CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

Given light rucksacks and a nice day decided to investigate doing 161 from 204 and thus check out the practicality of route. Walked to 161d without much faffing. Decided to have a tourist in cags and headtorches and to show John fine passage off triassic park. Nice trip for about 50 mins, including some photos.

Then continued along traverse to 161 e and f. Found a large entrance sloping in, untagged and unmarked. Assumed it was 161e but later research showed that it was further north than 161f which we came across a few mins later. The entrance must be known? Later marked bivi site cave list to say 161e is not tagged/marked, but seems that is confusion not fact.

Continued following traverse which was generally easy to follow. Bit of bunde cutting would make it lovely. Got out from below cliff after 45 mins but then got into complex area of shelves. Not sure best route to take as we had no GPS. Ridge looks completely different from the back side. Very hard to tell which peak is which and a hole load of extra peaks appear. ridge is not really a ridge at all and is about 500m wide. Eventually struck due west and came out 300m North of the bivi.

Found a couple of caves en-route. 1st explored enthusiastically by John B despite not being good in Tshirts and shorts (low, crawly). Slight draft. Unfortunately due to no GPS we won't find it again for years.

Also found large hole 200m from bivi, described in 'slippery hole' entry.

With all the aving and sub-optimal walk whole walk from car park took about 5 1/2 hrs. From 161d it is probably about 2hrs to 204 by sensible route. 1 1/2 to nearer entrance. Route needs some serious honing to make practical for trips, but we confirmed that cliff traverse part is not a problem (in fact its the nicest bit).