mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-12-22 16:32:22 +00:00
193 lines
9.2 KiB
HTML
193 lines
9.2 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
|
|
<title>CUCC Expo Prospecting Handbook Issues</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<h2 id="tophead">CUCC Expedition Handbook</h2>
|
|
<h1>Prospecting - issues</h1>
|
|
<figure class="onright">
|
|
<a href="i/2015-08-03-aerw.jpg">
|
|
<img src="t/2015-08-03-aerw-small.jpg" alt="The 'route' across the plateau"></a>
|
|
<figcaption>Part of the 'route' across the plateau - note the cairns<br />click for larger image</figcaption>
|
|
</figure>
|
|
<p>Much of the area of <a href="../guidebook/plateau.html">the Loser Augst-Eck plateau</a> is rough limestone
|
|
pavement (<b>karren</b>), liberally covered with dense areas of dwarf pine,
|
|
and interspersed with small cliffs, open shafts and snow patches. The latter,
|
|
in particular, can change the appearance of the plateau from year to year,
|
|
and even from week to week in the summer.
|
|
<p> Getting from one point to another
|
|
may involve detours to avoid any of these obstacles, and the whole effect is
|
|
very disorientating. There are few landmarks recognisable from a distance or
|
|
from a variety of angles, and little chance to relate the ground to the
|
|
1:25000 Austrian Alpine Club map. If you are only 5m off the route you may
|
|
have lost the way on.
|
|
|
|
|
|
<p>So walking on the plateau is difficult, and in bad weather (as in
|
|
July 2019) can be
|
|
seriously dangerous if attempted unaccompanied. The
|
|
<a href="../guidebook/walkin.htm">route to the plateau</a>
|
|
is deceptively safe and easy by comparison.
|
|
|
|
<p>Prospecting is either a matter of searching
|
|
for promising-looking caves with a draught, or shaft bashing many open holes
|
|
in the hope that one will go. This latter approach is often a waste of time,
|
|
but just a few of them lead to really significant finds! Much of the
|
|
exploration now is beyond the Steinbrücken bivvy in the area known as
|
|
<a href="../guidebook/remote.html">the far plateau</a></p>
|
|
|
|
<p><b>Shaft bashing:</b> <a href="../1623/others/l/lrh0.htm">
|
|
<img src="../1623/others/t/lrh0.jpg" class="icon" width="143" height="173"
|
|
alt="Lost Rucksack Hole 0" /></a>
|
|
<a href="../1623/others/l/lrh.htm"><img src="../1623/others/t/lrh.jpg"
|
|
class="icon" width="123" height="169"
|
|
alt="Lost Rucksack Hole" /></a>
|
|
<b>Bolt placing:</b> <a href="../1623/others/l/lrh1.htm"> <img
|
|
src="../1623/others/t/lrh1.jpg" class="icon" width="143" height="170"
|
|
alt="Lost Rucksack Hole 1" /></a></p>
|
|
<p class="caption">(Typical shaft bashing, often easiest on ladders: Adam Cooper
|
|
near Top Camp in 1993. Bolt placing usually easier on rope, but still in
|
|
T-shirt & shorts!)</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>All of this has made any systematic prospecting difficult, so there is
|
|
still the chance of a significant discovery quite close to Top Camp or to
|
|
other known caves. Life is made even more difficult through sloppy recording
|
|
in previous years. Hence it is very important that any cave which has been
|
|
looked at is marked and documented, to avoid duplication of effort. Very
|
|
small caves are usually marked with a simple painted cross to indicate that
|
|
they are worth no further effort, however, nowadays we are not allowed to
|
|
mark things with paint. More significant caves get a metal tag, a number, and a written
|
|
description. The aim is to link all such caves in to existing surface
|
|
surveys, which in turn are tied to a number of <a
|
|
href="survey/lasers.htm">fixed points</a> located by laser
|
|
theodolite/rangefinder from local trig. points.</p>
|
|
<div class="onleft">
|
|
<a href='/handbook/l/2024-03-07_plateau_jumble.html'>
|
|
<img src='/handbook/t/2024-03-07_plateau_jumble.jpg' alt="a bit of the plateau" width="250" /></a>
|
|
<p class="caption">a bit of the plateau</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<div class="onright">
|
|
<a href="essentials.html">
|
|
<img src="essentials-screenshot.jpg" alt="screenshot of the GPS file" width="250" /></a>
|
|
<p class="caption">GPS entrances</p>
|
|
</div>
|
|
<p>The <a href="../caves">cave index</a> page contains as much description as we have of every cave we know
|
|
about. To avoid any possibility of errors, this includes some info on caves
|
|
not explored by CUCC, though for reasons of Austrian Kataster politics, these
|
|
are not publicly accessible on the "live" web site.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>We used to have a <a href="../prospecting_guide/">fancy clickable map</a>
|
|
showing the locations of all the caves we have information on with tables
|
|
showing which pieces of information we have and what information still needs to
|
|
be gathered. But the scanned map is now obsolete and the text table of all the caves
|
|
is out of date because the QM data has not been updated and the cross-referencing URLs
|
|
are mostly broken. To find current QMs (Question Marks, i.e. open leads) look at
|
|
<a href="troggle/scriptsqms.html">QMs and leads</a> - very much a work in progress.
|
|
<p>Today we really need a GPS-enabled map of entrances, and we have one! Instructions for
|
|
downloading it are on the <a href="essentials.html">Essential GPS</a> page.
