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<h1>Expo 2025</h1>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-28a">2025-06-28</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck Blake</u>, Alice Kirby, Hamish Weir, Jonty Pine</div>
<div class="triptitle">Basecamp - Basecamp begins</div>
Arrived at basecamp ~4:15am and promptly set up tents and went to sleep. Retrieved tatty hut key from the gasthof first thing in the morning, where it was confirmed that taped-off area along the East side of the basecamp field/parking lot has been set aside for camping, rather than parking, meaning we have more space this year!
<p>

Alice and Jonty then went for a mega shop whilst Hamish and I began unpacking the loft.
<p>

Charlotte, Harry, Hannah C, and Chris arrived, shortly followed by the return of Alice and Jonty, finally getting us up to the eight people apparently required to successfully set up the bier tent.
<p>

Alice and I (successfully) tested the Blue Box's number plate on the toll road, then returned to basecamp to admire the now completed bier tent, which shortly thereafter facilitated the frying of 2025's first batches of basecamp chips, shortly before Russell and Joel.
<p>
Evening came, accompanied by some splashing around in the river and much packing of top camp bags. Jonty got the tatty hut wifi working shortly before Dan and Dylan arrived by train. No Ella in sight, however, as she became separated from them during a particularly faffy train changeover, and is now due in an hour later. Lara and Hannah UG due by car past midnight.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-28b">2025-06-28</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ella marcovitch</u>, Dan gorst, Dylan wase</div>
<div class="triptitle">Base camp - Arrival!</div>
A nice late morning start of 5.10am to St Pancras International allowed a wonderful night’s sleep (3 hrs). This was followed by Eurostar to Brussels, a train to Frankfurt, and a train to Linz, with all going well.
<p>
 Then we arrived at Linz, with dan and Dylan exiting the train. Ella however, was hit with the most egregious faff ever seen. And then suddenly, the beep of the train, the rising of the step, the closing of the doors…and the train rolled away with Ella onboard. RIP.
<p>
After, a slightly mad panic and laughs at the nightmare of a situation, it was worked out that Ella could get the LAST train to Bad Aussee.
Thankfully, all worked out, with us arriving in two groups after 18hrs and 19hrs. This was followed by some unsuccessful putting up of tents in what felt like a car park, but a good night’s sleep despite the tent looking like an old man’s ball bag.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-29a">2025-06-29</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck Blake</u>, Alice Kirby, Charlotte Payne, Chris Densham, Hamish Weir, Hannah Collings, Harry Kettle, Joel Stobbart, Russell Woodger</div>
<div class="triptitle">Topcamp - The most efficient topcamp setup you ever did see</div>
[Written about a week later as the original version of this report was lost to the depths of the website]
<p>
At the ungodly hour of about 7:15am, we set off from basecamp, yawning and tollroad-bound. The weather was absolutely sweltering, and we made sure to lather ourselves with suncream and stock up on water. Chris, Harry, and Hannah were first on the trail to the col, whilst the rest of us faffed a bit. And then up the hill we went! We soon reached Stoneybridge, having made sure to reflector the plateau monster on the way (red eyes to instil appropriate levels of deference). Due to an incredibly efficient chain of hands, the storage cave was emptied within an hour of our arrival, and focus shifted to setup beneath the bridge. Chris oversaw rigging of the first water tarp, and the tarp support was set up during a lengthy process which consisted of many dismissed ideas and scrutinisation of several old topcamp photos, before the decision was made to just wing it and lattice stuff to death. This resulted in a lovely, 'novel' setup which we decided would be sufficient, partially because it looked super cool and partially because it was getting late and we were craving basecamp chips. After setting up the second water tarp, we headed down the hill, partially reflectoring the route on the way. I say partially because it turns out the reflectors left at basecamp (which we'd assumed were the reflectors taken off the col-topcamp walk at the end of last expo, and had taken up with us) did not in fact exist in sufficient quantity to reflector the route, and also a fair chunk of them were white on both sides. It's likely these were spares, rather than ones taken off the plateau last year.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-30a">2025-06-30</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dan</u>, Ella, Hannah C, Harry</div>
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - Plateau and Homecoming - Tiring 1st expo plateau walk</div>
A nice early start of 7am allowed us to make it to the car park in good time, with some expert rally driving up the toll road by Alice. The views from the plateau are beautiful, and as the morning sun awoke, we made our way up to Homecoming for our day's plans.
<p>
During the walk up to Homecoming, we found a few promising holes that we thought would be worth prospecting further in a few days. Once at Homecoming, we donned our caving gear, and Ella rigged the first 3 pitches. This then allowed us to haul the ~1.2 km of rope out of Homecoming, which was left in a nice pile under a tarp to be transported to top camp the following day.
<p>
A rather tiring walk from Homecoming to Top Camp with caving gear and some rope was then done - rather exhausting in the heat of the day. The cool offered from the top camp tarp was enjoyed by the party, and noodles and a yap to the other groups offered a nice break from the long day's walk.
<p>
Finally, a nice stroll down from top camp - 18 kilos lighter this time - allowed us to get back to the car park and bottom camp in good time to enjoy Becka's delicious risotto.
<p>
A very fun but tiring first experience of the plateau. It is hard to imagine what the plateau is like to someone who has never been before, but it is far sharper than I imagined. It felt a bit like what I imagine the surface of the moon would be like, just with more gravity and less spacesuits :( Same lack of aliens though, unless we find them down the promising holes we saw on our walk.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 3.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-30b">2025-06-30</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dyl</u>, Mark D</div>
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - All roads lead to KH</div>
<p>
Given the option of either bimbling up the plataeu to help setup top camp or the gruelling task of pulling up hundreds of metres of old rope out of homecoming, I decided to choose the former option as a nice introduction to expo. Once we arrived at top camp, I dumped all my kit in my Bivi in a (hopefully) non drippy area and looked out for tasks to help out with.
<p>
Mike suggested preemptively scouting out the route to KH as a group would be returning the next day, so I happily agreed to help out. Heading south east we plodded along, missing the Grike (as we were instructed to follow), arriving at a bunda forest. With no obvious way around we plowed though, popping out and carrying on following a path along the right edge of the plateau. After a considerable amount of time we realised we had messed up and headed far too south east. To remedy we turned sharply and followed straight in the direction of KH, which caused us to wade though a sea of bunda, do a fair amount of scrambling and scale the side of a cliff like mountain goats. To our annoyance the GPS coordinates were about 10m off the actual location of the cave, which cost us a lot of time waking and climbing in all directions trying to find the damn entrance. I found a window into the main entrance which allowed me to clap like a mad person whilst Mark searched for the actual entrance.
<p>
Eventually it was found, and we headed back with more or less the same difficulties that we had on the way here.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-30c">2025-06-30</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Jonty</u>, Joel, Julia K</div>
<div class="triptitle">Reflectorist - Finding Reflectorist</div>
<p>After spending the morning walking up to top camp and tarp-fettling, we set off after lunch with the task of reflecting the route to Balcony within an inch of its life. We aimed to search for pastures new after completing this task. Due to our extreme diligence, however, the search manifested less chronologically favourably than planned. Unperturbed, the B-team of Bonty, Bulia and Boel set off from Balcony with expectations of great cave.
<p>
<p>Much like Columbus, the B-team took to naming parts of the plateau that had already been discovered, such as Japanese Garden and New Stoney Bridge. They soon found themselves looking across a vast expanse of bunde, which according to the entrances map had not been explored. From the viewpoint we had, there were some promising looking holes in sight across the valley. Unfortunately, due the unrelenting march of time and the distance in question, we had not time to investigate further. Instead we agreed to loop back around towards Balcony in order to make our way back. During a routine pincer manoeuver through some bunde, Boel stumbled across a hole in the ground - much to the excitement of the group. Given the proximity of the hole, it was decided that the B-team would drop it immediately as it was probably the next big thing.
<p>
<p>Having cunningly packed bolting gear, including the new-to-expo Petzl Pulses, the top of the entrance pitch was soon bolted (following some scrutiny of the bolts' documentation booklet). The entrance proceeded down a shallow rift encircled by bunde before plummeting into a 10m shaft which could be traversed to a flatter patch of plateau beyond. Rigging was initiated from the far side of the hole i.e. the bunde direction, before a y-hang allowed descent of the pitch. Both Boel and Bonty bravely bottomed the beast, discovering a further pitch scores of meters deep which resonated with every rock despatched into its depths. With excitement building but time running short, it was decided to draw things to a close and return another day with sufficient equipment and people power to properly survey the passage and install further rigging. The B-team wrapped up and headed back via Balcony to convey the good news to the others at top camp.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 1.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-30d">2025-06-30</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck</u>, Alice, Hamish, Russell</div>
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - A song for the way home</div>
<i>Oh the expo time is coming
<p>
And the snowplugs are quickly melting
<p>
And the wild plateau chives
<p>
Grow around the blooming bunde
<p>
Will you go, Wookey, go?
<p>
<p>
And we'll all go together
<p>
To pull wild plateau chives
<p>
All around the blooming bunde
<p>
Will you go, Wookey, go?</i>
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-01a">2025-07-01</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck Blake</u>, Alice Kirby, Becka, Joel Stobbart, Jonty Pine, Julia Kikel</div>
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - Rope ferrying - Homecoming to Topcamp</div>
The mission: ferry over 1km of rope (plus some other gear) between Homecoming and Topcamp.
<p>
The hope: to be done with this early enough to go and push Joel, Jonty, and Julia's newly discovered cave SE of Balkon: 'Reflectorists'.
<p>
<p>
We set off up the hill along with Harry, Hannah, Ella, and Hamish, with Becka and Chris a little ways ahead. At the col we parted, with the latter two walking to Topcamp and the rest of us heading straight towards Homecoming. On the way we passed many very enticing holes, most of which had been logged in 2023 but not dropped. The plateau along that walk is practically swiss cheese!
<p>
<p>
Upon arrival at Homecoming, we had a break and some flapjack before packing rope (and a few bolt hammers and through bolts) whilst Harry, Hannah, Ella, and Hamish headed up to Garlic Camp to collect useful gear. We managed to take the majority of it, but there was still a considerable amount left.
<p>
<p>
We then set out across the plateau towards Topcamp, the sun absolutely sweltering hot, but very fortunately obscured intermittently by clouds.
<p>
We had a break at Fishface, spending awhile enjoying the cold breeze in the entrance. After saying hi to Becka, who was on her way to Homecoming to pick up more rope, we started back on the path.
<p>
<p>
This section of the walk felt like it went much quicker, since most of it was taken up by Joel and Jonty trying to remember all the many sections of the path they'd named on previous expos.
<p>
<p>
It wasn't until we got to the top of Mount Densham that Joel realised he'd lost his phone. We feebly attempted to locate it on google maps, but all this told us was that he was as Basecamp 13 hours ago, and we determined it had no signal by attempting to send it whatsapp messages. After a little discussion, we determined it had most likely been lost around Fishface, since it was the last place we'd stopped. Joel and I dumped our bags and headed back to Fishface whilst the others continued on towards Topcamp.
