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<title>1996: BCRA Caves & Caving report</title>
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title="CUCC in Österreich 1996">
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<font size=-1>BCRA Caves & Caving 75, Spring 1997, pp 19-23 [ISSN 0142-1832]</font>
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<center><h1>CUCC IN AUSTRIA, 1996</h1>
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<h3>by Anthony Day</h3>
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<h2>Introduction</h2></center>
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<p>July 1996 saw the twentieth Cambridge University Caving Club expedition to
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the Austrian Totes Gebirge. Since 1988 these expeditions have concentrated on
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the increasingly complicated Kaninchenhöhle system, whose length stood
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at 14.3km at the start of the expedition. The latter half of the 1995
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expedition had seen many important breakthroughs. There was the surprise
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discovery of major horizontal development ("Triassic Park") with over fifty
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leads and a new, lower entrance, found from the inside. The other important
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leads were at the southern end of the cave where all south going passages
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appeared to be stopped by a fault, which was irritating since the 970m deep
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Stellerweghöhle system was thought to be less than 1km away to the
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south. This southern boundary had been passed in 1995 via a dire boulder
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choke ("Stairway to Hell") to find large passage beyond ("Forbidden Land")
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but the dangerous nature of the choke meant that all concerned were
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determined never to go there again. Finding a bypass for the choke was a
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priority for the 1996 expedition.
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<p>With these exciting prospects, enthusiasm was running higher than for
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several years and forty people made their way to Austria at one time or
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another making 1996 the largest ever CUCC expedition. When the first arrivals
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presented themselves at the Gasthof Staud'nwirt near Bad Aussee on 28th June,
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their first objective was to find a good route to the new 161d entrance
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("Scarface") which had the advantage of offering easy access to most of the
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leads but the disadvantage of being situated in the middle of a cliff. This
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was surprisingly easily achieved, and with the aid of a couple of handlines,
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an acceptable route was soon established and the caving got under way.
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<center><h2>Knossos Connection and Bugger</h2></center>
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At its northern end, Triassic Park divides into two main branches at
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"Trifurcation". One of these branches was explored as far as a 10m climb up -
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"Bugger" - in 1995, which required gear. This was one of the most promising
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leads in the cave, and it was successfully scaled at the second attempt. Our
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hopes of finding miles of train tunnel passageway were dashed however as the
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passage quickly becomes quite small. There is an 80m pitch however, which was
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duly descended and named "Henri's Cat". It was found to lead to further
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pitches of 36m and 60m before ending in a pile of rocks. The bottom of this
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series is very close to the bottom of the Flat Battery series, found in 1990.
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<p>The other main branch ended in a short pitch - "Minoan Surprise" - which
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was found to be very close to Knossos, the largest chamber in
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Kaninchenhöhle. This connection was eventually confirmed, and would
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potentially provide a much easier route to the many leads in the northern
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extremities of the cave which have not been visited since 1993. However,
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with all the easy leads in Triassic Park, the connection was not used in
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this way in 1996.
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<center><h2>Puerile Humour Series</h2></center>
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The start of this series was found on the first day of caving by a party
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who had failed to scale Bugger. They went to look at a horizontal lead to
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the east of Triassic Park near Ring Piece Junction, and found and surveyed
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around 300m of cave with a few moderate leads. A later party went in with
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instructions to complete the survey ("It'll only need a couple of legs") and
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walked into 2km of horizontal cave.
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<p>The Puerile Humour series appears to be a complex network of smaller
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phreatics (typically 3m round) which fed the main trunk route of Triassic
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Park. The main route divides into two, 500m from Triassic Park. The western
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branch - "Where The Wind Blows" - ends in a draughting choke after 170m.
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Significantly, this end of the passage is only about 100m east and 40m north
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of what was previously the north eastern extremity of the cave. There are not
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many high quality leads in Where The Wind Blows but all those that there are
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will be worth thorough investigation in 1997 since this would potentially
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provide an even easier route to the northern end of the cave than the new
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route into Knossos.
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<p>The eastern branch quickly became very complicated. A chamber with five
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ways out, given the inspired title of "Five Ways Chamber" is the key. The
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northern route leads to "Bounce Rift", a 6m deep rift running perpendicular
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to the main passage, whilst east from Five Ways leads to "Completely Loopy",
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a rabbit warren of interconnecting passages. There are significant draughts
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in many places around here. On one day, a party went to explore beyond Bounce
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Rift whilst a second party went to explore and survey in Completely Loopy.
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The first party found a 3m round draughting phreatic which frustratingly
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ended at a strongly draughting choke after 80m. This was thought to be
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promising enough to warrant a quick dig, and after 45 minutes of toil they
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emerged onto the hillside. 161e became the "Yorkshire Pudding" entrance since
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the author of this piece didn't fit through until some more rocks had been
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removed. Ten minutes later, the second party emerged from the second new
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entrance of the day (161f) 100m around the hill, having followed a similarly
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strong draught from Completely Loopy. 161e and 161f are about 25m higher than
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161d and 500m to the north. Neither will be particularly useful for access to
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anywhere other than leads in their immediate vicinity as they suffer from the
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same surface accessibility problems as 161d.
