CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2022

Down 107 so Matt could fulfill his promise to Joe to find out where SSB (Smooth Sandy Bottom) actually goes. Matt came down from stone bridge but we still got underground before 10. Whizzed down to China then down the implausible hole in the floor of China, which for some reason goes down 25m without being full of rocks. SSB is rather small passage so very tedious surveying. Found last few survey dots but no numbers, so surveyed 3 legs to make sure it would join up. Surveyed for ages down the passage, occaisionally getting a leg nearly 3m long! Eventually got to some unscooped passage (after about 6 hours surveying on 2 trips - Joe owes us all beer!). and shortly after that it opened up at a T-junction. Exciting! Except that all the air was going up into some dodgy-looking boulders. Climbing up determined that we were looking at the bottom of a boulder-choke, with a very tempting small hole (maybe possible to get a person through, maybe not) looking through into blank space. Very frustrating. A disto tells us that the roof the other side is 5m away but trying to climb through would need a proper nutter. The rocks are medium sized, and the hole small so very likely to move if you tried to get through, but big enough to squash you. So we reluctantly ran away.

The survey shows that this space is nowhere near anything else so it's very interesting, but it really needs poking with a 5m stick or blowing up, or someone who is a proper nutter.