mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-11-22 15:21:55 +00:00
178 lines
9.6 KiB
HTML
178 lines
9.6 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf8" />
|
|
<title>1989: BCRA Caves & Caving report</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<font size=-1>CTS 90.1317: BCRA Caves & Caving 49 (Autumn 1990) pp 5-7 [ISSN 0142-1832]</font>
|
|
|
|
<h1>Cambridge University Caving Club<br>
|
|
Underground in Austria</h1>
|
|
|
|
<h3>Daniel Mace & Penny Reeves</h3>
|
|
|
|
<p>Cambridge University Caving Club returned to the Loser Plateau in the
|
|
Totes Gebirge, Austria this summer to continue the exploration of 161
|
|
Kaninchenhöhle. This cave was discovered in 1988 and three routes were
|
|
explored, each down to about -250m. The weather then had been absolutely
|
|
appalling with four weeks of torrential rain. In spite of this about 25 keen
|
|
cavers (including several who had vowed never to return) spent up to five
|
|
weeks in Austria last summer.
|
|
|
|
<p>The two main taregets for exploration were the Left Hand Route and (very
|
|
imaginative these Cambridge students) the Right Hand Route. These were
|
|
reached by descending two exceedingly loose pitches; 'Checkout' and 'Loose
|
|
Bowels'. Rocks dropped from the top of Checkout would tumble all the way
|
|
down to the bottom of Loose Bowels where an awkward squeeze lay immediately
|
|
above an 8m pitch. More of this later. Much of the first week was spent
|
|
attempting to find a bypass to this section of the cave.
|
|
|
|
<p>The most promising potential bypass was found by the club president Jeremy
|
|
Rodgers and the Club barman Mark Fearon. An obvious shaft that descended
|
|
close to the top of Checkout was explored down several pitches. It spiralled
|
|
down tantalisingly close to the Left and Right hand Routes, but
|
|
unfortunately no direct connection was found. This route was named after its
|
|
original explorers: 'Drunk and Stupid'.
|
|
|
|
<p>By the end of the week, Drunk and Stupid had been explored to below 150m
|
|
and the other two routes were rigged down to the limits of exploration. In
|
|
1988 the Left Hand Route was explored to an undescended and apparently
|
|
bottomless pitch: 'Niflheim' - "A realm of freezing mist and darkness under
|
|
one root of Yggdrasall (the world tree) which hell lies within". Exploration
|
|
in the Right Hand Route had ended at two enormous chambers: 'Knossus' and
|
|
'Tower Blocks'.
|
|
|
|
<p>Niflheim was descended and found to be 75m deep and far from bottomless.
|
|
Beyond it was a large fossilised phreas: 'Ragnorok'. From this there were
|
|
several smaller passages and tubes, most of which remain wide open but one
|
|
of which was followed to 'Thumper the Talking Sump' at -310m.
|
|
|
|
<p>Down the Right Hand Route, numerous routes were found leading off the
|
|
large chambers. The most promising of these were the Flapjack Pitches. These
|
|
descended close to a large inlet: 'YAPATE inlet'. They were explored to Bat
|
|
Corner where a bat skeleton was found at a depth of 370m.
|
|
|
|
<p>Morale had been very high during the first few weeks of the expedition and
|
|
a phenomenal amount of work was done including a complete survey of the cave.
|
|
Then disaster struck. Becka Lawson lost control whilst descending through the
|
|
squeeze on a C-rigged Stop and free fell 8m breaking her femur. Fortunately
|
|
there were several people with her and some were dispatched to call out the
|
|
rescue whilst others splinted her leg and began to evacuate her from the
|
|
cave. At this time we had no idea what help to expect from the Austrian Cave
|
|
Rescue or the time they would take to reach her. They were in fact incredibly
|
|
efficient, arriving at the cave entrance within two hours complete with
|
|
medic, mechanical winch, stretcher and helicopter. They met Becka on the
|
|
third pitch where she was transferred to the coffin-like stretcher and hauled
|
|
out of the cave. She was then air-lifted to the local hospital where her leg
|
|
provided valuable out-of-season practice for surgeons more used to treating
|
|
skiing injuries.
|
|
|
|
<p>Morale was low after this accident and very little caving was done for a
|
|
few days. A team of divers (John Cordingley, Mike Thomas, Phil Murphy and
|
|
Andy 'Alien' Goddard) arrived from Britain and kept the expedition amused
|
|
with tales of their exploits. They also took some of the team to a local lake
|
|
for an introduction to diving. Unfortunately the expedition leader managed to
|
|
burst an eardrum whilst underwater leaving us with a second hospital case on
|
|
our hands.
