CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Set out once again to find a route from top camp to Eishöhle without walking to the Bergrestaurant first. Two GPS this time - as if that was likely to help. Walked initially to 136, stopping to fill rucksacks to bursting point with caving gear ditched the previous day. Spent some time 'traversing' around just below the summit of the Vord, passing several old CUCC finds en route (forgotten numbers). Eventually found a place to descend - lots of traversing around cliff edges and over boulders. Bumped into marked (red paint) route from car park to Eishöhle and followed that the rest of the way. 4 hours to SVH !

Civilised change on horizontal ground with both shade and view. Entrance is small crawl down bedding plane until meeting significant amount of ice. About a 10m ice climb up (fixed ropes for belay, generally < 30°) until the top of the snow slope into SVH is reached. Only 1 spit here, so ice-screw backup required. 2 ice screw deviations on the way down. ~30m to the floor (50m+ rope required). SVH is v. impressive. Mostly ice floor with some boulders. Huge ice stals and frozen waterfalls. Possibly 3 ways on to explore still.