CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2023

The creche had made the connection between Fischgesicht and Happy Butterfly on the previous day, so the plan today was for a group to go into Fishface to do the through trip and survey the connection, while another team followed to survey some unsurveyed passages in Fishface and derig behind the other team once we knew they were through to Happy Butterfly. Amelia, Joel, Charlotte and Rachel were on the 'throughtrip' team. Despite giving them a head start we caught up with them at the entrance. Tobias and I got dressed, not knowing what awaited us as it was our first ever expo trip. I was surpirsed by how cold the entrance was compared to the boiling temperatures outside. I was even more surprised when I bumped into the other team who had dropped their drill down the first pitch. After dropping the bag, Amelia realised the drill was not working, so her and Joel left to get a reserve.

Our team continued with the original plan, so we dropped down to the pitch above the 50m above the connection. We were dismayed to see survey points here, meaning someone had done the job before but the data was missing. We completed the survey quickly and caught up with Rachel and Charlotte who were rerigging the 50m pitch above the connection.

Eric, Tobias and I then went up a couple of pitches to a passage Eric had explored on a previsou trip. This passage ended quickly in a boulder choke so the survey didn't go as long as expected. After completing the survey we went back down to the 50m pitch to see if we should be derigging on our way out. By this time, Joel and Amelia had returned and were bolting the traverse in Happy Butterfly. It sounded like they had a long way to go, so we decided to leave without derigging in case they couldn't get down Happy Butterfly.

Insert scan for 290 clap my pitch up rigging guide