CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Dour + Chris took in over 100m rope to see what they could do with the pitch at the top of Bring on the Clowns. On the way in Chris put in a bolt to shift the Procrastination part II Y-hang one bolt over in an attempt to hand the rope out to dry after Becka’s exit on previous trip. Any further would unfortunately have reached another trickle/torrent in rain.

While Chris spent a while converting the messy crochet into something resembling a reasonable rig up Bring on the Clowns. Anthony begin rigging the pitch down at the top, into the wind. Some 30m down he met the wall of the shaft. So came nack up and Chris went down with the drill and thrubolts (having run out of Hiltis 2 days ago).


* Dour: "Can you remember those numbers while I get my book out?"
Chris: "Maybe. Distance 6.66, Clino +66, Ooer!"

At the bottom was a 3s drop down a dribbly shaft, but we eschewed this is favour of a shorter, rubblier, older & windier short drops (2 bolts). At the bottom was another drop – with the wind issuing out of a steep rift cutting down steeply. A couple of spits saw us down this (having run out of thrubolts) to the top of a few metre pitch, which another bolt saw us down to big rift passage with a 4 to 4 second drop and the wind in our faces.

We were out of rope and were down to our last 2 clowns. Sadly we realised there were not going to be enough people left on expo to take this further so we surveyed and derigged out to the top of String Theory, out at 6am.

P.S.: Left Bring on the Clowns rigged but removed deviations (2 slings + krabs needed).

Literary effort for Bad Aussee newspaper

• Nearly 100km & over 1km deep - 3rd in Austria so far
• 24 entrances
• 30 years of expeditions
• this year - from Normway and NZ
• 5 joint members of Verein für Hölenkunde in Obersteir (VfHO)
• This year - saved 2 sheep from 3 holes
• Project + bunch of intellectuals -> world leading cave surveying software.
• Support (hospitality) of family Wilpernig over 30 years here