Dachstein 2007 This was supposed to be the year of the pig – Pig Pen 2 that is. Left at over 700m last year I was returning with one goal in mind - pushing Pig Pen 2 as part of a good team of Dachstein veterans. I also fully expected this to involve camping down there as well.  Due to lack of time off I opted for the middle two weeks of the expedition – although this approach was considered slightly selfish by some people I had stayed right to the end every other year and with a lot of people just doing the first two weeks I figured it would be useful for me to join at the peak of activity. 

When I reached the Weisberghaus on Saturday 14^th of July I learnt that not everything was going according to plan. There had been snow on top of the mountain at the beginning of the trip and this had seriously delayed the rigging of Pig Pen 2. For example it was predicted that the cave would be re-rigged to it’s previous limit within 3-4 days of the exped start. So I understood we were behind schedule when after one week they weren’t even at the limit. Whilst those involved in Pig Pen rested for their next big trip I was eager to go caving as soon as possible and figured I needed a few warm up trips before I headed down anyway.  

Sunday: The next day I managed to join a surveying team down the recently discovered “Maxine’s Hole” (which later became Schmeltzwasser - Austrian for Snow Melt). Maxine, Ralph and I were to survey whilst Peter, Charlie and Donald pushed on. This cave has easy and pleasant pitches except for the water dripping down caused by snow melt. This made surveying extremely cold and unpleasant work – particularly for anyone in a Cordura suit – which quickly became soaked and freezing cold.

At the top of what later became known as ‘the meander’ Maxine and Ralph sensibly turned back due to being very cold from several hours of surveying. In my plastic suit and balaclava I faired a bit better and determined to push on and catch the other team up. At the bottom of the next pitch I found Charlie and Peter H – with the sound of drill indicating that Donald was not far below either. Charlie and Peter were also extremely cold and with me arriving saw a way to escape! - So it was just Donald and I pushing on together.

No sooner had the others left than I received the shout of rope free and headed off into the unknown.  One pitch below me Donald put the finishing touches onto a re-belay and abseiled to the floor. Just as I joined him he enquired – “can you use a drill?” “Yeah!” I answered, thinking great – I get to drop some pitches on my first day out here!After swapping the gear around and leaving Donald to munch some of his food I moved out along a ledge, leaning back against the rope and very carefully started gardening the pitch as I went. Slowly I reached the far side of the ledge, with the rope fully taunt, and with one hand holding me into the rock I used the other to place a bolt for the 15m drop down to the chamber floor.

Here I waited for Donald to show him what I’d found… “Ready?...one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six, thousand, seven thousand, eight thousand…” CRASH!!! Came the sound echoing up from below “80m!!, Wow” was Donald’s reaction. I played it down “I think we always overestimate these things – call it 40-50m, but still not bad!” With very little rope left I used the remainder to get over the pitch head and place a couple of bolts for the next time (more efficient use of the battery) before we headed out. I continued to use up the battery by adding a couple of other bolts to tidy up the rigging on the way out and Donald and I reached the surface a couple of hours later after a very successful trip. Charlie was up at the entrance to meet us and we delivered the good news about what we’d found. 

Monday:At this point Pig Pen was starting to get pretty deep again and it was thought it would be prudent to do an initial trip to 450-500m as a warm up before committing myself to a trip to the bottom. So with this in mind the following day Rich B, Peter H, Dave P and myself headed down Pig Pen to drop off a tackle bag of emergency gear and take a few photos. With light weight gear we made it easily down to about 450 and out again in time for dinner and a beer or two. I even took a few decent photos of Rich Bayfield on the way up before we caught the others up on the entrance pitches. 

Tuesday – Still feeling quite fresh I was then ready for another day of caving on Tuesday so Rich Bayfield, Dave P and myself set off to finish the surveying I’d started with Maxine and Ralph. Meanwhile Donald and Charlie were to head down and drop the large pitch we’d found previously. I manned the instruments whilst Rich did the book and Dave held the tape. After a few hours of surveying we reached a very cold Charlie in the chamber where we’d stopped last time. Charlie had dropped the pitch first but had been unable to stay out of the water and consequently was totally soaked in his Cordura with plastic anorak over the top. To raise our spirits and temperatures a bit we cooked up a bit of food with the brew kit. A

fter a quick snack I could already hear Donald coming back up the rope and we had soon regrouped in the drippy chamber.  Donald had pulled the pin after running out of rope – cold as well, he was happy to have some food whilst I took over the lead. I followed his ropes down to a freehanging Y-hang above a large ledge. The bolts were already in place so I tied in my rope and abseiled down. This landed me squarely on the large ledge where I was able to unload my descender and explore the chamber behind the ledge, past some large boulders. This proved to be a dead lead – except for a muddy meander heading down at 45 degrees just behind the boulder.

