properly, and after what seemed like hours later he stood on top of his
|
|
van half a mile away, which was the signal for 'pitch free!' On average it
|
|
took the descenders about a quarter of an hour to get down, mostly filled
|
|
with thoughts of rubbing ropes, the knot at the end for Wookey, and Clive's
|
|
thoughts on melting STOP's. It was generally agreed that it had now been
|
|
Done, and this was a Good Thing, since no-one need try it again. (Apparently
|
|
the Austrians did it on 4 50m ropes!)
|
|
|
|
<p>The same day, Gob was bottomed by Adam, Nick and MTS. They found
|
|
footprints on the floor - it joined Dehydration. On leaving they then had
|
|
the usual tally of light failures, Nick ripping the lid off his Oldham/FX5
|
|
in the slot of Final Cut and MTS's just generally dying. Adam had been let
|
|
out first and the other two followed slowly out due to being over caved and
|
|
under lit. Nick's opinion of his trip was to be found in his illegible
|
|
drunken ranting a few days later - "Once upon a time there was a caver.
|
|
He was fucking hard. Nobody liked him", and "Caving is shit
|
|
especially with hard bastard adam He is so hard I want him"
|
|
|
|
<p>Team rant (Ali, JulianH and Pete) were busy playing down France and
|
|
throwing rocks at each other. They liked the rebelay at the top of Algeria -
|
|
6 inches into a huge rock ceiling - but didn't like the huge rock Ali
|
|
dislodged from Orient Express and sent rumbling towards the others. This was
|
|
to cause problems later while derigging as it landed on the rope, was too
|
|
big to move by hand, and so 50m of rope had to be fed underneath it, making
|
|
the whole pitch take 1½ hours to derig.
|
|
|
|
<p>The first trip to The bitter end (Far Too Far) was made by Lummat (who
|
|
dropped and broke the new, small, light drill battery), JulianT (who wants
|
|
to rename Boulder Alley, Shit Alley and hates endlessly sucking on fudge) and
|
|
Wookey (who has this strange desire to rig mental tyrolean traverses across
|
|
Hyper Gamma Spaces). They spent most of their time rigging to get there, and
|
|
Wookey went down the virgin black crusted mud of Anglia while Lummat started
|
|
rigging a small pitch. They emerged at dawn, having been underground 16
|
|
hours.
|
|
|
|
<p>Everybody was frightened, knackered or at least wet by now, so it was
|
|
decided to have Ali's birthday party as an excuse to have nice food rather
|
|
than bean slop. He and MTS had shown their skills earlier by sharking some
|
|
German girls ("she was at least fourteen, honest") and when trying
|
|
to find their rooms at half past midnight were intercepted by their teachers
|
|
who were awake and sitting in ambush. Some swiftly cobbled together excuses
|
|
about the toilets were mumbled before they scarpered. Since then a party of
|
|
Czechs had shown up, in much improved tents since the previous year. They
|
|
had a collection of even younger girls, which was just the ticket for our
|
|
two intrepid Cassanova's. Ali had to be dragged away to be fed his birthday
|
|
cake and be thrown in the river, and rounded his evening demonstrating his
|
|
newly found prowess at firebreathing (taught by Adam).
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile, Nick was secretly sitting in a corner of the Potato Hut
|
|
writing his <a href="log.htm#drunkrant">drunken ramblings</a>...
|
|
|
|
<p>Then came the New Question of the expo, caused by France being loose and
|
|
Far Too Far being so : "Wookey, can I have a question mark near the
|
|
top, please?". Proponents of this school of caving were primarily
|
|
Anthony, Hugh and DaveG, the others just going along for the ride. Lummat
|
|
and DaveG went down past Arrow Chamber, and Anthony, Hugh and JulianS
|
|
surveyed at the bottom of the second pitch. The latter trip went ok, but
|
|
after Lummat and DaveG's discovery of the "Chunder pitch" series their trip
|
|
started going wrong. Dave has started to feel ill at the top of S'not, and by
|
|
the time he was prussiking up the entrance pitch he lost all strength.
|
|
Hanging aroung on the last rebelay for over an hour, vomiting for around
|
|
twenty minutes, he got dragged out by Lummat eventually. Then there was the
|
|
small matter of it being foggy, dark, and neither of them knowing the path
|
|
back very well.
|
|
|
|
<p>At top camp, JulianS called base camp to tell them a call out had been
|
|
missed - the radios were used at last. Lots of running around was done,
|
|
people who had been drunkenly laughing ten minutes previously suddenly
|
|
claiming they were sober, Ali dragged himself away from the Czech girls and
|
|
a CB was jury rigged into Wadder's van. An hour after the call, they were
|
|
storming up the toll road, Wadder's rambling drunkenly over the radio to
|
|
whoever would listen. With typical caver timing he stood on the jury wire
|
|
and blew the fuse just as top camp sent one final message with 3 zoom
|
|
batteries held together since the main battery was dead : "All Clear at
|
|
top camp". Fortunately, base camp received it, and relayed it to the
|
|
car just in time for Wookey to catch up the rest who were already hurrying
|
|
to top camp.
