Caving at last !! The first problem that was presented to us was how to get in. The winter snow fall had not fully melted and the entrance appeared snow plug. There was the possibility of gaining entrance down the side of the snow just to the left of the cave number. So we placed a Hilti and dropped down a ladder. This provided a way into the main hole. Some digging provided a route into the passageway into the cave.
Since last year it appears that the roof has fallen in and there is a new hole in the roof <-- Bollocks ! Look at the survey fellas... The boulder choke is very loose and should be descended with caution.
Once we arrived at Shell Pitch, Julian and Matt went ahead to start rigging Piezo. Mark and I began to re-rig Shell Pitch but due to a slight misjudgement we only had one hammer with us and were unable to dress the rock properly. This will be re-rigged next time we go down, hopefully.
On the traverse to Piezo there is a move over a deep hole which should be hand lined and possibly explored. Julian had rigged the first part of Piezo too a long free hang. We descended this but found that rigging the next pitch would be difficult avoid what could be a large waterfall and as our side of the cave was not vertical. The other side is overhanging and should make an excellent place to rig, but unfortunately it is virtually impossible to reach, let alone to drill a hole. After some looking we spotted a good ish rigging point, again it was somewhat difficult to reach as a traverse out was required and then the rope just pulled you straight back.
Matt at this point was feeling very cold and decided to leave the cave. We then started rigging a descending traverse from the top of the pitch to reach this point. After 3 bolts we were tired and decided to come out. We're not far from reaching the good rigging side - next trip we'll get there.
T.U. Matt - 6 hours
Mark, Julian, Ali - 9 hours
Previous trip (last year) / Next trip
Re-rigged Shell Pitch, placed a hand line over a large hole before Piezo, also spit placed for exploration. Carried on pushing to Dark Room (hopefully) - more epic bolting. Rebelays removed down first pitch of Piezo so now there is a straight drop to a shelf half way down the pitch. From there is a upward pitch leading to a hole in the opposite wall. Then a descent down a pitch the other side of the hole in the wall is currently halfway through being rigged with two rebelays to reach a free hang for some distance. This route keeps the caver out of any water. Many bolts were placed and removed to reach the route. It rained whilst we were down the cave and we didn't notice at all.
T.U. = 9½ hours.
Piezo goes through to the Darkroom ! The hole named Crow's Nest led via 4/5 rebelays (2/3 hanging) to a 34m free-hang into the darkroom. This free hang ends up in a waterfall coming into the Darkroom, therefore we rigged a second route, a dry route, through an eye hole through the side of the wall of the free hang. This provides a nearly totally dry route to the Darkroom. The whole pitch from the Crow's Nest to the Darkroom is about 60/65m. Once we had reached the Darkroom we had little rope left so surveyed the pitch on the way out.
T.U. = 11 hours
Previous trip / Brute Force discovery trip (same day)/ Next Darkroom trip
Carried about 200m of rope through the Darkroom to the rigging front. Re-rigged the Chimney on a longer rope and used the excess to rig a traverse line through the Darkroom and the first section of the rift to Redundant Natural. We also re-rigged Redundant Natural on one rope rather than two, and placed a deviation on the second part of the pitch.
T/U 11 hours
Previous trip / Brute Force trip (same day)/ Next trip
Went down to inspect a hole near the top of Piezo. Found a ~10m pitch - called Brute Force, and a 35m pitch, called Ignorance. Ignorance is a dead end, but has a hole about halfway up, which may go.
T/U u hrs
Previous trip / Piezo trip (same day)/ Next Brute Force trip
Tried to rig hole ½ way up Ignorance. Eventually leads into main route, probably at top of Dot-to-dot. Left rigged until it can be surveyed. WARNING - do not prussik up bottom section - freeclimb instead.
T/U 7 hrs
Previous trip / Darkroom trip (same day)/ Next Brute Force trip
After everybody else jacked for various reasons, we went caving. We touristed to the top of Natural Redundancy and then left, having admired Mark M, Julian H & Ali's hanging rebelays. Up & out, and home - we were tourists & we don't care.
T/U 5 hrs
Pottering about trip. If you follow the roof in the entrance rift, you eventually come out over the top of Shell Pitch. Ignorance comes down by the question mark in Dot-to-dot, and should be rerigged since the rigging wasn't designed for people to actually use it. Ho hum. Went and saw the Darkroom. Came out.
T/U 7½ hrs
Previous trip / Last Ignorance trip / Push trip (same day)
Went down to get as much as possible of the co-ax out. Rigged in as far as the third pitch, but unfortunately I didn't know where the rebelays etc. should be so I rigged it completely crapply and had zillions of rubs and abseiling on single crap bolts. Basically I didn't enjoy it at all, and I was wearing dry grots and Julian's gear so I got cold and wet and thoroughly pissed off. Eventually got about 200m of co-ax out and prussik out just after my 2 hour call out had expired !
T/U 2 hrs
Previous trip (1991 derig) / Next trip
We rigged in to the Navigational Limit and pushed the end. Abseiled past the last of Dokertee's ladder bolts and via a deviation to avoid water to the foot of the pitch. Then we walked down a length of rift (10m) to the head of another pitch. This remains to be rigged with the 200m of rope we now have at the pushing front.
The problems came on the boulder slope on the way out. There's a big boulder jammed across the entrance boulderslope, holding back a terrific weight of piled boulders. This boulder is resting on a pile of other shit that gets eroded with every person leaving the cave. As I was climbing over it some loose rock fell out from under it and this big (3' cube) boulder subsided slightly. This scared me a lot. Julian was behind me, he chimneyed up beside the boulder without touching it and then climbed up the boulder slope. As he climbed past me more rocks fell out from under the big boulder and it subsided by another 2".
Anyhow we got out okay and considered ourselves lucky. The entrance is now definitely unsafe and I will not be going down it until it changes. T/U 14 hours.
