CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

I was not expecting to be here, however climbing plans fell through and I was shoehorned into a 3 night camp by Becka with a bunch of expo youngers. Good opportunity to see some new cave and get some fitness ahead of the VHO trip, so I was easily convinced.

Headed up to top camp on Sunday evening with Nat and Sarah after a very nice swim. Nat was subjected to wearing a corset after falling onto his spanner in a very ungraceful manner. Sarah had sprained both ankles, however she was convinced to dose up on drugs and join me at underground camp, which I especially appreciated on the morning that we were due to head underground after two of my prospective team decided they weren't keen.

Arrived at camp around 4pm, after a quick dehydrated meal and Classical Bangers we headed off to examine the pushing options left for us by Becka, Sam and Ellie in Enthusiasm Chamber. After the tedious commute through Northern Powerhouse and the very slippery ascent through alphanuepsilonupsilon...etc we arrived at the up pitch rigged by Sam into the chamber, which is very impressive. After a quick scope around we decided that we would push a pitch in the western end of Enthusiasm chamber. No one else seemed that keen to bolt, so it fell to me and I put a Y-hang in and set off. Dropped down a couple of steps to a ledge above two different holes, both seemed to carry some draught so I picked the lefthand one after realising that both had a significant degree of hanging unsupported death boulders lying around. However the second one seemed if anything the more dangerous (boulders funnelling into hole which is the pitch continuation) so we left it at that, turning one A lead into two B leads. Back to camp for noodles and bed by half midnight.

Next day was the big pushing day down Tartarus. Set off from camp around 11 with the aim of pushing Nat and Becka's A lead at the end of Charon. Tartarus was very nicely bolted by Hannah and we arrived at an unappetising looking muddy traverse shortly after Colin decided to try and prematurely end the trip by throwing himself down the final drop, fortunately the jape is still at the age where you bounce instead of break. Sarah then wallowed in the squalour for a while trying to find a rebelay bolt, she failed and I took over, managing to avoid getting quite as clarted as she had after watching how this particular flavour of mud behaved. Down at the bottom, the streamway we had traversed above headed off in the opposite direction to the lead to which we were headed, so I used the other two as a firemans belay and dropped down to have a quick look. Not promising, so we headed out along the continuing muddy traverse to the head of an annoying little pitch, following which the mud continued to the head of a rift which apparently was bolted with a rock...

Again no one else seemed especially keen to rig so I quested out along the terribly muddy rift above a huge drop. Began to drop down the rift past some initial cheese rock and into nice clean rock in the rift out towards the sound of water and into a vast black space. I was at the bottom a few rebelays later after getting over a bit of fear of my descender falling apart (I had to change the lower bobbin on my descender at camp the day before after a faster than hoped descent was had in Mongol Rally). An impressive place, around 60 - 70 m lower than where I had started and following a streamway to the north with a huge draught rushing out at us, very enticing. Drew a rigging topo in the paper logbook. My advice for continuing this lead would be to climb up a couple of metres to a wider section of rift above the next drop and then traverse along above the streamway, a confident rigger shouldn't need to place too many bolts at least for the part i could see.

Sarah and Colin surveyed on behind me and after the inevitable faff that comes with surveying a very vertical passage we reached the limit of exploration for the day and set off back out, derigging as we went. This was very tiring in the dense, clingey mud that surrounds this area, however future explorers should persevere as we left the pushing front at a much more sociable level of mud than that which is above. Left rope coiled at the top of Tartarus with knots still in.

Very long day later and we were back at camp around 2 - 3. Very hangry and my undersuit zip had broken. No matter, the next day we again awoke to 90 hours of Classical Bangers and decided to have a more chill day. Went to look at Enthusiasm chamber again, this time heading down Dental Floss to look at another pitch. However, Becka had neglected to mention that she had yet to finish surveying the really nice FishFace-esque horizontal passage beyond the turnoff to the pitch. So we did that; after leaving this at three C leads (boulder choke, pitch of loose death into immature meander and another boulder choke) we finished up and headed back to camp. Once there, we witnessed a biblical amount of water at the collection point and I decided not to head out until the following day.

Next day we derigged the camp and Mongol Rally (I'll let someone else tell about that) and that was my expo done, aside from a bit of top camp derigging. A very good trip, thanks Sarah and Colin!