CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2023

Day 1

A leisurely start saw the intrepid team heading in with rather more gear than had been anticipated. Dumped one of the new brew kits into the dry bit below Procrastination, then picked up a pit at the top of Inferno which necessitated some re-packing. Arrived at camp where Chris proceeded to set up the radio, placing one end of the antenna in the water hole and the other end in a convenient mud bank at the downhill end of Kraken chamber. Meanwhile, I completed the rig of Tentacle Traverse and Octopussy.

Reunited, we headed on towards Beckoning Silence.Teekering(?) up the parallel ramp from the bottom of Octopussy was entertaining due to some over-enthusiastic derigging that had left it ropeless - we had a spare length of rope that was installed. Arriving at the climbup into Beckoning Silence, we found the same rig as had been put on two years ago when an equipment location error had rendered putting bolts in impossible. On this occasion we had a drill, three batteries, plenty of hangers.. and no drill bits, so the problem remained unsolved.

At this point Chris returned to camp to set up the radio for our prearranged call to top camp. Lydia rigged the remaining pitches to get us to the pushing front, which was the wrong side of a tedious muddy tube, but looked very promising, draghting strongly.

Arriving back at camp we discovered that Chris could hear top camp perfectly on the radio -so the antennae were a success. However the handset that had been working perfectly during the surface test was now incapable of transmitting, so we achieved one-way communication.

Day 2

Fortified by a breakfast of noddles and custard with flapjack crumbs (highly recommended) we headed back to Beckoning Silence. This time we had distributed three drill bits between us, which proved to be a good move since Chris's drill bit was later found in camp about 1.5m from its storage spot having failed to make it into his pocket in any meaningful sense.

Some extra bolts were put in on the top-climb and also on the last drop. before the pushing front. Then on into new territory, which proved to be substantially vertical. Everyone got a turn with the drill whilst th eothers cowered from the howling draught in a bothy bag.

Rigging proved tricky due to shit rock, but eventually we found ourselves at the bottom of drops of 6, 17 and 12m sliding down a thrid drop with nothing more in the way of rope, hangers or enthusiasm. Surveyed out and headed back to camp arriving at ~23:00

Ultimately, a little unrewarding in terms of passage in the book, but we had definitely run out of gear. The lead is good (very good in fact, draughting and out on a limb) and is all set up for the next team (bolts placed for the next descent). Pitch is called "Radio Silence" in keeping with the "silence" theme and our technological mishaps.

Day 3

Prussicked out. The only inceident of note occurred in the camp before setting off. In the interests of documenting camp life, Chris was trying to compose a photograph comprising myself,nthe stooling stool, (complete with bag), a Daren drum prominently labelled "Poo" atop which was perched a bog roll with the visage of Donald Trump. Im the process, Chris nearly performed a backward-somersault into the ladies pissoire. Fortunately his un-helmeted head was unharmed and the shot was duly obtained [and is posted on the caving.uk blog - ed.]