Brian, Mike T + Wiggy set off for Dover at 19:30 Friday after an excellent feed at Becky's cafe. The ferry was old + slow, so we didn't make Belgium 'till 5:30. 10 miles out of the docks we had a flat. This caused some lack of confidence in Brian's driving as we thought the bad handling was due to his incompetance ! On with the spare, next stop, Austria. The landlady's eyes lit up with dollar signs when she met us at 20:30 Saturday.
Andy D, Mike R in ROVER the ROVER
We may not have travelled as fast as everyone else, but by god we had a lot of momentum. Interesting steering and a brake drum full of oil added to the interest. Left Cam 1 O'Clock Saturday morning, spent most of Saturday going to sleep over the wheel, crashed out by the side of a German autobahn. Visited Dachau on Sunday. Full of happy smiling people. Ugh. Arrived Sunday evening after Rover got hot and bothered on the climb from Bad Goisern to Bad Aussee.
Andy W, Bill H + Blue Mini van
Set off from Bramham X-roads on A1 down to Cambridge in fine style with the tyres scraping the wheel arches and the exhaust an inch off the floor. Kipped overnight at Becky's and then down to Ramsgate for the Sally-line 11.00 am Sat crossing to Dunkirk. Very nearly came off the road in France due to a sharp corner & Bill's expectation that the brakes would work properly.
Crashed out near Munich in a forest & hoped it wouldn't rain.
Arrived Grundlsee Sun lunchtime to find C.U.C.C. swimming in the lake.
It was decided to put 3 intrepid speleos who had never been down 142 on this trip. Long delay as Mike's exhaust was welded up. Took wrong turning on footpath, got to 142 at 4 pm. In to big chamber pitch no problems on route finding. Spent a long time mucking about failing to find the draught from the ramp/chamber after the tube. Bill found what later was found to be the way on past a small bit of hanging death. H.D. was moved and small sequence of ramps + pitches followed. Way on is through here. Tackle dumped and out in 20 mins.
4 hours
Previous trip (last year) / Next trip
Pete + Wiggy persuaded Wadders to help carry horrendous quantities of rope, bolts and hangers up to Wolfhöhle. Of course, we didn't take any MRs, that would be too easy.
Wiggy thought that this complete lack of anything to hang rope on would mean that we could all go home. He didn't reckon with the super-hero qualities of Plank. Needless to say, we ended up rigging all but the last two (known) pitches on an assortment of things that I daren't detail 'coz it'd frighten the rest of you.
In @ 16:00, 7 hour trip. Although we knew the way fairly well, bailer twine would be useful at night.
* a rapidly descending rope protector gave Wiggy heart failure when he thought it was the sheath !
Previous trip (last year) / Next trip
Horrible walk up burdened down with tackle, it was hard climbing amongst the rocks with your rucksack threatening to pull you over. Finally arrived at hole after getting thoroughly lost. While we were recovering, Planc appeared to beg some MRs. After he'd left we descended the first pitch after doing some gardening first. Hell of a lot of loose rocks. Went into big chamber and proceeded to rig 2nd pitch. I got stranded on a ledge until Mike came back up from the bottom; then we quickly made our way out. Seems to be best to keep away from 1st pitch while someone is on it. Easy (relative to that on way there) walk back.
Mike M, Brian + Wiggy went down 142 because its a shorter walk than everywhere else. We spent about 3 hours taking pickies of the 142 Mega-chamber using six flashguns and lots of other pretty camera gear. Wiggy thought that after taking 60 pics, we could justify retireing to the pub before it got dark. The majority verdict won + we went down the connection to 41. We made the link to a large chamber in 41, put a bolt in on the traverse from there + left further explorations for later.
We pulled all the tackle out to the surface + walked back to the car in the rain. In @ 13:00, out @ 23:00. 10 hours.
