CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

A slick trip with the drill back to the Straight Choice Exposed bold bolted climb that Andrew had climbed whilst I belayed back in 2010. The ankle-high traverse wasn't too bad once you realised where the holds were but definetely non-standard SRT. Luke and I then settled down to flapjack whilst Andrew bolted a traverse across the continuation - the left wall of a p15 or so. This, again, was a fairly strenuous number to cross but he eventually gained a small tube on the left which bypassed the last few metres of the traverse. This was sufficiently tight that we dumped srt kit and squirmed through to find a QMC and a QMB - hum, rather a let down after all that effort. However, the B lead on the left came up trumps and after some initial low crawling gradually widened to 2-3m of easy crawling with various minor side passages until we came to a wet aven. Climbing to the side of this, the passage improved to walking but sadly soon closed down. However, climbing c3 up out of the passage on the left led to passages both sides. We surveyed left (passage on R, N side was done by Frank and me on 5/7/16 - it soon closed down to a drafting dig). This led to a fairly complex breakdown rift. We finished after ~40 survey legs looking onto a fairly promising continuation. When we plotted the data the bottom of Champagne on Ice pitches was only ~18m from the far end of the Daft Choice traverse which would obviously make it much faster and easier to gain the Daft Choice leads, but on 5/7/16 Frank and I didn't spot a continuation from in Daft choice, and on 6/7/16 Andrew, George and Luke didn't connect when they rigged a parallel shaft in Champagne on Ice.