mirror of
https://expo.survex.com/repositories/expoweb/.git/
synced 2024-11-22 15:21:55 +00:00
284 lines
14 KiB
HTML
Executable File
284 lines
14 KiB
HTML
Executable File
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0//EN">
|
|
<html>
|
|
<head>
|
|
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
|
|
<title>1995: Cambridge Underground report</title>
|
|
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../css/main2.css" />
|
|
</head>
|
|
<body>
|
|
<center><font size=-1>Cambridge Underground 1996 pp 22-25</font>
|
|
|
|
<h2>Austria 1995</h2>
|
|
<h3>by Steve Bellhouse</h3></center>
|
|
|
|
<p>"In July," etc, etc.
|
|
|
|
<p>Yep, we went to Austria again. This is the second Expo report of the
|
|
journal. If you've read the first one thoroughly, you're probably getting
|
|
bored of the endless tales of rainy day festering by now. Well, sorry but
|
|
there's more. But don't give up yet, because Expo 95 was different, for two
|
|
reasons.
|
|
|
|
<p>Firstly there was the trailer. We'll say no more about that now, as
|
|
there's a suitably dour description of the misery it caused
|
|
<a href="bbr.htm">elsewhere in this esteemed publication.</a> Secondly, we
|
|
discovered some cave that would accommodate Yapate and Mississippi side by
|
|
side, and still leave space for MarkF and Kate to stroll down the middle
|
|
without their lardy buttocks even touching. Its big.
|
|
|
|
<p>However, before you get to the exciting stuff, you're going to have to
|
|
read the usual torrid tales of festering, fuckwittedness and the
|
|
occasional bit of TU.
|
|
|
|
<p>Given my usual technique of ignoring problems until they go away, the
|
|
organisation went surprisingly well. My opening gambit at the Sports
|
|
Council interview, "We were going to wear suits, but there's been a
|
|
bit of an error", will go down in history as something not to do, but
|
|
even this failed to cause a major disaster. So I disappeared to the Alps
|
|
after the alternative dinner and left Anthony to sort out all the stuff
|
|
that was bound to go wrong in the last few days.
|
|
|
|
<p>It wasn't long later that Anthony and Nick first laid eyes on <i>THE
|
|
TRAILER</i>. It probably wasn't dark and stormy, and there probably
|
|
wasn't an intangible aura of dread in the air, but there should have been.
|
|
However, instead of spraying it with silver bullets and driving stakes
|
|
through its rotten axles, they decided to change the indicator bulb and,
|
|
satisfied the thing was now legal, they attempted to tow it for a thousand
|
|
miles, blissfully unaware of its evil nature. This, however, is (a small
|
|
part of) another story. Suffice to say they got there eventually, and Expo
|
|
was ready to go.
|
|
|
|
<p>Once Base Camp had been established, the laborious carries up to Top
|
|
Camp began. Paul exhibited the technical expertise one would expect from
|
|
a historian by politely inquiring if the yellow charger was to be taken up
|
|
to top camp. With great patience, it was pointed out to him that power
|
|
sockets on the plateau were far from abundant, and an Expo fuckwit was born.
|
|
|
|
<p>The day soon arrived when some caving appeared to be inevitable. They
|
|
set off to rig France and take a look at some of the many good leads left
|
|
in '94. However, they arrived in the area of France entrance to find a
|
|
large featureless snowfield, due to unseasonal snowfall in May. Much
|
|
digging ensued over the next couple of days, accompanied by even more
|
|
muttering and grumbling, but the entrance did not appear.
|
|
|
|
<p>Animal appeared not long later and was deemed to have the necessary
|
|
knowledge of main entrance to rig in and show team youth the way to some
|
|
leads. Although the question marks were a bit scrotty, they eventually
|
|
led to some worthwhile finds. The "Doubting Thomas" series
|
|
descended 100m down tight rifts from Dreaming of Limo chamber. Also found
|
|
was the "Oral" series, encompassing, amongst others,
|
|
"Throat" and "tonsils" pitches. It remains a mystery
|
|
why cavers developed such an obsession with head-and-throat anatomy whilst
|
|
spending a month in the field.