Previous trip / Pottering trip (same day)/ Next trip
I decided that far too much ill-informed bullshit was flying regarding the Puffball "Rolling Stone", so went prospecting with Glen and Julian S via PB to retrieve my glasses and some gear. Decided a quick look at the boulder was in order, so I donned my oversuit over my shorts & T-shirt and with Julian's helmet (he has a laser) I descended and inspected the boulder and the rift for a while. Gingerly kicking the two rocks produced no movement, and after a little more contemplation I decided I was willing to go and retrieve the drill if this would be useful. I carefully left and found a pair of caving gloves I had dropped down the side of the snow plug last year ! Then we went prospecting, refound 90/14 (=184) and Glen fell down thru' a snow plug and dislocated his shoulder.
T/U 15 minutes.
Went to rig upto Knossos, we rigged top pitch. Jerry left tackle sack of rope at top so had to go back, I needed the practice. Went to Big Sainsbury's then rigged S'not pitch. We could not find the second rebelay. It was supposed to be a natural. Jerry rigged the last section which made it go to Knossos.
T/U 8 hrs Jerry
Previous trip (initial rig) / Next trips: Gnome / Beyond Yapate / Left Hand Route / Dungeon
...and everyone else
After Olly's trip saying Puffball was alright <-- "I never said it was alright - I said I was willing to go and get the drill if it would help in making it safe, 'cos in my opinion, if it fell, the rift would slow it enough to get out of the way in time." I went down to play pulleys ropes and stuff for fifteen minutes to sure it wasn't. Olly was in fact wrong <-- "No, 'cos it didn't go down the slope so I was, in fact, completely right" and after putting a bolt in I reached down to put a tape round the offending rock, and when I had my arms in the boulder slope erm, erm well anyway about 2 seconds later I was four foot further down the cave thinking - 'well that went remarkably well didn't it', 30s later I had really bad shakes. We then wasted some time trying to pull rocks down from the surface with pulley and loadsa people <- complete waste of time. Andrew and I then spent the next few hours kicking shit down the cave. It was dead dull and knackering, much like prussiking with someone throwing rocks on your head.
T/U 3 hrs
Having sorted out the dodgy boulder slope with Dave and Andy previously, it was time to go caving again. As we got to the cave cloud rolled in obscuring all visibility and it started raining. Decided to come out in daylight in case visibility continued to be crap. Laid cable for some time until about ½ way down Cloud Chamber and then ran out of cable. Continued to bottom of Cloud Chamber then turned around. Meanwhile surface weather continued to deteriorate to the point where it became much wetter underground. Cyclotron was fairly wet at the bottom and Natural Redundancy less so. However, the wet weather route from Darkroom to Piezo turned out to be really good, only a bit damp on the lower section above the eyehole. Arrived on surface in pouring rain, so changed at top camp. Very hard work finding way across plateau in darkness and poor visibility.
T/U 8½ hours
After two years wondering about whether it went, we returned to the boulder choke at the end of Gnome Passage off Dreamtime. In the interim it had collapsed a bit so we had a quick look and decided that being Austria and not (say) Mendips, it was (a) too much like hard work and (b) too dangerous. However, on the way in, we had noticed that the rift in the middle of the passage at the start of Dreamtime was now accessible, a load of crap having disappeared. Rigged a rope from a very large boulder and a thread and descended below a large piece of hanging death. Established that this is not part of Bullshit Alley, but goes back under the rift sort of towards Alternative Shopper (but as far as anyone can remember, nothing breaks into Alt. Shopper). Needs to be explored 'cos we buggered off out. This bit is called "Deep Sleep" (ask Tina).
T/U 6 hours
PS: Rerigged entrance pitch properly but pitch 2 is a big improvement.
After finding a complete set of borrowed gear for Jerry having spent several fruitless hours looking for Kaninchenhöhle & Jerry's gear, we finally descended the entrance at 15.15 with the intention of finding Mark M etc. at pushing front. Descent was extremely uneventful reaching pushing front to find the cave had "sumped out". Met Olly and Julian S on way out. Carried battery for drill up Piezo causing massive distress to wedding tackle.
T/U 9½ hrs
Previous trip / Bottoming trip (same day)/ Next trip
Didn't get underground until 4 ! God we were crap. Entrance is a 'tight' (well, for Julian at any rate) squeeze past a boulder and into a hands & knees crawl for about 10 ft. Following the fault line, sliding over loose boulders, after ~30 ft we reached the first pitch, around 10 mins, and while I faffed on the rebelay, Julian got the first bolt of the next pitch in, but for some (still) unknown reason, the cone was knocked too far into the spit, splitting it. The next bolt was also a no-hoper. Next we kicked 12 ton of shit down the pitch. The rope led down about 2m - almost a free climb - across a ledge littered with boulders and then to the floor of a rock covered chamber with a little waterfall, (which probably looks fairly impressive in the wet). A small slot under one wall led to the third pitch - still to have a rebelay placed. The way on at the bottom of this is a small hole leading into largish rift.
I'm crap and can't remember the names - but we do have some (honist) - so Olly can't get his warped imagination out of here.
To be filled in later.
Cave - Moose Trap
1st pitch - Rocky
2nd pitch - Bullwinkle
3rd pitch - Cliopatra's
T/U 8 hrs (all at less than 50m, what a bunch of light weights)
A couple of days before 600m of cable for radios had been laid down the cave. Then Julian carried 200m of rope to the pushing front. Only one thing could happen next - we found the sump. We rigged two pitches after Traditional Style, the second of which was disgustingly muddy and ended in a sump pool the size of a dinner plate. Yuk ! However, this may not be the end because above the sump pool there is a muddy crawl going off for some distance. It is below the high water mark of the sump pool and clearly sumps when it rains, but none-the-less will probably be pushed on the next trip down there.
