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<title>1990: Cambridge Underground report</title>
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<center><font size=-1>CTS 91.1327/a: Cambridge Underground 1991 pp 5-10</font>
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<h2>CUCC Austria 1990 Expedition Report</h2></center>
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<p align=right>Wookey
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<p>Now, the complete expo report that follows this article will be at least
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9,000 words long and largely pretty dull as it is written for consumption by
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sensible people who hand out money; your average caver doesn't qualify for
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this description as they tend to be silly people with no money, so this is a
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version aimed at you lot.
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<p>This year must go down in the annals as the year Hi-Tech came to the Expo.
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With several grand's worth of radios, a survey computer, and a Bosch drill,
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CUCC were well on the way to the 21st century. Good job our carry-in is easy
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enough to accommodate such kit, and a pity that we can't manage the same
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levels of equipment for our transport. Anyway, read on to see how it all
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went.
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<h3>Arrival in Austria</h3>
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<p>So, come the 25th June the first wave (Wookey, Del, Tina, Juliette and
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Dave F) set off 3 weeks early to do some mountaineering before the expo and
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to avoid all that last minute organization. A week after that came the
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Landrover and three more bodies (Jeremy, Adam and Paul T). After 2 weeks
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walking we jacked it in and headed for Hilde's familiar campsite, scene of
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many a debauched night over the years. This was a week before the official
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start of the expo but that didn't fool the weather and it tipped it down in a
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huge rainstorm as we travelled, so much so that the Wookmobile ignition
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resigned until an hour's rest and much WD40 got it going again. This was to
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be the first of many breakdowns amongst the even-more-rubbish-than-usual set
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of 'cars' that appeared this year.
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<p>We arrived to find that Claire and Olly had got there that morning to be
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told by Hilde that we weren't coming for another week! This meant that a week
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before the start there were nine bodies ensconced in Hilde's with our free
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introductory Schnapps, and then another car load of three (Dave H, Julian,
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and Matt) turned up at midnight making 12 in all. (Any apparent arithmetic
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errors in the above are caused by Tina arriving twice!)
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<p>That night the newly-put-up beer tent blew over, destroying much of its
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frame so we spent the next morning trying to get it fixed, being eventually
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saved by Hilde's husband who brazed it back together.
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<p>We also installed the Vesta. Now we had a bit of a problem with Vesta.
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They had asked us how much we wanted - we thought of how much we could
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reasonably ask for - ie. about 100 meals, and then doubled it and went for
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200. How many arrived at Cambridge before we left? 720 two-person meals, ie.
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at least 1000 caver-meals, which was enough for everyone to eat Vesta twice a
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day for almost the entire Expo. We managed to get rid of some by swapping it
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with York for batteries and by giving it away to club members but there was
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still an entire trailer-full come Expo time and with only three flavours -
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Chicken Curry, Paella, and Chicken Fried Rice - everyone was looking forward
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to some really exciting food!
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<p>Despite the presence of 29 question marks on the 1989
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<span lang="de">Kaninchenhöhle</span> survey there was some doubt about
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how much more there was to find and lots of slackers who wanted to go
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prospecting around the plateau anyway. One of the best leads was a big hole 5
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metres up the wall at the end of Yapate Inlet, down the Right Hand Route. The
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deepest question mark was fairly close by, so it was decided to go for these
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first and then go for the stuff down the Left Hand Route where there were
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more leads. (After last year's problems with not having enough rope we had
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fallen upon this plan of only doing one or two things at a time to avoid the
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same problem - some hope!).
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<h3>Caving at last</h3>
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<p>So after a couple of days of shopping and setting up base and top camps
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(Hilde's and behind the <span lang="de-at">Bräuning Nase</span>
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respectively) we were under way. Jeremy went down a hole that he had first
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bolted the entrance of two years ago, and it eventually went to minus 80
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metres via some very tight pitches ('Fancy a coffee' and 'Get yer kit off').
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Meanwhile the riggers-in started work on the Right Hand Route whilst Wookey
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and Juliette took some climbing gear and headed for Adrian Pitch, which had
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an inviting hole across its head. This was accessible by a dodgy traverse,
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which had been looked at and left ('needs some gear') in '88. This done, the
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Wookey headed off up some crawls and was surprised to find daylight again -
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it popped out and yelled 'Where the fuck am I' which produced an Adam who was
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prospecting in the area. Not bad for the first day - finding a new entrance.