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile some snow had melted and some cunning navigation and frantic
|
|
digging had revealed France entrance. The first rigging trip was aborted
|
|
as Dave Johnson, a novice from ULCC, got strung up in the entrance. The
|
|
second trip was more successful, and cavers swarmed into Algeria to grab
|
|
the best leads. A new pitch into Twin Tubs was named
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/sidefr.htm#dazauto">Daz Automatic</a>, and a
|
|
hole in the floor in Hob Nob Passage dropped into a promising 3m wide
|
|
passage, which unfortunately choked after 100m. This was named
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/offffr.htm#pisspot">'Piss Pot'</a>
|
|
as both Kate and Dunks sprinkled their scent around in the passageway.
|
|
|
|
<p>Then it was time for the dinner, so the plateau was left deserted for
|
|
an evening of song and laughter. Prizes for outstanding achievements in
|
|
various fields were generously given and graciously received, and Kate
|
|
refused point blank to attempt eleven Mohr im Hemds.
|
|
|
|
<p>We were all terribly surprised when the radios failed to work.
|
|
However, our disappointment was reduced as the Base Camp aerial did at
|
|
least provide amusement as people hung various items of (other people's)
|
|
clothing from it's higher reaches, and Julian sawed up a scaffolding pole
|
|
to create a serviceable drill battery. Armed with this, Julian and I
|
|
took the two Daves off to France to hopefully get to the bottom of
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/france.htm#sultans">Sultans of Swing</a>, having
|
|
got off halfway down the pitch last year and found fat wads of cave. Julian
|
|
was fully kitted up and ready to duck out of the sweltering sunshine and into
|
|
the cool entrance, when he realised the drill-bit was sitting back at Base
|
|
Camp. So of he went back down, to return the next day, whilst Dave squared
|
|
went to push some crappy lead and I went 'prospecting'.
|
|
|
|
<p>Around this time we were joined by Balázs Izapy, a Hungarian who
|
|
had played a big part in organising our post-expo jaunt to Eastern Europe.
|
|
At first we thought he looked a bit clean for a proper caver, but then we
|
|
noticed his 1 litre tin mug dangling from his rucksack, and surmised
|
|
that he was in fact the genuine article. After one trip down France, he
|
|
conceded that the shafts were impressive, but generally concluded that our
|
|
cave was cold, wet, miserable and completely devoid of pretties. He spent
|
|
the rest of the time prospecting with Kate, who was the only person he
|
|
could communicate with. This communication problem made it difficult for
|
|
us to explain to him that his favourite spot on the plateau, where he
|
|
would sit and write his memoirs, was in fact the toilet. All in all, I
|
|
think we came off best from our little exchange trip.
|
|
|
|
<p>Sultans was finally bottomed at 320m, and the new battery proved to be
|
|
remarkably effective, capable of drilling twenty-odd holes from one
|
|
charge, and only being very heavy rather than utterly ridiculously heavy
|
|
like some of the previous attempts.
|
|
|
|
<p>Back at base camp, we cooked chicken on the fire, drank Gösser
|
|
and festered lots. It was getting to the stage of Expo when everyone was
|
|
knackered and lethargy ruled. A combination of the dodgy connector on the
|
|
CCMC stove and Julian's usual over-exuberant pumping nearly burnt the
|
|
beer tent down, which provided an exciting moment as the rhino ran around
|
|
base camp with the stove, a five foot tower of flame bursting up from it.
|
|
Subsequent efforts to fix the stove resulted in Paul spreading a tin of
|
|
Hammerite over the grass, leaving a nice blue patch for years to come.
|
|
His subsequent efforts to clean up with bog roll met with limited success,
|
|
turning his hands blue and achieving little else. We laughed at him a bit
|
|
and drank some more beer.
|
|
|
|
<p>Wookey and Andy Atkinson arrived for the latter part of the expedition,
|
|
and soon afterwards went on the trip to end all trips. All lethargy about
|
|
repeated KH trips was soon to disappear after the finds of the last week
|
|
of the expedition. Going down France, they first checked out
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/fbland.htm#forbidden">"The
|
|
Forbidden Land"</a>, a truly appalling bit of cave at the end of
|
|
Mississippi. This was the southern most part of Kaninchenhöhle and
|
|
therefore worth a look. A tiny, muddy, wet thrutch came out at the bottom
|
|
of an utterly desperate boulder-choke. Traversing this carefully, they
|
|
found themselves in a huge rift running in the NNE/SSW direction. One
|
|
wall was collapsed and the floor was strewn with huge boulders. At this
|
|
point they heard a horrible rumbling noise from the hole they had just
|
|
crawled through, and hurried back. Fortunately only a couple of rocks had
|
|
fallen and they weren't trapped, but all present declared this the scaredest
|
|
they had ever been and vowed never to return.