We found:
[grade 1 elevation]
T/U 13 hours
Previous trip / Tourist trip (same day)/ Next trip
Didn't get underground until 22.15 (beat that Matt). Resurveyed entrance then went into cave proper and surveyed from ladder to just before 1st rope pitch. Met 6 people who were all coming out. Got yummy illuminated compasses to do rift section. God, so nice. Other set too shit ! A clino that sticks 90% of the time, a compass with no line on it - Accurate survey city ! Now to survey properly. You have a rift that's narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. Very wide in places. Positively capacious in fact. Ol: "I want to survey along the roof if I can". Point is that Julian is very crap at wide traverses. Ol: "It's easy that bit. You just put one foot on that blank wall there and stretch across to that massive foothold only 6ft away. It's huge. It's at least an inch across". Julian S: "No". Finish surveying 04.30, Bored now. Go down to see what Brute Force does. Get to top. Lift up drill battery and massively lose interest. Olly tries his footjammer out up Shell Pitch. It failed. Get out 7.15. It was raining. Again. Solidly. Heavily. Aqueously. Pissed down. Pissed Off. Very Pissed Off. So we pissed off and woke up top camp. Then we pissed off to BA and sat in the potato hut.
T/U 9 hrs
PS. What do you call 2 ageing Austrians who are walking across the
crapper in the pissing rain and mist at 8 am carrying umbrellas ?
We didn't know either, but if you can think of something tell us, 'cos when
it happened we were far too knackered to think of it.
Once upon a time in the west four intrepid cavers went a cavering. One by one they assembled around a hole in some limestone. The 3rd born donned his suit of armour and clutched his sword before leaping fear(less)/(full)y into its mouth. After battling with its sore throat he leapt, fought and once again cried.
Three followed slowly.
They stopped cause they found a small and insignificant reason to go no further. They were as apathetic as a six shot revolver. They threw rocks and bolts.
They descended Garden Party fearfully.
Dum dee dum. Niflheim [This is disinformational, Ed.]
Love Dave
T/U 10
The intension of our trip was to go down Brute Force + Ignorance - push the (?) and survey it all. What happens was that we went down Strike 2 - which will go I think, - it's not too tight - there's another pitch beyond. We started surveying Strike 2 not knowing where we were going eventually dropped the pencil, got cold + tired so left 100m 9mm at Dot to Dot to push (?) and came out - sorry
T/U = 5½ hours.
Previous trip / survey/derig trip (same day)/ Next trip
Intention to get to bottom and survey out, checking leads on the way and hopefully finding they don't go. Wooks + Gill much impressed with the new Piezo route and wet route rigging, but those enormous hanging rebelays knackered Gill out. (How about a smaller loop next time?). Much spagetti junction.
Anyway Gill wimped out at Traditional Style and solo-ed out. Julian + Wooks checked out muddy crawl above the sump, which goes to another sump. Then they de-rigged last 2 pitches and brought out x'00's m rope. There is a lead off Delicate Sound of Thunder, passage on left leads to "Honeycomb" (lots of phreatic maze) water coming down a small hole; mud pools; passage to a pitch above a pool. God I hope it doesn't go.
Geology : Many pitches obviously on a fault line between the grey shelly limestone (huge bivalves 6" across) and a sandy coloured rock. The grey one is the one that doesn't bolt easily. Often see offset of beds, eg. a ~horizontal dark shale bed. Some pitches along a wide fault zone, at least 2 faults 4 foot apart. Whole cave is developed along same plane - see Olly's survey rotating.
T/U 8 hours (Gill) 11 hrs (Julian & Wookey)
Took 5 hrs to get baggy bastards out and we went incredibly slowly by the end. Wooks threw up 3 times on return due to de-hydration. It was shit.
Previous trip / Strike 2 trip (same day)/ Next trip
Rigged 2 more pitches in Moose Trap, one goes through a tight hole in a boulder slope.
T/U 7hrs
Surveyed all 5 pitches of Moose Trap
T/U 5½ hrs
Went down, came out. Joined up surveys of QS&C and below. Also grade 1ed the bit off Del Thunder.
T/U 9hrs
Surface survey Puffball (182) to 183 & 184
Surface survey from top camp -> col
Went up to Moose Trap. Rigged down to rift (can't remember no. of pitches). Found cut in rope just where we were to rig at top of pitch. Rigged one other small pitch, which promptly collapsed to a climb. P9. Rift, tight and horrible.
T/U 6hrs
Nobody else wanted to go down 161 so I was forced to go alone into the depths of 161, to see if Deep Sleep went anywhere. Well, after 4 bolts it didn't !! For 161 this is positively amazing and stunning !! On the way out, has a look at the passage at the bottom of Pitch2,m [might be p21m ? Ed.] it has a 2 second drop at the end. Came out to loadsa sunshine.
T/U 4 hours
"Want to go down 161" says Wookey, so "OK" I says. (a) Went and surveyed Deep Sleep (b) Went and looked at Gnome passage; Wookey pushed the r/hand branch to a pitch so surveyed most of it (c) Shifted the co-ax down the squeeze and (d) Buggered off out to daylight
T/U 7½ hours
Previous trip / Next trips: Garden Party / Beyond Yapate / Dungeon
Combined photo and derig trip.
We all went in together, took photos at : Puffball rift; Shell pitch; New Battery Rebelays; Cloud Chamber; NDE. Then Andy and Tony went out and Julian and I began derigging. First we checked the various holes emanating from the hole in Delicate Sound of Thunder. Olly had pushed one of these to a pitch, without his SRT gear on, but we couldn't fit wearing ours and so decided that it was clearly far too tight and ignored it. We derigged NDE, Cloud Chamber and Natural Redundancy, plus the Dry Route parallel to The Chimney. Half the resulting rope we took out and half we left in an utterly knackered tacklesack at the head of Piezo. We also got out all 600m of cable and carried out the drill battery.
ANYONE GOING DOWN TO DE-RIG FURTHER WOULD DO WELL TO TAKE DOWN TWO EMPTY TACKLESACKS.