In preference to this I selected the main way on, below the ledge.    From the ledge I was on I could see the pitch dropping away below me and to my left, onto another large ledge where the water was then funnelled down the next section. As most of this water was running down the left hand side I decided to traverse the large ledge I was on and move down against the far wall. This meant a series of short pendulming pitches, bolted with out stretched left arm whilst pushing off with my legs to make enough horizontal distance. By the time I dropped the last of these short pitches I was cursing leaving my sky hook behind and my left arm was throbbing. Rich and Dave weren’t far behind, surveying down as they went so I waiting at the bottom of the pitch for them to catch me up.

Once there the three of us began looking around. We had landed in roughly circular chamber with the water spiralling down below in an unappealing meander. Above this the dry version of the same meander headed back towards the one I’d spotted by the large ledge. Directly opposite both of these was another dirty meander and somewhere above this a window offered some promise.  I tried the window with the help of Rich B but all I could see was a chamber at the same level of ours so then opted for the wet way – down with the water cascading down underneath us. This closed down fairly quickly but left a tight meander heading off with all the water. By squeezing up over the top I could see down a possible pitch but we’d definitely need to Hilti to get down there. Just as I was retreating I heard the shouting from above. The meader opposite to my position had taken Rich and Dave to the chamber I’d spied from the window. However on the far side of this circular chamber was another window – which really did go!!   

It was Rich B’s turn to do some rigging and the first thing he did was put a rope down the climb up to our new window. Then rigging across the top he started to drop the first part of the pitch. Just as I was tucking into some chocolate he gave a shout “The thru-bolt has bent!!” “What? How did you do that? – oh well just stick another one in an make sure you clear the hole out”  30 seconds later the result was the same – another bent thru-bolt and Rich losing his patience. He said simply “you have a go”. I thought I was doing everything right but got exactly the same result. It seemed that the holes were too small!! – Looking at the end of the drill the tip seemed blunt or almost non-existent so I retreated to the kit to have a look at the other drill bit for comparison. However it was exactly the same which confused us even more. With the other drill bit I gave it one last shot and faired no better so we aborted and called it a day. We named the chamber below the window “Can’t fight the Karma” after our efforts.   Back on the surface at Camelot we compared our drill bits to the others and realised that somehow – both of our bits were without tips! This was cleared up when we learnt that the ‘second’ drill bit had been broken earlier that day.   

Wed: The plan – to do a bit of prospecting, never came to anything. Partly due to the dark clouds and apparently imminent rain – which never actually materialised!! Donald meanwhile carried on pushing the new pitch, coming back very early in the morning, after we’d gone to bed. 

Thursday: We (Rich Bayfield, Rich Beer and I) planned for a pushing trip down Snow Melt but before we went we wanted to talk to Donald to know how he’d got on. I woke up a bleary eyed and sleepy Donald just before we left at 10am. “How did you get on?”“Well I took 100m of rope for the pitch….”“Yeah”“And it ate it all”“What!!..? how far were you from the floor?”“Dunno.. I couldn’t see it” On hearing this a few more ropes were added to our pile of gear and we set off for what would prove to be an epic day.

Rich Bayfield generously offered me the lead on the big beast which we later named “Enter the Dragon” as it really did feel like I was in the belly of the beast as I abseiled into the darkness. Another 50m of rope added to Donald’s 100m saw me at the bottom with a later calculated depth of about 120m. At the bottom the water disappeared through rocks and loose piles of scree were all around. In one corner of the chamber a low section led downwards to a small meaner and provided relative sanctuary from the huge open shaft above. Here I felt quite comfortable and safe – if only I had a brew kit I thought!! 

I was pretty pleased to hand over the gauntlet at this point and chill out for a few minutes whilst Rich and Rich took the lead. Rich Bayfield bolted firstly a short hand climb down into the meander and then a nice pitch. We joined him in another chamber whilst he pushed on dropping down again ever deeper. A bit of digging out at the bottom of here by Rich Bayfield made a better pitch head to the natural alternatives and we handed over the baton again for me to drop a few more pitches. Firstly a 30m drop to the floor of a meander with water running down below, climbing over the top of which gave us another pitch head. Backed up to a wire trace, this pitch provided another 30m drop to land us in another large wet meander. This time however the way on meant walking over a large boulder balanced at the pitch head above the hole. This was supposed to be the last pitch of our trip – we were low on rope, had a lot of surveying to do and it was getting pretty late! However at the bottom the way on looked dubious and conscious of not leaving the next group to be Garh Paerued I persuaded the others to rig one more pitch just to be sure.