|
|
|
|
<p>However, the stuff they had found had been huge, and was also in the
|
|
direction of Stellerweg. They decided there must be another way in, and
|
|
went looking...
|
|
|
|
<p>... and they soon found a trivial traverse over an undescended pitch,
|
|
which led to a <a href="../../1623/161/frtotp.htm">nasty squeeze</a>.
|
|
Pushing the 3m passage they found in both directions, Wookey found a 5m
|
|
draughty choke climb which led into a totally huge space now named
|
|
"Staud'nwirt Palace" after our base camp Gasthof. From this led a windy, 10m
|
|
wide passage containing bat droppings. Another entrance nearby perhaps?
|
|
Following the breeze led to an even wider passage, "Triassic Park". Around
|
|
20m wide in places, this was all becoming a bit too much, so they surveyed
|
|
out and returned gloating to Top Camp, making the less experienced members
|
|
feel a little stupid that all this cave had been found down a lead that
|
|
should really have been explored the year before but which hadn't even been
|
|
included on the survey.
|
|
|
|
<p>The next trip another 350m were surveyed and the passage was still left
|
|
going strong. The survey data put us close to the side of the hill. If a new
|
|
entrance could be found, we could effectively leave our SRT gear at home for
|
|
the next expedition! Faced with this exciting prospect, a team went into
|
|
France to try to find 161d from the inside. They went downwind, following the
|
|
bat droppings, and went through a couple of ridiculous squeezes with gale
|
|
force winds blowing through them (one named "Battle of the Bulge"). They
|
|
found a skull, and some moths, and moments later they found daylight.
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/sftotp.htm#id161d">161d</a> was promptly named
|
|
Scarface due to a recent rockfall from the cliff above.
|
|
|
|
<p>The only drawback was that the route back to Top Camp can only be
|
|
described as bloody tedious, involving vertical bunde-bashing and scary
|
|
climbing which, whilst okay during the day, would be desperate in the dark
|
|
after a long trip. Possibilities of a new Top Camp have been mentioned, but
|
|
it appears this would cause problems with the Austrian authorities. However,
|
|
with some hard work to beat a trail, it is likely that we could get
|
|
reasonable access to Scarface one way or another. To give some idea of
|
|
the scale of the finds, in the last 9 days of the expedition we found
|
|
and surveyed 1500m of cave, and there are 72 new question on the 1996 list.
|
|
[<i>The northern end of Triassic Park ends at a junction -
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/triasp.htm#trifurc">'Trifurcation'</a>
|
|
- from which one branch leads to a 10m climb in need of a bolt ('Bugger')
|
|
at the top of which a similar sized continuation can be seen. Another
|
|
branch - 'Minoan Surprise' - is sitting on top of Knossos. Flippant Editorial
|
|
Remarks Inc. regard neglecting to mention this as something of an
|
|
oversight on the part of the author. Ed.</i>]
|
|
|
|
<p>Just as everyone got keen again, it was time to derig and leave.
|
|
Anthony and I were surprisingly efficient, using our pulleys to haul gear
|
|
out of France. Main entrance was also derigged with a minimum of fuss.
|
|
Striking Top Camp proved a bit more bothersome, as I managed to convince
|
|
myself that a large pile of shit up there could be brought down in three
|
|
carries, and so told folk they didn't need to go back up the hill. Once
|
|
our legs had seized up, Andy returned and told us that I had been
|
|
completely and utterly wrong, so Anthony and I ran back up the hill in
|
|
the dark.