<p>
Oh my god, walking across the plateau is SO much nicer without a bag. You can jump!!! It was a lovely walk back, and we found Joel's phone almost instantly in the entrance to Fishface, propped against a wall. I refilled my now emptied waterbottle with some snow from the meagre snowplug at the entrance, then we headed back to our bags and onwards to Topcamp. Once we got back, we dumped rope and had some food. The Garlic Camp group arrived, having also taken some rope back from Homecoming.
<p>
<p>
Given that it was already around 2, and Julia needed to be down the hill for her train at 8, and Jonty had injured his ankle, we decided to head down the hill early, unfortunately abandoning our hopes of pushing Reflectorists for another day. We substituted Joel for Ella, as Joel was planning on sleeping at Topcamp, and started on our way.
<p>
<p>
The walk down went smoothly, but was incredibly hot. We passed Becka on the way back, who had managed to take the last of the rope back from Homecoming, leaving only the drum of metalwork there. After sweating through the rest of the walk, we finally returned to the carpark, did a quick shop, then headed to the lake via Basecamp for a very lovely and refreshing evening.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-01b">2025-07-01</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Lara</u>, Chris Densham, Hannah U</div>
<div class="triptitle">Balkonhohle - How many cavers does it take to find Mongol Rally?</div>
Chris, Hannah and I set off at the horrible hours of the morning that the toll road requires with the task of rebolting and rigging Mongol Rally. After a long walk to Top Camp and a lot of faff we finally got going at 12:15. The walk to Balcony is definitely not half an hour (despite what Jono says) and so we got underground around 1:30 keen to get out of the heat.
<p>
We did some fettling of the entrance series to prevent rub. One deviation still needs adding - a spit is already there a third of the way down the big pitch on the true left.  Hannah did what she called ‘back seat rigging’ shouting up suggestions of what to edit.
<p>
We set off with confidence at the bottom of the pitch and immediately got lost. Luckily Chris’ memory and Hannah’s vibes ensured we didn’t go down any wrong passage for too long. I had unhelpfully fuzzy memories of every passage. This pattern continued, taking up quite a lot of time until the rope washing station.
<p>
<p>
Here it was packing more packing and trying to avoid mud unsuccessfully. Armed with three disgustingly heavy bags on top of our own we continued, and Chris regaled us with tales of expos past until we eventually found Honeycomb. I did my best to fall down a big hole by going straight at the last tuning but thankfully failed.
<p>
We zoomed down some very slippy ropes and Hannah nearly died on her simple multiple times (her words). And got to the crawl before Mongol Rally around 6:30
<p>
Here my true motivations became apparent: I had stuffed my tackle sack with a crowbar , a few spoons and a mess tin with the goal to win a fight with the crawl. Unfortunately by this point psych was low and we were all worried about how long the way in had taken us. Deciding we’d still been helpful in carrying the bags, we left them at the top of Mongol Rally for others to rig. In order of closest to the pitch to furthest they were: blue (three small ropes), green (two big ropes, one thick) and blue (one spare very big rope). There’s also a drill, hangers and maillons.
<p>
Wanting to at least have a token dig I spent 5 minutes whacking the crawl to surprising progress! It’s wider and was easy to dig. For the good of the collective others are required to give at least three whacks with the crowbar as they pass by.
<p>
Annoyingly the way out took no time at all. Some lovely prussiking and good caving and we were at the bottom of the pitch series in a few hours. We left some cairns in the hope others won’t struggle with nav as much as we did. Hannah blasted some music on a very fucked (although new) cave speaker for motivation for the last prussik and we emerged around 10.
<p>
On the walk back an ominous voice shouted to us over the plateau and we managed to ask Joel to put the kettle on from 15 minutes walk away. A lovely day out.
<p>
Written with additions from Hannah.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 8.5 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-02a">2025-07-02</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ella</u>, Alice</div>
<div class="triptitle">Balkonhohle - A Tackle with Bags</div>
After about 6 of us deciding to go up to the plateau on a probably needed rest day, a wobbly struggle up to top camp ensued. The aim for today was for Me and Alice to take down as much communal camping gear to the top of Mongal Rally as we could fit, while Joel, Jonty, Duck and Becka went to their newly found cave, Reflectorists.
<p>
We managed to pack three sleeping bags, four mats and a tent between us. A comical tug of war between moving forward, and being dragged down by our massive bags proceeded on the way up to balcony. At the balcony, me and Alice reveled at the coolness of the draughty shade, after a very sweaty walk, and finally regained the energy to cave.
<p>
Following closely in the footsteps of Lara Hannah and Chris from the previous day, we made sure to get a tad lost on the way to Honeycomb pitch from the bottom of the entrance series. Alice's memory led us most of the way, apart from one sneeky left turn which missed, leading to a lot of fun snooping around incorrect passages and dumping bags in inconvenient places. After a very exited sighting of the promised three dead bats (which looked more like boney spiders), we were finally sure to be enroute.
The bags where left at the end of the tight crawl before Mongal Rally, and a good riddance to the extra weight and seamless ascent followed.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 6.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-02b">2025-07-02</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Jonty</u>, Becka, Buck, Joel</div>
<div class="triptitle">Reflectorist - Revisiting Reflectorist</div>
<p>Having the previous day decided he was definitely taking a rest day today, Jonty ascended the hill to explore Reflectorist with Buck, Joel and Becka. This was following a long day the previous day of Basecamp -> Homecoming -> Top Camp -> Basecamp, and a mildly sprained ankle. Jonty was then again personally victimised by the plateau, despite having consistently bowed to the plateau monster on passing. Sometimes the will of the plateau monster is indecipherable by lower minds. Fortunately, Doctor Alice Kirby was on hand to apply magic cream to the scrapes - a nice change for her as Jonty did not try to kick or spit on her (being neither a llama nor in danger of castration).
<p>
<p>Soon the group reached Stone Bridge and gathered supplies - including some flapbuck and jelly snakes - which Becka insisted she would never stoop so low as to eat. The Reflectorist team set off with the Balcony supply team, who were somewhat overencumbered with Balcony supplies. They had taken differing approaches to bag carrying, Alice carrying one backpack stacked onto the other, and Ella with a second bag hanging off her waist in front of her. There were advantages and disadvantages to each strategy, but neither was optimal. Alice's method ultimately ruled superior when Ella's rucksack chest strap ceased to perform both its task of suspending her second bag from itself, and being a chest strap.
<p>
<p>Having made it to Balcony with no other predictable events occurring, Buck, Becka and Joel lent a hand to Alice and Ella to get their bags onto the Balcony balcony. Jonty decided to scoot down the far side of the hole underneath to replenish water bottles from the snow plug, predicting continuation of the sweltering 30 degree midday sun. The group was soon underway again, attempting to follow the recorded return track from the previous prospecting trip to The Reflectorist. There were multiple route prospects so the group decided to execute a pincer movement to find the best route. Buck and Jonty's pincer involved some slightly tricky moves, but they still proudly reached the convergence before the other pair, who almost definitely had chosen the better route. The cave entrance was finally reached, despite Becka's worries that the original prospecting team had forgotten where it was.
<p>
<p>Jonty and Joel descended the first pitch to start paving the way, while Buck and Becka stayed top-side to calibrate the Distox and SAP6 that had been brought. Jonty and Joel spent the next hour gardening the bottom of the first pitch and top of the second pitch until it reached a state they were brave enough to descend. This involved some quite intensive manhandling of numerous large and small rocks, and some enthusiastic hammer blows. They then called up to the surface team who called back that they had not yet started the survey but had heard some very large rumblings coming from the floor. Soon, however, they were shooting their first legs and Jonty was on the way down the second pitch of the cave. About 10 metres further down, he encountered another ledge that took an additional half hour to garden, and a skyhook to drill a well-placed deviation. He then continued down the rope onto a boulder choke that unfortunately spelt the end of the cave. Of course the whole group was saddened by this news, but Becka decided this was a good excuse to start bodging some survey data.
<p>
<p>Joel, on his inspection of the bottom of the cave, found a skeleton that he claimed to be rodent-like and then professed to be a Gemse. Its true origins remain a mystery though, perhaps even being some kind of proto-human. Nevertheless, Jonty and Joel began an ascent from the killed-off pit, reaching the surface to again be greeted by the glaring sun, with Buck following close behind and Becka shortly after, having helpfully derigged the cave. She did however express her surprise about how easily the Petzl Pulse anchors could be removed.
<p>
<p>While Becka tidied her things away, Buck led Jonty and Joel to a nearby hole that he and Becka had found while meddling with the survey devices. The hole - 2005-06 - had been tagged but never dropped, as far as the group could discern. Given the groups existing presence with cave-dropping gear, a crack team of Joel was sent to check the cave, with Becka's instructions to perform a 'quick and dirty' operation. He performed some impressive bolting maneouveres and after only an hour reached the floor, 15 meters below, having dropped Jonty's safety glasses down the cave twice. Unfortunately this cave proved, again, to not be the one that would cement these CRESH members' spots as big-cave-discoverers - "2005-06 description: 15m pitch to a too tight continuation". Serendipitously, there was another snow plug at the bottom of this cave, which the group sent water bottles down for Joel to fill with, despite their earlier chiding remarks of Jonty's superfluous snow plug excursion, and his soon-after vindication when they tasted the icy goodness of his drink on this 30 degree day.
<p>
<p>Joel was soon prussiking up the pitch with the ice bottles, where he reached the super short deviation, made of 2 carabiners, that Jonty had helpfully suggested he use when the sling he had had been going to use was too long. Unfortunately, Jonty's suggestion had made the deviation too deviating and very difficult to pass, causing an ensuing kerfuffle. There were various suggestions and gear sent down to Joel over the next 10 minutes, but he eventually unstuck himself with a cordelette 3:1, a microtraxion and a knife. Becka commented that she had never seen anyone quite as strung up as he had been. 2 hours after initiation, this quick and dirty operation had certainly succeeded in achieving one of those criteria, but Becka who had previously been getting very impatient had been cheered up by watching Joel try to escape his fate. This also meant the walk home would now be less hot and sunny than it would have been before the extra project.
<p>
<p>The group decided that they would take the 'brave and direct' route back, which they decided would probably exist. There was an early, failed pincer movement, which resulted in a somewhat one-sided pincer when Joel had to solo backtrack his route which the other 3 had decided didn't look as promising. The group then discovered some promising looking holes that, when passed in previous years, had been snow-plugged, and may warrant further investigation. The route finally appeared from above top camp, with a last bit of bunde bashing before they emerged and finally could rest.
<p>
<img width=80% src="/expofiles/photos/2025/JoelStobbart/reflectorists-rigging-topo.jpg">
<div class="timeug">T/U: 4.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-03a">2025-07-03</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>balister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - My Day 1</div>
I drive in on July 2, and immediately tinkered with meshtastic nodes so they could start going up the hill. Weather looked good for Thursday early, so I packed a bag to take the drone and the Meshtastic node for the Col up the hill.
