Sunday 16^th July
Travelled out to Austria, on the 6.45am flight from Stansted. I finally made it up to the Weisberghaus at about 5.30pm in the evening. 

Monday 17^th July
I went to rig T28C, a cave explored last year by Jim Cochrean and Rich Hudson. They’d left it at meander blocked with a large flake and the plan was to Hilti this, this year. Underground with me were Barry and Tom whilst Ian and Richard waited on the surface and bolted the first pitch of T20 nearby. I eventually found the way to the previous years limit despite going wrong, finding an unbolted pitch and thinking I was in to new stuff (It turned out that Jim’s route simply bypassed this).
 

Tuesday 18^th July
We hatched a plan to do a leap frogging trip down M54. Joel, Sarah, Daren and Damp were to go in early morning whilst Daf, Barry, Matt S and myself would come in about four hours later. Joel and Co also had to do some surveying on the way in so we hoped to catch them as they finished pushing. Things started to go wrong with this plan pretty quickly though and Matt S dropped out for domestic reasons. Daf was next to go when in the crawl he fell ill and had to get out to use the bushes. So Barry and I pressed on and caught up with the other team just as they finished surveying as there had been more to do than they thought.  We then took over surveying whilst Joel dropped two short pitched to find the cave hitting a fault line. This turned out to be an impassable obstacle and we end up calling it a day here, finishing the survey and turning round.  It was about 3am by the time we got out and the first group had all been underground for roughly 14hrs. 

Wednesday 19^th July
Rich Bayfield and I had wanted to get to the top of Hoher Dachstein every year we’ve been and with good weather and just a few days of Rich’s expedition left we went for it. Rich H and Chris B from Aberystwyth also wanted in and so the two Rich’s and two Chris’s left for the top.  We stopped for lunch at the Simony hut before tackling the glacier but here Chris B unfortunately had to turn round due to feeling ill. The three of us pressed on up the glacier to the Seehaler Hut with sits on the ridge over looking the valley on the other side of the Dachstein. After a short refreshment break we headed to the top, doing the short via ferrata for the last 50m or so. We’d been told you didn’t need gear for this but rather wished we’d ignored this advice as the exposure was pretty awesome.  On the way back we stopped again at the Seehaler Hut and then finally at the Simony Hut. All in all an excellent way to see the summit. 

Thursday 20^th July
When Ian hurt his back at the beginning of the exped Phil got Rich B involved in Pig Pen 2, but with just one day of the exped left Rich didn’t fancy another long pushing trip so asked me if I wanted to go instead. I jumped at the chance to get on a exploration down there and so we set off early the next day. I was a bit apprehensive about the two meanders from what Rich had said but with a light bag they were ok, even if I was pretty slow. At about 600m I stopped to put in a hand bolt and set up a Y hang whilst Phil headed down to drop the next pitch. When I caught up with him later he gave me the honour and I Ianded in a muddy rift. We followed this along, dropping down two more pitches in this nasty mud rift before breaking back out into two large pitches. We stopped at the bottom of these for the day and began surveying out. The only incident to break the steady progress was when Phil dropped the pencil down one of the pitches and luckily I was able to find it. Still this didn’t cancel out all my blunders which seemed to increase with depth and will remain undisclosed here. I was pretty slow on the way out and we finally reached the surface at about 6.30am after a 17½ hour trip. We found out later that we’d pushed to 712m. 


Friday 21^st July
I slept late then ate, ate, ate and read my book!
 
Saturday 22^nd July
Matt S, Andy, Maxine and Myself had a late start and went to Hidden Hole to have a look at a window on the 9^th pitch and survey the chamber Peter Hubner had found. The chamber turned out to fairly large and passing through it we found a 45 degree pitch on the right hand side. This arrived in a small chamber, afterwhich a short crawl reached a cairn and a previous survey station created by the original NCC explorers – “Tuppa and Dave”. After a bit of looking around I realised where we were and we tied in the new survey to these. On the way out it rained and the pitches became wet which spurred us on.

