CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Julian + Earl still bolting above Gaffered to the Walls so no point trying to rig below them so off to survey yesterday's stuff in Sandpit of Helter Skelter. Sandy crawl (was QM 2001-14B) leads to small passage. Closes off up + to right; main way goes past dead furry bat to sandy hole which we'd dug out yesterday. This tube goes up steeply. At top, straight ahead leads up into small chamber with a pitch to right + up from there. Go left another rift/pitch which probably links to the first one. Main way from sandy tube follows the draft to the left along a crawling tube past a couple of not-bad straws into a small chamber. Rift, thin, deep, narrow to the right (leading to small shaft?). Ahead, nasty loose hole to left but main way is under low wall + crawl up ramp on right side. Over a loose boulder wall, to the right went to a pitch head with a huge boulder perched on top. It's possible to free-climb down this rift to the left to a drippy floor + Martin climbed a further 2m below this but still not down to bottom of shaft (doesn't look promising though). Various tubes above pitch head, probably don't go. Main way is to left after boulder wall, crawling to edge of ramp. Can climb down to left, to bottom, nasty loose pitch to left at bottom. Ahead, clamber over boulders. At far end, small passage leads off + up but gets too small. At left climb up + then follow up a solution tube several metres up to top of aven then tube closes down. Main way on at ramp is across + up to small sandy tube. Down this + to right. Small crawly passage with odd boulders in it needing gardening + more bat skeletons led up + past final squeeze into q. large drippy rift. Into this + we climbed up two levels (first one a rather dodgy free climb) until too hard to upclimb but aven continued up beyond this point. End of that survey. Back + down to bottom of Helter Skelter + surfeyed down to the pitch we found yesterday (last leg a joke plumb as we didn't rig the pitch). As down there, rain started + everything got drippy + worse. Checked off most of the Helter Skelter QM's on way up (2001 - 56C, 58C, 15C all don't go; 16A downgraded to B). Also M 2000-20C dead from day before this in Treeumphant. We left QM 2001-17C in Helter Skelter which is over attractive white mud, while 2001-56C might go if you want to climb diddly tubes.

T/U 9hrs