Mike R forgot light part way across the plateau so had to return. Underground about 1-30, down very efficiently putting in some extra rebelays on the way. (NB: the first 120' pitch could use a rebelay at the protector to stop the rope bouncing so much). Passed phreatic level at about -150m, then to about 5m below last year. Short on ropes, we calculated that we could get back for a couple of beers. Passed John and Bill on the way out, back at 10 O'clock, well before the thunderstorm.
In 13:30, out 20:00, 6½ hours
Previous trip / Other trip same day / Next trip
Exhausting walk up to S/S/S with full tackle bag. Decided to do a "second wave" trip but did not count on thunderstorm. Abbed down to pass Mikes T & R at about -100m and did a bit of rerigging and added c 24m of new rope. Came out in middle of thunderstorm and dark & couldn't find the way back so sat out all night - the nâdir of the expedition for your author so far.
Time in : 15.00 (25th) Time out : 01.00 (26th) Time back at camp site: 08.00 (26th)
10 hours
Previous trip / Other trip same day / Next trip
Carefully leaving the survival bag at the entrance, but armed with nearly 300m of rope, we went down to tidy up last trips rigging (restoring my personal SRT gear to its rightful place), finish rigging to last year's limit, and push on. We put a ladder on the Bog Seat Pitch, completely destroyed the little squeeze just after the first big shaft, and put a bolt into the head of the pitch which was previously just belayed to a shitty column. Managed to find John's rebelay on Tiddly Pom pitch, which was carefully concealed behind a flake. Then some more bits, then we rigged the small pitch before last year's final 40m pitch. This lands on a small ledge. We found Wiggy's two bolts which we rigged (the start of the 200m Edelrid) in a fine Y belay. It's a fine circular shaft, but twanging 10mm Edelrid forced a rebelay ~10m from the floor. From here on we were in the new stuff, it continues as a completely dry canyon ~4m wide. It looks as if it has been washed out very thoroughly, very recently - there are no loose stones around, and no mud, but no water flowing at all - I doubt whether it takes any water even in flood (see later), it's probably an oxbow for the water entering just before the pitch before the 40m - it may well flow in the spring thaw. The canyon continues down in smallish pitches (4, 10, 6, 20) to a large boulder-strewn section. All were rigged for zero abrasion, but non-zero effort. At this bouldery bit there were some superb helictites. In general, Wolfhöhle is the best decorated cave in this part of the world. Also from this ledge was a pitch (10m ?) which looked to end in a mud choke, but may be a way on. But we went down the obvious way, a 30m (?) shaft which was rebelayed with various bits and pieces (Team zero imagination). This landed on a solid floor, the way to the left led to a muddy rift which ended in an aven (could thus be the continuation of the pitch we saw on the bouldery bit); the way to the right led, yes, you've guessed it, to a muddy rift, BEEZLEY STREET (where the cats have rickets) (see note at end). We almost thought this was the final sump, but a traverse above (the static puddle) led to some stal (now muddy) and a 15m pitch from a flake. This dropped into the bottom of a fine phreatic shaft with fine round potholes in the floor, another rift leads off (with puddle in the bottom too) and where a slab falls across the rift a pitch (10m) was undescended (our caving correspondant informs me). This area looks a bit like the phreatic bits in 115 (well, a bit, anyway).
So, at 1.30 am after 12 hours caving, we turned round and had to negotiate all our nasty rigging. We got back to the pitch just above where the stream disappears down the floor, and all of a sudden heard a WHOOSH and a couple of seconds later the water volume tripled. Not being very slow, we realised we'd been hit by a flood pulse. We retreated to think in the dry bit for a while, but after half an hour decided to try and get out. We got up the 50m Edelrid OK, but the lower section of Tiddly Pom pitch proved too wet and we had to retreat to the rift before this, which was reasonably draught free. We sat down to wait and assessed our situation, 10 hours carbide, the very broken remains of a packet of Dig bics and 2 cherry sweets. We attempted intellectual conversation - "What time is it Andy ?", "I'm bored Pete, can't we go out yet ?", "Has the water gone down yet ?"