Sunday 23^rd July
I wanted to go prospecting with Charlotte but just when we were about to leave it started to rain so we put it off, then put it off, and then finally it got to late. 

Monday 24^th July
Charlotte had left the previous day so I recruited Andy for a day of prospecting instead. We headed for the Simony hut before veering off to one side and scouting the cliffs leading up to the hut. Unfortunately we didn’t have much luck and left a lot of entrances with crosses on. 

Tuesday 25^th July
The Rust’s had arrived on Monday night and were keen to drop a cave they’d found the year before. Ian and myself volunteered to come along and so the six of us set off. It was a hot and glorious day as we strolled up to the cave. Donald and Harlan dropped the pitches they’d been down last year whilst Ian looked at another possible way on. In the mean time I found a drafting hole not far away. When Donald ran out of rope we went down and he and Harlan came up. Unfortunately we didn’t make much more progress and soon the cave closed down. We then turned our attention to the drafting hole but this didn’t go beyond an icy chamber at the bottom of the first pitch, despite our attempts at digging amongst the boulders.  

Wednesday 26^th July
T28C. Jim, Daf and co had had a good day if T28C on Tuesday and as they weren’t planning on going back today, I put myself forward. Unfortunately they hadn’t surveyed their finds – so I agreed to do this before pushing. With Andy and Mike I went down to my previous limit and started surveying. It was slow work in the meanders but we eventually reached a squeeze the guys decribed – at least we thought we had!! Mike pushed through a tight hole head first and a little bit further on found a rope. We surveyed through the squeeze and then decided to stop, push a pitch or two and then survey out. At the limit we found a red muddy chamber with a pitch on the other side. I dropped this through a large chamber with a massive boulder handing in it to the head of a short pitch, which I also dropped. As I was doing this I suggested Andy and Mike shoot a couple of survey legs back across the muddy chamber and up the pitch. It was at this point that things began to go wrong! I’d given Andy the survey sheet whilst I went through the squeeze and hadn’t bothered putting the cover sheet on. We both learnt an important lesson – never to do this!! As Andy discovered that he’d rubbed off half the notes in his oversuit!! We decided to just drop the pitch I was on then call it a day – as we had lots of surveying to do and it was getting late.     At the bottom of the pitch I met the water again but climbed over the rift it disappeared down and into an unstable section with black spaces below. I turned here and started back to the others. Andy was getting very cold now, we were running out of time and Andy said he’d rather come back to finish the survey tomorrow – so that’s what we did.  
   

Thursday 27^th July
Andy was broken the next day so Mike and I agreed to do the survey. Jim and Daf were going to push whilst we completed out survey and then we’d swap and push whilst they surveyed. We completed our survey with the only incidents being Mike throwing things down pitches and also realising that the squeeze we’d been through the day before was the wrong one!!   We met the others eventually and they’d finished with all the kit so contrary to the plan they decided to call it a day and all four of us headed out.  

Friday 28^th July
Determined to actually do some proper pushing I returned to T28C for a third day, this time with Matild, Maxine and Matt W. Our plan was to push the end and survey what we found but leave Jim and Daf to link the middle bit they’d found on the previous trip.  I didn’t take long to reach the limit of exploration – a wet and windy pitch due to rain on the surface (we guessed this and it turned out to be correct). I put in a couple of bolts with the drill and dropped a short pitch which landed us in a wet rift. The water soon gurgled lower down in the rift, leaving us to traverse along a muddy and tight section of rift. This gradually became tighter until we could go no further and so organised the survey out. Maxine helped me whilst I shot legs back and we were soon finished. The monotony of surveying was broken by a short climb which Matt W and Maxine both couldn’t manage to get up. Matt was left stranded for 15minutes whilst we surveyed before I could help him up. On the way out similar entertainment was provided by Maxine who became stuck in the “Nun’s unmentionables”. At the time it wasn’t very funny but once through she was fine.   

Saturday 29^th July
After three consecutive days of caving in T28C (I was out every night) I decided to take a rest day and it rained hard anyway so everyone else did the same.  