|
|
|
|
<p>The resurgence the divers were looking for in Altausseer See proved to
|
|
consist of thousands of tiny springs flowing up through mud and was hence
|
|
totally impenetrable. The divers did however find a rather interesting bone
|
|
which after close examination proved to be a human humerus. The local
|
|
authorities were informed and they asked the divers to return to the site
|
|
and see if any more of the body could be found. A boot was retrieved with
|
|
the rather nasty remains of a foot inside. At this point the visibility
|
|
deteriorated dramatically, and so no more gory remains were brought to the
|
|
surface. The body proved to be that of a villager from Altaussee who had
|
|
drowned thirty years ago.
|
|
|
|
<p>On the serious side of diving, numerous resurgences were explored in a
|
|
reconnaissance of the area. Alien gained the respect of the Austrian divers
|
|
by descending to -65m in Goldloch. Hopefully underwater exploration will
|
|
continue in 1990.
|
|
|
|
<p>The exploration continued in Kaninchenhöhle. Drunk and Stupid was
|
|
pushed to -240m through a particularly interesting section of hading rift,
|
|
the 'Bacon Slicer'. Down the Right Hand Route, the Flapjack series of
|
|
pitches descended to a sump. After a truly honest piece of surveying this
|
|
was found to lie 499m below the surface, maddeningly close to the half
|
|
kilometre. Several more passages were explored from Tower Blocks and whilst
|
|
a lot of horizontal development was discovered, no new depth was added to
|
|
the system. It is hoped that one of these routes will provide a major
|
|
extension to the cave during the summer of 1990.
|
|
|
|
<p>Just before the end of the expedition, a pushing team down Drunk and
|
|
Stupid found a rope ascending a shaft they had broken into. There was much
|
|
debate and confusion underground. It was decided that the bolts were far too
|
|
good to have been placed by anyone from CUCC (apologies to David Howes!) and
|
|
the rope was far too clean to have been anywhere near the entrance series of
|
|
Kaninchenhöhle. The team concluded that the rope came from a cave that
|
|
was being explored by a group of French cavers in the area. A note was left
|
|
and they departed for Base Camp in a state of great excitement to draw up
|
|
this latest piece of survey in an attempt to find where the French cave
|
|
entered.
|
|
|
|
<p>However, the note was found a few hours later by a group down Niflheim.
|
|
The 'French' rope was in fact the tail end of the Niflheim rope, and the
|
|
mysterious note caused this group even greater confusion. Eventually everyone
|
|
realised that one of the major objectives of the expedition had been
|
|
achieved: the squeeze had been bypassed. Unfortunately, bypassing the squeeze
|
|
via the 'French Connection' involved descending to -250m and then reascending
|
|
to -150m, an undertaking unattractive to even the larger un-squeeze-shaped
|
|
members of the expedition.
|
|
|
|
<p>The time came to detackle and with it a serious deterioration in the
|
|
weather. Top Camp was wiped out by a snow fall, only the ten year old Force
|
|
10 and Juliette Kelly's £2 bargain basement tent remained in one piece.
|
|
Detackling was hampered by a second accident. Becka's boyfriend Chris
|
|
Densham managed to get his rack caught on the rock in the squeeze. In his
|
|
struggle to release himself he fell through the squeeze in a carbon copy of
|
|
Becka's fall. Fortunately he was less seriously injured and the decision to
|
|
self-rescue was made. He was hauled to the surface after seven hours of
|
|
hauling to find mist, sleet and almost zero visibility. For seven hours he
|
|
was carried down the mountain on a makeshift stretcher. It was almost
|
|
impossible to see anything and it was very cold. Eventually he arrived at
|
|
the car park and the most dangerous part of the rescue began: would the
|
|
brakes on Chris's car hold out for the drive down to the hospital ?
|
|
|
|
<p>He arrived in hospital three minutes before Becka was discharged. He
|
|
disappeared into the X-ray room and she was left to sort out how to get a
|
|
car and two injured drivers back to Cambridge. It was later discoverd that
|
|
Chris had fractured his pelvis. A full account of the accident, written by
|
|
the victims themselves, is in the February/March 1990 issue of
|
|
<i>Descent</i>.
|
|
|
|
<p>After this accident there was no time for recuperation. In a mammoth
|
|
effort all the rope was dragged out of the cave and brought off the mountain
|
|
leaving a day and a half for rope washing and reflection. Although two sumps
|
|
were found in Kaninchenhöhle in 1989 there are still several unexplored
|
|
leads (29 at the last count). The system is certainly worth returning to and
|
|
exploration will continue in 1990.
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<!-- LINKS -->
|
|
<ul id="links">
|
|
<li>1989 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>Cambridge Underground Expo Report:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="diary.htm">Diary</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="rescue.htm">The Rescues</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="cavegd.htm">161 Description</a> to date (ie. 1989)</li>
|
|
<li><a href="survey.htm">The 1989 survey</a> of Kaninchenhöhle</li>
|
|
<li><a href="camp.htm">Underground Camping</a> experience in 1989</li>
|
|
</ul></li>
|
|
<li><a href="sumup.htm">1976-89 summary</a> of caves found</li>
|
|
<li><a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
|
|
</ul></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1989">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>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|