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<h4>Cave Numbering Conventions</h4>
|
|
<p>The caves are numbered and tagged in a number of different ways.
|
|
See the <a href="survey/numbering.html">Expo Cave Numbering Guide</a>.
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
|
|
<p><i>The following information is out of date (from 2004). Do not
|
|
rely on it being current.</i></p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<!-- <p><i>[The tables linked from these paragraphs are all at least three years out of date]</i>
|
|
Clearly, descriptions of two hundred caves are too much to assimilate or
|
|
carry about with you (unless, like Wookey, you carry this entire website
|
|
in a Psion !). However, every prospecting party needs to be able to
|
|
decide if what they have found needs exploring, marking, surveying, locating
|
|
or ignoring. Some caves have been fully explored but are lost, others have
|
|
been marked but not explored or vice versa. Hence there is a tabular summary
|
|
of CUCC's knowledge of the caves of the Loser plateau. EVERY PROSPECTING
|
|
PARTY SHOULD TAKE A (PRINTED) COPY OF THIS WITH THEM INTO THE FIELD. The
|
|
caves are divided into five tables:</p>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
<dt><a href="known.htm">Known</a></dt>
|
|
<dd>Caves which are marked and the location of which is "well known" ie. very
|
|
well described and surveyed, or known by someone on expo. The aim is to get
|
|
all the caves into this table :-)</dd>
|
|
<dt><a href="where.htm">Marked</a></dt>
|
|
<dd>Caves which are marked but the location of which is not believed to be
|
|
known by anyone on expo. Some may prove easy enough to find if someone looks,
|
|
but most have been looked for without success. If found, they need to be
|
|
surveyed to and the route to them described.</dd>
|
|
<dt><a href="nomark.htm">Unmarked</a></dt>
|
|
<dd>Caves which are believed unmarked, but are readily found or have been seen
|
|
recently. These need at least to be marked, and may need surveying to.</dd>
|
|
<dt><a href="unknow.htm">Unknown</a></dt>
|
|
<dd>Caves whose location is uncertain, and which may not be marked. If they
|
|
prove to be marked and are found, they should be written up - otherwise we need
|
|
to trace someone who knows where they are, or abandon them.</dd>
|
|
<dt><a href="plus.htm">Noted</a></dt>
|
|
<dd> Caves which have been recorded in a log or survey book, but never given a
|
|
number. They may be marked with a "+" or a "-". These are all caves which we
|
|
believe can be found again, and which need revisiting to document them and give
|
|
them a number. In some cases they are completely unexplored, but looked like
|
|
good prospects when first found.</dd>
|
|
</dl> -->
|
|
|
|
<p>In the tables (and the cave descriptions), bearings are quoted with a
|
|
series of standard <a href="abbrev.htm">abbreviations for landmarks</a>,
|
|
which gives a good indication of which ones are most useful.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>There is also a table of which numbers are CUCC ones and of numbers which
|
|
appear on entrances which are wholly misleading, the
|
|
<a href="cockup.htm">Cock-Ups</a>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p><i>Note that there is still much missing information about many caves
|
|
which appear in the "known" and "marked" lists. Though marked, this may not
|
|
be correctly with their Austrian Kataster number. The aim is to mark all of
|
|
these correctly with a metal tag bearing their 'official' number over the
|
|
next few years. Also, many known caves do not have surface surveys to their
|
|
entrances.</i></p>
|
|
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
|
|
<!--
|
|
<h3>Revision history</h3>
|
|
<p>(but only revisions to content, not typos and link bugs...)</p>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
<dt>1996.04.23</dt>
|
|
<dd>AJD: First attempt, missing most of the +/- and surface survey info. Also,
|
|
haven't marked any caves with asterisks yet AJD</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>1996.06.11</dt>
|
|
<dd>AERW: Integrated existing prospecting page with Anthony's "what to do if
|
|
you find..." tables from his RTF file. Formatting is currently crap. Links need
|
|
putting in to save using the index.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>1996.07.25</dt>
|
|
<dd>AERW: Added section on taking bearings - more views identifying peaks still
|
|
needed.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>1996.11.28</dt>
|
|
<dd>AERW: split file up, so tables are in separate pages. Added more info (and
|
|
picture) on numbering/tagging scheme. Some rewrite of politically sensitive
|
|
points.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>1997.01.01</dt>
|
|
<dd>AERW: finished tidying and linking tables, split off section on taking
|
|
bearings, with its pictures of peaks - linked with surveying document.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>2004.04.21</dt>
|
|
<dd>DL: Fiddled formatting slightly, and also updated the section on
|
|
provisional tagging of caves in accordance with current practice (those who
|
|
disagree with current practice are asked not to shoot the messenger).</dd>
|
|
</dl>
|
|
--></body>
|
|
</html>
|