The Dark Room has been derigged so the Chimney rope can be pulled up from above. Have fun on the rebelays !
T/U 11½ hrs (Mark M, Julian H)
8½ hrs (Tony, Andy)
Finished rigging to Repton. Going up other side of HG discovered some fool (Wookey) had not put the handline on so there was an epic get off. This ruined our original plan of rigging Exhaustion so we had a look at another lead. Tried surveying but clino died. So went and found a big chamber, Satan's Sitting Room. No rope so gave up and came home.
T/U 11½ hrs
Went to fetch my gear back from Puffball for the great Eishohle extravaganza. As me Aggy Clive leave top camp Andy shouts "You could get the rope from Shell if you want to fetch it." Bugger that thinks I. As I wander I dither etc, and when I reach Puffball decide OK. I ought to then. Go back to Top Camp, get carbide etc., go back. "It's somewhere at the base of Shell" says Andy. Back to cave, get changed, down I go. Hum ti tum rift bashing god its boring bottom of Shell - No rope. Go to top of BFI - still no rope. I can't get back up the 8ft climb unaided so can't go any further. "Oh bugger" says I "I won't be able to take 2 full tacklebags of rope out of that bastard rift. Shucks!" Out I troll. God Puffball is boring fifth time around. Mind you, my Macsuit is still in one piece tee-hee-hee
T/U 1½ hrs
PS I tried to help derig honest
Rigged in to bottom of Roll of the Dice, but could not [find] last rebelay and could not be bothered to put in a new spit so left all the gear there approx.- 4 hangers, 2 tectors, 1 bolting kit, 2 tapes, 60m of rope. Warning top of roll of the dice wants another tector or preferably a rebelay - rope can be obtained by removing the clown well back from the top of pitch. Also for the first few prussiks up from the freehanging rebelay in Francophobia (one with tape foot sling) rope rubs, but I have now tightened the deviation so I don't know if it still will. Caving is ace best trip I've had in months, ran back to top camp because I was feeling so good and Gill who saw me thought there must have been an accident.
T/U = 5 hrs
Previous trip (1991 derigging) / Next trip
Boogied on up to KH efficiently early with drill and gear with intent to finish off Garden Party and way down to Pipeless to sump and push.
Plan failed as Garden Party went huge and we used up baby drill battery on 80m of rigging down two shafts. Somehow we didn't intersect with Powerstation - what the hell is going on? Had a good wander round connecting rift and 2 parallel shafts. Andy was ill and after surveying 1st bit went out. Dave and I surveyed out all the new stuff - really satisfying. This cave is ridiculous (again)
TU (Wook/ Dave) 11hrs
(Andy) 7hrs
Got up later & then only underground by 2.20. Gave Jerry a good tourist trip on the way down - he was stunned by the sheer size of KH. Staggered all the way to Repton [this was originally typed in as Pipeless - its almost illegible] with a borrowed York rope, to find some more there - bum, needn't have bothered. Had a look at rock in my question mark and moved part of it but decided too dodgey to move other half. Then trundled all the way down Pipeless to Satan's Sitting Room. Rigged down pitch & found a bit more cave at the bottom, including Silent Fellow, a chamber with a pitch out of it (but very chossy) prob 30m. Then surveyed out. Pipeless is very windy & bloody freezing. Trailed back to surface with some hangers and Mike's rope. Satisfying, efficient trip. Jesus what a lot of cave.
T/U 12.5 hrs
25/7/1992 | Sonnenleitenschacht (Sun-ladder shaft) | Aggy, Jerry, Wook, *Robert TWC
Up at an unreasonable hour (5.30) to meet Austrians at 06.30. Long, hot, fast walkin. We were shagged. Fortunately caving was much easier & we were suitably boggled by fairly mental shaft series down to -368m (p20,p93,p19,p10,p53,p88,p57). Nasty tight rift halfway down.
At bottom is some horizontal cave with mega-slippery mud. Did a bit of surveying but bottom pitch was too wet so had a look at rest of cave, ending at a big shaft (surprise surprise) got a rope to enable Rob to do traverse round pitch-head to find miles more cave- prob nearly 300m to a big rift pitch & shaft down to streamway. Fucking brill - and we didn't even have to survey it. T/U 7½hrs
+Hans, H's son(Manfred), another one + Günther (Austrians)
Preparation started early for this one : packing rucksacks the afternoon before!?! What, CUCC getting organised? Fortunately we were able to disprove this by having a 21st birthday party the evening and before, and various of us bivvied coz it was nice, despite knowing that the Austrians wanted to meet us in BM at 6.30am. We made it, with Richie's epic driving, 2 mins early.
So here we are at the top of the toll road (another one). Olly improves our organisational record by having no crampons, and the Austrians had no spare set. They did say they might tho'). Hans sez an ice axe is good gear though, so off we walk to the cave.
Plan: 1hr walk to cave, 2hrs cave, 2hrs walk back across the plateau then bier in a caff.
Results: Austrians lots CUCC 1 Where did we lose?
First game: Rucksacks. We had traditional cavers rucksacks with lots of gear. The Austrians rucksacks looked like they would struggle to hold a walkman, let alone full caving gear.
2nd game: Hangover (some of us). Imagine going Sunday caving (albeit with dry gear) at 6am, after a late nite sess at the Hill Inn. You don't, do you? You go to bernies and fester lots and groan and maybe walk round Yorkshire a bit. Not walk up a mountain led by hyper-fit Austrians who say 10km is 1hrs walk easily. With caving gear. On nasty scree slopes with goats throwing rocks at you. "See the hole in the middle of the cliff there? That's it". While changing, my oversuit did a tumbling boulder impression. I didn't really want it to fall all the huge distance down the scree slope. I like grass: it stops things falling.
