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<title>1991: Cambridge Underground report</title>
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<center><font size=-1>Cambridge Underground 1992 pp 12-15</font>
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<h1>Austria '91</h1>
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<h3>Wookey</h3></center>
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<p>'91 was the sixteenth year of Cambridge University Caving Club
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Expeditions to the Totes Gebirge in Austria. We had 25 people, awful
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weather, 40 trips & 908 caving hours producing 1793m of surveyed passage,
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and about 500m more not yet surveyed. We drank over 700 bottles of Bier.
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<p>The pile surrounding the wookvan was about 20ft across and looked utterly
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ridiculous. 2 hours later it had miraculously disappeared inside, except for
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the two hang-gliders, windsurfer, 5 surveying poles, 6 aerial scaffolding
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poles and 12 spare HG uprights. Iain (Miller, East Dorset SS) had failed to
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get much sleep the night before as he had been fixing his car and was the
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only driver. He made it to within 12km of the campsite before finally
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falling asleep and blowing up two tyres hitting the kerb. Olly and Fran (his
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lucky passengers) had to walk these last klicks to get Mark D to drive out
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and initiate the rescue.
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<p>The only other vehicle event during the expo was when Tony's 205 GTI
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stopped working mysteriously on one trip down the toll road, only to work
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again after the ignominy of being towed to the campsite by Del's crap
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strada - still going despite the fact that it should have died gracefully
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some time ago. Julian Todd's new (to him) car was also pronounced
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'very ill' by those in the know when it used 5 litres of oil on
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the way out.
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<p>The Wook managed to break a tent pole in two places on first attempting to
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erect his brand new poncy tent at Top Camp and was only able to fix it by
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borrowing a pole sleeve from Paul Smith's Supernova. Wookey also later
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burned a hole in it with a candle.
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<p>The caving was a bit slow to get underway as the weather was far too nice
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and too hot to carry loads of gear around the place. When people finally
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went, it was not to 161, but to Puffball and Icing Sugar Cave (<b
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lang=de>Bovistundpuderzucker-höhle</b>), a find from the end of 1990.
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This was fine, except that most of the old lags who knew where to go in <b
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lang=de>KHöhle</b> were bored titless of it and so chose Puffball
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instead.
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<p>Our new radios provided much amusement as very little knowledge was
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combined with much enthusiasm to build impressive aerials that didn't
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actually work very well, especially not with the computer turned on. This
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meant that it was only possible to use the radios by agreeing call-up times
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in the morning and evening when basecamp would be listening in. This worked,
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but after the luxury of the year before, was a little frustrating.
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<h2>Puffball</h2>
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<p>Rigging-in down Puffball progressed apace, with 7 trips in as many days.
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Del & JulianH rigged the helpful but somewhat superfluous ladder near the
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entrance and the 1st pitch, whilst Ju & Jon started the mammoth task of
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surveying the ultra-widdly entrance series. The next two trips rigged down
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'Shell pitch' and then the long vertical 'Q8' & 'Dot to Dot' series of
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pitches. They found the first and second 'bottoms' ('Strike One' &
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'Strike Two' or 'Del's Bottom') where the rifts closed down, in both cases
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continuations were found by penduluming higher up.
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<p>Jon, Gill & Ol continued the mega-tedious Yorkshire Ripper survey
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over two trips & then went down to 'Strike Two' and rigged the
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rather cruddy 'Bottom Bypass' pitch which proved to be the end of
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the 100m drop. This was followed by the exceptionally unhelpful-with-gear
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'Tarzan's Folly' which led into bigger cave with classic
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streamway/pitch/ development. Puffball was looking good, and a couple more
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efficient trips rigged down Natural Redundancy, Cyclotron, Cloud Chamber
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& NDE.
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<p>It was on this 7th trip that Puffball revealed its true nature when a
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thunderstorm made the place extremely unpleasant and gave Juliette, Tony,
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JulianH & Del a hard time (see <a href="log.htm#id1991-182-7">Ju's
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write-up</a> for the gory details - as if you hadn't already heard them 15
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times in the pub). This distressing experience produced a sudden surge of
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enthusiasm for good ol' 161.
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<p>Team Hanglider was also out in force this year - JulianT, MarkS, IanH
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& Wookey (in order of keenness). They had four gliders between them -
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Julian's Kiss, and an Atlas, Typhoon & Clubman from CU Hang Gliding Club.
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MarkS had an ignominious first attempt with the Typhoon. Whilst he was
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rigging there was lots of animation from an employee of the Bergrestaurant.