Sunday 30^th July
We went to de-rig the cave known only as Daren’s shaft and inspect the bottom to see if there was a way on. After a quick look at the chamber Martin and Mark had reached previously I climbed along the rift above where the water turned off before the chamber. Mark had been this way but dismissed it after a short distance as an inlet. I pushed on and could feel a strong draft and hear crashing water ahead. I got pretty tight and as I was on my own I headed back calling ‘send me a midget’ Joel and Ian heard me and returned to the squeeze with Ian in the lead. He popped through into a large chamber with a meander heading off and soon Joel and I were worming our way through the squeeze to follow him.  On the other side was a chamber with a large meander heading off. Following this reached a junction with water coming in from the left and running under our feet. We headed towards the water then under ourselves along the meander but it was tight and Joel returned to look at the other way on. When we heard him calling we abandoned our meander and climbed up to meet him in a large passage. He laughed at us for squeezing along the tight meander whilst he’d been in a land of giants.  Just as we were about to head off together Joel heard the distress call of Andy back in the squeeze. So Ian and I headed on whilst Joel released the stricken Andy who had got wedged by trying to squeeze through at a different point.  Ian and I climbed along the undulating passage until we emerged in a chamber with another waterfall entering. Along this passage the draft was really strong but changing so that we thought it might just be circulating. On the other side of the chamber a high rift headed off which we followed high up. Joel joined us in the rift soon, above a climb down that had stopped us. Joel found the perfect spot and chimped down. At the bottom he found a short pitch roughly 15m long. With no rigging gear and no surveying gear we called it a day and headed out with the plan of returning to survey another day. 

Monday 31^st July
I decided to take a rest day in order to prepare for my Pig Pen trip. 

Tuesday 1^st August
I had skipped the last trip in Pig Pen 2 when Joel and Phil explored a lot of horizontal tubes after the pitch series I’d been down. Now the three of us returned for one last exploration trip. On the previous trip Phil and Joel had found a large deep pool and Phil had stripped off to cross it. The limit was just beyond at a pitch head. We reached the pool and all stripped off. Then we carefully packed our kit into dry bags and dragged them through the pool, which was about thigh deep. On the other side Phil soon set about dropping the pitch. Unfortunately it at the bottom we found a sump and Phil’s spirits dropped. However in his eagerness to get down he’d overlooked a traverse over the top of the pitch – which Joel now had eyes on. Whilst Phil and I surveyd to the sump Joel put in several bolts to cross over. On the other side we found a small chamber with two ways on. Straight ahead went to another inlet with lots of water rushing over a pitch head and back in the chamber left led to a muddy dry pitch which Phil and Joel rigged and surveyed. The draft here was awesome and it was clear that we were now in a totally different part of the cave.  We finished the survey and headed out (new depth of 732m), The plan was that on the way out we’d hank up all the ropes at the pitch heads rather than pull them out. Although this would mean we didn’t have to carry them all out it would be slow and we figured it’d be a 24hr trip by the time we got out.  At about 550m down we called it a day as the water was now humming down the cave. We finally reached the surface at 11.30am and were met by Lump and Jim with a cup of tea.  

Wednesday 2^nd August
We came out of Pig Pen 2 at about 11.30 and so the day was pretty much a write off. I slept in the afternoon for a few hours before dinner and then had an early night. 

Thursday 3^rd August
The weather was terrible and still tired from the day before it was an easy decision to make this a lazy day. 

Friday 4^th August
Phil, Andy and myself returned for the final time this year for the de-rig. It had been decided not to pull the rope out, instead it was being coiled up and stored in the cave. It had been raining almost constantly for the last 24 hours and we got up early it was drizzling still. We walked to the cave in the rain and changed just inside the entrance. Phil then shot off quickly whilst Andy and I caved steadily. We met Phil the far side of ‘just and inlet’ as he was returning with rope. The pitches below here were very wet and he’d not been able to get below about 450m. I cleared the kit from the brew spot and started out whilst Phil and Andy continued the job of coiling up the ropes. I was back at Camelot around seven and the other two were back a couple of hours later.        

Saturday 5^th August
I left the mountain at about 10am and finally reached my home around midnight