mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2025-12-09 07:14:36 +00:00
289 lines
31 KiB
HTML
Executable File
289 lines
31 KiB
HTML
Executable File
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
||
<html>
|
||
<head>
|
||
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
|
||
<title>2025 Expo Logbook</title>
|
||
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/css/main2.css" />
|
||
<meta name="keywords" content="NOEDIT">
|
||
<style>figure {font-weight: bold; font-size: small; font-family: sans-serif;font-variant-caps: small-caps;}</style>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<!-- Exported by troggle because one entry has been edited, and we reconstruct the whole thing.
|
||
|
||
As of 10 Dec.2024 the list of participants in every trip is re-ordered to be in alphabetic
|
||
order of name (or nickname, if used) whenever any entry is edited and the logbook.html file
|
||
re-written. This is prevent spurious re-orderings and spurious git commit lines which obscure real changes.
|
||
|
||
Sorry about all the crap that surrounds the image tags which has been imported along with the content
|
||
when UK Caving blogs have been parsed.
|
||
|
||
Exported on 2025-07-07 09:07 using either the control panel webpage or when editing a logbook entry online
|
||
See troggle/code/views/other.py and core.models/logbooks.py writelogbook(year, filename)
|
||
-->
|
||
<body>
|
||
<h1>Expo 2025</h1>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-06-28a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-28b">2025-06-28</div>
|
||
<div class="trippeople"><u>Ella marcovitch</u>, Dan gorst, Dylan wase, Smella Marcovitch</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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-06-28b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-06-30a">2025-06-30</div>
|
||
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dan</u>, Ella, Harry, Hannah</div>
|
||
<div class="triptitle">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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-06-30a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-06-30b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-01a">2025-07-01</div>
|
||
<div class="trippeople"><u>Buck Blake</u>, Alice Kirby, 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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
|
||
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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-01a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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">Balkonhole - 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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-01b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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 of 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 spiders), we were finally sure to be enroute.
|
||
<p>
|
||
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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-02a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-02b">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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-02b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-03a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-04a">2025-07-04</div>
|
||
<div class="trippeople"><u>Dyl</u>, Mark D</div>
|
||
<div class="triptitle">Plateau - 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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-04a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-04b">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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-04b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-05a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-05b">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="tripdate" id="2025-07-05c">2025-07-05</div>
|
||
<div class="trippeople"><u>nobody</u></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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-05c">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<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 4111605283056]. ‘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 src="https://expo.survex.com/expofiles/photos/2025/lara%20drawing.jpg>
|
||
<div class="timeug">T/U: 0.0 hours</div>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-05d">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<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>
|
||
<div class="editentry"><br /><a href="/logbookedit/2025-07-06a">Edit this entry</a><br /></div>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html>
|