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<p>To the north of 161e is "Iceland" which is similarly draughty and
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contains a number of ice formations, the first that have been found in
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Kaninchenhöhle, and most welcome in a cave which generally lacks
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aesthetic beauty. There are around 40 unexplored leads in the Puerile Humour
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series and Iceland, many of which are very promising.
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<center><h2>Interview Blues Series</h2></center>
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There is a fourth, smaller way on from Trifurcation which leads to the
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Interview Blues Series, so called because one of the initial explorers had to
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return to England after just one trip to attend a job interview. A 25m
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entrance pitch quickly leads to two more shorter pitches, all dropping down
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the same rift. With the cynicism born of several years of pushing similar
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leads only to find that ultimately the rift becomes too small, nobody really
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expected it to go very far. However, by the time we left Austria it had
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descended 250m from Triassic Park via ten pitches and is the third deepest
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point in the cave.
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<p>At the foot of the fourth pitch is a choice of routes: Continuing down the
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impressive 55m fifth pitch, "Application for Life", or heading south down a
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rift passage which opens out onto a large pitch with an aven above. Whilst
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bolting this pitch, a caver was spotted at the top of the aven, and it turns
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out that this was the foot of an undescended pitch in Minoan Surprise.
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Traversing round the pitch leads to a second connected pitch, "Spatial
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Awareness" which was descended. This pitch lands in the same chamber as
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another pitch from Minoan Surprise which had been descended earlier in the
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expedition, the lovingly named "Bottomless Pit of Eternal Chaos" (79m).
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<p>Whilst the pitches are mostly spacious and dry, the same cannot be said of
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the sections of horizontal cave which connect them, which are mostly about
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50cm wide and covered in mud, which makes a trip to the bottom of Interview
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Blues a strenuous affair. However, the caving improves towards the bottom of
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the main route, and the splendid 40m tenth pitch lands in a sizeable chamber
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with half a dozen possible leads. Although many of these were quite wet and
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miserable on the one occasion this area was visited (during a period of
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unsettled weather), there is the prospect of adding more depth to Interview
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Blues, and this exciting prospect means that this area is likely to be
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revisited in 1997.
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<center><h2>Forbidden Land</h2></center>
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Whilst all this cave was being found in the vicinity of Triassic Park,
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various attempts were made to find an alternative route into the Forbidden
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Land by systematically pushing every south going lead in the area. Thus a
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steep climb in the corner of Staud'nwirt Palace was pushed further than it
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otherwise would have before becoming blocked, some people pushed a promising
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lead in Zombie Slime, backing off at a too tight pitch, only to find their
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rope hanging out of the roof back in Zombie Slime, and various other unlikely
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crawls were pushed, all becoming choked or too tight. Eventually there was
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only one lead left in this area, and that was Stairway to Hell, so all the
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people who had vowed never to go there again prepared for another trip, this
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time taking some survey gear.
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<p>In 1995 the passage beyond the choke had been described as having one
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solid wall and one shattered wall, but this turned out to be a big pile of
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boulders in the middle of a huge hading rift chamber, 90m by 30m, named "Hall
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of the Mounting Choss". A phreatic tube - "Pump House" - heads south from
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here, which is of similar dimensions and orientation to the phreatics found
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in France in 1994 but considerably higher up, and is thus thought to have
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been offset by our hypothetical fault. The large passage bears southwest into
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"Elin Algor", ending in a large undescended pitch with aven above, and
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"Tirolia Werke", a westerly trending passage containing a number of phreatic
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ramps. (Incidentally, the grand names of these passages result from a total
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lack of inspiration on the part of the surveyors: Elin Algor is the name of
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the fridge in our base camp hut, and Tirolia Werke is the name of the oven.)
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<p>The usefulness of having a computer and a copy of Survex present in
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Austria was once again demonstrated, as when the survey for this part of the
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cave was included, it was found to be very close to a known CUCC cave,
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Steinschlagschacht, explored in 1983 and 84. Although the details are
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sketchy, it seems that this cave is essentially a 250m deep pitch series in
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which the existence of a number of phreatic ramps has been recorded, similar
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to those found in Tirolia Werke. It also appears to be very loose in places
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and contains an active streamway, so although plans were made to descend
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Steinschlagschacht in the final week of the expedition, it didn't take very
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much rain for those plans to be abandoned. Making the connection will be a
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priority at the beginning of the 1997 expedition.
