mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-12-25 09:52:20 +00:00
193 lines
10 KiB
HTML
193 lines
10 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf8" />
|
|
<title>1993: BCRA Caves & Caving report</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<center><font size=-1>CTS 94.2037: BCRA Caves & Caving 63, spring 1994, pp 18-22 [ISSN 0142-1832]</font>
|
|
|
|
<h1>The continuing saga of ... CUCC in Austria</h1></center>
|
|
|
|
<p>In contrast to the (relatively) glorious sunshine of the previous year,
|
|
1993 was mainly a contest with the notoriously fickle Austrian weather,
|
|
although we still found plenty of new cave in KH (about 1.3km). This was
|
|
despite the increasing difficulties involved in getting to the far end, and
|
|
the relatively inexperienced team. Kaninchenhöhle is now more than 10km
|
|
long, and is proving to be a fascinating system. We have great hopes for
|
|
1994.
|
|
|
|
<center><h2>1993</h2></center>
|
|
|
|
<p>It rained. Lots. Every day. For four weeks.
|
|
|
|
<p>The inexperience of most of the expo this year meant that there was some
|
|
question as to whether the cave would be found at all before the
|
|
'experience' arrived after a week or so. The surprise appearance of old lag
|
|
Adam Cooper at the beginning solved this problem, and that of rigging in.
|
|
|
|
<p>France was also rigged quickly, the weather showing its teeth for the
|
|
first time as they exited, running from the lightning all the way back to
|
|
the car.
|
|
|
|
<p>The radio's had been improved with a 50W booster at Basecamp, and a
|
|
proper aerial which allowed us convincing communication to Topcamp at last.
|
|
|
|
<p>A few souls pushed back the inevitable onset of more caving by taking the
|
|
new 200m rope to the big cliff above Toplitzsee shown in last year's
|
|
slideshow. An unnerving approach down the very steep wooded slope was
|
|
followed by the rather disturbing rigging at the cliff edge, and the truly
|
|
horrendous abseil itself. 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 and thoughts of 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.
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile Adam had been taking poor ouigees down to his 1989 question
|
|
mark at the end of Yapate Inlet 'The Final Cut'. It started very tight &
|
|
wet & nasty, but soon opened out giving the 'Gob' series, a gorgeous 52m
|
|
freehang 'Alexander Technique', and a 35m pitch which joined the
|
|
De-Hydration route going down to -420m. The ouigees were severly knackered
|
|
by this deep caving, compounded by light failure, and one vowed not to go
|
|
anywhere with Adam ever again!
|
|
|
|
<p>The 1992 drill battery had been replaced by a much smaller and lighter
|
|
one, still doing about 30 holes. Unfortunately on the first trip to the
|
|
bitter end (Far Too Far), its lid cane off and it fell down the 8m pitch.
|
|
Despite the ammo box now being an extremely strange shape the batteries
|
|
survived. This trip found another 100m of sandy passage leading to yet
|
|
another pitch, and finally rigged the tyrolean traverse across Hyper Gamma
|
|
Spaces that had been bolted the year before. The extraordinarily exposed 18m
|
|
'Strange Acrossfall' replaced the 28m 'Strange Downfall' and 20m 'Strange
|
|
Upfall' pitches by going straight over the top of the huge pit. The trip
|
|
took16hrs.
|
|
|
|
<p>Everybody was frightened, knackered or at least wet by now, so we had
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
<p>A new school of caving was developing - typified by the question 'Are
|
|
there any Question marks near the top, please'. This meant that 'Ignore this
|
|
bit', and some very old (1988) question marks in Arrow Chamber were pushed
|
|
to a conclusion, all going down 30-100m before stopping. One of these trips
|
|
caused a stir when Dave Galvin felt ill and spent an hour on the last
|
|
rebelay of the Entrance Pitch, throwing up for the first 20 mins. The dark,
|
|
cloud, rain and the fact that it was their 1st and 2nd trips to the cave,
|
|
also made it very hard to find their way back to Top Camp.
|
|
|
|
<p>With all this against them they missed their call-out so the radios
|
|
proved themselves useful as the three cavers at Topcamp were able to call up
|
|
those at Base. An hour after the first call, with still no sign everyone
|
|
sobered up rapidly - a CB was wired into Wadders van, and two carfuls of
|
|
cavers zoomed up the mountain. Just as we were driving up, wondering why we
|
|
had heard nothing from Topcamp there was a 'Top camp calling Base camp,
|
|
everything is BZZZZT Fizzle POP'. We had blown a fuse at the vital moment.
|
|
Fettling it at the top we were unable to make ourselves heard but got a
|
|
repeating message from Base saying everything was OK, just in time to stop
|
|
all the pissed would-be rescuers from walking all the way across the Plateau.