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<p><img alt="Expo Hazards: 5k gif" width=280 height=325 align=right
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hspace=10 vspace=10 src="nearer.png">
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The next day, back underground, the traverse continued up-dip in what was
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obviously a big rift, eventually reaching a beautiful 50 metre pitch ('French
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Connection II'). At the bottom of this was a passage containing a piece of
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topofil cotton and some boot prints - hmmm, looks like someone has been here
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first. However, we couldn't find any of their bolts so we continued
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exploring. Back on the surface Adam found a corresponding marked entrance
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only 10 metres away from the new 161b, with circumstantial evidence
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suggesting that it was French. This has still to be confirmed.
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<p>Meanwhile Jeremy and Adam headed for the Yapate climb, armed with
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Geraldine, our lovely new Bosch drill. Unfortunately they didn't get very far
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as the battery went flat after less than a bolt hole (it had been used for a
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spot of re-rigging on the way down). Nevertheless, whilst wandering about in
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frustration they found an impressive pitch series reached by an 'obviously
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blocked' crawl. This was duly named 'Flat Battery'.
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<p>Next Julian took Dave H to look at his question mark part way down
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Flapjack. Their first attempt had been thwarted by Team Flat Battery who were
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failing to rig the last pitch as their rope was a good 3 metres too short.
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This time it went better, and despite Dave's comment "When I saw Julian's way
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on I thought he was joking", the tiny rift did go, although after getting
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lost on the way out the next visitors took a ball of string!
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<p>Wookey and Dave were the next to have a go at the Yapate climb, this time
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using conventional climbing gear. The climb itself was only hard, but the mud
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covered traverse at the top was 'absolutely horrific...' [serious bullshit
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edited out here]. Much faffing was caused by the snaplinks on both Dave's
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dangly bag and the tackle sack coming undone and leaving our intrepid cavers
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at the top with no bolting kit or SRT rope. This problemette was dealt with
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by the use of a bit of IRT ('Indestructible Rope Technique') with the
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climbing rope. Fortunately all this effort was rewarded and they found 150
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metres of big phreas, followed by a 23 metre drop and 180 metres of steeply
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descending rift leading to a nasty-looking pitch. Along with the 100 metres
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of 'Vestabule' checked out on the way down, that made us about 400 metres of
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passage up on the day.
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<h3>Cars and computers</h3>
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<p>At this point the rest of the Expo turned up, Mark D winning the worst car
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award by using 9 litres of oil on the drive out (the car later died
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completely near <span lang="de-at">Salzburg,</span> refusing even to be towed
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back to camp (we bent Tony's car trying), so Mark got the AA to pay for a
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brand new hire car to fill with caving gear and yob home in). He did succeed
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in getting the hang-glider out so that put paid to any more caving by Julian
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or Mark S who kept lemminging off the 10 metre ramp bolted to the side of the
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mountain to land on the Village Green some 900 metres below. Mark managed a
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descent time of 4 minutes on one rather choppy flight i.e. nearly 4 metres
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per second vertically, never mind his horizontal speed!
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<p>Other people avoided caving by going windsurfing, sunbathing by the lake,
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walking, climbing and touristing (oh yeah, and drinking bier of course) - any
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excuse really.
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<p>Along with another 13 people came the rest of the gear: a computer for
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doing the surveying on (bit of an improvement on the programmable calculators
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of the last few years); and the Philips radios, which proved to be
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absolutely ace gear. We didn't even need to cart the second base station up
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the hill as the mobiles reached down to base camp anyway. It was eventually
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shifted up and installed at the cave entrance giving excellent all-round
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communications. Now we didn't have to walk back down the mountain to go
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shopping when we ran out of Vesta and bog roll, we just phoned up base camp
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and told them to bring some up.
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<p>The only problem was irate Austrians trying to use the same frequency
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(they weren't supposed to be there either!), and trying to communicate with
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the total pissheads down at base camp. For example, Adam and Jeremy stupidly
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dashed all the way up and down the <span lang="de">Dachstein</span> in a day
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(20 miles and 8000 feet of ascent), and then got lost on the way down in the
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dark. Fortunately they had a Talkie Walkie with them so they phoned up for
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some transport, but all they got was an unbelievably pissed Julian (as the
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weather had been too bad for flying) who claimed that it would be 'completely
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impossible to walk the 50m to the beer tent to get someone else to talk to
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them as he would fall over'.
