CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

I carried my caving and bivvy gear from Top Camp to Homecoming whilst Harry and Charlotte carried Top Camp's second shovel and a camp bed (surprisingliy heavy) to be picked up by the Garlic Cave people.

After a bit of faff at the surface we got underground and to the bottom of Wallace and Grommit without any problems. We headed up to the little pitch to Propane Nightmares, down a series of little pitches, past the "deathy" sump, reaching the top of the "Strained by Gravity" pitch. We layered up and Harry set off to finish rigging it. Charlotte and I came down. I didn't enjoy the second deviation (it was quite rubby) although apparently I went round the wrong side of a boulder. I think a rebelay should be added here for people (like myself) who don't look down too much when abseiling.

The pitch drops into a drippy, bouldery chamber. We found our way through into a rift with surprisingly nice stal and shuffled along to the pushing front (a T junction). Right was an undescended pitch. Left was where we started surveying.

We surveyed for about 100m through sandy rifts, down a few climbs (that were much harder on the way up!) and past some pretty flowstone. The passage ended with a ~20m pitch that can also be traversed over to the left and right. Harry and Charlotte havedubbed this passage "Flowstone Canyon".

Slow, tired progress out saw us leave the cave at about 1am. I stumbled to Garlic Cave to sleep on the slabs outside the camp whilst Charlotte and Harry bivvied in a group shelter at the entrance.