|
|
|
|
<p>Then Expo was over. Anthony, Kate, Dunks, Wook, Tess and Andy all
|
|
headed off to Hungary and some stunningly pretty caves, but that's another
|
|
story. All that remained of Expo was the writing of reports and the
|
|
drawing of surveys. Oh yes, and a hat full of meaningless statistics
|
|
derived from 21 tallies (including the tally tally):
|
|
|
|
<p>Total TU: 721hrs
|
|
<br>Average Trip: 8.3hrs
|
|
<br>Highest TU: Nick with 96.5 hrs
|
|
|
|
<p>Beer Tally: 681 beers in total, won by Duncan with 106 beers
|
|
<br>Limo Tally: 369 limos in total, won by Anthony with 58 limos
|
|
|
|
<p>There were 77 official smelly farts, although I suspect many were not
|
|
recorded.
|
|
<br>Paul was the Quote King and Animal was the Father of Farts.
|
|
|
|
<p>And, since I don't like to waste a perfectly good tally, I'm forced to
|
|
tell you that there were 0.286 baseball caps per piss-on-the-butty-box.
|
|
|
|
<p>The Culprits:
|
|
|
|
<p>Anthony 'Dour' Day,
|
|
<br>Nick 'Bullfrog' Procter,
|
|
<br>Duncan 'Drunk'un' Collis,
|
|
<br>Mike 'The Animal' Richardson,
|
|
<br>Julian 'Rhino' Haines,
|
|
<br>Paul 'Sparky' Bilton,
|
|
<br>Penny 'Jet Set' Reeves,
|
|
<br>Dave 'Scout' Collins,
|
|
<br>Dave 'T'other Dave' Johnson ,
|
|
<br>James 'Cancer' Eckersley,
|
|
<br>Kate 'Oral' Janossy,
|
|
<br>Hugh 'Twitmobile' Adams,
|
|
<br>'Ard Andy Atkinson,
|
|
<br>Balázs 'Big Mug' Izapy,
|
|
<br>Wookey,
|
|
<br>Wadders,
|
|
<br><i>THE TRAILER</i>,
|
|
<br>and me.
|
|
|
|
<p><a href="../../1623/161/l/bcunt.htm"><img alt="Photo - 8k jpeg, link
|
|
to 59k jpeg" width=124 height=184 align=middle hspace=10
|
|
src="../../1623/161/t/bcunt.jpg"></a>
|
|
|
|
<a href="../../1623/161/l/shwall.htm"><img alt="Photo - 7k jpeg,
|
|
link to 79k jpeg" width=178 height=123 align=middle hspace=10
|
|
src="../../1623/161/t/shwall.jpg"></a><br>
|
|
|
|
<table border=0 width=342>
|
|
<tr><td width=139><i>Dave Scout in the Brownie's Cunt - the squeeze at the
|
|
Zombie Slime end of the connection to Fudge Brownie and the rest of France,
|
|
and the route via which Staudenwirt Palace, Triassic Park etc. were found.
|
|
Kaninchenhöhle 1995.</i> [Photo: Andy Atkinson]</td><td
|
|
width=10></td><td width=193><i>Steve Bellhouse in "Shortage of Walls",
|
|
Kaninchenhöhle 1995.</i> [Photo: Andy Atkinson]</td></tr></table>
|
|
|
|
<hr />
|
|
<!-- LINKS -->
|
|
<ul id="links">
|
|
<li><a href="../../../jnl/1996/index.htm">Table of Contents</a>
|
|
for Cambridge Underground 1996</li>
|
|
<li>1995 Expedition info:
|
|
<ul>
|
|
<li><a href="index.htm">Index</a> (more detail than in this list)</li>
|
|
<li><a href="log.htm">Logbook</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="excsrp.htm">Preliminary report</a> (exCS newsletter)</li>
|
|
<li><a href="bcracc.htm">BCRA Caves and Caving</a> Report</li>
|
|
<li>This year's <a href="sponsr.htm">Sponsors</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="exponl.htm">From Expo Novice to Expo Leader</a>:
|
|
The tale of my Decline</li>
|
|
</ul></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../../jnl/1996/index.htm">Table of Contents</a>
|
|
for Cambridge Underground 1996</li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../pubs.htm#pubs1995">Published accounts</a></li>
|
|
<li><a href="../../index.htm">Back to Expedition intro page</a></li>
|
|
<li><A href="../../../index.htm">CUCC Home page</a></li>
|
|
</ul>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|