It was very late (or rather early) and the surveying trip out was long, slow and tiring. When I reached the top of the 120m pitch after surveying the whole way up it with Rich – 200m down at “Can’t fight the Karma” we felt we were almost out.We reached the surface – very pleased with ourselves at about 5am – in time to make it back to the hut for our 6am callout and one distressed girlfriend who hadn’t slept with worry at our late arrival. (Callout at 6am but expected time out 1am) 

Friday afternoon: (after getting out on Friday morning at 6am and sleeping till midday) ate, drank, read books and relaxed …enough said! 

Saturday – On the day I’d arrived Rich Hudson, Phil, Andy and Stevo had done a long walk and found a promising cave a couple of hours from the Weisberghaus. Rich had subsequently taken a small group back to check this entrance out and left it on going. So, Apple Dave, Josh, Charlie and I decided to carry on with this. We carried two sets of gear between us to keep weight down and after a long trudge past the simony hutte in the heat of the day we reached the small rift like entrance. Josh and I kitted up and free climbed down the first part of the cave, to a narrow crawl… 

Sunday – PigPen derig - CJ, PR, RH, Rhys. Phil and I shot ahead, Rich Hudson was at half power due to cold/flu. Initally Phil checked out a lead – muddy tube which we’d previously traversed over, Rich and Rhys went upstream, Then we dropped down the final pitch – I took photos of Phil at end – surveyed a bit up a – passage. Then the de-rig. Rich and Rhys took bags from the end, plus siphoning gear and then Phil and I started the de-rig. This consisted mostly of me climbing a few pitches then waiting to help henk the rope, wash it to take some mud off then leave it ready to be hauled up again. As we climbed the rope pile got larger and larger – Several bags and multiple bundles of rope. We henked and hauled the rope upto 450m – long hard work!! Knackering – then the long prussic out – 24 hours?? Andy, Ralph and Co pushed further into Snow Melt – dropped several pitches and left it on going.  

Monday - Rest Day 

Tuesday – aborted trip due to rain!! – Sat in the bar, drank beer, ate lots of food etc.. A true Dachstein rest day!! 

WednesdayAfter Rich Bayfield’s departure Dave and I teamed up for what would be my last trip into Snowmelt. Andy’s previous trip had been successful and they’d rigged several pitches before pushing along a meander – the first in the cave “Don’t leave me high and dry”. Before we went down he also told us about re-rigging one of the pitches, which we did on route. From their limit I dropped a split pitch down to the floor of a narrow canyon. Over some boulders, I watched the water running down a very wet pitch below me. With water bouncing off the opposite wall and corkscrewing down there would be no dry way down this short shaft and I hoped desperately to find something else.  Directly across from me was another narrow passage heading off. Knowing that if I rigged the pitch head from where I was I could either go over to this or at worst down into the water – I started work with the drill.

Once on the other side another bolt secured the traverse and fortunately my passage carried on, past a flake and down a short climb to another dry pitch. Dave followed closely behind and bought the rest of the kit whilst I started more bolting. This pitch was small in diameter and sloping away at an angle but nice and dry. Whilst I started tying in Dave noticed a narrow jagged rift which he pushed along. A few seconds later and he was shouting!! “it’s another massive pitch!!” Now I had the dilemma of either carrying on with what I was doing or swapping to tackle this. It sounded much more exciting but I’d already put in a couple of bolts and we reasoned this drop would probably join in with the hole Dave was looking down anyway – our mistake!! After a two re-belays the way-on looked very uninviting and showed no sign of intercepting the massive pitch so I pulled the plug.

A quick survey of this extension and we were back at the top ready to tackle another monster drop.  There was plenty of juice in the battery but we were pretty short of rope – especially long lengths. We had left a very large bag of rope further up the cave, thinking we had plenty – but now faced with this I was starting to doubt it. The pitch head was awkward and chossy, a very jagged squeeze which led out to a slippery ledge and bad rock all around. With a y hang back past the squeeze I managed to place another bolt on the ledge. This meant lots of acrobatics on the way back – but was at least safe. I then played the game of abseiling as far as possible, using every last metre of rope before placing a re-belay and repeating the process.

