CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Having met Olly, Stuart + Peter passing by when Phil + I emerged from Hauchhöhle on the 9th, I went underground again armed with a Frank, a drill and a detailed location sketch.

Some slightly tedious surveying in small tubes served to connect the previous day's survey to Olly + Emma's floating "Wowoland" survey. We then paused to look at an alternative side branch, with a climb up + short pitch down to where water disappears into a narrow sharp crawl. No thanks, I've already knackered my gear enough this expo.

Continued up main passage, surveying in, until we reached a pitch. Threw a stone. Waited. BOOM! Having established we were in the correct place we went back for the gear, and I put in a Y-hang. Descending about 5m I reached a constriction witha bomber thread for a rebelay; 20m or so further down was a big ledge and a good venue for rebelay #2 in good clean rock off to the left. At this point the drill ran out. Bugger. Meanwhile Frank had been poking around in some phreatic stuff over the head of the pitch, which apparently leads to another pitch + some more horizontal stuff, which we didn't get time to survey.

While getting out I became aware of a pain in my left foot. By the time we reached the bivvy it was severely unpleasant, and my foot was covered in huge red blisters. The cause of this is obscure, but the fact that I hadn't washed my wetsocks all expo probably didn't help.