115 - Dry Bits
Pete Lancaster
Aim: to push the streamway found by Ian + Dave beyond the railway tunnel in Stellerweg.
Met Janet + Phil in Big Chamber, then through the connection; route finding being moderately easy - following footprints. Heard Janet + Phil surveying in Purgatory when we were at connection cairn. In Junction Chamber we shot up the big passage and missed the turning left to the railway tunnel. We eventually got to the point where traversing became nasty + realized our mistake; but it should be possible to go much further up here. Down the railway tunnel with various climbs up & down and a jump across the top of the stream canyon; we reached a corner where the traverse ran out; so freeclimbed down ~5m to the stream below, we were amazed to find arrows pointing upwards, smoked onto the wall and then a pitch, nicely rigged: we were in the 115 streamway, we trogged down to the sump just to make sure. We had dropped down at the Confluence. We went back up the "Stellerweg Inlet", which starts off larger than Purgatory, but soon breaks down into inlets; we freeclimbed ~7m pitch, but eventually gave up when it was getting tight. There didn't seem any easy way of getting up into the dry stuff, so we went back to the Confluence and climbed up there. Rigged a traverse with a rope (before this we managed to avoid the jump across the stream by following a parallel ramp on the left). We had a prod around in many of the passages, but they all seem to close down as inlets; so there doesn't seem much prospect for any great extension. Coming back found a phreatic tube/crawl which bypassed the cairn + a small passage with some _straws_ ! Dropped back into the Purgatory to avoid the traverse near 115.
Fine walk back - views of the Dachstein by moonlight ! | Pete.
11 hrs
Streamway pushing trip which left the arrows (same day)/ Surveying trip (same day)/ Next pushing trip (camp)