CUCC Expeditions to Austria: 1976 - 2024

I'm not sure exactly why I decided to end my expo with a trip that was specifically designed to be a derigging sufferfest but it seemed like a good idea a few Gossers deep at basecamp. It did indeed turn out to be an epic but very much not in the way we expected.

The day started slightly sadly after a night at Garlic: Harry had consumed ice cream illadvisably (and maybe was ill on top of that). So his stomach and his fever meant it was decided it was unwise for him to join us. Colin was stolen from Todd and Aila to become an extra mule for the many many metres of rope we expected to carry out. The plan was simple: Watershed ended in a sketchy duck and the lack of enthusiasm for pushing it meant we should really remove all the rope up to Strained by Gravity. It was going to be around 300 to 400m and probably some strenuous prusiking. Chi and Harry had also realised the disto was in calibration mode on their last pushing trip so our extra task was surveying the lead they had slightly killed.

We went in down Aidan's new Welsh Engineering route, guided by Colin. Though it was very pretty (cool 60 meter freehanging pitch down a tube) it was deemed probably not safe for a main route. The main pitch was in a noticeably drippy and it was a bit snaggy. This was a bit of a shame because as much as Wallace and Grommit have grown on me against my will Welsh Engineering was definitely more efficient. Let it also be noted that the water was very low at this point and the streamway peaceful and quiet below Grommit.

I took over the tour guiding at this point and showed Colin down Watershed, Chi and Liam nattering about something technical at the back. At the bottom of Strained by Gravity I instructed him to walk quickly through the section Chi calls 'The Gauntlet'. Colin looked at me like I was being silly: 'Its not even that drippy'.

After a fair bit of Caving we reached Chi's new traverses at around 3:30 and were pretty chuffed at our expediency. Chi and Liam arrived soon behind us in time for me to begin apologising as doing book was so slow. This theme continued but it was fun to see the new passage and seeing the duck at the end was a nice reward for finally getting down all the data. It was more promising than expected; a nice draft coming out of it and quite a few B leads which had potential for bypasses.

Our turnaround time of 7 had crept up on us so we had to leave the very bottom of watershed and contemplate the long derig out. This is where things stopped going to plan.

Chi began on the bits he and Harry had bolted, while I zoomed to the bottom of My Favourite things to wait for the bags to be passed out. Colin took a full bag and went on ahead. During this time feeling slightly guilty I decided I would offer to do the next section, up to the top of Alpine Showers. A slightly daunting task as I hadn't done any derigging on bolts and was pretty green at derigging in general. Ah well, I'd give it a go.

Eventually Chi and Liam turned up, went up the pitch and I began. The first pitch was fine, but the second bolt at the top started spinning as I undid the bolt. I abandoned the hanger and continued along the traverse, aware I was being pretty slow. Somewhere along the traverse, undoing a maillon I noticed the roaring of the waterfall - I always get paranoid at water noise. Better just check though: 'Chi! Is that getting louder'. He surprised me with a matter of fact: 'Yes, it is'. Oh fuck.

Having read Becca's trip report I checked my watch: 8:20. Apparently, as I learned later, 40 mil of rain started pouring on the surface at 7. At this point I should have abandoned the derigging and got the hell out of dodge but my decision making wasn't working perfectly. I sped up, shoving maillons and knots into the bag and not being as careful with points of attachments as I should have been. Chi shouts round the corner something about the waterfall getting bigger. He was going to get up it and out of there. I kept derigging, pretty frantically, one more bolt started spinning on the traverse and another at the top of the tiny pitch after the bottom of Alpine Showers, this time almost as I'd taken the hanger off. I cursed as I fumbled and dropped the nut on the next bolt. The noise of the water was deafening. Chi was shouting something at me down the pitch, so was Liam but I couldn't hear a thing. The waterfall down the bottom pitch was a torrent and at this point I was pretty goddamn scared. At least I had my layers in the bag with me, I could get through this.