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After much handwaving it transpired that someone had crashed and needed help
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from hang-gliders to rescue his glider. Wookey drove down to the other ramp
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to check it out and discovered a man with a broken arm being tended to in the
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road and his glider practically on a cliff, tied to the Armco barrier. He
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explained that he would sort it out & went back up to get help.
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<p>He was just too late to see MarkS running gracefully off the top ramp
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& spiralling straight into the ground (but fortunately a German tourist
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had it all in his video camera for us to review). MarkS was extremely lucky
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to hit the only patch of grass for miles and got away with bending his
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upright, smashing his camera, and spraining his ankle. After fishing his
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glider back up the slope we were finally able to work on the amusing task of
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de-rigging a glider tied to a hairpin without wrecking it.
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<p>Later efforts were less epic & both Wookey & IanH got their first
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ramp launches in, although Ian bounced off the end of the ramp in a
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heart-stopping manner.
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<h2 lang=de>Kaninchenhöhle</h2>
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<p>For the first two weeks there were only a few people doing
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<span lang=de>KHöhle</span> trips; old lags (and Fran, JulianS &
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IanH) in France (161c), and a few rigging-in to the RH Route, carefully
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improving the Dreamtime rigging for the expected heavy traffic that it never
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actually got. Ian Harris arrived for his first trip and then asked 'Where's
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my hat & light?' - for some reason he was surprised to find that he was
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supposed to have carried them up himself. Knossos was turned into a single
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hang to eliminate 1990's mysterious rub near the top. Iain was unimpressed
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with the rigging and re-rigged the 2nd & 3rd pitches just to show how
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well it could have been done; especially the second pitch which changed rigs
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every five minutes last year, but was still crap until Miller got to it.
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<p>On the third <span lang=de>KHöhle</span> trip Wook, Henri & Andy
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finally made it to Burble which needed to be pushed so that the survey
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wouldn't fit on the paper any more. The crawl proved to be a pain in the bum
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(especially to survey) and it unfortunately went (via a p38 - 'Vom pitch').
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Andy ran out of rigging gear halfway down, so Wook got to run around the
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bottom first. There was lots of nice walking passage and an obvious lead at
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'Exhaustion Pitch'.
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<p>This was a long way in and getting tackle through Burble Crawl was pretty
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awful so the search was on for a bypass. The next two trips down here
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(MarkM, JulianH, AndyA, JulianS, MarkS in various combinations) found, a
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couple of climbs that didn't go ('Shelf Indulgence' being one
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of them), some more passage and leads at the foot of 'Exhaustion
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Pitch', and, by climbing a 4m slope, a huge chamber ('Repton I
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& II'), which almost rivals Knossos in size.
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<p>There were two ways on found out of Repton II - one down the obvious exit
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passage, and one down a hairy 8m climb through the boulder floor, which is
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still-going running passage.
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<p>France was also going well, with 3 trips confirming that the 161c
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entrance dropped straight into France, and finding a passage 10m up this
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'Francophobia' pitch ('Robinson Crusoe'). This was
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identical & parallel to the one below it connecting France & the
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FCII rift. It continued on the other side of the FCII rift, accessible by a
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dodgy traverse. Strangely this section of passage had a welly print in it,
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whilst the previous section didn't, and the climb up from the floor
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looked very unlikely. Thus it was named 'Man Friday'.
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<p>MarkD and his assistants rigged on down below 'The Dice', the
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huge block in France, duly calling the pitch 'Roll of the Dice'.
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It was on this trip that Mark's footloops - which he "had been meaning
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to replace for ages" finally snapped on the way out. His shouts for aid
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were answered only by a "What's that Mark, I can't hear you" from
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a sniggering Paul Smith, and there was much jollity as they listened to him
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huffing his way slowly up the pitch, muttering dire curses. Later on, Henri,
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MarkS, Tony, Fran & Andy pushed on down another pitch to the current
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partly explored hading rift pitch. They also surveyed everything below the
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Dice.
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<p>One day when we wandered up to the camp we found a small horde of Slovak
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cavers wandering about. They were apparently there to help a German group.
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They invited us to visit their caves and it looks like this will in fact
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happen after the '92 expo.
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<p>A trip intending to finally check out the Dungeon (left inconclusive
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since the very first 161 trip 4 years ago) was sidetracked when Fran found a
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big rift pitch directly below 'Automatic Doors'. This came in via
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the passage that had proved to be a very poor campsite 2 years ago for
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Jeremy, JulianT & Animal. It also made by far the quickest route into the
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system below the squeeze, thus making the newly-fettled Dreamtime rigging
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superfluous.
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<p>After the first week's activity the weather deteriorated and there
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was much sitting about at top camp waiting for the rain to stop. A
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boredom-inspired trip to de-rig Dreamtime was all that happened for a couple
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of days.
