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<title>2009: Expedition report</title>
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<h2>Expo 2009<br />
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Cambridge University Club<br />
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18<sup>th</sup> July - 15<sup>th</sup> August 2009</h2>
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<p>In the summer of 2009, twenty-two brave, hard and (mainly) good-looking
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<a href="../../folk/index.htm">cavers</a> from CUCC (plus some guests from other clubs) returned to the
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Totes Gebirge mountains in Austria to continue exploring the cave
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systems of the Loser Plateau. The expedition lasted for four weeks.</p>
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<h3>Background</h3>
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<p>Over the past three decades, CUCC has explored many different caves
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on the
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Loser plateau. Bit by bit, connections have been found between these
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caves (and also potholes explored by other groups, such as ARGE). This
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has resulted in the formidably-named
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Schwarzmooskogelhöhlensystem, a 55km long and 1km deep goliath.</p>
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<p>For the past ten years, the focus of CUCC's expeditions has turned
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to the exploration of
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<a href="../../1623/204/204.html">Steinbrückenhöhle</a>. This
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has slowly been extended over the years and is now a major cave system
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in its own right: 16km long and well over 600m deep. It lies to the
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north of a cave in the Schwarzmooskogelhöhlensystem known as <a
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href="../../1623/161/top.htm">Kaninchenhöhle</a>. In 2006 <a
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href="../../1623/258/258.html">Tunnockschacht</a> was discovered,
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and recent expeditions have also been dedicated to its
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exploration. Tunnockschacht lies to the north of Steinbrückenhöhle.</p>
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<p>There were hundreds of promising unexplored leads in
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Kaninchenhöhle (KH),
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Steinbrückenhöhle (204) and Tunnockschacht (258), and this was reason
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enough to continue exploring. In addition, there is now a very
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realistic prospect of finding connections between the three caves,
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thereby extending the Schwarzmooskogelhöhlensystem.</p>
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<h3>Aims of the Expedition</h3>
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<p>For more details see the <a href="mission.html">mission statement.</a></p>
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<p>Some rather hard exploration in 2007 established that the
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closest point between KH and 204 was at the bottom of a particularly
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miserable rift known as Razordance. So it was decided that a more
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pleasant way of seeking the connection would be to look from the KH
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side, in the Far North, where happily there were also many large
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undescended pitches to look at.</p>
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<p>In addition to returning to KH, plans were afoot to continue
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exploring leads in 204 and in 258. At the end of the 2008 expedition a
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new horizontal level was found, named Pussy Prance (in "honour" of
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Razordance). Meanwhile, Tunnockschacht was still "going like a train",
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and its southern extremities were tantalisingly close to the north of
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204, so this was also an exploration goal for 2009.</p>
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<p>This year's expedition also had a non-caving goal (not just
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drinking Gösser). Recently [since 2006] members of CUCC have started to
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develop a piece of software called <a href="../../handbook/troggle/trogintro.html">Troggle</a>, which aims to facilitate
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keeping track of logbook entries, typing up surveys, caves etc, and save time in a lot of the
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work that goes on behind the scenes when expo is over. This year was
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the first time Troggle would be tested "in th field" (well, spud hut).</p>
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<h3>The Expedition</h3>
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<p>And so it was that on the 18th July 2009, various cars from Cambridge,
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Sheffield, Bristol, Southampton, Norway and France converged on the
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campsite at the Gasthof Staud'n'wirt, Bad Aussee. In keeping with expo
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tradition not all the vehicles quite made it unscathed, Julian and
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Becka experiencing a rather exciting "bonnet-on-the-windscreen" moment
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on the autobahn.</p>
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<p>The first few days were spent carrying equipment and supplies from
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the top of the Toll Road to the bivy near the 204 entrance, and
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setting up the bivy (tarps, water collection, mouse-proof food storage
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etc). Then the caving began.</p>
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<h4>Discoveries in Kaninchenhöhle</h4>
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<p>Initialy, things progressed rather slowly in KH. The first few
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trips were spent cairning a route from the bivy to G entrance and then
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bit-by-bit navigating our way to the <a
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href="../../1623/161/farnth.htm">far north</a>, replacing some of
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the very old fixed ropes and frighteningly rusty maillons as we
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went. Finally we were ready to start looking down some of the big
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undescended pitches in the area.</p>
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<p>The pitch near Satan's Sitting Room, dubbed 'Satan's Sitter' was
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the first to be explored, dropping for 50m before ending in an
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inpenetrable rift. A similar story was met near Silent Fellow, where a
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30m pitch 'Solid Rock' led to a promising looking series of clean washed