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<p>The computer caused a bit of a problem as well (don't they always?) as
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Wookey had brought the data and software on 5 inch discs but the Archimedes
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only had 3 inch ones. Wadders, unable to contact Wookey as he had buggered
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off early to Austria just to make things difficult, had intelligently brought
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an extra 5 inch drive with him, but it wouldn't read the discs. The combined
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efforts of about eight supposedly intelligent people, several of whom had
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newly-acquired degrees in Computer Science, got us nowhere. Eventually Wookey
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was forced to drive 40 miles to something approximating a town, and wander
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around looking for a Dixons, or anybody else that might have a computer, and
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attempt to explain to them that we were English cavers and could we just
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borrow their PC for a mo? Surprisingly, this eventually proved successful and
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provided Olly with another excuse not to go caving at all (the first excuse
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had been Claire but she had gone home after 2 weeks). He proved much more
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useful above ground than below by inputting all the data and writing an
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impressive 3D cave rotation/examination program as well.
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<h3>Caving again</h3>
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<p>On the next trip underground, comprising some ouigees touristing around
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the entrance series, Mark S was somewhat surprised when one of our new Hilti
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bolts fell out, depositing him on his arse on the ledge he'd just tried to
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abseil from. This made people somewhat suspicious of our new drill and bolt
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combination, so it didn't get used for some time until Dave F and Wookey
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fished it out from the depths of the cave to do some surface testing. This
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involved bolting up a few boulders so that we could tie them to the mountain
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and chuck 'em off. Some Fall Factor 2s with a 40 kilogram boulder failed to
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break anything and a Fall Factor 1 with a 150 kilogram boulder (the biggest
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we could slide off the edge!) broke the tape and partially melted the rope
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but didn't do the bolt any harm. The ring hanger survived in very good nick
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as well - looks like good gear.
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<p>A couple of Swedes passed through, on their way to another Expo, dropping
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off Hugh, the newest member of the CUCC Scandinavian Department. One of them
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got the highest Time Underground per Day ratio of anybody. Dangerously keen
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some of these foreigners.
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<p>By now the Vesta mutiny was developing - led by Paul Smith and the
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Veggies. Ironic, really, as they didn't have to eat the bloody stuff anyway.
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Unfortunately, Paul was far too good a cook and everyone was eating veggie in
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preference to more Vesta, especially at base camp where shopping for nice
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food had become rife - what do think this is - a holiday? You lot can't
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afford to eat nice food, now shut up and eat some more Shit Curry.
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<p>We now had three deep routes, as the first three things we had looked at
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were all going strong, and indeed this started to cause a fairly serious rope
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problem as our entire 1.4 kilometres was used up. Fortunately, just as things
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were about to start getting nasty as people argued for their favourite route,
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the Flapjack II series ended at an inaccessible rift with water at the bottom
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- apparently at exactly the same height as last year's sump, which was only
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about 30 metres away. This made it pretty certain that that was the water
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table here and we weren't going to get any deeper without going sideways a
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fair way. This series contained an absolutely stunning 100 metre pitch
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'Splatdown' - due to the mega rock that had been bunged down it and had sunk
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in the gloop at the bottom. This had been rigged on our new 9 millimetre rope
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- Ernie the Earthworm - and there had been much gibbering and whimpering all
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round!
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<p>Meanwhile 300 metres of coax cable was laid from the entrance so we could
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play with our radios underground as well, and people kept finding bits of
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cave more or less wherever they looked. The Adrian's 'French Connection II'
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pitch had a couple of others below it, culminating in a nasty, grey, dead-end
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bit, appropriately named 'Belgium'. More cave was found about 40 metres from
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the entrance and in several side passages, climbs and holes down the Right
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Hand Route.