Three pieces, all less than 20m got me down to a floor and allowed Dave to follow. I couldn’t go far before I reached the next pitch though, underneath an enormous boulder wedged across the large passage. An 18m length of 8mm rope and what I considered a pointless piece of thicker rope about 8m long were all that was left. I’d been fairly scathing about this short bit earlier on, saying “why bother bringing that?”. Now all my hope of getting down this drop was based on this piece. I used it first to get over to the pitch head and then down as far as possible before placing a final bolt for the descent on the last rope – straining in the dark to see if it reached the floor.

With the knot untied the rope hung two feet off the floor and 30 seconds later I unclipped myself and shouted rope free. – Whatever happened now we’d used the last of our rope and could be satisfied we’d got as deep as possible.  The bottom of the pitch was in what appeared to be a large chamber. Whilst I waited for Dave I slowly moved over the boulders and mud towards the obvious continuation, up a steep slope and down into another spacious chamber. I was joined fairly soon by Dave and together we set out for the far side of the chamber. I remember thinking “this looks quite good – it might go horizontal for a bit..”

After walking round a large hole in the floor we carried on through the passage which was now at least 10m wide and similar height. With no obvious end or pitch in sight, as we progressed it really started to look good. We both sensed we’d found something very different and special but as we talked excitedly, slowly the passage began to narrow. Soon we were forced to climb over boulders through a narrow section that threatened to end our trip. In the lead I was desperately looking ahead and hoping the passage would widen again and resume its impressive characteristics. Up over a boulder ahead of me I spied black space and clambered forward eagerly – it opened up again and it was game on!  Just as I was about to rush forward Dave wanted to stop and change his batteries. What should have been a simple task now turned into a farce as after dropping his helmet his Petzl Duo failed to work with the battery box closed! So Dave was forced to cave on like this with my back up light as an addition in case he needed it in a tight spot. 

Back in exploration mode we pushed on down the even larger borehole passage ahead. It was now up to 15m high in spots and sometimes just as wide – with a large shrunken and cracked floor it was a pleasure to explore. We followed each others foots steps down the centre of the passage to avoid destroying the stunning floor and the passage soon began to descend. Gently at first, this trend continued, steadily getting steeper as we walked on. Conscious of the time it would take to survey out we talked about calling it a day but of course curiosity won and we had to see what happened next! Another 10minutes of walking later we reached the end for us – an abrupt blank wall and a large window into a shaft.  However the trip was by no means over. We were faced with a lengthy but easy survey and a long prussic out. With surveying more like China than Austria we repeatedly ran out 30m legs where we were only limited by the length of the tape measure. My survey stations were massive prominent boulders in the passage which I could stand by – never had surveying in the Dachstein been so easy! My only worry was the time ticking slowly by and my increasing need for the toilet!

About three quarters away the passage by body won and at the bottom of the freezing cave Dave’s plastic bag came in very handy. Ever the cave conservationist I carried this out which made for a very unpleasant smelling trip for the next 7 hours! Due to running out of time we only managed to survey back to about 50m short of the pitch, leaving the rest for another group and another trip.   I was especially worried about hitting our call out and as Dave wanted to stop and eat we agreed that I would head out first. Everything was going well and I was making good time until I hit one of my previously rigged pitches – the one with the wire trace.  This had needed another bolt for a while but it hadn’t quite managed to get done for various reasons. I’d checked it on the way down and the 8mm rope looked fine, so when I started back up I wasn’t particularly concerned. As I neared the top of the 30m pitch though I came in for a massive shock – above me the rope was hanging together by just the strands of the core.

I gingerly passed my jammers over it and looked at what I could do to fix this for Dave. The best I could do was tie a knot in the rope and wait for him as there wasn’t enough rope for anything else. I also attached my hand jammer to the bottom rope as a ‘just in case’ measure. Waiting around wasn’t helping our approaching call out time but I had little choice. Oblivious to what was going on he finished his noodles several pitches below and joined me. With Dave’s arrival I was able to get the working drill battery and add a bolt for next time as well. Despite the delay we reached the surface before a panic started and all was well. Trudging down the mountain in the early morning sun I realised that the trip I’d just had was probably a once in a lifetime one – we’d never expected to discover something as significant as the passage we’d explored – especially in the Dachstein. With the survey data drawn up the news got even better – our horizontal passage was about 600m long and dropped around 100m! We’d later discover that we’d been down to about 700m that day.      

Thursday – This was my rest day – I kept pinching myself to see if what we’d found was real!! 

Friday – I helped wash ropes and packed my bags. 

Saturday – My leaving day was made more exciting by a team in Snowmelt missing their callout. I was packed and ready to leave the mountain but didn’t dare go whilst the team was still unaccounted for. – It all worked out well in the end when they appeared, just tired and a bit slow.