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<p>Four more Puffball trips occurred after the washout. First MarkD &
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Jon went to the bottom, re-rigged NDE to take out the knot-pass, and (due to
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a severe gear shortage) rigged a couple of ladders from naturals and their
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one remaining hanger to reach the current end of the cave in a gaping rift,
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hading somewhat and nearly big enough to get a train down. Meanwhile, MarkM
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& Julians S & H moved the surveying front down to the end of the
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'Quark Strangeness & Charm' rift.
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<p>One more push attempt was made by JulianH & MarkD, but piezo failure
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caused them to push the lead at the top of Q8 instead. This went down a
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couple of pitches and may well make a promising alternative to the current
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route into the Darkroom.
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<h3>Raining Again</h3>
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<p>A final attempt to catch the survey front up to the pushing front by Wook
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& JulianH was thwarted by another thunderstorm, the waters reaching them
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just as they got to the Darkroom. After waiting for 30mins produced no
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improvement, an extremely cold & soggy exit was made. It was awful. At
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this point JulianH resolved to buy a real oversuit next year, instead of
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using his bin bag & boiler suit combination.
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<p>This thunderstorm had caused general chaos as it had washed out Iain
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& Jon down the Left Hand Route (fortunately while they were on Butcher,
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before they got to Niflheim itself). It also soaked the mega-wrinkly team
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down France (Tony, Hugh, PaulS, MarkD & Penny). And finally the team
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that had set out to do Eishöhle was trapped for an hour at the col,
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before resigning and trudging back to camp.
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<p>After this no-one went down Puffball again until it was forced upon us by
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the de-rigging, as the weather never looked good enough.
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<p>Meanwhile there was the expo dinner at Hilde/Karin's to which three
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of the local Austrian cavers were invited. At this, Hans, one of the
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Austrians, offered to take us down <b lang=de>Eishöhle</b>. as the first
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trip had already been thunderstormed off this was welcomed by those who
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hadn't been. Henri was useful in her capacity as translator, and the usual
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ragged collection of 'caving' kit was assembled to get JulianS, Andy, Fran
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& Henri down. JulainS unfortunately lost a crampon on the exit and Hans
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made a really hairy ice-climb to a different exit look sufficiently easy that
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Andy followed him - much to his regret.
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<h3>De-rigging</h3>
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<p>People had now all started leaving to avoid the de-rigging, and this meant
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that Iain and MarkF had rigged down nearly to the bottom of the Left Hand
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Route but had failed to reach the bottom because of the thunderstorm, and
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now had to go home. This left the Question Mark at bottom wide open for Wook
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and Andy to zoom on down and check out. It went, and (after pushing the very
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unlikely 'Wormhole') was connected to the Right Hand Route at an
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extremely obscure point in Wobbling. This allowed us them to get out without
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going back up Niflheim, which was a good thing as it had obviously been
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raining again as all the drips had turned into streams.
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<p>This trip caused a neo-rescue as somehow Andy managed to prussik out so
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much faster than Wookey that he waited for some time at S'not &
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then 1 hour 20 mins at the entrance without hearing anything and thus
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decided that something must have gone wrong. He dashed down to camp and dug
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Tony, Olly & MarkS out of bed (at 5am). Thus Wookey was extremely
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surprised to find people coming to go caving at 05.45! and was soundly abused
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for not being sympathetic enough to those who had come to rescue him.
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<p>Towards the end a few attempts at finding new entrances were made by Fran,
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Andy & Henri. They investigated a couple of shafts but all were blocked
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either by snow or rocks.
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<p>Dan and Penny had arrived for the second half of the expo and had found
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it very difficult to actually get underground as their first attempt was
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thwarted by a terminal lack of carbide, and then a
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<span lang=de-at>Gösser</span> bottle
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exploded in Dan's hand, cutting his wrist badly and causing a dash to
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the hospital. This prevented him from caving for about a week so he only
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managed a Knossos tourist trip & a de-rigging trip.
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<p>There were also various other trips wandering around Big Sainsbury's
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and Dreamtime, with a few new leads found and one new pitch rigged but not
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descended due to the water in Dreamtime, as well as an instance of
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'second generation cavers' where Olly & JulianS
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're-discovered' Bullshit Alley.
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<p>De-rigging time was now almost upon us so Olly and Wook went for a mega
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trip to get things finished off. They finished off the survey of S'not
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pitch. This had been surveyed earlier but no sketches drawn as 'it had
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been done before' where this consisted of Wookey having a quick sketch
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of it a couple of years ago.