|
|
|
|
<p>The next day, those unfortunate to be at top camp were treated to rain,
|
|
sleet, mist, drizzle, hail and an over inch of snow. All the cars were hiding
|
|
at base camp, the radios were dead, so they were happy, until Lummat and
|
|
MikeTS went to carry on where Lummat left off before, and they were all able
|
|
to leave in time to miss the real weather.
|
|
|
|
<p>Even CUCC get bored of sitting in the rain. Wookey and Adam were first to
|
|
break, going up to see all the snow on the plateau, and then down to survey
|
|
and derig Gob. On the same day Lummat, Nick and DaveG got to survey "Chunder
|
|
Pitch" series, a cloudy clino having cleared up while prospecting, and
|
|
JulianS, Anthony and Hugh played pushing again. Top camp was still too
|
|
awful, so they left fairly quickly, Anthony minus his socks so his boots wore
|
|
about fifteen little holes in his toes. This combined with his flooded tent
|
|
made him even more dour than usual.
|
|
|
|
<p>France then went deep, changing from big pitches and chambers to a typical
|
|
Yorkshire streamway, with cascades, pools etc. and an awful sump at the
|
|
bottom. Having got suitably wet, team rant felt too keen and zoomed back to
|
|
survey and derig up to Algeria, which is when they found the stuck rope. To
|
|
continue the proud expo tradition of broken feet, Pete blistered his
|
|
prussiking and swore a lot.
|
|
|
|
<p>Because of the amount of caving required to get to the far end, people
|
|
began prospecting around that area of mountain. This yielded nothing except a
|
|
few small shafts, one of which JulianT got stuck in until he was given a
|
|
bolting hammer to make it bigger. So it was time for another long trip. Going
|
|
into the cave was uneventful - the silly rigging was marvelled at, and Wookey
|
|
and MTS were left to set up camp while Lummat and Clive continued Lummat's
|
|
previous rigging. This led nowhere except a pile of mud, so they were sent
|
|
off to survey Anglia (because it's flat and horrible) while the others played
|
|
rigging. Some later they all decided to leave, which was again uneventful
|
|
until Knossos where the queues began. Clive was last, prussiked slowly and
|
|
took a wrong turn at the top of Boulder Alley. By the time he had climbed
|
|
down from his mistake he was knackered, saw what looked like obvious bolts
|
|
and he was lost. Eight hours of shivering later, trying not to fall asleep,
|
|
he decided to look at the bolts, which turned out to be carbide marks, and he
|
|
was in fact just at the top of Boulder Alley. Having confirmed this by
|
|
walking down to the Knossos rope, he set off again and found Poxy pitch, and
|
|
was happy. He was even happier when he met the rescue team (JulianH, Ali and
|
|
JulianS), who gave out food and light when his finally broke.
|
|
|
|
<p>Having made their exit, met by "Tea or Coffee?" and other such
|
|
comforts, the weather broke and it was a collection of miserable wet
|
|
bedraggled cavers who wound their way to base camp.
|
|
|
|
<p>It was so awful everyone hung around in base camp shouting at each other
|
|
about the lack of bolts, slings, sunshine, nice food etc. Then in a break
|
|
from tradition, team rant split up, Petel being sent to the far end with
|
|
Wookey and MTS, and JulianH and Ali taking Anthony (mended at last), JulianT
|
|
(too many bloody Julians...) and Spencer (caving! only 3½ weeks into
|
|
expo) into France to explore Algeria some more. They found "Twin
|
|
Tubs", and sent Spencer down a hole. Upon emerging from this he was
|
|
heard grunting and cursing like a very rude monkey, the tackle sack having
|
|
draped itself in a particularly painful way round his bollocks. Ali and
|
|
Anthony hid behind a boulder "cringing with each wail of pain"
|
|
while the hardier Julians carried on surveying.
|
|
|
|
<p>The first CUCC camp for many a year began that day, the far end trip
|
|
being the fools. A measure of the success of the camp is that the Vesta
|
|
meals were a high point. They intended to sleep in cheap hammocks obtained
|
|
from the Army and Navy stores bolted to the wall. What they actually spent
|
|
their time doing was hanging on trying not to fall out all night and
|
|
consequently got no sleep. Conversely, Wookey, who had approached the whole
|
|
thing in his usual slack manner, borrowing a thermarest on expo and sleeping
|
|
on a ledge, had a wonderful night. The campsite itself was reasonable, at
|
|
Beehive where there is water and not too much wind.