<p>
After placing the Col fixed node and poking around I realized the remote admin key I used was for a node at home. I fixed this in the Col node and it needs fixing in all the nodes up the hill :( Another observation is I am not seeing position reports. So a few mesh things to do around base camp.
<p>
Next I flew the drone. The shitty closed source DJI control program made me login before it would let me fly. This was a bit awkward finding a place on the plateau I had enough data to actually create an account and login. Once I completed these tedious sets I launched the drone. I flew around quite a bit trying to take overlapping photos to examine at the tatty hut over beer. It is hard to see details on the phone used to control the drone. Then I took some photos of the team that came down the hill with Harry to go caving.
<p>
After recovering the drone I went to say the cave Harry found, just off the track to Garlic Cave. Yep, I've looked down it also. After they started down, I flew the drone around and took some more downward looking photos. The wind was building and storm clouds were building, so I recovered the drone and headed down the hill.
<p>
During all this I ran across 1976, 1623/198 (Maybe t198 in QField). The position in QField seemed a bit off, but I haven't worked out distance measuring in QField yet. The cave description https://expo.survex.com/1623/198/198.html suggests they found rock choke, so no hope of melting snow leading to new discoveries.
<p>
At this point, I hurried off the plateau and just beat the rain back to the car park. When I neared the car park the cable car wasn't running, but it was running again by the time I made it down.
<p>
Finally, I can complete my tedious basecamp paperwork!
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-04a">2025-07-04</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Becka</u>, Charlotte, Russell</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Rigging Knossos and reaching Staircase 36</div>
We got to Knossos in short order and Russell bolted the traverse line along the left wall to access the pitch head (3 bolts?) then Charlotte bolted the pitch itself (single bolt then Y-hang at the top then a Y-hang about half way down, around the corner?). There is an area of horribly loose rock at the start of the pitch. We then had a surprisingly straightforward stomp to Staircase 36, with Becka rigging the bad step down to the base of the Staircase 36 pitch (natural then 2 bolts) and Charlotte putting in a bolt for the awkward climb shortly before this step (one bolt; on July 9th Harry adding a second bolt immediately before to make a traverse line to protect the teeter around on crumbling stones). We again ran out of time as we wanted to get back to Base Camp that evening so we left rope to rerig Staircase 36 and headed out.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 6.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-04b">2025-07-04</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dyl</u>, Mark D</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - All roads lead to KH</div>
Given the option of either bimbling up the plataeu to help setup top camp or the gruelling task of pulling up hundreds of metres of old rope out of homecoming, I decided to choose the former option as a nice introduction to expo. Once we arrived at top camp, I dumped all my kit in my Bivi in a (hopefully) non drippy area and looked out for tasks to help out with.
<p>
Mike suggested preemptively scouting out the route to KH as a group would be returning the next day, so I happily agreed to help out. Heading south east we plodded along, missing the Grike (as we were instructed to follow), arriving at a bunda forest. With no obvious way around we plowed though, popping out and carrying on following a path along the right edge of the plateau. After a considerable amount of time we realised we had messed up and headed far too south east. To remedy we turned sharply and followed straight in the direction of KH, which caused us to wade though a sea of bunda, do a fair amount of scrambling and scale the side of a cliff like mountain goats. To our annoyance the GPS coordinates were about 10m off the actual location of the cave, which cost us a lot of time waking and climbing in all directions trying to find the damn entrance. I found a window into the main entrance which allowed me to clap like a mad person whilst Mark searched for the actual entrance.
<p>
Eventually it was found, and we headed back with more or less the same difficulties that we had on the way here.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-04c">2025-07-04</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>balister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">basecamp - Nerding with drone photos</div>
After collecting some drone photos the day before, the question was wtf to do with them. So, I start googling. After a bit I found <a href="https://opendronemap.org/">Open Drone Map</a>. After a bit of hacking (the docker line on the website didn't work) I managed to created some geotiffs that stitched together the photos I made with the drone. This was much better than flipping though individual photos and trying to work out the context. The results were very exciting! I will try to remember to upload to the expo website!
<p>
After some hard nerding, I packed up and headed to top camp with the drone for some more drone flights.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05a">2025-07-05</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>balister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - Placing Meshtastic nodes</div>
After arriving at top camp the evening before and having a lovely curry meal. I slept and woke refreshed and ready to go. I had an OK but not glorious trip to the grike, I headed toward KH to drop a meshtastic node to provide coverage over the back of the plateau so KH trips have good meshtastic coverage. A suitable location was located and the node placed. (insert photo later).
<p>
I returned to top camp and picked up the final surface node and the drone and headed toward Balkon. On the high points between Stone Bridge and Balkon, after some faffing around contemplating line of sight an things, the last node was placed by the path.
<p>
At this point I transitioned into drone pilot.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05b">2025-07-05</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>balister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - Droning on ...</div>
After setting the meshtastic node to bridge Balkon to Stone Bridge, I turned left into a valley full of short shafts that did not look promising. I flew the drones a couple of times to collect sets of photos to build larger maps. At the third site, I found a lovely shaft leading to an offset drop and that had a draft in the entrance. I became very excited. I failed to attract the nearby prospectors, likely since they could see the cliff of bunda between them and I. At this point I flew the drone with more focus on hunting the plateau party (and failing), some sight seeing, and an attempt at mapping. After the drone landed, I found a tag 2004-10. (Originally reported as 2014) My US based assistants found this: <a href"https://expo.survex.com/1623/2004-10/2004-10.html>2004-10</a>
<p>
I tried descending to the prospecting party, but ended up cliffed out in bunda. I returned to top camp via the way I came.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05c">2025-07-05</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ash</u>, Mark D</div>
<div class="triptitle">161 - KH to Staircase 36</div>
KH to staircase 36
Mark and I (Ash) set off for a productive trip in KH with the intention of learning the route and progressing the rigging at the end of the cave. GPX’ed the route to the entrance, having finally finessed the cairns and reflector-ed route to the entrance (161h). At the cave around 10am , perhaps the most efficient start yet. Progress through Iceland and onwards was efficient up to Amyl nitrate. At this point we somehow managed to confuse ourselves and think we’d reached Triassic park (when we hadn’t!). Ensue half an hour of wandering uo and down the southern branch of Triassic Pak being confused , before working out we wouldn’t find Knossos junction here!. We eventually figured it out, passed through the northern section of Triassic and onto to Knossos. The pitch rig was not great -perhaps more work needed here. But den into the massive chamber. Well worth visiting, 1000 lumens ais not sufficient to see the opposite wall. From here was straight forward to YAPATE and on to the bottom of staircase 36. From here Mark settled into the bothy whilst I cautiously climbed the staircase rope. Rebolted and roped, still not a great rig, a rubby beached whale rebelay at the top. Mark removed old rope, leaving in a foot loop. I began rigging a traverse at top to bridge between runnel leads pitch, still more work required here. Turned around and managed to get lost in tower blocks (massive passage wandering in circles). Rest of exit was efficient. 7 hours underground and dry exit. Slow walk back across plateau.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 7.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05d">2025-07-05</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ella</u>, Buck, Hamish, Joel, Lara</div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - How short can shorts get</div>
After parting ways with a Balcony group, the prospecting team headed west, into what was christened the ‘Valley of Death’.  Only a few minutes in, holes galore appeared around us. Noting down various dead ended shafts, including three bomb shaped holes in a line named ‘Bombordino Crocodino’ at [33T 411503 5283163], Lara pointed to a more promising looking entrance, ‘Oregano Hohle’ [33T 411480 5283183]
<p>
A slightly ungraceful survey performed by Buck and Ella followed; including a minor mishap involving a rock, Ella above a loose climb, and Buck’s poor knee. The cave started off as a 5m walk, and then a 3 meter climb down into a crawl going back on itself for another 3 meters before it chokes.
<p>
Meanwhile, Lara and Joel began an abseil into a more exciting looking hole nearby [33T 411454 5283151] ‘Ghast Hohle’, another wide hole with a promising looking section after the obvious bottom. Great frustration followed after Joel sighted evidence of previous bolting, yet no evidence has yet been found referencing this online.
<p>
And so our journey continued. A ‘pincer’ approach was adopted for dropping into the next valley, where the team of Joel and Buck followed the left, and Ella, Lara, Hamish traversed towards the right. We met in a valley below, exchanging many tales of immensely draughty holes that lead nowhere found en route.  Three came of note. A snow plugged shaft of about 2 by 2 meters, with an obvious natural above [33T 411166 5283242]. Another Joel found: a strongly outwards drafting shaft with an overhang above, at least 5m deep but snow plug obscures continuation, but does not block the whole shaft [33T 411160 5283056]. ‘Ella’s draughty hole’ [33T 411159 5283234], a small almost human sized hole with a howling draught, with notable depth determined by dropping rocks.
<p>
Now reassembled, the prospecting prophets continued up sweltering hot terrain. Formidably, the plateau didn’t have much mercy on either Ella nor Joel’s shorts. After much-a Bunda bashing, Ella’s resembled something more of denim thongs. Joel’s had also developed a tear, which for-sighted a similar trajectory.
<p>
Thankfully, the materialisation of holes returned to being in rock, when we stumbled upon yet another possible cave, ‘Clockwork Orange’ [33T 410756 5282937]. This one had 4 different entrances, congregating in a 6 meter shaft which was dropped but choked.
<p>
With an ominous overlooking of dark cloud, the final prospect of the day was prompt. We arrived at a long and thin slice, 1m wide and 6 across. This had been found previously but not dropped, named Blitz Baum Schacht [33T 410634 5283186]. Ella descended to the bottom of a 20m rope, another 5m is yet to be dropped with promising draught and possible continuation at the bottom.
<p>
The delightful promise of gnocci with custard powder powered our plateau plod back to top camp. The end.
<p>
<img width=60% alt="Lara's drawing" src="/years/2025/lara%20drawing.jpg">
<p>
<img width=60% alt ="Hamish taking photo of Ella's arse" src="/years/2025/ella-arse.jpg">
<br />
[Photo showing hamish taking a photo of ellas arse through her ripped shorts while lara looks on in bemusement]
<p>
<!-- photos reduced in resolution and moved into expoweb repo as that is where images in logbooks belong. Philip S. -->
<p>
<img width=60% alt="obi wan kenobi goes to expo" src="/expofiles/photos/2025/CreshPhotos/prospecting-meme.jpg">
<p>
From the <a href="/years/2025/mission.html">2025 Mission</a> page:
<img width=60% alt="archive ents" src="/years/2025/ents.jpg">
<p>
[FOOTNOTE:<br />
These UTM coordinates can be converted to lat/long using <a href="/expofiles/tools/index.html">
https://expo.survex.com/expofiles/tools/index.html</a> ]
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05e">2025-07-05</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Jonty</u>, Alice, Chris D, Musky Hannah</div>
<div class="triptitle">Balkon - Bolting (some of) Mongol Rally</div>
<p>We set off in the morning after a reasonable amount of faff. And Chris forgetting to put Jonty on the callout. Chris went ahead to "get his things ready", really it was probably to get some peace. When the other three arrived, Zen Chris quickly became Disturbed Chris. Unfortunately, his trusty peruvian rice bag had failed him, resulting in a quite damp oversuit. He used this reason to sit up above the balcony in the sun while the others went down to the balcony to get dressed. There was a reasonable amount of faffing that then ensued, including some cutting of chest harnesses, before Chris reappeared muttering about Peru and rice bags again.