3rd game: Odd gear. Hans' furry - unpacks from his tiny rucksack along with oodles of ham sandwiches, wurst etc (slavering english had no breakfast) a furry. Imagine camo pattern, 'cept in bright colours. That's it. Hans' son's undersuit - looked like black bubble-wrap? Ho hum
4th Game: We won (what - FESTERING of course). Various light fettling, hangovers, generally being slow.
5th Game - Caving (yes now comes the important bit). U go down the obvious cave, then crawl a tiny bit (austrians are hard, they don't need kneepads. Fran and Richie do, tho'). Out again a few metres later. A through trip! Down another cave, amusing fixed ladder with lots of bolts & wires holding it together. Perhaps a leetle bit over the top. Some rocks, then crampons on for a toddle down a nice ice slope. Watching Olly fun, as Hans walks him down (Ol's foot resting on Hans' etc). Squeeze at bottom of ice would be awful except ice is v. slippy(!). Then some real caving. We wandered round lots of big bouldery passage, being shown all the leads & being out caved in a miserably easy cave. Günter had a trick of being behind one minute, then you see him next in front. OK, he did find the cave. The walls were all light coloured mud, making the big spaces quite bright for a change (cf puffball any [?]). It's a big cave : 10km, 400m deep & we only saw the top bit. Beautiful sail like piece of really blue ice somewhere we saw. Eventually after wandering apparently randomly exeunt cavers. Out, change. Hans showed us (in the cave) a passage which went up, and said "We found the hole in the top by surveying it underground, then walking 350m from the campsite & saying 'Yes it's here'". Why can't CUCC surveying be this good? Anyway, we have to climb horribly steep chossy crap bit of mountain. I scared. At the top, a football pitch sized bit of grass. Flat! Their campsite - amusing camping - they have to carry all their shit up, but a helicopter delivers barrel of beer and cakes.
Walk back across plateau - real Totes Gebirge - grey and white, no bunde for miles but little grey plants feeking [?] around. Shown some big holes & people drool etc. - one is a big hole near the path with a cross/memorial on the other side of the path from the hole so people fall down it on the way to see it.
Vaguely tropical once in the plant level again - clear lake below, beautiful colours, plants with really bright colours all round.
Then to a Gasthof for a yearned-for drink & home.
Summary: don't go caving at 6am with immensely hard Austrians who are really good tourist guides (the day was really interesting despite the fact I felt a complete ouigee) The End
T/U 2½ hrs ?
P.S. Richie and Fran stole Aggy and Jerry's shorts on the way out the A's thought this was funny. There seemed no point in nicking Wook's shorts tho.
P.P.S. Guess whose light failed despite it being a club FX2 and whose replacement carbide was shit also?
Wook checked out QM's down Chimney : Just extensions of rift. Had a jolly time de-rigging, especially Crow's Nest which was epic. Ol tried a couple of bits & ticked off a QM leaving one crap one. Decided to head out with 3 baggies as 6 would be stupid.
T/U 6hrs 20 mins
Went down BFI. Got very cold surveying it & Ol rigged down to Strike 2 to force 'too tight'. Little pitch and some stuff. Derigged most of it but had to give up to get back to camp in time for slideshow - only 2 baggies this time.
T/U 6hrs 50
Zippo down to where Tony and Andy jacked out. Fast descent aided by several french bolts until (with only just enough rope) we dropped into a huge (well, pretty huge) chamber. Poked around, found several ways on (one bolted), and left, 'cos Fran/Jerry wanted to go to the slide show.
T/U 6 hours
Went down with Andy and Wookey to HGS where we left them to rig a tyrolean (inadvertantly stealing the bag of gear they needed). Missed directions to Exhaustion (?) and ended up in Pipeless, but found ~110m new passage and another pitch. Surveyed out. I was knacked.
Wook & Andy - discovered Wook's filled-in Q.M. going to Pipeless - ticked off 2 QM's !
T/U 9 hrs
SAM/MIKETA go somewhere else
[and don't write up their trip at all, even though Mike remembered it in 2009 when it wasn't parsed into the troggle database]
T/U 11 hours
Someone finally rigs Dungeon ! Get down, find Dungeon (not that simple, once we went down 2nd pitch). Spend such a long time trying to put a spit in, Gill offers to "nip down S'not and fetch the drill". Off go Gill and Rachel. 2 hrs later, JulianS & Sam finish messing about, go down the pitch, and decide the best way is to rig on through an eyehole. Rig the eyehole. "Can you hear a whistle Sam ?" "Don't think so". About to go down. Hear six whistle blasts. "Oh, SHIT !" Never prussiked so fast in my life. Sam in front, races down S'not. Horrible thoughts of stretchers and falling boulders. Major relief when its just that Gill has been strung up for 1½ hrs. Ends up with Sam undoing the rebelay so she can get past. After this, nobody feels like much more caving, so exit all.
T/U 5½ hrs
Previous trip (initial rig) / Next trip
Go down to survey Dungeon. Descend pitch into second chamber on yesterday's rigging (note, take a rope 'tector). Survey. Find the way on, and a Zoom which must have fallen down the entrance.
T/U 6 hrs
Faffed measuring Puffball ropes & eventualy went once it was too hot. Nice 1st trip down France, if a bit drippy. Faffed somewhat surveying down to impressive space at bottom. Also arsed about with rigging in largely vain attempt to improve it, after dire warnings about ropes too short, spits shit etc. Had a good poke round in chamber and found some scrotty stream cave with lots of water in it before boogying out. Took ages to get out, & then we got lost on the way to 161a & I ended up taking 40 mins & going via Vd1 to get my bearings - doesn't limestone look like limestone a lot.
My attempt to go on the ouigee trip largely failed as we were still eating tea at 2 am.
Nice bit of cave though, and having possibly reached the phreatic level it should go like a train.