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<p>The next development was that after much fruitless searching last year, we
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finally found a bypass to the Squeeze which had claimed two victims (a femur
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and a pelvis) in '89. The Bypass was called 'Dreamtime' and was one of the
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strongest leads left last year, coming out about halfway along the Right Hand
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Route. This allowed our rather large geologist to finally get into the cave
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proper, (he hadn't fitted through the squeeze)and tell us what all this
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bloody space was doing here anyway. The squeeze failed to claim any more
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victims as we had installed a 'dickhead catcher' - a sort of donkey's dick
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for cavers - which would catch anyone who attempted to repeat the previous
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disasters.
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<p><center><img
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alt="Sheep, drugs and rock'n'roll - only substitutes for caving (6k gif)"
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width=425 height=256 hspace=10 vspace=10 src="sheep.png"></center>
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<p>There was, of course an Expo dinner with much debauchery all round - well
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not that much debauchery this year, but Jeremy did challenge the Club that he
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could eat ten of Hilde's incredible 'Death-by-Chocolates'. He did manage
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seven before throwing up, but missed Mark's tent. This was a great pity as he
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had successfully thrown up in Mark D's tent in '88, Mark F's tent in '89, and
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had tempted fate by sharing his abode with Mark S in '90.
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<p>More fun and beer were had when the club was invited to appear in the
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village carnival by the local cavers who had an amazing artificial mountain,
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complete with abseil, cave, bar and accordionist on their float. We only had
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our trusty Rover, on its sixth (and probably final) expo, and with lots of
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free beer around, everyone got extremely drunk - well, what else is there to
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do?.
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<p>Photos were taken of the mega 'Splatdown' pitch, and of Yapate and the
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massive Knossus chamber. Unfortunately photos were not taken of 'Flat
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Battery' as Mark D the photographer had had far too much beer at the
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above-mentioned carnival (to prove how 'ard he was). Much to our surprise he
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made it up to the cave the next morning, looking like death and having the
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shakes so bad that he made a big hole in his hand whilst trying to break up
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our cheapo Polish carbide into bits small enough to go in a generator. He
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even made it underground, but resigned after about an hour as it was just too
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awful, and headed out. He did discover a third entrance on the way out by
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forcing a bedding plane connecting the 161b entrance to the nearby French
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entrance. "It was so tight I had to dig myself out at one point" said Mark
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'God-I'm-so-hard' D. Later Paul-the-large-geologist got through so someone is
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bullshitting somewhere!
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<p>Meanwhile the rest of Team Photo had a lovely trip to the bottom of Flat
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Battery (minus 400 metres) and checked out the remaining leads. The pitch
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series had finished at 100 metres or so of largely sand-filled phreas with
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lots of tiny tubes going off. None of these went anywhere although
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Wookey-the-stupid pushed one for about 150 metres of thrutching and even did
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a classic Mendip duck (at 1°C)and after giving up at a dodgy climb froze
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his balls off for the rest of the 16 hour trip. There's technically still a
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question mark there, but anyone who wants it is welcome to it, OK? After
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deciding that this had finished too we de-rigged it, so that was that.
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<p>Meanwhile lots of people had been wandering about on the surface looking
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for holes as it was sunny up there (the weather was being consistently
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brilliant) and 15 new holes were found and marked, at least one of which is
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still going after 200 metres or so. Even Wookey and Dave F took a couple of
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days off to survey two caves left over from '88 (162 and 163), before
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everyone forgot where they were, as has happened to so many other over the
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years - ahem.
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<h3>Ending it all</h3>
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<p>Finally, as everything started bottoming out, people remembered the
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original plan and got round to looking at some stuff down the Left Hand
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Route. The first hole they tried went straight into more big pitches (bloody
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cave's full of holes!), called 'Powerstation', comprising 'Dungeoness',
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'Sizewell B', 'Dinorwig', and 'Foulness Ledge'. Two more trips pushed this
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down for 120 metres until it stopped at a couple of tiny rifts. Why do they
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all do that? - I mean where does all the water go?