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<p>They also de-rigged the bottom of Niflheim so that the rope could be
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pulled up from the top, found and surveyed a new bit off the black lagoon
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('Trehala'), and measured hellgrind due to insufficient time for a
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proper survey. Then they surveyed the rest of 'Ambidextrous' and
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went into Burble to derig the 9mm rope in there. When printing the results
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of the survey data for Burble it had become obvious that Repton I was
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extremely close to an existing bit of the cave - Hyper Gamma Spaces - as
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they seemed to overlap. But the descriptions didn't seem to tally so a
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check was necessary. Wook went down for a look and found that they were, in
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fact, the same, so a burble bypass had been found. The pitch was left rigged
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(with the rope from Exhaustion Pitch) so that the bypass could be used next
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year.
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<p>Finally they set off out leaving two tacklebags tied to the foot of
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Knossus pitch for someone else to derig. This epic took 20 hours, getting
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back to camp at 12:40pm.
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<p>Unfortunately, that afternoon, the <span lang=de>Eishöhle</span> trip
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returned warning of thunderstorms by the next afternoon - they had been given
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a weather forecast by Hans. This meant that we had to get the rope out of
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Puffball immediately - it would be our last chance. It would take 4 people in
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2 waves. Henri volunteered to go down the bottom with Andy but whilst this
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was noble it probably wasn't very wise, so it was arranged that as Wookey had
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had 2.5hrs sleep he would go first with Andy (at 10pm) and Henri & Ol
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would do the second half (starting at 5am the next morning). As France had
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already been de-rigged, this left just enough people to de-rig the Left (Dan,
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Penny, Tanya) & Right (Tony, JulianS, MarkS, Fran) Hand Routes as well.
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Tony felt very ill and hated every minute of it but survived the experience.
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All the de-rigging went well and both Puffball trips were completed in about
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10hrs each and everyone was out with a few hours to spare before the rain
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started.
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<p>It went on solidly for four days afterwards, while the nine miserable
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souls remaining hauled everything up the entrance pitch and carried it all
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back down the mountain.
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<p>Tony manfully pulled about 7km of rope through the washer, spending about
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5 hours in the rapidly rising river. It proved impossible to dry all the
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gear so we had to wait for a couple of extra days for some sunshine. Some of
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the time was passed by building a tyrolean traverse across the river, which
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was now so swollen that it was flowing across the bottom of Hilde's
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garden. This provoked some interest and much photography from the
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<span lang=de>Gasthof</span> residents and was very exciting to cross.
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<p>Eventually the campsite was packed up, and despite leaving a great deal
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of crap in Austria there was a stupendous pile of gear to go in the
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Wookmobile. Several hours of caver packing achieved this aim, although quite
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a lot had to go on the roof and the end result was a van that was probably
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somewhat overloaded. This proved to be disastrous in Switzerland a day or so
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later when Henri lost a valiant battle to retain control and she, Wook, a
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bent van & the most amazing pile of gear ended up on the hard shoulder.
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Again - see <a href="driver.htm">elsewhere in this tome</a> for the gory
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details.
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<p>And Iain Miller won the beer tally, despite claiming not to drink beer!
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<p>Cast: Andy 'Wormhole' Atkinson, Olly 'Whirling computer man' Betts, Mark
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'footloops' Dougherty, Mark 'The Lord's Day is sacred' Fearon, Julian
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'boiler suit bravado' Haines, Ian 'Where's Belgium' Harris, Juliette 'Wet
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Herself' Kelly, Fran '3 in a tent' Lane, Gill 'Fridgid' Lindsey, Dan 'Under
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the thumb' Mace, Mark 'The Leper' McLean, Iain 'I don't drink beer' Miller,
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Penny 'Earth mother' Reeves, Del 'boy''every penny counts' Robinson, Tony
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'What's a girl' (C)Rooke, Hugh 'technicolour dreamcoat' Salter , Tanya 'Mind
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the bull, you've got red legs' Savage, Mark 'Crash & Burn' Scott, Julian
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'Lord of the Flies' Shilton, Paul 'Jolly Blue & Yellow Giant' Smith,
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Julian 'Where's the engine' Todd, Henri 'Baldilocks' Welbourne, Jon 'Pretty
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boy' Williams, Wookey 'The Wreck-a-tent'
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<hr />
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<!-- LINKS -->
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<ul id="links">
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<li>Cambridge Underground 1992,
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<a href="http://cucc.survex.com/jnl/1992/index.htm">Table of Contents</a></li>
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<li>1991 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="newbit.htm">161's New Bits 1991</a></li>
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<li><a href="182.htm">Puffball & Icing Sugar Cave</a></li>
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<li><a href="wash.htm">It's a Washout</a> (flood pulse in Puffball)</li>
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<li><a href="driver.htm">How (not) to drive round Europe</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1991">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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