We played I-Spy (Dark, bristle, innertube, eyebrows), rigged each other up in strait jackets, and to maintain traditions, "huddled together to keep warm" - Shalford man in rescue drama - and built stone walls without much success. After 3 hours, the water started to go down, but being simple lads and only expecting one pulse, we waited; unfortunately it went up again. After it had fallen and risen once again, we realised it was raining fairly continuously, and it might be days before it fully went down. So after 12 hours wait, we took the advantage of a slight downflow in the water to make a break for it. The bottom 15m were extremely wet (similar to Main Shaft in reasonable water), but fortunately, John's rebelay was out of the water, which had been our main worry because Andy's gobbler doesn't work too well under water. The only problem was opening jammer safety catches with frozen fingers. We both suffered slight nauseous shock as our fingers defrosted at the head of the big pitch.
The rest of the way out was damp everywhere, but no severe problems. At every turn we were expecting to hear cheerful voices and friendly faces, but we emerged at 5pm to fine mist and drizzle, with no sign of burnt rice pudding anywhere. Where was our rescue ? (see next exciting installment).
Pete 28 hours underground, 18 caving hours.
Uneducated bugger:
"... the rats have all got rickets,
they spit through broken teeth..."
It was wet. Team Boy Sprout had been performing various rain-dances for several days, and they finally succeeded. They timed the thunderstorm so it caught 2/3rds of team exploding sweetcorn underground down Wolfhöhle.
The morning dawned (or rather 10:30am dawned) to find Mike (unwashed) Thomas muttering dire things about rescues and how his gear was still on the SchwarzmoosKergle [KÖGEL Pratt !!] and so someone else would have to go. This was met with a suitable lack of enthusiasm. Eventually four volunteers (?) were found to form the first 2 waves of the rescue:
/ Wadders - Qualified by having not been caving yet
Team A | + hence had dry gear.
| Also knew where Wolfhole was.
The only { Mike M - Was stupid enough to bring a wetsuit
volunteer ----> (uninformed burk !! Left westuit at campsite +
\ took furry gear !!)
/ Brian - Had his gear at the camp
Team B {
\ Wiggy - Knew the cave
Having decided who was going on the projected rescue, the next task was to put off doing anything for as long as possible, in the hope that it would prove unnecessary. Hence we auctioned off Pete's and Andy's gear before retireing to the cafe to mull over how to drag two very large dead bodies out of Wolfhöeler.
In the cafe, opinions diverged as to the probable state of our intrepid duo. The three states we oscillated between were:
(1) Crazy sods, rigging into the abyss and now cut off by rising water.
(2) Shattered bodies lying at the bottom of a pile of broken tackle.
(3) Still rigging after 28 hours (Pete was on the trip).
Opinions also varied as to which of these states was prefereable. By now the possible confusion of two independent rescue parties was judge dangerous, so a third party was formed. We returned to the camp at 1pm and sent Andy and Mike off with almost all the first aid kit (2 bandages and a lot of morphine derivative), lots and lots of food and a whistle (see later).
At 3pm, wave 2 set out. Discovering the Loser restaurant shut, we had to set out. Heading straight for Wolfhöhle in the mist, carrying enough tackle to haul out an entire troop of dead boy scouts, we heard whistles through the impenetrable miasma. "Thank god they're safe" we thought, but no ...
Instead of rescuing Pete and Dobbers *
Andy Dolby, we had instead
* Dobbers objects to being called DOBBERS
rescued Wadders and Mike Martin. <-- incorrect - we heard voices so
blew whistle to attract their attention (assuming Andy and Pete only to find
party 2). NB We were not lost. We had been.
We decided that rescue seemed so easy that we set off to the cave again. Indeed rescue was so easy that the moment we got to the cave Pete and Andy appeared.
We marked the way to Wolfhohle with twine to stop people getting lost.
Time underground 0 hours.