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<center><h2>Other Finds in Kaninchenhöhle</h2></center>
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Many other leads in Triassic Park were pushed to a conclusion, and a brief
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description of these follows. "Alternative Universe" leads from an undercut
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in the western wall of Triassic Park beyond Shortage of Walls and proceeds
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north as a 7m round passage paralleling Triassic Park for 280m, before ending
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at a short pitch with a tiny rift exiting. This rift is tantalisingly close
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to a larger rift near Ring Piece Junction which was descended in 1996 via two
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pitches - "Tapeworm" (27m) and "Hammeroids" (45m) - before ending in a small
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choked rift. "Dr Snuggles" heads west towards Alternative Universe, past an
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enormous aven before ending at a 6m climb up with black space visible beyond.
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Having failed in an attempt to climb this, one pair ignored all the train
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tunnel leads elsewhere in Triassic Park in favour of hammering out a 10cm
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round hole in the wall until it was passable. Initially it appeared that
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their efforts had been worthwhile as a 100m long body sized crawl emerged
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into huge cave, until they realised they were back at the start of
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Alternative Universe.
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<p>Going the other way from Shortage of Walls, leads to the large "Teapot"
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chamber, visible from Salt Lake City. Two pitches in the far corner of this
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chamber landed in "Rich Tea", a 1994 find in France, thus providing another
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connection from Triassic Park to the older parts of the cave.
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<center><h2>Other Work</h2></center>
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In recent years, much time and effort has been put into collating all the
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available information about CUCC finds in Austria over the last twenty years.
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This work, performed principally by Andy Waddington, revealed many gaps in
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our knowledge. During the 1996 expedition a concerted effort was made to put
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this right, and much time was spent relocating earlier finds and making
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surface surveys to their entrances. To aid this work, for the first time we
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had the use of a GPS which provided reasonably accurate locational
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information for cave entrances that are a long way from a surface survey.
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<p>The steady improvement in the standard of CUCC's underground surveying was
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maintained this year. Even the novices produced high quality work with the
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result that the full survey was completed several months earlier than usual.
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Julian Haines continuing battle to build a reliable radio system for
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communication between our two campsites was more successful than previous
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attempts. We obtained two weeks of reliable communication, and they served an
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important purpose in reassuring base camp that the Stairway to Hell team had
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emerged safely. The photo trip was less successful with five cavers spending
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a very cold five hours standing around while flashguns failed to work. Our
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photographic record of the 1996 finds is thus somewhat sparse, and this will
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need to be rectified in 1997.
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<p>There is still a large backlog of entrance finding and surface surveying
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work to be done, but there is a new spirit of trying to take a more
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systematic approach to prospecting and surveying, which has been achieved
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without compromising the relaxed atmosphere of the expedition. This new found
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efficiency was not much in evidence however when the aforementioned GPS was
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left on top of the mountain at the end of the expedition. Disaster was
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averted when one of our members returned from Slovenia via Austria two weeks
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later and retrieved it.
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<center><h2>Summary</h2></center>
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In terms of the amount of new passage found, 1996 was CUCC's most successful
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Austrian expedition with another 5.5km of passage surveyed taking the total
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length of Kaninchenhöhle to 19.7km. These finds include around 80 new
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leads meaning that once again there are more leads at the end of the
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expedition than there were at the start. Although the depth of the system has
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remained stuck at 498m for a number of years, there is the very real
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possibility that next year the system will get deeper, either by pushing some
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of the leads at the bottom of Interview Blues, or by connecting to
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Steinschlagschacht (which seems extremely likely) whose entrance is a
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princely 11m higher than the highest known entrance to Kaninchenhöhle.
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Enthusiasm is still running high, and the 1997 expedition has much to look
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forward to.
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<p>Most exciting of all however are the possibilities at the southern end of
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Forbidden Land. The northern end of the Schwarzmooskogel Eishöhle is
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believed to be between 200 and 500m away from the new southern extremity of
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Kaninchenhöhle. The Eishöhle is already connected to the Stellerweg
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system, and the major horizontal development in all the systems in the area
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are known to be at similar altitudes, so a connection looks more likely than
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ever. The combined length of the systems would be over 40km, the majority of
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which has been found by CUCC, and the overall depth would exceed 1000m.
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However, such a connection may take a number of years to find given the
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dangerous nature of access to the Forbidden Land, which means it is not the
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sort of the place to send lots of people, especially not people new to
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expedition caving. With over 100 leads remaining in the nicer parts of
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Kaninchenhöhle, this doesn't seem likely to be a problem.
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<hr />
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<!-- LINKS -->
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<ul id="links">
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<li>1996 Expedition info:
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<ul>
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<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
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<li>This <a href="bcra-d.htm">report translated into German</a> (as published in VfHO report)</li>
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<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
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<li><a href="excsrp.htm">Preliminary report</a> (exCS newsletter)</li>
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<li><a href="report.htm">Cambridge Underground report</a></li>
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<li>Wookey's Compass Points <a href="gps.htm">article on GPS usage</a></li>
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<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1996">Published accounts</a></li>
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<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition intro page</a></li>
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<li><A href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home page</a></li>
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</ul>
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