|
|
Top camp had suffered a flat battery, and had had to use three Zoom flatpacks
|
|
taped together to broadcast their final 'All OK' message!
|
|
|
|
<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, and the radios were dead, so a break for Base camp was
|
|
made. Eventually, despite the several inches of snow at Top Camp people got
|
|
bored enough to go caving again. 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(-378m). All the other finished stuff
|
|
was surveyed and derigged.
|
|
|
|
<p>Because of the amount of caving required to get to the far end, people
|
|
began prospecting around the area of mountain above the end of the cave.
|
|
This yielded nothing except a few small shafts, so it was time for another
|
|
long trip.
|
|
|
|
<p>Bolts for campsite hammocks were installed, and a ramp pitch 'Axle Stand'
|
|
rigged at the end of 'Black Velvet', leading to 'Further Chamber' with all
|
|
the breeze coming out of the roof. This 9m pitch 'The Needle' was
|
|
freeclimbed to look out onto another big chamber 'Even Further'. About 140m
|
|
of sandy crawly passages, 'Scrofulosity' were also found. The exit from this
|
|
trip also caused problems. Clive was last out at the 30m Knossus pitch. He
|
|
wasn't seen again on the way out, and was assumed to be slow. The others
|
|
staggered back to Topcamp at about 5am, deciding that no sign of Clive by
|
|
8am meant he was definately late. Normally the sun roasts the tents so that
|
|
everyone is forced out of bed by 8am, but this morning it didn't happen (cos
|
|
it was raining) so it wasn't until 10am that Clive's rescue got going. He
|
|
was out of the cave by 3pm, having spent 27 hours underground. He had gone
|
|
the wrong way in Boulder alley, got exposed and then psyched, so sat down
|
|
for several hours until he felt up to another try. After more wandering to
|
|
get his bearings he was making his way out when the rescuers arrived, just
|
|
before his light finally died. He came out to more pouring rain.
|
|
|
|
<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, until with the end
|
|
drawing near the camping trip that had been mooted got underway. All the
|
|
stuff found on the previous trip was surveyed, and the awful angled,
|
|
slippery pitch into Even Further, 'Weasel Pit' rigged. In a stunning display
|
|
of competence they had lost the setter for power drill bolts, and the only
|
|
hand bolting kit was missing its driver, so dodgy naturals were the order of
|
|
the day. Two were sleeping in hammocks, the third on a mudbank. The hammock
|
|
users hadn't tried them before, and after spending a good 45mins getting in,
|
|
they spent all night staring at the ceiling worrying about falling out
|
|
again! Needless to say the mudbank was lovely. Team hammock weren't too
|
|
chuffed so after surveying the remainder of the finds they retreated to the
|
|
surface, coming out in the rain, of course.
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile some more of the leads in Algeria were checked out, finding
|
|
'Twin Tubs', a pair of parallel shafts, one wet one dry.
|
|
|
|
<p>We had 36 hours of not rain (even some sunshine) then a truly incredible
|
|
rainstorm. 3 inches in 20 minutes, turning the place into a river, running
|
|
through people's tents, soaking all the stuff that had just got dry. A trip
|
|
had just reached Algeria when the storm hit. They got very cold & wet on the
|
|
way out.
|
|
|
|
<p>The crappy weather even stopped us festering properly. A couple of people
|
|
borrowed tanks from the Austrians and went diving, and some cycling was
|
|
done, but the Hang-gliding was washed out, although Julian got in a flight
|
|
towards the end, which was somewhat marred by him being buzzed by a
|
|
helicopter with a dead cow hanging from it.
|
|
|
|
<p>So, a less than brilliant year, mostly due to persistently awful weather.
|
|
We still found 1.3km of new cave even though it is getting to be a long, hard
|
|
trip to the far end. More camping may well need to be done in the future. The
|
|
question mark list continues to grow faster than we can tick them off,
|
|
currently at 44. Kaninchenhöhle is now 10,210m long and looks set to be
|
|
a very significant cave. The END
|
|
|
|
<p>Cast:<br> Adam 'Moose' Cooper, Ali 'Child molester'
|
|
Morris, Andy 'Half a caravan owner' Waddington, Anthony 'Dour
|
|
Yorkshireman' Day, Clive George, Dave Galvin, Dave Gordon, Hugh
|
|
'Ninja Caver' , Julian 'Rant' Haines, Julian Shilton,
|
|
Julian 'Womanizer' Todd, Lummat 'The Gumby', Mike
|
|
'The Sapling' Pigram, Nick 'Alcoholic' Proctor, Pete
|
|
'Doris' Lord, Seb "Fatty" Holland, Spencer 'Curry
|
|
Monster' Davey, Tess 'Token Woman' Jones, Wookey
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<!-- LINKS -->
|
|
<ul id="links">
|
|
<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="report.htm">Cambridge Underground report</a></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>
|