plateau - Solo walking in area of 115 entrances [and CUCC-PS01-2018]
Philip Sargent
11:00-18:00 up the hill.
Found p115x the main "train tunnel" hole. Did a 200+ averaging GPS reading on p115x, Windloch, and cave 88
on the Stoger Weg.
Carried safety gear from the entrance I found 4 days ago and stashed inside:
- 3l water in 3x 2l bottles
- 2 karrimats
- 1 small bag muesli
- 12-man tent (inc. poles,pegs etc. [there is room to pitch this inside the entrance easily]
It took 2 trips and lots of bunde bashing to carry the stuff as I only had a small daysack.
Route to p115x in old logbooks has been destroyed by 35y of pine growth.
The new route is:
go along Stoger Weg past Windloch (32) and further past the next cave (marked 88 in faded red paint) in LHS of path.
Go [10m] further
from there along Stoger Weg and leave path descending limestone karren down to right.
Proceed back along foot of karren slope and push aside
3-4 branches of bunde to reach a "path".
Follow along this until you can descend steeply to the left (a few more branches of bunde) to steep "rockery" scramble
bank. Make your way with care down this and you should be able to see a truncated pine tree [4m high] on the
other side of a small gully. (When seen from the other side, this pine tree has branches in the shape of a figure "4".)
Descend and traverse round
to the right and climb up to this pine tree across the gully.
Now follow "path" down and to the right across 2 areas of soil/grass/loose stones to eventually reach a big pine tree
with a bend in the trunk at ground
level and a small cairn on the bend in the trunk. Continue down right through bunde with a little climb until you can
see a large dead twisted tree root across a gully. Descend and get to this via via lush grass and flowers on steep slope and loose soil.
At the twisted dead tree root there is an obvious route leading to the right. At this point you are only 13m from p115x but
you can't see it as it faces S. and you are approaching from the N. 10m on you pass a large anthill and then 3m further
and you're there.
You may see a water collection poly sheet a lot earlier but use this route to get to it. (I did it 3x today and lots of
other routes are worse.)
Oh yes, on first visit to CUCC-PS01-2018 this morning I went in: climbing down a 30 degree straight tunnel.
Roof is solid rock and floor is blocks
and rocks [and relic vadose features]. I counted 1m steps coming out and it's >14m long.
Continues deeper but I was in t-shirt and shorts. Slight cold outwards draft.
[Photos and GPS tracks and locations recorded.]