<p>
<p>The group began the journey into the cave, Musky Hannah in the lead with her Wonderboom blasting tunes. The trip to Mongol rally was reasonably uneventful other than a couple of notes made about single-bolt hangs and some excesses of rope. Some of these pitches will probably need a bolt or two adding in the future. Upon reaching the crawl to Mongol Rally, the group dutifuly each crowbarred some of the crawl out, as per Lara's request. There is now reasonable room to crawl through with a tacklebag in tow, although Lara will likely be happy with a bit more digging. The first three had a bit of a cuddle while waiting for Chris, who gracefully declined to join the puddle upon arriving. Some more faff then commenced before Musky Hannah and Chris, who it had been agreed would do the first bolting shift, were ready to go. After they were off, Alice and Jonty ate a rather large amount of flapbuck before looking for a nice comfortable corner to hunker down and wait. There were a few different attempts before they ended up fetching a couple of the sleeping mats that Alice and Ella had recently brought down to the top of Mongol Rally ready for a camp. They then managed to set up an excellent lying-down spot where they could spoon for warmth under the group shelter.
<p>
<p>It was agreed by both Jonty and Alice that this was both the warmest and most comfortable Austrian cave wait they had ever done. There were a couple of trips through the crawl to take care of some important personal admin at the bottom of Hangman's pitch, and a visit to break into one of the bags of Suzie snakes, which was quickly consumed in its entirety. All in all though, they were camped out here for about 4 hours before Hannah and Chris returned, having run out of drill battery after placing 6 bolts. They offered to swap out, which Jonty and Alice were eager to do after the long wait. They then introduced the first bolting team to the spooning spot they had constructed, giving excellent reviews. After a bit of faff at the pitch head preparing the bolting gear they would need, Jonty realised he'd left his personal tackle bag at the mini-camp and returned to find the others already enjoying the spot.
<p>
<p>Alice and Jonty were very soon at the bolting front and began taking things in and bouncing some ideas about. Alice was the first to bolt, with Jonty's advice. She put in an initial bolt to make the second half of an existing Y-hang, after meeting a lot of resistance installing a spit into the already-present hole. The rope was then to drop down a bit of rift, where there was an existing hilti on the right wall. Due to the narrowness of the rift though and the layout below, they elected to drill a thread into a nicely-located flake on the opposite wall and equalise the deviation between them, keeping the rope central in the rift. They dropped to the next ledge, where Jonty took a turn bolting and installed a lowkey magnificent Y-hang, which now leads into an almost immediate deviation on the opposite wall. It now sits flush on the fall after a fair amount of post-hole hammering. They were just reaching the next ledge when Hannah and Chris turned up, having spooned enough by this point and wanting to come have a look. Chris made a lot of hmming and haaing noises as he descended the pitch, with a couple of "interesting"s thrown in. In the end he admitted it was good after editing one piece of rigging on his way down.
<p>
<p>The group had then reached the "big ledge", where a couple of hiltis existed, and had a bit of a think. The existing setup wasn't bad but was a single bolt hang and was woefully ungardened. Jonty took this as a personal challenge, and proceeded to chuck some rocks off the top of the pitch, while taking the time to save a few nice ones, which have now been left on the big ledge as a nice feature (which may get washed away in the coming rain). Jonty put in a final bolt to make a Y-hang for the top of this pitch, and rigged the rope into it, having to join the next rope on just below the belay (definitely not trimming off the last meter of the previous one in the process). Chris had already started on his way back up and the others followed behind. Upon reaching the bottom of Hangman, they briefly reconglomerated before Chris took the lead again. Jonty, now crossing the traverse for the 4th time and getting annoyed at how inefficiently it was rigged, made a few adjustments (with Alice's help) in order to avoid the unnecessary rising and falling of the traverse and loosely rigged line. This did involve a little bit of gardening of the lower part of the ledge, which he'd shouted up to Chris he'd be doing so as not to surprise him. Unfortunately, Hannah, who had still been there at the time, had not heard this and shouted down to see if everybody was ok after the loud banging began. The traverse is now in an easier, safer state but still needs an additional bolt to tension it into the optimal position. This wasn't possible at the time due to lack of drill battery and through bolts, but will be done on the next visit.
<p>
<p>Alice and Jonty started their ascent, Chris and Hannah having both disappeared about 15 minutes previously. Alice kindly offered to carry the drill bag for the first stint, after which Jonty picked it up at a rebelay a few pitches up. Just after passing Honeycomb, Jonty's left contact lense began quite badly misbehaving. He managed to make it up another couple of small pitches with some discomfort, after which point it became untenable and he had to unglove a hand and remove it entirely - leaving him with a good right eye and a quite blurry left eye. The caused a bit of bother with seeing things. To great relief the pair soon reached the watering hole, where Jonty made the freeclimb traverse across, with Alice worriedly holding the back of his harness - some quite wacky depth perception making things quite tricky. Alice took the lead for the rest of the way up, pointing out every little and big hole to Jonty, who was stumbling around a bit like a fresher. They emerged from the cave at about midnight to find Chris and Hannah waiting on the balcony, having just finished getting changed. Chris started off ahead, eager to get his hands on a curry, while Jonty got changed and packed his kit for the walk back - which was a somewhat similar exercise of relying on Alice and Hannah to point out holes and footholds. They arrived back at top camp at 1am, where Chris had the curries ready, and tried to be very quiet as most everyone else had already gone to bed.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 13.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-06a">2025-07-06</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>balister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - Meshtastic notes</div>
I deployed fixed nodes at the Col, on the path to KH and to Balkon. So far we seem to have good messaging capability around the plateau. Ash messaged from the KH entrance and Chris from the Balkon entrance. Both messaging were received at top camp. The larger issue is getting people to pay attention to the app to see when people are asking questions.
<p>
I have set the basecamp fixed node to connect to an mqtt server run by a friend in America. While on the plateau, I set my node to proxy mqtt via my phone and showed we could bridge meshes at top camp, base camp and America. More work is needed for a reliable plateau connection. Base camp uses a fixed node with wifi capability. Anthony Day has proposed a cellular internet solution for top camp, this should be investigated harder now. Bridging the plateau mesh to base camp would be brilliant!
<p>
Operationally, the text part of meshtastic works nicely, covering all parts of the plateau to date. (Or at least what people have tried) Position mapping seems a bit wonkey. More study is needed here. Is this phone related, app settings etc . Iphone app is crashing, apparently due to gps polling settings.
<p>
The final problem is working out why people say leaving their phones on kills their battery. I am hopeful using airplane mode with only bluetooth on resolves this issue.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-06b">2025-07-06</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dyl</u>, Dan G</div>
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - Stormy prospecting session in Rainbowbargainshohle</div>
<p>Having woken up, eaten and checked the coming forecast at topcamp, Dan and I decided on an afternoon of prospecting.
<p>
Setting off at midday after a fair bit of faff, we headed along the path to KH towards a cave with a QM which I have been pestering people about. Along the way we passed a fat hole which Russel and I had dropped a rock down, taking 8 seconds to reach the bottom. Since we only had 60 odd meters of rope, we decided to sack off dropping the hole, opting to look around the same area for any other holes to drop, saving the other one for a different day.
<p>
Nearby, a (smaller) promising hole was found by Dan. I started rigging it, first, around a couple naturals to a bolt, then a Y hang. Looking for a place to pop the Y-hang proved difficult as anything suitable ended up with a significant amount of rope rub, so I decided to tackle it form a different angle. This time from 2 naturals, 2 rebelays down to a Y-hang which dropped straight into the shaft.
<p>
Descending the cave, I encountered a fair amount of rock-littered snow, which I had to kick through so as to have a drippy-free descent to the bottom. I ended up on a ledge, which I bolted with another rebelay as the shaft had transformed into a spiral shape, and to avoid a boulder which I had failed to jiggle out of place. After descending down snow slopes, I had reached the end, which had unfortunately bottomed out.
<p>
After I had ascended out, it was Dan’s turn to drop the cave whilst I fiddled with my SAP to calibrate it. Soon after he had descended the Y-hang, the tell-tale fog rolled over and it started chucking it down, to which I promptly packed away my belongings. I was content sitting at the top donned with my full waterproofs, until the sound of thunder and the crack of a (concerningly) nearby bolt of lightning knocked me off my feet. I scuttled into a nearby hole, as standing next to a pile of metalwork was probably not the smartest idea, waiting for the storm to pass.
<p>
Once Dan had emerged from the cave, it had cleared up significantly and we took a surface survey once my SAP was calibrated (I told you I would Becka ;)). Noticing the dark-coloured clouds overhead, I ushered Dan to start moving quickly as I did NOT want to endure another storm. Walking away from the newly-named</p> <p class="rainbow-text">RainbowBargainsHöhle</p><p>, we could see the twilight fog starting to roll in, so we started bolting it back. Alas, we hadn’t escaped it fast enough as we were soon in the middle of the storm, which made us scamper back faster, in the process causing Dan to fall and injure his shin.
<p>
Eventually we made it to topcamp! Arriving to the sounds of clapping and cheering as the group dropping kit off at KH had already made the round trip and were eagerly awaiting our return (we hadn’t died yay!).</p>
<p>
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<div class="timeug">T/U: 2.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-06c">2025-07-06</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Becka</u>, Charlotte, Hannah Collings, Harry, Lara, Russell</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - 161g Camp gear shuttle</div>
We'd planned to beat the rain by an early stomp up the hill and then scooting into Kaninchenhoehle for a 2 day impromptu camping trip using personal pits as the Expo camping gear was heading down Balkonhoehle.
</p>
However, once we'd got to Top Camp we realised that packing for camp and getting underground before the predicted rain hit likely wouldn't work plus we had to much gear to carry to do it in a single run. We therefore packed monster bags and shuttled them down to 161G.
</p>
On the way back to Top Camp the rain started and then, shortly after, lightening bolts rapidly followed by deafening thunder. Becka abandoned her walking poles in case they acted as conductors and we scarpered as fast as we could, getting to Top Camp in 25 minutes, not too wet.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-07a">2025-07-07</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Lara</u>, Becka, Charlotte, Hannah Collings, Harry, Russell</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Topo diagrams</div>
Placeholder logbook entry to put a topo into. Edit this when you've finished the camp logbook entry Russell
<p>
<img src = "http://expo.survex.com/expofiles/photos/2025/LaraBartleet/KHriggingTopoLara1.jpg"
width = "600"/>
<p>
<img src = "http://expo.survex.com/expofiles/photos/2025/LaraBartleet/muddlestonetopolara.jpg"
width = "400"/>
<div class="timeug">T/U: 72.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-07b">2025-07-07</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck</u>, Alice, Ella, Jonty, Hannah UG</div>
<div class="triptitle">Postalmklamm - Ferrations of the Voracious Variety</div>
There I lay amongst the trees, flat against a bed of moss, my phone dead, my clothes soaked through by rain, and with no idea where I was.