Case for the defence:
Well, OK, so we got lost. Found 101 though ! No-one's been there for seven years ! And we weren't rescued. We had just got ourselves back to col and were setting off back to Wolfhöhle again when Wiggy arrived and told us we were in the wrong place (We weren't - and it took some while to convince him). Only then did Team B lead (almost) faultlessly to Wolfhöhle - the timing perfect. A.
After several days unsuccessfully trying to get someone to walk across to 142 in the rain, I finally succeeded to persuade Pete. Bill, bored, came along for the sardines !
Through 142 into 41 (despite knacked back) + rigged traverses on ramps. At point where you descend ramp to route to Big Pitch we explored up. Ascended ~40m varying from easy to desperate. Explored side passage (previously looked at) + surveyed "connection" with 143 to head of each Big Pitch route.
Time under 8 hrs.
John, Brian + Wiggy (Team waster) went down 142 to look at the possible connection and take more pix. Unfortunately, the sketch opposite wasn't available at the time, so we got lost. This was due in part to the previous team omitting to mention an 18m rope we needed to descend ! Ah well, lots more photographs were taken and an early exit to bright sunshine was made. All very civilised - the next stage is to drop caving entirely and just take piccies above ground.
Time ~6 hours
We were met at the BergRest by a guy with full local gear (shaving brush etc.) who seemed to be telling us off (we couldn't understand a word). A bloke at the Loser hut said shaving brush chap looks after the flowers !
Pushed on down to previous limit, past a very bad Parrington bolt to reach the bottom of the shaft after ~15m. A spray lashed ledge with only one small alcove to cower in and brew up. A rift in the floor led off ~5-6m to a rebelay and a fine 20-25m pitch into a chamber with two ways off. One was very tight to an aven, rocks chucked down landed after ~10m on mud. The main way on involved a squeeze past a very large boulder, down a 10m pitch to a stream flowing through a too narrow draughting rift - the end ~260m Went out derigging as we went to -100m. Took some rope out - 10 hours.
Must do a grade I survey but no space left here.
Due to extremely hot day is was a very sweaty walk up. Abbed down to -120m and decided to have a quick look down a parallel unexplored shaft. This required a fairly desperate step across the rift (and even worse coming back) - but to no avail. It connected at the side and bottom with the rift which had already been explored.
So - derigged & John's light failed at the foot of the entrance (110 ft) pitch. So he had a bit of a hassle at the rebelay and kicked a few rocks down which make a very nasty sound when you're at the bottom.
Coming out we followed the wrong set of cairns to find the path to Wolfhohle !!
Time underground 1.07
Time out 8.48
- 7½ hours
Previous trip / Next trip - not for a further 13 years !
The inevitable happened ! 143 had to be rigged to look for the connection! Walk in very hot so an hour was spent cooling in the entrance. Rigged to bottom + investigated squeeze. After much destruction of rock, squeezing the way on was pronounced impassable for all except midgets who can pass 5" (12 cm) squeezes. It is heading the right way + it does appear to open up marginally but the aven in "41 connection" can't be seen. The draught is very similar + a voice connection and/or midget is required.
Time underground 2.00 pm
Time out 6.30 pm
4½ hours
Previous trip (last year) / Next trip
In a brave effort to help AERW's continuing avoidance of caving, Wiggy joined Andy on an assault of the Trissel Berg via the cliff on the front. God it was hell out there. As this is a caving logbook, all I shall say is:
Trissel Wand, 500+m, severe, loose as shit, no pro, 8h, but very photogenic so watch out for bullshit photos (I took 28 !)
Carrying the rope from Steinschlagschacht to Wolfhöhle, found a draughting hole. (out). The draught came above a ~10m drop, from a 1m diameter phreatic tube, this was followed for ~50m until a small drop.
The hole lies just below an obvious cliff in altitude between Steinschlag and Wolfhöhle. [says anon. in logbook. Assumed to be Andy and Brian as they were apparently the only people walking to Wolfhohle that day. ed.]
