mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-11-25 16:52:00 +00:00
128 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
128 lines
6.7 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
|
|
<html lang="en" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en">
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
<title>1623:76 -- 1970's Route</title>
|
|
</head>
|
|
|
|
<body>
|
|
|
|
<table id="cavepage">
|
|
<tr><th id="kat_no">76 - main a b</th><th id="name">Eislufthöhle</th><th id="status">5/S/E +</th></tr>
|
|
</table>
|
|
|
|
<h1>1970's Route</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p>A further 13m pitch, <b>Saved
|
|
Shaft</b>, into a smaller aven chamber, <b>Boulder Chamber</b>, leads
|
|
to an apparent end, but thrutch through boulders into top of rift/canyon.
|
|
Hole in floor is 32m pitch into <b>Keg Series</b> (no draught) with
|
|
further unexplored pitch below. Continuing traverse leads to climbs
|
|
down then split pitch of 19m and 14m, <b>Follow-through Shaft</b>,
|
|
dropping into side of abandoned canyon. Upstream to the left ends
|
|
immediately while down canyon leads to head of a chamber, The Taproom,
|
|
with a 5m climb down a big boulder under heavy drip/spray (handline
|
|
useful). Also from the head of the chamber, passage leads back to
|
|
a large unexplored hole in floor with lots of water entering from
|
|
a high aven. 1977 terminus at -150m.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>From chamber, scramble
|
|
down in rift (rope useful owing to greasy rock and 120 metre drop)
|
|
to reach head of large rift pitch below jammed boulder. Pitch drops
|
|
in two sections of 10m and 35m, with stream out of reach in canyon,
|
|
to ledge where stream bed is crossed (traverse line). Further pitch
|
|
of 10m leads to straddle climb up to rocking boulder, then traverse
|
|
forward to good belays for 48m pitch. This lands on <b>The Balcony</b>
|
|
where water runs away from obvious way on into a tight immature drain.</p>
|
|
<div class="centre"><a name="hgk" href="l/hotgk.htm"><img src="t/hotgk.jpg"
|
|
width="151" height="116" alt="HotGK.jpg (69k)" /></a><p>Ben
|
|
with the Greene King pennant on the Balcony</p></div>
|
|
<p>From the
|
|
Balcony a 7m pitch drops into the <b>Hall of the Greene King</b>,
|
|
a huge soaring aven chamber. The way on over a boulder floor leads
|
|
under suspended boulders, one of immense size, to a 5m pitch down
|
|
off the edge of a boulder. In the floor is a sharp canyon that loops
|
|
round to a junction. Left leads to <b>Gents' Pitch</b> route, while
|
|
right leads to a dry passage. After a few metres in the dry passage,
|
|
there is a rift in the floor to the left, which is a muddy, broken
|
|
pitch with sections of 3m, 12m and 18m into the main canyon (1978
|
|
route). Another few metres ahead, a bold step across the canyon leads
|
|
to further passage which eventually degenerates and rejoins the main
|
|
canyon upstream (right) of the bold step.</p>
|
|
|
|
<div class="centre"><a
|
|
name="p16" href="l/p16.htm"><img src="t/p16.jpg" width="143"
|
|
height="170" alt="p16.jpg (58k)" /></a> <a href="l/gents.htm"><img
|
|
src="t/gents.jpg" width="143" height="170" alt="Gents.jpg
|
|
(36k)" /></a><p>Julian Griffiths abseiling the 16.5m and Gents'
|
|
pitches on the bottoming trip in 1979</p></div>
|
|
|
|
<p>The 1979 route
|
|
from the junction leads to a pitch of 16.5m, free hanging just clear
|
|
of the wall, with an excellent takeoff. However the rope gets muddy
|
|
from mud on clothing in a couple of trips, so care is required. Next
|
|
drop is the Gents' pitch of 9.5m, which leads to a short streamway
|
|
rejoining the main canyon from the 1978 route. The bottom of this
|
|
pitch is a good place for cavers to perform ablutions with the mud
|
|
on their ascenders, hence the name (all the explorers were male).
|
|
The main passage now leads on with stream in floor and muddy ledges
|
|
above until the <b>Fiesta Run</b> is reached. This awkward slanting
|
|
rift pitch of 28m is so muddy that ladders are <b><i>de rigeur</i></b>.
|
|
The name derives from the car crash which terminated exploration
|
|
at this point in 1978.</p>
|
|
<p>A traverse forward on muddy ledges leads
|
|
out over a huge shaft with the ominous sound of a waterfall below.
|
|
Traversing further eventually leads to a further pitch of 5m to a
|
|
col. Down another 10m on the side away from the main shaft lands
|
|
on a solid floor in an abandoned rift. From a large chamber, a
|
|
short free-climb leads down to an ante-chamber with an interesting
|
|
hole up in the left wall. Forward leads through narrow passage with
|
|
sharp rock to a point where thrutchy descending traversing is necessary
|
|
to make further progress. A 23m broken pitch in sharp rock, with
|
|
very bad rub points leads only to a tight crawl. Only two trips
|
|
reached this point, both with solo explorers well away from their
|
|
backup in the main route. The crawl was pushed only by Julian Griffiths
|
|
on hte first visit, to emerge at a drop with a large aven above,
|
|
which remains unexplored at about -395m depth. This route does not
|
|
appear to carry the draught which is lost before the deep point of
|
|
the main route.</p>
|
|
<p>The main way on, however, is not to traverse onwards, but drop
|
|
back into canyon towards the ominous hiss
|
|
of water in a very wide pitch where the stream seems to have hit
|
|
a fault at right angles to the arriving passage direction. The middle
|
|
section of this 28m pitch is huge, before narrowing to a ledge parallel
|
|
to the new fault, and 'downstream' from the original direction of
|
|
stream flow. From the ledge, a smaller shaft of 33m drops down the
|
|
new fault rift to a boulder floor where the water sinks. The fault
|
|
rift, <b>Madlmeier Schacht</b>, now drops in sections of 24 and 19m
|
|
to the end of the rope in 1979. Here an exposed freeclimb of 5m with
|
|
icy water flowing over the handholds is not really recommended -
|
|
take a longer rope. Next pitch of 24m picks up the main water again
|
|
10m down, and final pitch of 17m from ledge drops to floor of rift
|
|
chamber, but mud on floor precedes final muddy 10m pitch down a boulder
|
|
wall to a deep and terminal rift sump at -506m. This whole bottom
|
|
section is steamy and it is clear that the draught was lost some way
|
|
above.</p>
|
|
<p><a name="penult"
|
|
href="l/penult.htm"><img src="t/penult.jpg" width="123" height="184"
|
|
alt="Penult.jpg (87k)" class="aligntop" /></a> Simon Farrow on
|
|
the last 17m pitch of Madlmeier Schacht</p><p><a href="l/sump.htm"><img
|
|
src="t/sump.jpg" width="121" height="187" alt="Sump.jpg (37k)"
|
|
class="aligntop" /></a> Julian Griffiths at the final sump - 1979</p>
|
|
<p>There
|
|
are a number of going leads in this cave and you're welcome to them.</p>
|
|
|
|
<!-- LINKS -->
|
|
<hr /><ul>
|
|
<li><a href="76.htm">Back to 76 index page</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../plateau.html#id76">Plateau area index and description</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../indxal.htm#id76">Full Index of 1623 Caves</a></li><li><a href="../../areas.htm">Other Areas</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition Intro page</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition Intro page</a></li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
<!-- /LINKS -->
|
|
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|