<p>
<p>
That morning was like molasses. Rain had killed off any chance of heading back up to the plateau, so the five of us had agreed we'd meet at 10 to prepare for a different adventure: via ferrata at Postalmklamm; an epic traverse along a limestone gorge, then upwards beside a roaring waterfall, and apparently culminating not far from a remote alpine 'cheese factory' (!!!). However, tired as we all were from our hard expo-ing, Alice's hopes of a speedy start to the day were dashed by unfortunate but characteristic levels of faff, especially from Jonty, who almost pulled out of the trip entirely, before declaring that if he was to go, we had to grant him an extra half an hour to get ready.
<p>
<p>
We finally set off just after 11, with a ~50min journey ahead of us. Highlights included:
<p>
<p>
-The toll road up to the via ferrata, which was enforced solely by an old man sat in a chair by the side of the road who, as far as we could tell, sat there all day everyday to personally collect tolls such as ours.
<p>
<p>
-Hannah playing 'Roxanne but it's just Rocks', which, despite the awful phone signal, somehow perfectly sinked every time with the appearance of large cliffs along the road.
<p>
<p>
Toll collector placated and rocks appreciated, we threw our climbing harnesses and via ferrata cowstails on and headed down the path towards the gorge and our voracious ferration. The via ferrata began with a long, rickety bridge, an iron wire suspended above it just low enough that you could clip your cowstails on it, but just high enough to make it awkward. This was followed by some walking/gentle scrambling along wooded slopes, which became steeper and steeper as the ferration began in earnest.
<p>
The first obstacle of note was a pair of tensioned wires which spanned the gorge, maybe some 8m across, complimented by several hanging hemp ropes along their length. You clip into the upper wire, then tightrope walk the lower one whilst using the hemp ropes for stability (you can just hold onto the upper wire instead, but that's much less fun).
<p>
Next came an interesting predicament. Perhaps a two metre gap between the canyon walls, which the via ferrata crossed by way of a single steel wire. Was it a jump? Are Austrian via ferratists just taller? Who can say. Regardless, Jonty was the first of us to tackle the gap, swinging his legs up onto the rope and pulling himself along it till he could swing his legs back down onto the ledge at the other side. The rest of us followed in a likewise fashion, and after another much more straightforward crossing back to the other side of the canyon, we found ourselves ascending the canyon wall beside a lovely waterfall. Partway up this waterfall we found a lovely pool, which obviously required a quick skinny dip before continuing up past several more enticing pools and into some woodland beside a large cliff.
<p>
After signing the logbook at the base of the cliff, we started up the last and hardest ferration of the day: a very upwards and very vertical section demanding a lot more involvement of the arms than previously was required. Being the hard cavers we are, the only real issue we encountered here was our inability to read German, which resulted in a few minutes of confusion as to whether the sign along the route was indicating we required a belay or not (turns out it was referring to a route we weren't doing). Once this hurdle was overcome (google translate coming in clutch) and the via ferrata had been ferrated voraciously,  we were faced with an important decision. The sky was clouding over, and some of the group had forgone proper precautions and not brought full waterproofs. So, to the car, or to the cheese?
<p>
After careful consideration, evaluation of our resources (four coats between five, and several dead or almost-dead phone batteries) we decided that the wisest course of action was to just wing it and do both. We split up, Alice and Jonty heading to the car (Jonty with no waterproofs and Alice actively refusing to take the waterproofs she'd packed in my bag) and Hannah, Ella, and I continuing on in search of cheese, with only Ella's barely-functioning cave phone with a photo of the via ferrata info board for navigation.
<p>
As the three of us continued on, it became increasingly apparent that the map on the via ferrata info board had been rather heavily simplified, and it slowly dawned on us that we really didn't know where we were, and all we could do was continue on and hope the forest track we were following would eventually intersect the road. Fortunately, morale was high despite the weather and navigational issues, mainly thanks to Hannah's Wonderboom blasting Cosmo Sheldrake from Ella's phone as we began to truly embrace being lost in the woods. As I trudged along that forest track, rain beading my forehead as Cosmo sang to the song of an ancient cedar tree, I became increasingly convinced that I'd found my way out of the realm of humanity, and into some other world, in which the forests never end. There, lost amongst the trees, we were overcome by whimsy, and veered off the path to throw ourselves upon a luxurious bed of moss. There we lay, the rain gently spattering our faces as we gazed up through the canopy and towards an infinite expanse of grey, laughing to ourselves and to each other as we revelled in the freedom of being lost.
<p>
It was then that we noticed the impressively large pinecones scattered across the ground, and thoughts of joy became acts of violence as the pinecone wars began.
<p>
Eventually we decided perhaps we ought to figure out how the hell to get out of this forest, so back onto the path we went. This path eventually joined a more established forest track (which was almost certainly the one we were supposed to be on to begin with) and after only a little more walking we reached a proper road. And there, only a little ways up the road, was a sign for the cheese shop. We could almost taste it! Up the road we headed, attempting unsuccessfully to contact Alice and Jonty as we went. We soon reached the car park, greeted by a particularly talkative herd of cattle in the neighbouring field, and stood around awhile trying to ascertain from a distance whether the cheese shop was open or not. There were a couple cars in the car park, which was a god sign, but the whole place was just so quiet and remote-looking.
<p>
Whilst we considered our next course of action, we discovered a fascinating little ditch in the side of the car park, in which a little spring emerged from the rock before immediately passing into a drainage pipe that ran underneath the carpark. An auspiciously person-sized drainage pipe, too! Ella was in the ditch in seconds with my headtorch, and before we knew it, both Hannah and I followed her as we embarked upon an epic cheese factory car park through-trip. There was even a shorter, wider, second section of pipe immediately after it, so we actually caved twice! Back in the car park, only slightly muddier and damper than we'd already been, we decided we were finally ready to approach the cheese factory.
<p>
Slowly, we approached the door. There was no window, so we couldn't tell if any lights were on. There was no signage of note. Eventually, I reached the door, and, reaching out, my trembling hand gently resting against the rough wood, I pushed. And the door swung open.
<p>
Inside, the stone floors and wooden furnishings of the small vestibule were gently lit with a warm, yellow light spilling in from the next room inside, bathing a table and counter stacked with great wheels of cheese and jars of clear, glistening honey. From the next room entered a woman, who quickly worked out we were English and helped us choose our cheese. We settled on 200g each, which she cut for us, plus a jar of honey, before reality finally came crashing down on our heads as she spoke those dreaded words: "we don't take card". Shit. Ella? Hannah? No cash? Ok, maybe Alice or Jonty have cash? Oh look! They've just arrived outside. Hello! No time to chat, cut the niceties, just give us your cash.
<p>
Of course, they had none, and we had to apologetically admit to the woman that she'd cut that cheese for nought. Morose, we headed back to the car whilst a bemused Alice and Jonty recounted how they'd driven up and down the road several times before they finally spotting the huge käse sign by the drive up to the cheese factory. And back to base camp we went, to stuff full of chips the cheeseless voids within us.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.01 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-09a">2025-07-09</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Joel</u>, Dyl, Hamish</div>
<div class="triptitle">Gruffalo - plateau, No such thing as bad weather (just idiots who go out in it)</div>
The first day of the 2°C prospecting hellfest! Having decided to set off Wednesday morning to enable a night of drinking and roistering in the tatty hut loft on Tuesday night, an intrepid gang of cavers set off for top camp with various missions in mind. Keeping to my self-designated role of Prospecting Princess, I corralled a crack team of Hamish and Dylan to revisit one of the promising entrances which Buck and I had discovered on the plateau-bashing bonanza the previous Saturday. Following the inevitable pre-departure faff we set off on the Balcony route at about 11am, turning off at the Tunnocks Col (around 47.694787,13.821477) to head west roughly following the route previously taken. It was cold and overcast, with low cloud constantly threatening rain. The entrance proved far more difficult to find than we’d anticipated, requiring several spates of bunde assault and downclimbing vertical cliffs. However, Dylan eventually managed to track the entrance down and we began assessing our options.
<p>
<p>
<img width="40%" alt="Entrance to Gruffalo" src="/expofiles/photos/2025/JoelStobbart/pigs_in_there_with_utm.jpg">
<br><var>33T 411160 5283056</var> is 47.694779 N 13.816002 E
<p>
<i>the entrance to the cave now known as Gruffalo, previously called Pigs... In There?</i>
<p>
The draught had decreased compared to Saturday, possibly due to the far lower air temperature outside, and the snow outcrop around 8 metres in was smaller. Undeterred, we began bolting a Y-hang over the entrance to allow access down the vertical shaft. Once this was complete I went down for a poke while Dylan faffed with surveying equipment and Hamish fell asleep in a bothy. The weather was truly horrific now and I felt mildly bad for abandoning them at the entrance – there wasn’t really anywhere inside the shaft to provide better accommodation, however, so I pressed on down to ascertain if this lead went anywhere.
<p>
A couple of deviations later and following a good bash at the menacing snow outcrop with a crowbar, slightly reducing its potential to squash anyone entering the continuing shaft below, I could see that the vertical passage carried on into the hillside. I began descending down a mildly terrifying frozen waterfall, complete with twigs, rocks and potentially small animals held in suspended animation within its depths, for another 10 metres. At the base of this was a lot of mud and choss, and a small hole continuing at floor level on the right-hand side. Lacking faith in the floor’s stability but with no other option due to having reached the end of the rope, I unclipped and wedged myself into the hole, which comprised a small chamber with an annoyingly-placed pointy boulder which had to be straddled to enable access below. After traversing this, I was faced with a further horizontal crack in the right-hand wall, roughly 2m by 0.5m, surrounded by choss and hard to see through from a safe position, but seemingly with a long drop beneath. I managed to clear the majority of the offending rocks but one irritating boulder stubbornly remained, which will require dislodging to make this pitch safe. There was an absolutely stonking outwards draught at this point, and some of the boulders I cleared down through this hole went a fair distance down, though contact with various walls made it hard to ascertain the depth. The echo of their falling also made this sound like a much larger chamber.
<p>
Having run out of rope and feeling slightly underqualified to continue pushing this unsettling cave, I decided to return to the surface to reassure the others that I hadn’t died. Once I had reached the surface, Dylan decided to take a look. Wearing only a grey wizard poncho and a pair of shorts he went down as far as the snow outcrop, before declaring it was “drippy as fuck” and popping back out again. We began surveying from the entrance, with me brandishing the SAP at various points on the way down and relaying data to Dylan who was poised over the entrance like a large and threatening bird. We got as far as the deviation above the ice wall before deciding we had had enough, and, firing some splays down to the hole at the bottom, we made our cold and soggy retreat (this will need rebolting as a rebelay to allow people to better survey from this point on). As the cave hadn’t yet dealt us any serious injury we settled on Gruffalo as a provisional name, to reflect its large and scary but ultimately benign nature. After having packed up our gear and retrieved Hamish from his bag, we set a course for the Fishface path, which makes a far better approach to this end of the Tunnocks valley than cutting down from the Balcony path. On the ridge behind the Gruffalo entrance (i.e. south in the Fishface path direction), Hamish and his lucky crowbar discovered an unprospected area of several promising holes which may drop into the same passage as is reached through Gruffalo. Lacking time to explore, we gathered GPS data and entrance photos before lurching towards the Fishface path, and then slowly and painfully back up to Top Camp. Upon later reflection, I decided that Gruffalo was probably not as scary as I’d initially thought, and therefore demands further viewing (perhaps with a spare pair of pants handy).