[grade I sketch of chamber]
T/U 9 hrs
Photo trip/pottering. Some photos of 2nd pitch from Big Sainsbury's, showing eyehole from entrance and boulder slope down to S'not. Sponsorship photos on a high slab in Big Sains - having a brew not 20m from the bottom of the 2nd pitch. Trangia works really well underground; brew good moraliser. Then split 3 parties: Mike + Tina more B.S. photos, Sam + Tony down to Dungeon to inspect leads, Gill + Rachel down S'not to explore ?'s and go touristing. Explored uphill from bottom of S'not -> 2 leads (which AndyA and IainM have also been down) choke up, but possible small uphill crawl. Draughts.
Explored holes down right hand fork to Arrow Chamber, without actually getting into the chamber (I think). Rachel scurried down lots stoopy passage/crawls/holes down, some which go quite a way. Worth another look, ie. go towards Arrow Chamber and duck down beneath huge boulder blocking high rift.
Tony + Sam + Mike + Tina proved that Dungeon connects to S'not via a window under a big boulder. 7m pitch at bottom too tight at bottom and choked.
T/U 5 hrs
Previous Dungeon trip / Previous LHR trip / Next trip (final derig)
/~TU 1hr~\ /~ TU ½hr ~\
Quote "Small depression near 164" in logbook.
Found this cave when prospecting, & found it to be a cavern full of pretty ice. This time brought cameras. Looped tapes over a couple of lumps of rock & Aggy went down. (All were wearing shorts & tee-shirts). Removed SRT gear & passed up to Jerry. Fran descended, then, eventually, Clive. Bloody Cold. Then Jerry. Landing area is sunk in under level of snow, so large kick from side is needed to land on snow. Took loads of pics. Still bloody cold. Came out to heat shock. Best part is it is 10 mins from Top Camp.
No. is 189, name GLITTERSTOMPF.
Prospecting (sometime in the middle)
Aggy, Julian S, Fran & Jerry
½ HR
Found lots of holes - generally wandered in the direction of the huge piece of limestone on the far side of the Hinter Schwarzmooskogel (?). Including Glitterstompf, 164, 107 an old path. As suspected, most holes blocked w/ snow but the limestone has lots of biggies - but only had a 26m rope w/ us so didn't go down all. Worth going back to the limestone w/ lots of rope - couple of very large drops. Didn't bother doing more than + the ones that we actually bottomed - headed back to 161 path. Came across a large hole on the hillside - can be seen from the large piece of limestone on the Wook path. Went over snowfield to the top - looked down - saw no bolts although so<?> sany[?] it may be Tantalschacht - needs going down - huge chamber below - very close to path - found an S [???].
Jerry & Austrians arrived @ Top Camp 8:15. After waking up, got down cave by 10:00. Went down to Repton, Pipeless & to top of Satan's Sitting Room. Robert strung a type of traverse over a big hole (6' long) & Jerry, trusting Robert, went first. Drilled 2 holes above new pitch, while Jerry went to Repton for rope. Sep/Robert wanted to see daylight, so we left for the surface. Robert & Jerry went ahead (Jerry behind !). They were far enough ahead to suspect they had got lost. Fran on surface, with already changed Robert & Jerry.
TU Hard cavers Rob, Jerry 6hrs
Humans Aggy, Andrew, Sep 7½hrs
Tony (the hard caver) had been down a few days before to rig this, the most superior of pushing fronts. Sat in the entrance waiting until our bodies had cooled to a temperature that would allow the brains' thought channels to open. At this point Tony's brain (not unexpectedly) told him caving was shit (a true fact) but we continued. Beautiful wizzy pitch. Then at the bottom of Roll of the Dice 'BELOW' I tensed and waited for the clack to come. Nothing happened. Began to relax. Wack, Oh no I am falling should not have let go of the rope. Why is my stop not working. Ah let go of the handle. 'STOP' thats better, bollocks, who put that wall there. Ouch ! Zip. Next thing I know I am at the top of the next pitch been ill again. Never mind lets continue. At last, the pushing front. Wander up and down, traverse across, Tony has a go. Time to rig the Crash, Oh no no again I'm falling. Where has that 6ft by 1ft shelf I was standing on gone. Went down Toothless, put one bolt in using 3 spits, got psyched so left.
TU 5½
I can't remember what happened, so I shall make something up. The battery was heavy. It was heavy on the way to the cave. It was heavy in conjunction with a light tackle sack. It was fucking heavy in the full tackle sack and a drill.
So, I went dangling with gear, strewn with expensive dead weight across dubious traverses down dubious climbs and across f'ing unlikely chocked boulder floor things. Thus, standing at the edge of Cat Litter, I clipped in and descended, slammed a bolt in the wall - I thought about using my hand driver but thought that I ought to use Mark Mileing [??] battery. Descended loads, Andy followed and said Hey up gus [??] its some gear tape. And thus realised we were in known cave. We then found some rope. After toffee eating we lugged heaved hauled and surveyed. Laugh.
T/U 9
Previous trip / Next LHR trip / Final derig
[missing date -- JGT]
Our lonely intrepid explorer made his way to the cave. He entered thinking of the absence of annoying friends. He came upon a drop with badly buried rope. He fearlessly pounded upon the rock eventually it gave way. The rope was claimed. I rigged the first three belays on tape - such delight - never before had I had so many tapes - oooh the benefit of being a facist thieving bastard. Bolt, bolt, bolt, bolt yawn loadsa pitch.
Bollock Bollocks, it stops. I don't fit. Aahh but no. It goes so squeezesque* lovely. Then rift, then maze, then pitch. Yawn bolts.
* Millenium Falcan -> squeeze bit
* Yoda -> mazey bit
* Androids -> pitch
T/U 8hrs
Previous trip (initial RHR rig) / Final derig and Bladerunner survey trip.
(has no friends, sob)
Joined the ever increasing gang of solo cavers to look at crawly bit at bottom of 183. Yes, it goes, but it's shit ! Very Mendip crawly (eastwater ?) follow stream, small climbs occ. all in an angled rift (or fault ?). A bit mazy so if one way doesn't go another will. Scared after trying to descend climb head first with crap hand holds, so got out.