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<p>This year's collection of cars was even more motley than usual; at one
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stage, five of the six remaining vehicles were knackered. Wadders' pistons
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had popped out of one of his rear brake cylinders whilst hacking down the
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toll road, causing the occupant's lives to flash before their eyes, but
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fortunately he had a spare circuit so they survived. His clutch lever had
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also snapped whilst driving to the cave so he had neatly turned round and
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driven all the way back to the campsite in second, ignoring all the junctions
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as he couldn't afford to stop. This was left for us to fix as Wadders dashed
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back to the UK to do a week's work in the middle of the Expo, taking Jeremy's
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car (the nice one) with him. The Wookmobile's brakes slowly decayed until at
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least four pumps were required to get any slowing down done. After taking 3
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days to buy a new cylinder, and knackering it on insertion as it had the
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wrong threads, National Breakdown took the car away to fix it. This meant
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that those unfortunates who were supposed to drive it back got a lift in Mark
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D's nice new hire car. The Landrover's dynamo died so we had to keep charging
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up car batteries for it, and only using it in the daytime. Fortunately, with
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all the shagged cars about there were plenty of batteries to spare! Del's
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thermostat was knackered so a drive up the toll road took 45 minutes and
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required at least one refill. That left Tony's nice 205 GTi - but that had
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shagged rear suspension so you could only put two people in it without taking
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big gouges out of the tyres.
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<p>Back underground Jeremy went and gibbered at all the hanging death at the
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head of the Endless pitch, and then Wookey and Dave F (who had become engaged
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at the CUCC dinner for always going caving together) took Geraldine down and
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did some fancy rigging down another 70 metres. One more (20 hour) trip
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finished this off as the pitches stopped at a mud floor at minus 450 metres
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with a hole at the end that "you might be able to get through Wookey, but no
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one else is going to try" so that was surveyed and finished with, although a
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tempting huge hole halfway up may be worth a go next year.
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<p>More passage was found above the Yapate climb heading 60 metres straight
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off the end of the survey, with three ways on at the end. This, along with
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all the Left Hand Route holes that we never even got round to looking at, and
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the rifts in Adrian's, holds most promise for '91.
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<p>Finally, we ran out of time and people started buggering off home to avoid
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the derigging. All able bodies were pressed into service to shift all the
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string out of the hole and back down the mountain, along with all the other
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Expo paraphernalia like Rebecca the stretcher (unused this year!), and lots
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of tents, food, bolting kits and caving gear.
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<p>We successfully turned Hilde's nice campsite into a bombsite with gear,
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string and dead cars everywhere. Eventually it was all stuffed into the
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available vehicles and everyone disappeared: Team Trinity off to hitch to
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Turkey and back; Team Intrepid to do Swiss mountains, French Caves, Gorges,
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and beaches; and the rest off home.
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<p>So, another successful trip for CUCC, with 2.7 kliks of passage
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discovered, mostly in pitch series below the 300 metres level, and plenty
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more holes in the ground to go at in future. We may not be the most glamorous
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expo on the planet, but it is one of the nicest, an excellent training ground
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for future hards, and, well, someone's got to discover all that nasty
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Austrian cave!
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<p>This year's team: <span lang="sv">Jan Armendal,</span> Olly Betts,
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Adam Cooper, Mark Dougherty, Tim Farrar, David Fearon, Mark Fearon, Annie
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Heppenstall, <span lang="sv">Lief Hornsved,</span> Dave Howes, Matthew
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Keeling, Juliette Kelly, Joe Lenartowicz, Keith Millar, Claire Purnell, Mike
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Richardson, Del Robinson, Jeremy Rodgers, Tony Rooke, Hugh Salter, Tanya
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Savage, Mark Scott, Paul Smith, William Stead, Peter Swain, Paul Theobald,
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Julian Todd, Francis Turner, Andy Waddington, Jared West, Tina White, Wookey.
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<hr />
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<!-- LINKS -->
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<ul id="links">
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<li>Cambridge Underground 1991,
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<a href="http://cucc.survex.com/jnl/1991/index.htm">Table of Contents</a></li>
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<li>1990 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="cavegd.htm">161 Description</a> to date (ie. 1990)</li>
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<li><a href="162163.htm">Entrances 162 and 163</a></li>
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<li><a href="newent.htm">New Entrances</a></li>
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<li>Surveying Report:
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<ul>
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<li><a href="svy1.htm"> 1: Calibration</a></li>
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<li><a href="svy2.htm"> 2: Survey Production</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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<li>Bosch Cordless Rotary Hammer <a href="drill.htm">Drill Report</a></li>
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<li><a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1990">Index</a> to all publications</li>
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<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expeditions 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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</html>
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