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<title>1996 expo summary</title>
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<h2><center>CUCC Austria Expedition 1996<br>
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Summary for exCS Newsletter</center></h2>
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With the promise of easy caving now that 161d had eliminated all that SRT
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from Kaninchenhöhle, the 1996 expedition was the best-attended ever.
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First priority, however, was to find the best access to Scarface on the
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surface. Recces by Anthony and crew found that the walk via Hochklapf sattel
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was, if anything, more serious than from our old topcamp, and nowhere
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suitable for a new camp was forthcoming. A second attempt, from above,
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engineered a suitable route with the aid of the odd bolt, handline and quite
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a lot of hacksawing bunde. All but one rope was later eliminated, and most
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people could get to the entrance (or back) in one to one-and-a-half hours
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without too much vertical bunde bashing.
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<p>Once top camp was populated and caving started, fat wads of passage came
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thick and fast, but only for a while - then it pissed down for the whole of
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week 2, including 5" of snow at top camp. Unlike 1993, however, it cleared up
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again and was pretty good for the busy fortnight which followed.
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<p>The climb up where Triassic Park ended so frustratingly last year was
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achieved, but quickly led to pitches down, at first apparently heading for
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Flat Battery, but now deeper than that with no sign of connecting. This put
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the SRT back in with a vengeance, being effectively a 226m shaft. But not to
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worry, as this could be readily avoided in the extensive horizontal leads of
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"Puerile Humour Series". The holes in the floor here don't go far down, and
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the passages ramify to the NE from Triassic Park. Two parties in here found
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new entrances within five minutes of each other - 161e from "Yorkshire
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Pudding" and 161f from "Completely Loopy" - or maybe they should be "exits"
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as they are not terribly accessible on the surface :-)
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<p>In this area, one passage, "Where the wind blows", heads out under the
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east side of the Hinter, to end further north than Anglia, at a slightly
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higher level. "Iceland" is parallel, but must be quite near the surface as it
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is pretty much at the "edge" of the hill and contains lots of ice formations.
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<p>The wide space between Triassic Park and the "old" cave has hardly been
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penetrated, though Mike'n'Tina found "Alternative Universe" going some way
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into this area about half an hour before Wookey did, much to his annoyance.
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"Fogies' Folly" and "Dr. Snuggles" also go off on this side of Triassic Park,
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but are not very extensive. Several deep holes in the floor were descended,
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and the link into Knossos was surveyed exactly where expected.
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<p>Other holes in Minoan Surprise and off Trifurcation yielded significant
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vertical with "Yet another 80m pitch" appearing distressingly often. The
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"Bottomless Pit of Eternal Chaos", whose name will be a pain to fit on the
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survey, connects to one branch of "Interview Blues" - ending about 50m under
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the floor of Knossos. The other branch of Interview is heading steadily
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downwards, and at -451m is now the third deepest point in the cave.
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<p>But SRT is still optional ! Instead you could visit "Stairway to Hell".
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This is the boulder choke found last year which is so loose that they said
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"I've never been so scared anywhere underground" and "We're never going back
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- there must be a way round". The way round was soon not forthcoming, and off
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they went through "Whimper Way" into "The Forbidden Land", finding passage
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heading south under the Vord. and almost certainly connecting with parts of
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Steinschlagschacht - explored in 1983 and 84. The dreadful weather in the
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final week of expo prevented this from being re-rigged to see, and this will
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be a priority next year. The explorer's minds were so numbed by the general
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looseness of the way in to this series that inspiration deserted and passages
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were named "Elin Algor" and "Tirolia Werke" after the fridge and the cooker
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in the Potato Hut!
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<p>But enough of this caving - did we go on holiday just to survey 5km of new
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passage (club record) ? Of course not, hence the presence of hang gliders,
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bikes, windsurfer, diving bottles, michelin-man dry-suit, canoe, and up to
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ten crates of Gösser *per day*. Julian H, keen to try out AndyW's new
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canoe, almost immediately found himself turned into the current with a snap
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decision between bailing out or going over Hilde's weir. Andy having made the
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wrong choice earlier and gone over outside the boat, Julian elected to go for
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it and made a fine descent, only to find that everyone had leapt into a car
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to drive down to Bad Aussee to recover the body. Boats generally got their
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own back on him later, when he mangled his toe in a pedalo at Hallstatt.
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<p>Julian Todd got disgruntled when, despite a posh kite and various techie
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instruments, he found that Helen, a novice with a crap glider from CUHGS, got
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higher than him no less than three times on one flight. However, she failed
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to stay higher than the trees on a later flight, and the Feuerwehr had to cut
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one down to get their ladder to reach her fifty feet up in another one. They
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were probably concerned that she didn't do Julian's party piece of puking on
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Grundlsee from a great height...
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<p>With 38 members present, the expo dinner was bound to be riotous, so we
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were a little disconcerted when Hilde told us that it would be attended by
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the Mayor of Bad Aussee, 'cos we had been going there for so long. However,
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the deputy mayor and the head of the tourist bureau, having presented all the
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old lags with "our valued guest" badges, bought us some beer and beat a hasty
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retreat before it got too noisy.
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<p>Wookey was to be seen wandering everywhere on the plateau locating old and
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new entrances with a GPS "which always knows where it is". Unfortunately,
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Wookey doesn't know where it is, so if anyone finds a GPS which isn't lost
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but appears to have mislaid its owner, can they send it home please :-)
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<p>So, 5.4 km of new cave and as many new question marks as old ones
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finished. There were enough 1995 question marks near the entrance that no-one
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has actually used the Knossos connection to get to Chicken Flied Nice this
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year. This means that there is still huge scope for new stuff next year, and
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still lots with very little SRT to do. If none of the above means much to you
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any more then (a) it is high time you came out to expo and had a look round
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the cave - do it next year ! or (b) 1996 journals available from CUCC
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(contact James Hickson, c/o Pembroke College) cost £4.50 plus postage. High
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quality A0 sized Kaninchenhöhle surveys at £2 plus postage from Wookey
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will keep you adequately informed. The journals cover two years, and are
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jolly thick, so don't whinge about the price ! You only get a full survey
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once every five years or so, and these are very good, so cough up at once.
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Failing that, start a virtual tour of the cave at
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<a href="../../smkridge/161/triasp.htm">http://www.chaos.org.uk/cucc/expo/smkridge/161/triasp.htm</a>.
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Work is [<i>at the time of printing this article (now finished) -
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webmaster</i>] already in hand to add this year's stuff (the work-in-progress
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is on Andy's webspace), and it might be done by BCRA time.
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<hr />
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<!-- LINKS -->
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<ul id="links">
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<li>1996 Expedition info:
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<ul>
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<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
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<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
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<li><a href="report.htm">Cambridge Underground report</a> (this link dead - not yet published)</li>
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<li><a href="bcracc.htm">BCRA Caves and Caving</a> Report</li>
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<li>Wookey's Compass Points <a href="gps.htm">article on GPS usage</a></li>
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<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1996">Published accounts</a></li>
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<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition intro page</a></li>
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<li><A href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home page</a></li>
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</ul>
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</body>
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