<div class="timeug">T/U: 3.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-09b">2025-07-09</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck</u>, Ash, Hannah U</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Bolt-Climbing Technical Underwear</div>
Ash came to this expo to drink Weissbier and push KH, and topcamp doesn't stock Weissbier. Luckily, Hannah and I were looking for a trip, so off we went to assist him with his bolt climb in Where the Wind Blows, becoming increasingly soggy in the rain en route. We ran into half the camping group (Lara, Russell, and Charlotte) at the entrance, all looking a bit bedraggled (especially Lara's pantin, this expo's first casualty). After a bit of yap we headed into the cave to get changed.
<p>
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful to the KH entrance for the shelter it provides from the rain. It would be far, far worse getting changed without it. And in the sun I'm sure it's an incredibly refreshing respite.
<p>
However. It drips. The icy chill of a water droplet hitting your bare skin as you change into your thermals is truly one of the worst things I've experienced this expo.
<p>
Complaints aside, we headed down the entrance series (about 70m descent of a lovely but rather drippy shaft) before entering the horizontal sections. After the first tyrolean, Hannah pointed out our blatant disregard of cave safety, so the two of us clipped into each other for the next few sections of cave to improve stability (the following short climbs thus required a little more communication than usual).
<p>
Once at Gotham City Junction, Ash informed us that he was taking us to Where the Women Blow, so onwards we went with haste, turning right to Catwoman's Claws (where we unclipped to avoid any accidents involving the pretties, which are really quite impressive for the SMK!). After appreciating the pretties a little, we continued on to Where the Wind Blows, where Hannah belayed Ash as he began his bolt climb, the Wonderboom blasting tunes as usual. Given that it was up the wall of an inclined rift passage, Ash didn't bother bolting anything until he was several meters up, so for the first few minutes the belay was really just there for moral support.
<p>
The next three or so hours consisted of the distant sounds of drilling, the Wonderboom, and non-stop group shelter yap. Eventually, Ash reappeared to report that the lead had unfortunately crapped out. Seeing as it was around 6 by now, we decided to leave surveying it for another day, so out the cave we headed.
<p>
The walk back to topcamp was unfortunately even wetter than the morning's walk, its only redeeming feature being my incredibly light bag (we'd all left our kit behind at KH). It was a quiet night at top camp that night, and after a quick meal and a hot chocolate, everyone headed to bed. With Alice camping in Balcony, I had the double sleeping bag to myself, which in the cold of the night was now looking rather thin to me. I put on as many layers as I had to hand (clothes, jacket, down jacket, sleeping bag liner, and a bivy bag over the sleeping bag) and was only just warm enough to be comfortable if I pulled the sleeping bag fully over my face. It also didn't help that around 1:30am, I got a faceful of cold water from the edge of the tarp, which prompted me to swiftly relocate myself to another, better-sheltered camp bed.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 6.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-09c">2025-07-09</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ella</u>, Alice, Jonty, Chris</div>
<div class="triptitle">balkonhohle - Big C Scam!</div>
After three days besieged by the unyielding forces of the weather at bottom camp, it was finally ‘a bit less awful’ enough to walk up the hill. While waiting for a rainless window to stroll over to the entrance, three of us huddled in the cold under a sleeping bag, a portent of the cave camp tableau to come. Once finally there, Ella and Chris had a head start down, while Alice and Joahnhtey prepared for some re rigging of the sections before Mongol Rally.
<p>
Ella and Chris formed the re bolting duo for second half of Mongol Rally; in which Ella held the vital task of sitting in the emergency shelter for 5 hours, only with a mild set in of hypothermia. Chris later revelled in retelling his tale of encountering a figure of 8 knot half way down the 100m rope while rigging.

Finally, our work was done, seamlessly timed Alice and Jointy’s appearance from their escapade too. Deliriously, camp was established. Chris provided the impeccable culinary experience of curry and couscous as head camp chef.
<p>
Up at 1pm, Our plan for the day was to push leads below Tartarus. At the pitch head, the deterring sound of unpleasant water echoed. The executive decision by captain Jornty to turn back was sealed at the sight of the rigging rope  - that seemed to be more mud than rope.
<p>
Instead, these good citizens carried the rope shaped mud back for a good wash at camp. Alice and Jononoty bolt climbed a potential lead, a nice chamber was found but no other ways on. Chris also poked around interesting holes below, one of which even connected with the bolt climb! Ella was also there.
<p>
Returned from the frontier, the cave link set-up was attempted back at the trenches (camp). Despite mud being everywhere from in the tent to in our curry somehow, there was none where we needed it to be for the cave link antenna. A scene reminiscent of playing in a sand pit, as mud was put into piles and poked and poured with water over the antenna, ensued. Thankfully, Alice and Jorn did some serious fettling, and an hour or two later, the antenna resistance went from “very bad” to “poor”. Though, contact with top camp was still out of reach.
<p>
Despite Alice falling into “a hole the size of Tatarus” in the corner of the tent relentlessly the whole night, and Cunty experiencing a second night in a sleeping bag “ideal for warm summer nights”, the team awoke early (ish) for a day of prussicing. Though the biggest challenge of the day for Ella and Alice, was finishing their breakfast-couscous-soup .
<p>
Fumbling with the challenge of differentiating Pantins from Spathas in their mud clogged state, the ascent began. Manually opening and closing atleast one jammer with each prussic is an interesting sport. Ella and Chris chose the leisurely option, and arrived at top camp 3 hours after Malice and Jonny. Mmmmm couscous.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 51.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-10a">2025-07-10</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dyl</u>, Dan g, Joel s</div>
<div class="triptitle">Rainbow bargains hohle - Rainbow Bargains Hohle 2 electric boogaloo</div>
Glimpsing over the weather the day before brought much excitement as my phone assured that it would only rain a little in the early morning and after around 1800. However, the next morning I woke to the sound of a torrential downpour, which made me want to hunker back down into my sleeping bag. After much deliberation, I was up, dressed and eating chorrage whilst being serenaded by Joel and Buck playing tunes on a flute.
<p>
Much criminal faff had ensued before Dan, Joel and I were finally ready by midday, which at this point the rain had mostly settled. An uneventful walk along the GPX route between top camp and KH lead us back to Rainbow Bargains Höhle (33T 411668 5282235), which was still pre-rigged from the time Dan and I had to scuttle back from a storm.
<p>
Joel volunteered as the Dog so he was first to face my abhorrent rigging. He popped down to the Y hang and marked the wall, to which Dan used the SAP to mark the next station, whilst I jotted down the plan sketch. This cycle repeated until we were down to the bottom, in the process causing all of our hands to turn into ice blocks due to the snow and drips of water from the ceiling.
<p>
When I initially descended into the cave I commented how nice the weather was as the sun was shining for once (had been a rarity in the last few days). Prussiking out, I was expecting the same, but alas I could feel the raindrops on my face and was greeted with dark clouds when nearing the top of the pitch. Once everyone was out, we recuperated in the emergency shelter, helped by gummy worms and flapjacks. Once the rain had subsided, Joel made the descent again, this time to investigate the QM in the back corner mid-way down the cave. 1 failed skyhook placement and 2 bolts later, Joel confirmed the QM was a dud.
<p>
Joel reappeared, removed the last of the Petzl Pulses and derigged the rope. We all strolled back just as the rain had started again.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 1.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-10b">2025-07-10</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ash</u>, Buck, Hamish</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Survey and de-rig Technical Underwear</div>
After the somewhat faffy trip the day before, we returned, having recruited Hamish, to survey the Technical Underwear bolt climb. A fairly efficient start saw us through to Where the Wind Blows in little time.
Buck was keen to do book so Hamish headed up the rope with the nail polish and I distoxed along the bottom of the rift. Linked to a couple of black marks likely to be existing stations, then up we went. The Aven splits and recombines in several places, halfway up (15m) a small muddy tube goes off to the side but immediately chokes. Water also enters on both sides, so was careful to avoid. At the midpoint I went past, up to the top, and we slowly finished the survey up to the too tight top.
I then de-rigged by adjusting the rope to enable a two-stage pullthrough to recover the rope, only had to sacrifice a couple of rings. Meanwhile Buck tidied up the survey keeping warm in the group shelter with Hamish.
Following the derig we still had some time so moved the rope and metalwork to staircase 36, allowing Buck and Hamish to enjoy the delights of Triassic Park and Knossos for the first time. Then it was out the cave at reasonable time (entrance only slightly drippy) and back to top camp for curry.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 6.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-10c">2025-07-10</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck</u>, Ash, Hamish</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Surveying Technical Underwear</div>
(Read Ash's writeup of this trip for a more concise and technical account)
<p>
Today began much as yesterday ended: chucking it down. With the weather bad and hype a little low, the faff that morning was impressive. Joel and I spent probably almost an hour singing and playing the flute together, which to be honest might be the best thing I did during that entire top camp stint. Eventually, Russell and Charlotte arrived and we sort of started getting it together, much to Ash's relief.
<p>
I hopped on Ash's trip again, this time with Hamish, the plan being to survey Technical Underwear, the bolt climb Ash had done the previous day, then ferry ropes and metalwork towards Repton. We headed towards KH through the drizzle, and after a little faff at the entrance we were on our way down and towards Technical Underwear. Once there, Ash cracked out the surveying gear. I was on book, Ash on instruments, and Hamish with the nail polish. We identified what we were relatively sure was a survey station on an overhanging wall pendant, which was marked with carbide stains.
<p>
Once we started surveying up the climb, I quickly realised that this was a little more complicated than the small holes I'd surveyed whilst prospecting earlier this expo, and with Ash churning out splays, I had to admit that I might need to slow down and take advantage of his surveying wisdom a bit. He graciously obliged and talked me through each of his splays, making sure I knew what was what as the data arrived on my phone. Once the last station was marked, Hamish passed us and headed down as we finished up surveying. Feeling quite chilly now, I also headed down, regretting not putting on my extra layers before surveying, and was very glad to join Hamish in the group shelter whilst Ash de-rigged. I think the combination of the cold and also the general wetness that had pervaded the past couple days had gotten to me a bit by this point, because I found myself utterly incapable of yap. So instead, there I sat, shivering in silence, and dreaming longingly of warm basecamp showers and tasty basecamp chips.
<p>
Once Ash was done, I finally admitted to myself I was really quite cold and miserable and should probably actually do something about it, so I summoned the will to strip the top of my oversuit down and put on a down vest. Once we got moving again, I began returning to a more reasonable temperature.