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drops. Unfortunately, once again a narrow rift was met and the lead
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was finished.</p>
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<p>As is often the way, things started to look particularly good
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towards the end of expo. By now the route all the way to East Anglia
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had been rigged. A very promising pitch series, '6 Mile Bottom', was dropped
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until the rope ran out. It is still a going lead. Various other big black spaces were also found. Further back in
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Repton, an exciting-sounding bit of climbing led to a large, straight
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walking sized passage, which, again, is still a going lead as time ran
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out.</p>
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<p>Altogether, 776m was surveyed in KH and more A-grade leads were
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found than were ticked off, so if nothing else, we showed that there
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is still plenty more to find at the far end, and that a connection to
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204 is still a realistic possibilty one day! KH is now 22.3 km long.</p>
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<h4>Discoveries in Steinbrückenhöhle</h4>
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<p>Meanwhile, in 204 the expo Women's Institue (dubbed Team Zeus, for
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reasons long since lost to Gösser) were exploring the pitch
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series, Pussy Prance, that was discovered at the end of last year's
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expo. At the bottom (a bit over 200m down) they found an exciting new phreatic
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horizontal level with various feline-themed names: Puss in Bolts (a
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traverse), Cat Flap, Cat Walk, Snow Leopard and er... Painted Lady.</p>
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<p>On one particular trip there was a little confusion when a pitch,
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Snow Leopard, was dropped for the first time, only to find foot
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prints, a pencil and a hanger at the bottom! This turned out to be the
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bottom of <a href="../../1623/204/nopain.html">Brian's Phat
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Shaft</a>. In fact, this was a very useful discovery as it offers an
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alternative, much easier route into the level than the route via Merry
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Fucking Christmas.</p>
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<p>In total 553m of cave was surveyed in 204. Survex shows that the
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new level is perched vertically above
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Razordance and not too far from <a
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href="../../1623/234/234.html">Hauchhöhle</a>. There are vertical leads in Hauchhöhle, and
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plenty of vertical leads in this new level of 204, so cleary there is
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some exciting caving to be done here in the future. 204 is now 16.5km long.</p>
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<h4>Discoveries in Tunnockschacht</h4>
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<p>In previous years, most of the horizontal leads in Tunnockschacht had
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been ticked off. Attention had turned to dropping some of the
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frighteningly airy pitches, in the hope of finding a lower horizontal
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level which might offer hope of a connection with the <a href="../../1623/204/subsoil.html#earthenware">Wares</a> in 204.</p>
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<p>Frustratingly, the pitches all seemed to 'crap out'. However, this
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year, another 100m deep monster, 'Usual Suspects', was dropped and a new
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phreatic level found at the bottom, with many ongoing leads. It turned
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out, however, that this pitch has a tendency to take a little water
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when it rains, as Becka, Julian and Steve found during initial
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exploration of the horizontal phreas. As an almighty thunderstorm
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raged on the surface (basecamp claimed to find hailstones the size of
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golf balls) they were sat at the bottom of the Usual Suspects for
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several hours cowering in a 'tent' made of survival bags. The
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thunderstorm passed, but their call out time also came and went and so
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the well oiled CUCC rescue machine swung into action once
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more. Eventually the water levels dropped and everybody returned to the
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surface unscathed - see Julian's logbook write up for a far better
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account than the one here!</p>
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<p>Plenty more was found higher up in Tunnockschacht. Stone Money was
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extended further and the explorers were convinced that it should by
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now have reached the surface. Several new caves were found by Frank
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and Martin J in an effort to connect Stone Monkey to the surface, but
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as yet Tunnockschacht only has the one entrance (although to be fair
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it does function quite nicely). Altogether 1462m of cave was surveyed
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in Tunnockschacht; it is now over 6km long and 290m deep.</p>
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<h3>Some Post-Expedition Remarks</h3>
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<p>Expo 2009 is now over, but writing cave descriptions, typing up
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logbooks and drawing up surveys continues. We found just under 3km
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this year. The overriding feeling is that there is plenty more cave still to be found in all three
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of the major caves we looked at, which bodes well for future expos. In
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addition Troggle looks like it will soon come into its own on expo and
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streamline all the basecamp computer-shenanigans.</p>
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<p>Thanks go to all the expedition members and in particular everybody
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who helped get stuff organised both before and after expo. Thanks also
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to our <a href="sponsors.html">sponsors</a> for their help this year.</p>
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<hr /></body>
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