Expo - Week 1
Sat 15 Jul 2017
Rob Watson
Blog Author: nobrotson
Rob Watson
So, the first week of CUCC Austria 2017 is over. It has been a slightly uncertain ride, with not many experienced CUCC members being around to coordinate the youth. Luckily, The Professor aka Mark Dougherty showed us what he?s made of by motorcycling for 2 days from central Sweden to be here and show us all the ropes in between G?ssers (the beverage of choice in Austria, tasty and cheap). After Brendan, Nathan, Luke and George had arrived after dehydrating themselves and, in George?s case, sustaining an annoying ankle niggle Via Ferrataing in the Dolomites, Base Camp (the hut that ?keeps the computers dry?) was set up and supplies were brought up to the Top Camp, with more being dug out of their storage in a big iceplug. Brendan in particular enjoys these trips up to Top Camp as they give him a much-needed excuse to eat more than one lunch (for Brendan life is just a succession of lunches broken up by playing with spreadsheets in his role as CHECC Treasurer). The guys got on with setting up the bivvy, installing the water collection system and setting up the main tarp.
Brendan Hall digs into a hard-earned lunch, the first of four that day, at the StoneBridge. You can actually see his second one already lined up if you are in any way observant.
The bivvy tarp (white) and water collection tarp (green, feeding the butts) set up and ready to use. The wooden frame is for mounting the solar panels, kindly done by acting Chief Nerd Martin Green.
This done, myself, Nadia and K Brook arrived after a month of parading around Europe pretending to climb to lend a hand carrying and, more importantly, drinking. What we really needed, however, was a certified Nerd to set up the computers we were keeping dry, and also to configure the solar charging system at Top Camp. The day after and our saviour arrived, none other than Martin Green, officially the highest ranking Nerd on the expedition at this point clocking in at around Level 7 (open-ended scale: currently Wookey and Julian Todd are vying for top position, but who knows, one day a hot kid on the block could put both to shame!). Soon we were getting into the swing of things, and Martin had the server up and going, which importantly meant that we could now play a wealth of music on the expo soundsystem! By a wealth of music, what I really mean is ?This Corrosion? by Sisters of Mercy, which has been the unofficial expo anthem ever since everyone accidentally brought the same album on tape during a very wet year in 1993. It also meant that we could get on with some much-needed Nerding (it?s what they live for in Cambridge) in the form of drawing up surveys from last year (apparently 8 of mine had been left ? naughty!).
Nerds at work. This activity must always be supplemented with alcohol to heed progress and ensure there is some Nerding left for later members of the expedition to do. And, indeed, for next years attendees...
Myself and Luke were determined to avoid doing this, however, and decided to go caving instead. Over the course of 3 trips we have rigged to a depth of around -400m in Tunnockschacht en route to the camp there, using over 500m of rope and well over 150 hangers. At the bottom of the always tiresome entrance series, we discovered a number of icicles, melting rapidly and looking a bit the worse for wear. Climate change is clearly having a pronounced effect on the snow conditions on the Plateau, with many former snow plugs no longer present and the usual snow slope at the bottom of the entrance series greatly diminished in volume. The rope lengths for the pitches were difficult to judge as in past years they have been rigged off a reel using a ?chop-and-go? approach, and a couple of the rebelays had to be rigged slightly tightly with a couple of skin-of-the-teeth knot passes thrown in. The long lengths of 9mm are being saved for pushing deeper in the cave, so gash 10mm and 10.5mm was needed (but not 11mm ? we swore, never again). Elliott arrives today with more of that, along with our 300m of sponsored rope, big excite! Only another 4 pitches need to be rigged before we reach camp now, but these may prove to be the trickiest ones. I have managed to avoid using any skyhooks so far, but that looks set to change. Chris Densham bolted the last section along with Anthony Day and Ben Whetton. The latter two are very tall individuals, and Densham is a big fan of acrobatic deviations, so I expect some entertaining situations! Stay tuned, many more updates on the way?
Me rigging the entrance series, where a number of icicles were found to be a bit in the way. They remain for now, until the destruction team get off their arses and up the hill. Last week it was 'too misty'... Photo credit for all: Luke Stangroom.
Brendan Hall digs into a hard-earned lunch, the first of four that day, at the StoneBridge. You can actually see his second one already lined up if you are in any way observant.
The bivvy tarp (white) and water collection tarp (green, feeding the butts) set up and ready to use. The wooden frame is for mounting the solar panels, kindly done by acting Chief Nerd Martin Green.
This done, myself, Nadia and K Brook arrived after a month of parading around Europe pretending to climb to lend a hand carrying and, more importantly, drinking. What we really needed, however, was a certified Nerd to set up the computers we were keeping dry, and also to configure the solar charging system at Top Camp. The day after and our saviour arrived, none other than Martin Green, officially the highest ranking Nerd on the expedition at this point clocking in at around Level 7 (open-ended scale: currently Wookey and Julian Todd are vying for top position, but who knows, one day a hot kid on the block could put both to shame!). Soon we were getting into the swing of things, and Martin had the server up and going, which importantly meant that we could now play a wealth of music on the expo soundsystem! By a wealth of music, what I really mean is ?This Corrosion? by Sisters of Mercy, which has been the unofficial expo anthem ever since everyone accidentally brought the same album on tape during a very wet year in 1993. It also meant that we could get on with some much-needed Nerding (it?s what they live for in Cambridge) in the form of drawing up surveys from last year (apparently 8 of mine had been left ? naughty!).
Nerds at work. This activity must always be supplemented with alcohol to heed progress and ensure there is some Nerding left for later members of the expedition to do. And, indeed, for next years attendees...
Myself and Luke were determined to avoid doing this, however, and decided to go caving instead. Over the course of 3 trips we have rigged to a depth of around -400m in Tunnockschacht en route to the camp there, using over 500m of rope and well over 150 hangers. At the bottom of the always tiresome entrance series, we discovered a number of icicles, melting rapidly and looking a bit the worse for wear. Climate change is clearly having a pronounced effect on the snow conditions on the Plateau, with many former snow plugs no longer present and the usual snow slope at the bottom of the entrance series greatly diminished in volume. The rope lengths for the pitches were difficult to judge as in past years they have been rigged off a reel using a ?chop-and-go? approach, and a couple of the rebelays had to be rigged slightly tightly with a couple of skin-of-the-teeth knot passes thrown in. The long lengths of 9mm are being saved for pushing deeper in the cave, so gash 10mm and 10.5mm was needed (but not 11mm ? we swore, never again). Elliott arrives today with more of that, along with our 300m of sponsored rope, big excite! Only another 4 pitches need to be rigged before we reach camp now, but these may prove to be the trickiest ones. I have managed to avoid using any skyhooks so far, but that looks set to change. Chris Densham bolted the last section along with Anthony Day and Ben Whetton. The latter two are very tall individuals, and Densham is a big fan of acrobatic deviations, so I expect some entertaining situations! Stay tuned, many more updates on the way?
Me rigging the entrance series, where a number of icicles were found to be a bit in the way. They remain for now, until the destruction team get off their arses and up the hill. Last week it was 'too misty'... Photo credit for all: Luke Stangroom.