<p>
After de-rigging the pitch bypassing No Utility Belt Required (which took much longer than you might expect due to a very seized-up fig 8) we continued on to Triassic Park, and eventually reached the pitch down into the impenetrably black void of Knossos. Once down, we took a little while to appreciate the scale of what we were in. My fenix on full beam couldn't touch the far walls. Boulders the size of small houses littered the path down onwards. I couldn't help thinking what it would be like to be stood within that chamber when one of them fell.
<p>
We passed through Knossos, but the cave still felt huge, soaring canyons and plunging shafts all around us as we scrambled over boulders, gratefully following the reflectors the camping group had put in place.
<p>
Eventually the passages began to shrink back to a normal size, and after a few short climbs and traverses, we reached the bottom of Staircase 36. Here we had a short snack before depositing our load of tackle (Ash taking a quick inventory of what we were leaving there). Then we turned around and headed out.
<p>
The return journey was relatively uneventful, the main difference being our blessedly lighter load, which I especially appreciated on the way up the entrance pitches. Having had quite a cold and wet few days already, I decided I wasn't confident enough about my desire to return tomorrow to leave my kit behind at the entrance, so it was a slow and steady walk back up and over the plateau for me that night. By the time we reached topcamp, my bag was soaked through despite its rain cover. I did however add my caving down vest (which was still miraculously dry!) to the many layers I wore to bed that night, meaning I had a marginally warmer sleep than the one before.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 6.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-11a">2025-07-11</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Joel</u>, Hamish</div>
<div class="triptitle">1623-245 - It's a long way to 204g</div>
Our third day up the mountain in Baltic conditions saw most people go to KH, leaving Hamish and myself the unenviable task of killing off more leads in the Valley of Death vicinity (west of Tunnocks). With our plan being to rendezvous with Shinwell for a lift down from the Loseralm at 5ish (this was changed several times through the day), we planned for a relatively short mission – namely exploring a lead a short distance into 204g, a Steinbruckenhöhle entrance a little way off the Balcony path. This proved to be more difficult than we had thought.
<p>
We soon discovered that both of our navigational facilities were leaving much to be required on this particular day – as Hamish gleefully reminded me about 15 times, “there’s no such thing as a shortcut to 204g”. After two hours of bunde bashing, climbing up and down limestone escarpments and generally suffering, we had not managed to get any closer than 100 metres to 204g despite attacking it from several directions. After a final valiant effort which was met with yet another sheer cliff of rock and bunde, we decided to cut our losses and try something else. The weather was predictably miserable – the wind had dropped a bit, but we were frequently assailed by heavy downpours of rain, sleet and hail and the temperature can’t have risen much above 4 degrees. After a sizeable cloud decided to snuggle onto the plateau, presumably for warmth, visibility dropped to around 20 metres and remained there until late afternoon. After extensive sampling, I can confirm that being repeatedly slapped in the face and balls by large truncheons of recalcitrant bunde does little to endear one to the joys of prospecting!
<p>
During our navigational circumlocutions, we stumbled across another entrance which didn’t appear to have a GPS blob directly associated with it. Our initial explorations were very exciting, an excitement which was swiftly extinguished when we discovered a fat survey station pasted onto the wall. It turned out that we had rediscovered p245, a short cave first explored in 2003. The website entry suggested that there may be leads left to explore, so after abandoning 204g we suited up and went for a poke. Sadly no further passage was found, though the ice seemed to have receded considerably since the first entry was written. After a comprehensive sweep we retreated to decide on our next move.
<p>
With time ticking on we thought it best to begin our return journey, especially given the lengthy duration of our outwards voyage. However, before too long Hamish had discovered another promising entrance, this time definitively lacking any associated GPS blob. We whacked some bolts in and Hamish started off down the 45 degree snow slope which formed the passage floor. By the time he had confirmed its termination a short 10 metres later he was approaching hypothermia, so once he was out I fired some splays down for a rough survey and then we made our escape. (Frosty Bear was consequently born). After a remarkably short bunde bash we popped out onto the Fishface path just above Nadia’s Demise, reconfirming that this is the superior route for exploring the southern flank of the Valley of Death. Following some swift noodlage at top camp we scampered back to the car park, as the weather pulled an uno reverse and switched to 20 degrees blinding heat. A frustrating day which offered far fewer returns than we would have liked, but more achieved than had we not set out at all (just).
<div class="timeug">T/U: 1.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-11b">2025-07-11</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck</u>, Ash, Charlotte, Russell</div>
<div class="triptitle">KH - Country for Old Men - In Search of Ash's A-lead</div>
Yet again, the morning was a wet one, the swells in downpour timed perfectly with Russell's attempted grike trips. Somehow despite this, I felt much more optimistic than I had at any point in the last couple days, and hopped on yet an other KH trip with Ash. This time we were joined by Russell and Charlotte. The mission: reach Satan's Sitting Room so Russell and Charlotte could begin rebolting a traverse, then Ash and I might head back to Repton to work our way towards a drafting A-lead pitch in Country for Old Men that Ash had discovered in the depths of the expo website.
<p>
Unlike the previous two days, we set off rather efficiently, and were underground by 11:30. Even just heading down the pitch, I already felt so much better than I had during the past two trips.  This was no doubt partially because I was getting so used to the entrance pitches that I didn't have to think, but even considering that, I just for whatever reason felt so much more energised and ready to cave.
<p>
In no time at all, we were down and heading through Triassic Park and Knossos, pausing briefly to snack on kaninchengummies as we went. We stopped briefly at Staircase 36 to pick up tackle before heading up and onwards, eventually reaching Strange Downfall/Upfall. Downfall was a lovely pitch, but Upfall is possibly my least favourite part of KH. It has several rebels, but the rock is quite loose towards the top so you have to wait for anyone ahead to fully clear the pitch before starting up, and it's also an absolute pain to get off of at the top, especially with two bags.
<p>
After struggling up, I soon found myself passing through Repton, through some lovely wiggly passages, and finally crossing a tyrolean to reach Satan's Sitting Room. After appreciating the in-situ traverse (the rope was from 2003!) Ash and I left Russell and Charlotte to rebolt it, heading back to Repton. Once there, Ash went up the old in-situ hanging from the ceiling and rigged a new one, adding a few bolts in the process. I then headed up and derigged the old rope (which involved some spannering of particularly rusty maillions), and we continued on, soon reaching Country for Old Men. This is a large and lovely passage with a fascinatingly black stream running through it. After following this stream for a couple minutes, we found ourselves at the top of a short climb downtown the left, leading to a mud slope pitch. Ash hopped down before realising it looked rather annoying to get back up again, so we decided to 'quickly' bolt a handline. Since I was at the top, Ash passed the drill up to me and I got to work. My first hurdle: all the rock was absolute shit. Everything was covered in a layer of mush, sometimes as much as a centimetre or two thick. After hammering the place to Razordance and back, I eventually found some rock around a corner that, while not ideally placed, was at least solid. I hesitantly got the drill out (this being my second time putting bolts in, and the first using through-bolts rather than pulses) and set about drilling.
<p>
And drilling.
<p>
And drilling.
<p>
Huh. This drill really isn't moving very much. That's weird. I called down to Ash, and he suggested blowing the dust out. Still not drilling. Ash suggested maybe the rock I'd chosen was too hard. Maybe there was a chert nodule there or something. So, after a bit more hammering around, I tried another spot. Same result. The drillbit painstakingly made its way about halfway into the rock, and refused to go any further no matter how much I pushed it. Eventually, I faffed around long enough that Ash made his way back up the climb to come help, and, to my dismay, immediately identified the issue: I had the drill spinning the wrong way. Well. That would do it. Sorry Ash! Sorry drill.
<p>
With that finally sorted, we bolted and rigged a handline down. Miraculously, Ash still trusted me with the drill enough to let me go on down and start bolting the pitch below, but unfortunately my earlier drilling issues still managed to catch up with me. I drilled half a hole, decided it was too close to an edge, started drilling another, and then the drill battery died. Alas, we'll have to save reaching the pushing front for another trip. We packed up and began heading out.
<p>
Passing through Repton on the way back, we noticed that the pitch down from Country for Old Men into Repton could benefit from a sling/loop of rope. We left a sling there, then once at the bottom we cut and tied a loop of rope from the old in situ we'd derigged earlier (the rest of this rope came out and back to topcamp with us).
<p>
After a bit of faff from me on the way down Strange Upfall (I really hate that pitch), we quickly found ourselves back in Knossos, where we had a quick drink from a pool near the base of the pitch (no one brought a water bottle on this trip due to some minor miscommunications that morning). I also desperately tried to wash the mud off my pantin here whilst Ash headed up (I was only partially successful).
<p>
The rest of the return journey went pretty quickly, and soon we were heading back to Topcamp to enjoy some warm food and hot chocolate.. And the ground was dry! More than anything else, this one thing rejuvenated my expo hype that day.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 10.5 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-11c">2025-07-11</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>PhilipBalister</u></div>
<div class="triptitle">plateau - In which I escape the potato hut</div>
During nearly a week of biblical rain, I taught myself how to use open drone map to stitch my drone photos from July 5 into geo referenced images that can be loaded into Nat's qgis project. This led to much research into preparing flight plans for the drone to perform efficient photo collection for more aerial image processing.
<p>
Key links:
<p>
<a href="https://ancient.land/">https://ancient.land/</a>
<p>
Studying the weather for July 11, it looked like there would be a short weather window to fly the drone in the morning. I made it up to the col and setup the drone and took off. Then realized I didn't know how to turn on the
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-13a">2025-07-13</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Becka</u>, Joel</div>
<div class="triptitle">Gruffalo 2025-js-04 - Descent of Turbine Hall</div>
With over 100m rope plus rigging gear between the 2 of us we staggered off via the Fishface path. En route we checked out two nearby holes that Joel and Hamish had previously found.
<p>
Lucky Crowbar was at 33T 411074 5282956. Joel free-climbed down 5m to a snow plug with no way off horizontally. No Draught.
<p>
2025-js-06 at 33T 411092 5282971 had a weak draught out. Joel descended 5m on Petzl Pulses to a boulder blockage over a p15. The boulders would need a crowbar or capping to pass.
<p>
We then reached Gruffalo where I was *most* impressed by the absolutely arctic draught blasting out of it. Joel and Hamish had already had a trip to the top of the second pitch but Joel wanted to do some rerigging so I basked in the sun until that was done and I could start the survey. I'd failed to bring any nail varnish so Joel obligingly partly drilled holes to mark stations. He rigged our first 2 ropes and I went out to fetch the third and thaw out my hands. He rigged the second pitch beyond two unpleasant thrutches over wedged boulders then threw rocks at a massive icicle until it was felled to make the pitch a bit safer. He continued down, next to a huge ice floe. We finished our rope and hangers and the survey at the start of a catchy rift, 1m high x 0.5m wide with an absolute gale howling out. I headed out but, oh no, it was now raining. We waited until it stopped then I insisted on a different route back, following the easy, obvious, steadily ascending bunde-free cleft NNE for ~250m until it intersected the usual path SE up to the Tunnocks col (again, easy, bunde-free and steadily ascending) then back to Top Camp on the usual Balkon path.