While most wooftahs sat around and festered, we went caving. Though we did have a last moment attack of nerves at the entrance as a thunderstorm went over. An easy ab in to the limit so far (350m ?) took 3 hours. Put another bolt on the last pre-rigged pitch.
Way on is a tightening rift to a large jammed flake. Underneath flake is small pitch to landing (5m ?). Across landing leads to next pitch of about 25m in a large shaft. Small pitch in landing also connects with big pitch. From big pitch short trench leads to last pitch so far. 15m pitch to deep puddle. From here horizontal development begins. We followed this for about 30m before coming to a short pitch-/climb. As we had finished off our hangers, we beat our retreat. Others may have the glory. [Might have been other Andy - ed.]
Comment on rigging.
John Bower's rigs may be tricky but Planc's are suicidal. You can spot Julian's bolts as they're the ones half out of the rock.
In 1500 1st Aug, out 0600 2nd Aug
15 hours
(1) Four of us made an attempt at connecting these two caves. Me and Andy Wadders (his first caving trip for some time) went to 143 and Bill and Wiggy went down 142 to the aven mentioned by the party last week. Me and Andy got to the top of the Nipple and spent about ½ an hour before we found 143. We descended about an hour after the others should have set off down 142. The pitches were rigged in a very strange manner, obviously the bolts had been put in by someone with a sense of humour - it was a case of acrobatics at some of the changeovers. Got to the bottom with no hassle and started to chip away at the impossible rift. Blew whistles, shouted, for ~1½-2 hours but with no success. We both had a go at the squeeze at floor level, but to no avail. Made a leisurely retreat.
John Parrington.
Sat in this bloody cold aven for 2 hours listening to team 143 chipping. Made lots of noise. Climbed up the aven and pushed ~50+ft up an inlet towards (?) chipping noise. Wiggy. ~4 hours
Previous 142 trip / Previous 143 trip / Next 142 trip (derigging) / Last 143 trip
Went underground to the ritual thunderclap. Carrying ~120m of rope which we later discovered to be a mistake. The descent was enlivened by occasional shrieks from Mike as he suicide-rigged his Baker-converted Petzl bobbin. Put another bolt in the small pitch with the v-shaped notch at the top, this made it much easier on the return. At Beezley Street we found the rope Brian had dropped and carried on to their limit. We went down the free climb and soon arrived at another drop. This was rigged with a traverse on muddy ledges to a 9m drop, rebelay, 10m and then 8m. This landed in a muddy rift which looked to narrow at about 4m. There was another similar small sump, and then a climb up a muddy slope (we had to use a rope). This ended at a hole. Mike managed to squeeze through, but I had to dig out some of the mud before it was possible. Through the hole led to a maze of phreatic tubes filled with layered mud. All of these ended in dried out sumps. There is possibly 150m of passage down here. An aven drops in, but didn't look climbable. So, happy that it had finished, we started out, carrying most of the rope we had foolishly brought with us. The whole of the cave below Beezley Street is very muddy and toothbrushes were much appreciated. Excellent soup at the dump, and a fairly slow exit.
As we weren't allowed to derig Wolfhöhle we went to look at Pete's new hole. A very hard slow walk in and followed draught through fine tube to climb down. Draught disappeared ~20m further on & despite several desperate climbs we couldn't relocate it. No go.
Underground c 1 hour.
A sweaty walk up followed by survey starting at Wolfhöhle + then to 107. On return walk (trying to locate 82) Andy's credentials were caressed by a howling gale emitting from a pile of rocks which with a little modification became a cave entrance. Andy declined Pete's offer of a loan of a torch so I accepted on his behalf. Explored to ~60m length. Still continuing.
Time underground ½ hour.
