CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

The final hurdle to finishing expo was a large amount of rope to come in and out of homecoming. We’d planned last night but postponed to today (to my sadness- I hate the heat ). Woke at 7, James MacA was dropped at the train station. Harry giggled and pointed out the very very long rope to me, and I - being a fool - sighed and put it in my bag (big regrets).

I accompanied Christopher to refill gas, and five set off up the toll road. The day was already very hot by 9. I was bored of faff so set off to douse myself in the waterfall.

The team recoallessed, and I panted sweated and sighed my way under the humongous weight to the Coll, and onwards- my first time walking Coll to homecoming. I’ve made the point before but I don’t cope with heat and today was far too humidily hot for me. Yet- dizzy with heat and unbalanced by bag- we eventually made it to homecoming. Zac’s fantasy music playlist was an excellent addition to the walk.

Harry then single handedly moved all of the one kilometre of rope we had carried up the hill down three pitches of homecoming to leave in the cool stable cave conditions. In total there are now 1.2 kilometres of rope at the top of homecoming; see Harry’s inventory for details.

Meanwhile Zac Colin and I were oiling and sorting the massive pile of millions ‘certainly more than 200’ ; see Zac’s inventory for details. Two regular and one big Daren drums full of these were steshed 6m to the left of homecoming, behind a young Christmas tree in a small gully under bunde. We also stashed two pots, a tub of nut, three sleeping mats m, and two hammers, here under bin bags.

Harry derigged, reappeared, we finished sorting and packed bags. We all had a lot to carry. Colin decided to pack a LOT of a lot of rope. We hope to upload a gif to represent the meaning of ‘a lot’ in this context (Colin approximates 350m)- it was rather heroic.

We began thumpering back under threatening, rumbling skies, and heavy sacks.

We stopped at Pepper Pot. This was found by Dickon and pushed by him and Harry. The 100m shaft has been partially descended and is very promising but very deathy. Harry then performed an excellent feet of surveying, racing against the thunder rumbles to survey 120m in an epic three survey legs. He derigged and Zac added the rope to his leaden pack.

Trudging onwards, time passed, I was sweaty. Got to the coll. we picked up the mesh instruments and slowly wandered on with multiple breaks (and a large amount of bilberry consumption from me who is writing this with purple stained fingers). Zac brought out the music again, with a rousing sing of the classical piece ‘I’m just Ken’ getting us up the penultimate hill.

We flopped in the carpark and waited for Christopher- who had dropped gas at Top camp and collected his gear- watching the thick clouds and lightning. I like to think that the thundering and grumberling was the Platau Monster wishing us farewell.

All is now complete on the Plateau -Auf Wiedersehen bis zum nächsten Jahr ;)