CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Over the past year Robert Winkler and I had coordinated a joint CUCC/ARGE trip to resurvey the upper levels of Wolfhöhle + look for possible horizontal connections to nearby caves. ARGE had spent four days up near Griess Kogel (complete with helicopter gear lift) to a new cave there but unfortunately it had finished at -350m.

We set off with an astonishing set of three survey teams (1 - Andrew + Marcus Shauermann, 2 - Becka + Marcus II, 3 - Jörg, Heiko + Martin from Holland) plus a rigging team (our Martin plus Robert). All the rigging gear was ARGE's - thank you!.

Me in team 2 - we surveyed from the entrance, me doing poor old Marcus's head in what with leapfrogging stations + havign multiple survey teams all using number "1" for a station (weird system...). We managed to rip the end off the tape early on then unfurled the whole sodding thing doing the plumb on the first pitch - I stood at the bottom just drowning in tape. Upper phreatic levels are very attractive + the first pitch is also nice + fortunately we didn't have to do any of the squalid lower stuff.

Andrew + Marcus Shauermann: Down to first pitch to find Martin + Robert at the first pitch. Video + camera gear out. Lots of light. Surveyed back out 1 leg 1 video 6 photos. (See guide to how to do things really slowly.) Met team 2 coming in and sent off to survey side passage leads, very dull. Down the pitch, more photos, more video. Then sent off to survey back from 83m pitch. Took down hill turn at the bottom of the small sloping pitch. This is not recommended, gets very small and muddy, yuk! Found pitch, surveyed, back. On the way out more video in Wolf Chamber. It was pissing down on the surface, horrible.