CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2023

Went to push pitch off top left hand corner of HOTMC. My first trip down SSS and Mick's first ever trip on expo. Very impressed by the endless succession of rebelays. Even more impressed by The Gods Traverse, where we met Rhino & Brian, who had suffered drill battery failure - see their write up for details of their trip. Mick & I went to HOTMC and found the pitch. Loud noises of moving water from the pitch. Lobbed rocks down - boom, bang, boom, etc.....

.... six spits (and about 3 hours) later we were down and very disappointed to find no way on. However, a crawl concealed behind a flake led to a small chamber with a too-narrow slot in the floor. Rock dropped down here rattled, then fell free for over 2 seconds. The crawl continued beyond the chamber and suddenly ended overlooking an impressive rift. Seems to be about a 3 second drop before rocks bounce off stuff, then more silence before boom bang bang bang bang. Should be possible to get a freehang straight down the middle, for maximum exposure.

While in HOTMC, we did some poking around, and at the extreme northern end, where the chamber apparently ends at a choke, noted a strongly draughting crawl below an undercut on the L wall.

Didn't fancy 200+m of prussiking back out, so we went to look at Stairway to Hell. Didn't seem too bad (especially if you zoom through quickly). Got through OK, then found that we had a 4m pitch up into Rocky Horror. Super-chossy-removeable-handholds-climb up. Lots of adrenaline. Rigged rope from a knobble for Mick to prussik up. Then out of 161d.