<p><b>
Rigging topo for first 3 pitches in Gruffalo
(as far as the rift below Turbine Hall)
</b><p>
<img src = "http://expo.survex.com/expofiles/photos/2025/rigging-topo-entrance-gruffalo.jpg"
width = "600"/>
<div class="timeug">T/U: 5.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-14a">2025-07-14</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>c. densham</u>, chris-densham, chris-densham</div>
<div class="triptitle">topcamp - Fire and water</div>
Having received a report that 'my' water system at top camp was leaking and had lost the last week of rain, I resigned myself to jacking on my first trip into KH for 18 years and instead went shopping for plumber's sealant. I then received a personal message that there had been a fire at Top Camp and my bivvi spot had not fared well. A gondola ride and walk up the hill allowed me to inspect the situation. Dylan and Dan, on a break from Popper pot, explained how Dylan had escaped a near death experience the night before. A stack of 3 campbeds had had 24 nightlights placed directly upon it in the hope that the combustion of the hydrocarbon (generating CO2 and, er, H2O), might somehow dispel the dampness in a furry suit hanging from the tarpaulin support ropes above. Photographic evidence, apparently, exists. Dylan, sleeping in the tier above, was woken by the smell of thick black smoke and observed a conflagration of the camp bed stack below. It seems that burning liquid wax soaking into a dry and absorbent cloth made an excellent wick. Who could have predicted such a mechanism? Dan made a rapid exit from his pit and led the swift discharge of the camp's remaining water supply on the fire, putting it out and minimising the collateral damage. The final toll was 3 camp beds, my 1st aid kit, 2 batteries, a pair of gloves and a new 2 ft diameter hole in the tarp. Fortunately those pesky EU bureaucrats had mandated a fire retardant to be incorporated in the tarpaulin meaning that the entire sleeping top camp party were not burnt to a crisp in their beds.
<p>
As for the leaking water system, the connector for the new large green water butt (gifted to expo by a few old lags) appeared to have been loosened by someone or something unknown. The absent top camp team appeared to have valved this off, but not before all the water was gone. This was retightened before the next shower, and the water butts were half full before a return to base was called for.
NB: Please don't unscrew/undo any of the water barrel fittings.
NB2: When all 4 barrels are reasonably full, valve off all but the furthest barrel (which is filled by the colleaction tarp) at the 4-way manifold. That way, if some rodent has worked out how to loosen one of the butt fittings only one barrel of water will be lost at a time.
NB3: Please get into the habit of checking the water system for leaks/ unexpected drops in water level before heading down the hill
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-14b">2025-07-14</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Lara</u>, Joel, Big Tom</div>
<div class="triptitle">2025-js-04 - Gruffalo The Day of The Salamanders</div>
I led a merry dance across the Plateau with two newly arrived faces: Big Tom and Little Tom. You’d really think that by this point I’d know the route like the back of my hand, but somehow, mysteriously, I still take strange meanders. We arrived at Top Camp to an exclamation from big Tom and a gaping hole in the tarp – what could have possibly happened here? The answer can probably  be found in another logbook entry, but involved tea lights, mild foolishness and some very genuine peril.
<p>
After meeting a tired, smoked out Joel we had noodles and packed. The team was now: Joel, me, Big Tom and Frank and the objective of the day was pushing Gruffalo. Gruffalo had  been the word on everyone’s tongue the night before: a new cave with a stonking draft and a pitch at the bottom from which rocks had been chucked a very long way.
<p>
I was particularly excited because this cave had been found on our prospecting trip to ‘The Valley of Death’ a week previously. We had split into two teams for a pincer movement and both teams had found numerous holes with insane icy drafts. I went right, across the valley, and sadly all of ours had been choked, but the left side of the pincer (Joel and Buck) had faired better. Gruffalo was the Goldilocks hole – big enough to be human sized but small enough to not be choked, with a draft to match them all. Now, the entrance series was complete with no sign of the draft diminishing and I had been invited with a crack team to replace the pulses with bolts and drop wherever the rocks were going to
<p>
The day didn’t exactly continue smoothly – we took an overly direct route and accidentality entered a part of the plateau I can only describe as impassible. It treated us to endless seas of bunde which hid cliffs. I headed down  one terrible route with enthusiasm and Joel tried another. Frank and Big Tom were fresh on the plateau so Joel did the gentlemanly thing and retreated to find them a more civilised way down (this took some time). I chose to continue, guided to the cave by Joel pointing in vaguely the right direction, planning to meet them at the bottom of the valley. My way was pretty quick if perilous: it involved several cliffs, bunde surfing and hanging onto bunde to avoid said cliffs. I got to the bottom, found a high rock and waited.
<p>
45 minutes and a lot of whooping later Joel and co. turned – looking tired and a little like they wanted to kill Joel. Ah well, we were at the cave soon, and just in time. An ominous dark cloud had rolled in and we speed changed in the drizzle.
<p>
The draft was indeed insane: icy and strong. I descended quickly – leaving Big Tom and Frank in a group shelter and Joel hot on my heels. The plan was we would decent to the bottom and they would replace the pulses. The entrance series was distinctly unfriendly, it had multiple tight pitch heads and a giant wall of black ice to descend beside. Half way down we heard the sound of a chunk of ice falling below us: comforting. At the bottom was a small chamber on snow slope with a scrotty rift continuing from it – the wind practically whistled, showing us that this was the way on. Joel chucked some rocks down it and when he got the right angle they did indeed make some very impressive booming noises. I’d have to get used to this because this rift needed an awful lot of gardening.
<p>
I sat in a tiny alcove with all my layers on while Joel crept along the rift pushing rocks (with the help of the crowbar which I’d been sent to retrieve from a few pitches up as a warming up mission).  Eventually he got to the pitch head and we both saw an almighty shaft: 10m across and perfectly straight down. We called it the Jabberwocky, and, when a rock was dropped down it, it was a perfect 4 second wait then an almighty boom. Exciting. The draft even carried the smell of crushed rock back up to us. We could hear the far off sound of water however there was nothing obviously coming down the shaft. The entrance series also only became mildly drippy as the day went on. This was encouraging, as apparently it rained pretty constantly on the surface.
<p>
Our day was spent doing an awful lot of gardening, bolting a traverse through the rift (awkward as it was pretty tight) and surveying to the pitch head. This all took an annoyingly long time and by 6pm I was begging Joel to leave as I had become a human ice block. The sound of the drip increasing also unnerved me and Joel very kindly agreed that callout was close (8pm) and the pitch could wait for another day. We turned round after he had taken some videos of the shaft and daylight was very welcome even if it came with drizzle.
<p>
There was no sign of Frank and Big Tom on the surface and also no sign of change in the bolting. We found out later that they realised they didn’t have a spanner and, after the trials of the walk, they had decided to call it a day. Joel and I ate some solid gummy rabbits and headed back on a more sensible bearing to the Fishface path, intending to intercept it and take it to top camp.
<p>
We had a wonderful long and rambly walk: talking of many things and in no rush to get anywhere fast. We ended up on a random pinnacle of rock with an excellent view and surveyed our domain: working out where all the major plateau landmarks were. The salamanders were also out in extreme numbers – we saw at least 7 to our excitement, including two getting frisky. Amusing messages were sent on the chat. Doing the Fishface walk with Joel is always an experience as every part of it has a name to him. We joined at the bottom of ‘Nadia’s Demise’ and went through ‘Buck’ and ‘Spiderman 2’to name a few. In danger of missing our 2 hour plateau callout for a supposedly 45 minute walk we had to stop aimlessly wandering towards the end and actually make progress.
<p>
We arrived at Top camp to the Popper Hohle group leaving (apparently it goes horizontal!) and we congratulated each other on our promising caves. The two other groups were still underground so once they’d left we had a sing and a curry and went to bed. An excellent day.
<p>
A song wrote at top camp and on the walk down the hill the next day (to the tune of The Misty Mountains, of course):
<p>
<em> Far over the Totes Gebirge cold
<br/>
To A-Leads deep, and flapjack old,
<br/>
We must away, ere break of day,
<br/>
To find our long forgotten bolts.
<p>
The beds were roaring on the hights
<br/>
The tarp was glowing in the night
<br/>
The fire was red, its flaming spread
<br/>
Tea-lights like torches, blazed with light
<p>
Far over the Totes Gebirge deep
<br/>
Four cavers smoked out of their sleep
<br/>
Water was poured! The flames still roared (or: While Dan still snored?)
<br/>
On Plateau they were forced to sleep </em>
<div class="timeug">T/U: 5.0 hours</div>
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<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-14c">2025-07-14</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>dyl</u>, Dan g, Ned, Tom b</div>
<div class="triptitle">Anfängerglückhöhle - (popperhöhle) CUCCCing in Anfängerglückhöhle</div>
Over the past couple days, Dan and I have been back and forth between Anfängerglückhöhle (AGH), bringing in more rope, bolting gear and surveying equipment. I had a crack at rigging the Mama’s Kabab pitch series previously and ended up with a bodged J hang and an interesting traverse line, so today I let Dan undo my mess whilst I cracked on with where I left off with the surveying.
<p>
! Just a bit of a warning. There is a microwave sized boulder loose on the platform next to the traverse line (white on the left). Please try and avoid using the platform, and this section should be ideally rerigged as to avoid people standing here. Plus some more gardening needs to be done !
<p>
Turns out doing the job of Instrument, notes and dog whilst on large free hanging pitches is quite the task. However, after many mid-rope changeovers and swearing later, I had surveyed the popper pitch series, ending at station number 12 on a large boulder at the base of the shaft. By this time Dan had finished undoing all my mistakes and had bolted the next series. We dropped down the newly bolted section and was greeted by another huge chamber, which included a gently sloping horizontal section. We walked over to this section, clambered over a boulder and we were placed in a huge aven, with a hole straight down, horizontal passage to the left and another passage up a chosen slope to the right.
<p>
Suddenly, we heard voices which we thought were from the group in KH. Alas, it was part of the CUCCC lot (Ned, Tom B) coming down to siege us. Shortly after, Ned noticed the boulder that Dan and I had previously clambered over was in fact wobbly, so he promptly kicked it down, followed by Ned shouting ‘Oh fuck’. Turns out he had kicked the boulder on his trad gear and the 60m rope Dan had brought down.
<p>
I left the 3 of them to dig out their stuff, whilst I headed out to grab a charger battery, a spare light and some food. Festering at topcamp I was greeted by Dan, then Chris not long after. I ate some noodles, whilst watching Chris rummage through his burnt belongings after Harry tried to burn down top camp. Later, we headed back and I began surveying again, this time a with Dan as the dog. We reached the bottom of the final pitch, where I was left by myself to survey to the large aven (station 23) as the ropes and gear had been freed so Dan went off, then I surveyed into the beginning of the crawly horizontal passage.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 8.0 hours</div>
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 <hr />
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-15a">2025-07-15</div>
<div class="trippeople"><u>Lara</u>, everyone</div>
<div class="triptitle">basecamp - Expo Dinner</div>
Dinner was eaten and nothing else happened.
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
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