CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2023

We hoped that this trip would lead us to KH, we set an 8am callout so that we wouldn’t be hindered by time. It took 3 hours to get to the pushing front – carrying in the drill, battery, hangers etc didn’t help. Olly improved the rig on Too Bold for this Spit. At the pushing front Olly spotted that he could ab down to a ledge and climb up the other side, saving precious hiltis and drill battery. The passage continues beyond, but the draft seemed weaker (or it was higher). A few ups and downs and the passage continued, but for the first time there were some small side passages. Past a narrower rift and on to get another pitch intersecting the passage. This was wider (20m disto across) and didn’t look inspiring to bolt round – no ledges and over hanging walls. It would have taken more hiltis than we had and we weren’t sure if it was heading too far north anyway, and the draft was weaker. We explored some of the side passages chasing the draft. Most of them either drafted the wrong way or not at all.

An exception was a rift on the left that led (via a couple of climbs) to a slightly drafting pitch. Olly failed to throw rocks down it as there was a ledge 6m down. I remembered we had a disto and after a few goes managed to get a 46m diagonal leg down. Surveyed back from here and concluded that the larger portion of the draft came from the big pitch at the end of the passage. Went down a chossy ramp, which got us a bit closer to the other side and close enough to see that the passage did not continue the other side but was quite rifty looking.

A small rift led of NW from this ledge which we followed up a climb. This led to another climb down that we didn’t take as it was coated with mud and above a pitch. Surveyed our way out and slowly caved back to outside.