|
|
|
|
<p>Their caving was hampered by losing the Hilti driver on the way in, and
|
|
the expected hand driver which was supposed to be at the end having
|
|
mysteriously disappeared. This meant they spent their time surveying,
|
|
rigging pitches awfully off naturals and going up scrotty holes. Eventually
|
|
this got boring, the mud got everywhere and they weren't going to be able to
|
|
get any more sleep so they left, carrying too many tacklesacks. And yes, it
|
|
was raining again as they emerged.
|
|
|
|
<p>Then up rolled a big van, with the other DaveG (you thought the Julians
|
|
were confusing) who was a teacher at JulianH and Hugh's school. Instead of
|
|
teaching them boring things like German, which would have been useful on
|
|
expo, he took them caving. His redeeming features were fluent German, so all
|
|
the confusing liaising bits could happen, and some tins of meat. His
|
|
contribution to extending Austrian caves was limited to looking at the top
|
|
of KH and deciding to go home again.
|
|
|
|
<p>Seb, who is fat, turned up late too. He brought some sun for Clive's
|
|
birthday party, so was forgiven. Team rant and Hugh took him caving down
|
|
(surprise surprise) France, where despite all their efforts, question marks
|
|
persisted. Then some water came down. It had been dry for almost 36 hours,
|
|
so it had obviously been saving it up - 2½ inches in 15 minutes at
|
|
base camp, flooding it, and Algeria suddenly got wet and windy so they all
|
|
left.
|
|
|
|
<p>Then all that had to be done was derigging. Had everybody spent all their
|
|
time caving this would have been an even longer and more arduous task than
|
|
it was, but fortunately they didn't. JulianT brought an estate car full of
|
|
festering gear with him. The hang gliding was awful all holiday - on his
|
|
last flight he got hassled by a helicopter with a dead cow swinging by its
|
|
neck below - but he and Wookey got to go diving. Robert The Wonder Caver had
|
|
taken up cave diving, so he was able to provide free air and take Julian
|
|
round all the things in Grundlesee put there by a mad local who went there
|
|
too often.
|
|
|
|
<p>Bicycles put in another appearance, Wadders going for the downhill
|
|
record, Clive beating his previous best, and mountain biking on road bikes
|
|
providing diversions. Nobody went up the toll road - it would have been too
|
|
awful! That left the beer festival, which was quite jolly as the Austrian
|
|
cavers gave us a bottle of schnapps, Robert the policeman carefully ignoring
|
|
Clive's protests of "No, I'm driving".
|
|
|
|
<p>So, as is traditional in these things, all came to an end. The caves were
|
|
derigged, Wookey and MTS being superheroes and carrying out six tacklesacks
|
|
betwen them in one trip, then going down the next day for more. Only a
|
|
couple of people were left up the mountain, Anthony with a hole in his knee
|
|
and Spencer carrying a stupid amount of gear, then we got to pack it all
|
|
away. The last day was sunny, and being really dim, we left the campsite
|
|
strewn with bits to pack in the morning. We thought it wouldn't rain,
|
|
because it hadn't all day. What happened? Nothing. "Hooray" we
|
|
went as we went home, all terribly sorry the expo was over and wishing it
|
|
would go on for ever. Or not.
|
|
|
|
<p>The END
|
|
|
|
<p>Cast:<ul>
|
|
<li>Adam "Moose" Cooper
|
|
<li>Ali "Child molestor" Morris
|
|
<li>Andy "Half a caravan owner" Waddington
|
|
<li>Anthony "Dour Yorkshireman" Day
|
|
<li>Clive George
|
|
<li>Dave Galvin
|
|
<li>Dave Gordon
|
|
<li>Hugh "Ninja Caver"
|
|
<li>Julian "Rant" Haines
|
|
<li>Julian Shilton
|
|
<li>Julian "Womanizer" Todd
|
|
<li>Lummat "The Gumby"
|
|
<li>Mike "The Sapling" Pigram
|
|
<li>Nick "Alcoholic" Proctor
|
|
<li>Pete "Doris" Lord
|
|
<li>Seb Holland
|
|
<li>Spencer "Curry Monster" Davey
|
|
<li>Tess "Token Woman" Jones
|
|
<li>Wookey
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<!-- LINKS -->
|
|
<ul id="links">
|
|
<li><a href="http://cucc.survex.com/jnl/1994/index.htm">Table of Contents</a>
|
|
for Cambridge Underground 1994</li>
|
|
<li>1993 Expedition info:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
|
|
<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="bcracc.htm">BCRA Caves and Caving</a> Report</li>
|
|
<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
|
|
</ul></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1993">Published accounts</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition intro page</a></li>
|
|
<li><A href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home page</a></li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|