We should have guessed that something was amiss because there was no thunderstorm at the entrance. We shot down to last year's surveyed limit (the top of the "40m" pitch) relieving the tedium with a smattering of photography. Going down the 200m Edelrid we found that Planc had rerigged some of the rebelays to reduce the acrobatic nature of the passing movements. Surveying proceeded at a reasonable pace and camera gear was dumped before Beezley St. to prevent it getting muddy. Here Wiggy's light started to play up. By the time we had got to the 30m series of pitches at the end of the drainage ditch, the light was kaput (as the locals say). Though we were almost at the end we had to return leaving the last bit unsurveyed. The return was also complicated by Brian's gobbler using up its fuel at the foot of the big pitch and Wiggy's technolight giving out halfway up it. Exit was made from about -400m by technolight held in teeth and from about -150m by one Petzl headlight between two.
In 12.30 Sat 4 Aug }
Out 6.00 Sun 5 Aug } 17½ hours
P.S. God it was hell out there. Not to mention slipping cams and worse.
[ "Woolfhohle - unsurveyed bit - grade I" ]
Today some pissed up cunt pissed around with my car. If they're not careful, tomorrow my car will mess around with their tents. I am not amused; be warned. PJW
Don't turn your ghetto blaster on people then you twat ! A
Today I noticed some sober cunt had hung my ice axe, hangers and spanner from an electricity pylon. If he's not careful, tomorrow my ice axe will stick itself through his skull. I was moderately amused but be careful. AJD
Andy came with us to the entrance in thick fog then found he'd left his ascenders behind by accident !! Well, I believed him, but thousands wouldn't. Zoomed down with a couple of route finding problems & some 150T's [?] on our backs. We thought we'd got to the last survey station about 3 pitches too early, but soon discovered our mistake. However, in the general pissed-offness we forgot to take the bolting spanner with us so John had to prussik back to retrieve it after we'd done the survey. Derigged to the bottom of the Edelrid & had some trough at the food dump.
Prussiked out well-knackered at some ungodly hour.
Time in 2.00 pm Sunday
Time out 10.30 am xSatx MON <- Pratts !!
20frac12; hours
Underground 4pm and whizzed down to Beezley Street in just 1¼ hour. Dragged the 200m Edelrid up to the camp and stuffed it (just) into a tackle bag. Backed John and Bill's "full" two bags into one. Were disconcerted by sudden watery noises and anticipated getting stuck, but fortunately it didn't come to anything. Decided that we might as well detackle the whole cave by hauling the bags up the pitches. Fun on the big pitch, being unable to throw a rope back down, and a bag falling off a rope. Collected the Wolf and exitted with four bags of rope, one bag of wolf and enough rope for 1½ bags more. Mike has to rerig the last pitch 'cos he dropped a piddling little bit of rope back down it. Knackered.
underground 4.30pm Mon
out 8.30am Tue
16 hours
Quick trip. I had my first glimpse of the Big Pitch. 2 hours
P.S. Met Dolby and Mike R going to Wolfhöhle to get tackle after wasting the afternoon away. The cheeky cunts expected us to come and help them and Dolby threw a tantrum.
Dolby Comment here |
V
I am sorry. After a really hard days caving it was unreasonable of me to expect them to help fetch some more tackle instead of going to have their well deserved beer in the Loser Hütte.
Previous trip / Next trip (next year)
Went in, took some boring piccies, collected a bit of rope and came out again. Visited 131 (141) on the way back due to gross navigational ineptitude.
~4-5 h
PS the "connection" is awfully small.
146 and 149 Sundry dates John, Mike [probably M, manybe R - ed.], Pete
149
The entrance is in a large gully, just above the sandy depression, opposite Wolfhöhle. Several draughting entrances.
[ sketch ]
Shame it didn't go, it was a nice hole.
This is the hole we thought was 146, ie. Tony's Toboggan Hole. It's a
very large entrance, recognisable by the large pyramidal rock. Down a
snow/ice slope leads to a ledge (rebelay). There are two ways on, through a
small hole, down an icy 13m pitch till it gets too small with ice/rock. The
other way is down a 10m frozen waterfall, to a small grotto with large ice
crystals,where it all ends. The ice formations may even be worth a tourist
trip.
[Assumed to be same people as other trip today as Brina and Wiggy were derigging and everyone else had gone home? ed.]