Then go to Puffball to retrieve bags of rope JulianS went to get, but Olly & Wooks had got before. Found this out descending 8ft & 10ft pitches at beginning of Piezo "but I'm sure there's a rope here normally". Climb out just, exit, fester a while in sun & met callout 3 hrs early coming to rescue me.
T/U 5 hrs PS solo is good - none of the nasty cavers around but a bit scary sometimes.
Previous trip / Next trip (the final one)
Got up ridiculously early (7 AM !) to beautiful blue skies, sunshine etc. Drove to Sattel & immediately set off on the wrong path. Having realised our error, we turned back and tried again (the correct path is the left one which is signposted Trisselwand - as opposed to the one on the right signposted Trisselwand !) We then walked along the 233 for a short distance & turned left at the first thing that could just about pass for a path - this again was wrong of course (stay on the 233 until a reasonably sized path on the left - probably the second turning). After about an hour of walking through forests, christmas trees, etc. we turned right into the bunde (again wrong - you should keep on the path which goes down). Eventually, we arrived at the base of the lower left of the two large gulleys in the face - below an obvious pine tree (Wookey). Started climbing at ~11 am by which time the sun was just getting into the gulley. Start at obvious ring around corner from tree - many of these throughout the climb are next to brown/orange splodges of paint. 1st 2 pitches were easy & scrambly but with few places for protection - following the easiest line up. 3rd pitch - walk across to left wall & climb the crack - it would probably be a good idea to belay at the bottom of this (piton) instead of from the top of the second. Protection for this consists of pitons of varying quality. 4th & 5th & 6th straightforward but can't really remember (NB 50m rope recommended/needed for several of thse pitches). Some sections can be done moving together. Eventually arrived below a huge headwall with a large section of loose scree/boulders etc. to the left. Spent a long time faffing around here by going too high - it looks as if you can avoid the scree by doing this but a sheer gulley stops you halfway across. Correct way is to go across to the left & slightly upwards across the scree. This is quite exposed but otherwise not too bad. The point to aim for is a downward sloping slab on the corner of the left wall. There are pitons towards the left wall, honest !
At this point (5pm) Jeremy decided he was suffereing from sunstroke & he wanted to go down. NB there is almost no shade or breeze on the climb so take lots (2 lt per person) of water. Abseiled down as far as second pitch without any problem. I abseiled down to the 2nd and spent ages looking for the belay (someone had moved it around a corner on the right) which Christine then had a minor epic trying to reach. The stance at the top of this is quite small. It was starting to get dark & the first drops of rain from an obvious thunderstorm were starting to fall - all these together resulted in the rope getting horrendously tangled halfway down the pitch. After spending ~5 min attempting to untangle this - hanging at the base of a small gulley - the storm broke. The nice gulley was quickly transformed into a cascade of water, rocks were hitting me on the head. At this point I wasn't very happy. After resigning myself to the fact that I was obviously going to die, managed to move out of the worst of the shit on to a face & spent the next half hour untangling rope and cowering.
Back at the top, everyone else was having a similarly shit time getting pelted with ice and rocks - Christine ending up with a really pretty bruised shoulder. Eventually we all reached the bottom in various states of coldness, wetness, sanity etc. Walked back (right way this time) only to meet the Austrian Mountain Rescue on their way to us - someone had seen lights on the face in a thunderstorm and called them out. They didn't seem too pissed off but they were amazed that we had managed to spend 9 hrs on the face. Arrived back at Hilde's ~ 00.30 to meet the CUCC rescuers (thanks to all involved) who's been driving arpund looking for us before going to call out the rescue.
Good trip - definitely worth doing (quickly though).
Mark T/E (Time epic) 9hrs
All trailed to end, very efficient - taking only an hour to get to the end of Yapate where we took some photos - Andy being impressed by alertness & capability of his team. (Wook checked out Gill/Rachels bit in LH Route on way down - then popped into Arrow Chamber to see Del/DaveH's QM from a couple of years ago - looks extremely promising and draughting with only a 7m pitch to negotiate.) Took a few more photos in Pipeless & then continued climb in SSR. Aggy volunteered (foolishly) to man the drill & put in another bolt before clipped everything to everything & going for it - he got to a precarious position before running out of cows tail tinsel. He had to hang there for a couple of mins while Andy went along the traverse trying not to pull on the rope & thus Aggy off. Thus released he made the final move & floundered onto the shelf gibbering. Throughout this process 'useful' advice had been given by the 3 onlookers, so the climb is called '3 wise men'. Aggy had had enough after putting in the top bolt so Wook went to have a look & Tony & Andy went to get some gear from Mostly Mud & rig tension traverse at start of SSR properly.
Rather than gaining miles of horizontal passage, Aggy had gained a 1m wide shelf between 2 pitches. Wook abbed down & discovered they connected so put in a bolt for mega swing to gain window across this pitch. This was just poss & this led to a chamber with accessible passage out of it, leading to another big (30m) pitch and a draughting passage. Andy & Wook started SSR survey up her silly rigging whilst Aggy & Tony went to rig pitch in Mostly Mud - fused drill due to shagged cable & trailed out.
Andy & Wook got cold & bored after a bit & went exploring - found heaps of cave, including beautiful big phreas with Jet black floor - pity to put footprints in it. Another pitch at end & then narrower passage to more QM's - ridiculous cave. Too tired [?] to survey on return so buggered off out.
See over for diag. T/U 15 hrs (Wook & Andy)
14 hrs (Aggy & Jerry)
FAR TOO FAR 10 QM's !!!
[grade 1 diag]
Having failed to find a new entrance on previous day (and narrowly avoided the thunderstorm mentioned elsewhere), we had to go in the usual way to finish the survey & derig. Did this, finding another 2 QM's & ignoring these as we had plenty to do then started mega derig with 2½ tacklebags, the drill, battery and ladder between us. Despite leaving the battery in Knossus for photos, it took 6hrs to get out - we were fucked.
