Belfry Bulletin Number 370

8 During the return journey we did actually find No.7. Arriving back at camp we found that the others had all been very busy collecting and sorting gear, and setting up camp. Hermann left us, going via the bottom station of the Seilbahn and sending up the remainder of our equipment. Altogether we had brought up 460kg, cost wise it was little over £4.50 each to use the cable-hoist. I’m certain any sane person would think it reasonable to offer a fiver to someone else to carry 75 kg of gear 3km as the crow flies and up over 1000m.

Andy and Dave had been to the base of Niederer Ochsen Kogel and had found one or two holes, including an interesting sounding resurgence at the bottom of the cliff. On the way back, in the corner of the camp meadow; Andy noticed cool air around an insignificant, peaky hollow. Camp site organisation, stopped in favour of Mendip style digging. Several boulders and copious quantities of moraine were removed to reveal a chamber, beyond which the rumbling spoke of a large shaft. Belaying to a way marker pole, borrowed from a passing footpath the 20m shaft was descended and a second pitch found.

We removed the ladder and Throstle, with his bare hands, destroyed another large boulder from the entrance in preparation for the morrow.

The following morning, after a bit more gardening by the Haslingden Hammer, creating a veritable skiers trap, the second pitch was descended to a small, grovelly collapsed chambers at a depth of 42m.

It had already rained very early in the morning, and although the day was warm there were clouds and mist patches about. After midday we had an inevitable mountain thunderstorm, lasting about an hour. The rest of the day was spent prospecting to the north and south of the campsites. Most of the exploration and the surveying of the sites found (C5 to 11) took place on the next day, in beautiful weather. C5 is close to the top of Ochsenwieshohe, having a narrow entrance in the bottom a large depression. Leaving Thros to sunbathe, J-Rat and I explored and surveyed. The horizontal development ended at a gravel choke while the deepest point, on a boulder floor, became too narrow as it headed back under the entrance pitch. On the surface once more, we slid down a nearby, rapidly melting snow patch to C60. J-Rat and I dealt with this one too. It is about 100m of basically horizontal, vadose passage with one or two short, climbable vertical sections. The water flow shown on the survey is conjectured. It possibly derives from the melting snow patch above. Otherwise the system may well be related with C5. The water sinks in boulders close to the entrance. When I found it, I had thought that C7 was promising, having a narrow entrance but immediately widening out. Ross and Thros dropped it and found it to be only 13m deep with a floor of boulders. C8, at the head of the valleys leading down to the camp, was filled with snow, but it was possible to climb down to at least 8m between the snow and rock.

Ross, Andy and Dave had looked to the south of the camp, so I spent the afternoon labelling and plumbing their finds. C9 and C10 lie in the same fault. C10, although not deep at 7m is a significant gash, being nearly 20m long and 3m wide. C11 is an enormous depression (though my survey notes do not tally with my memory there) and contains No.5 from Hermann's list. The main depression is spear shaped and also contains an egg-shaped depression 20 x 30m and between 5 and 10m deep, and another small pot, 7.5m deep.

On July 30th came the threat of further thunderstorms. A small amount of fell in the morning, but not enough to deter us after fortification with 'tee mit rum, tee mit citron and peach cake at the Wiesberghaus.

We dealt with C1 and the leaping J-Rat and then moved north west along the fault lines to a small hill overlooking the Wiesberghaus. On its eastern slope we explored C12, with its two entrances leading down 17m to a black, peaty choke, and then the nearby C13, only 8m deep and tight. We then split up and prospected further north: accompanied by rolling thunder and a few, weak spots of rain. Just below the North West end of the hill I found C14, a slope leading in from the cliff edge to a pitch, similar to C3. I then searched the cliffs and hollows to the North West but only found rifts of seemingly little significance and one short rock shelter. The area has suffered much block faulting, and perhaps the depressions here are caused by this. Further over to the east Throstle had found some large holes, 5 to 7m deep but reckoned they were without much hope of extension. The others searched along the valley between the hill and the Wiesberghaus and found the latter!

The last day of July dawned clear and fine and the Austrian army came to visit in one of their helicopters.

Maybe it was an exercise, maybe they were curious to discover what a British caver looked like, or maybe it was just a plot to scatter all our cooking utensils about the meadow with wind from the rotor blades. J-Rat’s beloved ally plate was last seen flying through the air and into a patch of rhubarb growing in a doline.