At some point before expo I had a vague memory that Kai had made me promise not to ascend a pitch in a flood pulse. I knew what the middle pitch was like, pretty splashy at the best of times, it needed a deviation we'd never put in and I'm bad at avoiding water. Maybe I shouldn't so something stupid here. I finally gave up on the derigging, Chi was shouting at me something. Maybe: come up? I shouted 'IT'S TOO WET' a lot of times and heard clearly 'I KNOW!!'. Great.

At this point I'd resigned myself to at least a few hours alone at the bottom waiting out a flood pulse, no group shelter but I had warm clothes and I wasn't wet yet. The bottom of the rope I'd just derigged landed on a nice dry ledge: that's where I wanted to be. As I reached to put the maillon back in and rig it again I realised I couldn't use a spinning bolt with the nut almost off it. I was just contemplating the rope rub by rigging of the previous bolt and quietly singing My Favourite Things to myself when I saw Chi's light at the top of the pitch. He really wanted me to come up. Okay, plan change.

I ditched all the rope onto the ledge, knots with maillons and hangers in the pile with everything else. After a glance to check my layers were there I got going. Chi shouted something about not swinging into the water: okey dokey. I half prussiked half clung to the wall, relieved this pitch wasn't as wet as it looked. The waterfall was roaring right next to me but I was fine. I reached Chi, very very relieved to no longer be alone.

Chi leaned in to be heard, he was wet from the waist down but impressively calm. Right, we were going to get through this. I de-weighted the traverse so he could rerig is looser so it didn't pull you taught into the waterfall. He told me to watch what he did. In essence: climb up the right ledge as far as possible swing round the waterfall, now gushing like a split pipe out the right hand wall around three metres up the pitch. After that, prussik like hell. The ideal was to only get soaked legs. Chi swung but ended up in the waterfall, he was soaked but got to the top of the pitch. 'Not like that', okay I shouted, 'I'll do it my way'. My way wasn't better.

Steps one and two went well but my pantin and footloop popped off just under the waterfall, exactly as they had the last time I'd got dripped on on this pitch. This time it was a lot more than the splashback spray. Chi was shouting GO GO GO, and I wasn't moving up the rope. At this point I decided there was nothing for it and reached down to put back on my footloop. The waterfall was pounding on my helmet - I had to get out. I frogged like hell fresher-style and got up the pitch, completely soaked but not drowned.

Chi and I came to the same conclusion, abandon the derig, cave fast and get the hell out. Liam had also got soaked below the waist and this was dangerous. I met Colin along the rift and he greeted me with a cheery 'I'm completely dry!’*. Despite the look I gave him he and Liam were brilliant: cajoling me up pitches where my SRT was shaky with adrenaline. There was a lot of checking up on each other.

Up flowstone canyon I was a lot calmer but worried. I was properly exerted but only lukewarm and I knew Chi got hypothermia at the drop of a hat. At the junction I raided my layer bag to the dregs: Chi got my pufferjackets, I got spare thermals and a waterproof and in surprisingly high spirits we kept going.

The way out was shivery but cheerful. Moral was pretty high and we even stopped for noodles. Poor Liam and Colin were roasting at the pace we needed so there was a lot of sitting very close at pitchheads and transferring warmth. Still we laughed at the clusterfuck that had happened and kept caving out making not terrible time.

Chi's D and B was brilliant as always up Wallace and Grommit and for once I was looking forward to long pitches where: rather than the normal experience of sweating in no layers, this time I got back to a nice temperature. The final push and walk back to Garlic was very welcome. The first thing we did when there was reassure Harry we hadn't died. He knew that we’d headed into active streamway and watched the weather forecast change.

It sounds crazy but it was a brilliant trip, fun in adversity becomes more fun and we all got out safe. For one thing, Chi looked very funny in a green and purple jacket all the way round his head. Still, I'm definitely avoiding waterfalls for a little bit.

* addendum: Colin (fairly) pointed out that he was responding to me asking if he was okay and all irony was unintentional.