TU: 15½ hrs
Also changed Strange Upfall rope for a long enough rope (45m) & staircase 36 one as it has been used for 3 years.
Left 41m rope rigged on 3 Wise Men.
Uncle Tom Cobbly & all go to fish all the gear out of KH.
Initially:
Team A: Dave & Dave: Tourist to end & then derig Strange Downfall
& RH.
Team B: Wook & Henri: Survey & derig Bladerunner.
Team C: Andy & Clive: Photo Knossos & fish out battery ('Small Paul')
Started off to plan although team photo had probs & dropped a slave down pitch in Knossos.
Much swearing took place below squeeze as Wook-the-ill & throwing [?] resigned & became team derig whilst DaveF went to finish survey & derig.
Team 1 became DaveH & Clive with baggies,
Team 2 Wook & Andy ([can't read this]) &
Team 3 Dave & Henri who didn't finish survey & still didn't get out
till 3.30 am.
Bloody hard work all round (esp. DaveH who did the entrance twice & shifted 3 baggies & the battery !)
T/U: Dave H: 1-10.30: 9½
Dave F: 1-3.30: 14½
Henri : 1.30-3.30: 14 or something
Wook : 1.30-11.00: 9½ like that.
Andy : 2.00-11.00: 9
Clive : 2.00-10.30: 8½
Then came the carrying !........
Previous trips: Far End / Bladerunner / Next trip - 1993 rigging in
Arrived at Top Camp just as everyone left (I can take a hint) so after sitting in a tent making pancakes in a thunderstorm for the first night I got bored and went caving. Pushed up inlet in entrance slope 'til it got too awful for words (really quite awful, believe me.....), then solo surveyed over top of fisrt pitch to top of Shell. Don't try solo-surveying. If you do, you won't get cold 'cos you'll spend ¾ of the time putting rocks on the end of the tape and walking gently back down the passage praying that it'll stay on. Also a candle makes a good sighting point (lit of course) unless you're in a pitch series. Got bored two legs from end so checked out a daft area and looked at the crawl over the top of Shell. In a maelstrom of ennui I took a bearing along it and went to derig. Derig up to Shell (greasing the bolts !) and finished survey. Entrance rift is paradise with only one baggy. Broke end off tape and dropped ladder spreader and had to go back down for it. That's about it. Oh - exit coincided perfectly with dawn as intended.
T/U 8½ hours
to 1992.08.05
Found various caves which were already numbered, renumbered 90/1 = 1623/171. Found & numbered 171b (entrance approx 50m away which connects non-trivially). Numbered 189 ("Glitterstompf") with a "-" because although marked with a "+" on the other side, I don't believe you can say it doesn't go when its so full of snow. (Also renumbered 90/13, 90/14 and 90/15 as 183, 184, 185, (183 and 184 on 92.07.17)) Bottomed 4 blind shafts on walk to 182 (Puffball) & marked with "+"'s. Also found 2 going caves. One is next to 189 & is numbered 190, the other marked "CUCC -" 'cos we've run out of numbers. This one is where the 2 Puffball route variants merge/split. A map:
[grade 1 sketch]
This one has a 2 second drop with a rattle for a bit. Worth a look. I'll draw another map when I find the call-out book (it's sketched on the back).
At long last, here's the picture from the call-out book:
[better grade 1 sketch]
After waiting for Clive to appear so I could go surveying with someone to hold the other end of the tape, we finally got down 183 late in the evening. We reached the bottom, I tried the rift downstream & hated it so came back.
NO-ONE SEEMS TO HAVE TRIED GOING UPSTREAM !!!
Probably fruitless, but maybe worth a look.
Surveyed to bottom of fifth ie. end of last survey, when as Clive was pulling up the pitch I heard water. "Clive, be quiet a mo." Jangle - jangle. "Clive ..." Gurgh, gurgh, splosh a torrent suddenly appears "Oh fuck !" Clive attemts to cut the rope which had just caught under a rock, as I prussik up the 5th pitch. At the top, paranoia convinces me the water is increasing, so I tell Clive to get up the rope. We exit quickly, astounded that the entire cave is rigged out of the water. Nice one folks ! I only wish Clive would appear before I start worrying where he's got to, but he's sensibly taking it slowly. Ho hum.
T/U: 4 hours
Foregoing the chance of the long walk to Repton and beyond, Dave "I'll carry that tacklesack" Howes, Julian "I'm shit at caving, y'know" Shilton and myself opt for France - -300m with 30 ft of walking. We descend, marvelling at the re-belays which have been breeding in dark corners since last year. Just as I begin to wonder if the universe outside of an endless piece of rope with bolts every six feet is a figment of my fudge-fevered brain, we reach Algeria, DaveH: "Would you like to rig while we survey ?" Of course I would. Try to rig a 50m hang on 9mm rope from two I.R.T. placed bolts in two ?tectors. The hang bolt - just to add to my confidence - is in a boulder larger than a house jammed in the rift. Reach the floor thinking that surveying has its attractions. Rig 2 more poxy rebelays to a smaller chamber where the French spits run out. There's an obvious aqueous way on or a "Driller-killer" traverse over the top of the end wall. Both have big drops (2 sec+??). Dave & Julian come down the 50 & Julian gibbers at the rub. He has a point, but I'd rather he told me at the top. Dave looks at the next chamber and we derig. God it was fun. Dave & I emerge to find JulianS has fallen off a (surface) cliff and badly bruised his back. Ho hum.
T/U: 8 hours
Nomenclature: Favourites are: "Orient Express" for 50m & "Titfield Thunderbolt" for [this bit off edge of photocopy]
Previous trip / Next trip (1993 rigging in)
derigged it. Carbide does burn thro' rope quickly: 1 minute !
T/U a couple of hours - God knows: this is a year later !
1st trip was aborted due to rain, so Clive went back. God this pen is crap. Olly