I was returning for my second year to the Dachstein in Austria. The Dachstein is a spectacular limestone massif rising to almost 3000m, located about an hours drive southeast of Salzburg, Austria. Since the 70's, the Dachstein Caving Expedition members have been exploring the potholes high up in the mountains, on a plateau that is approx. 2000-2004m high. These limestone areas are completely riddled with caves having a depth potential in excess of 1,700 metres. The project is dedicated to original exploration, and not simply to sports caving.

I decided to get out to Austria in a car this year and unfortunately due to my graduation, which my parents refused to let me miss, it was going to be two weeks after the start. Travelling by car though obviously had the benefit of not worrying too much about quantities of kit. However with three other people and all their kit it was a tight squeeze and I was glad I was sitting in the front!

Plus to make matters more interesting there was only one driver and we were going to do it in one go. So we set off from Southampton at 4.00am to catch an 8.30 ferry. Caught a few hours more sleep on board and then sped through Belgium into Germany and then Austria. We finally arrived in Hallstatt at about 11.00 to find the camp site closed for the night but thankfully the bar open! Fortunately the bar owner suggested a place by the lake to camp and after a couple of well deserved beers we fell asleep amongst the dark mountains.

When we awoke the scenery was even better than I remembered. The dark mountains had become white and grey slopes speckled with a green which gradually faded until the tops of the rock went out of sight and the lake beside which we were camping stretched across the valley towards Hallstatt from where the sounds of tourism carried across the water. Surrounded by the beautiful scenery the lake looked too inviting and we all went for an early morning swim before we set off on the climb to the Weisberghaus.    

The walk is up a steep rocky path and takes about 3-4 hours, going from about 500m above sea level to 1883m. As you climb the scenery slowly changes, the dark tall alpine firs near the base thin out and alpine meadow appears between them. Then as you climb higher the trees are replaced completely by little springy bushes and after that the ground begins to become more rock than vegetation, whilst all the time the view becomes more impressive. 

This year the main project was a cave called ‘Gowling Hale'. Found last year by a team, which included myself, the cave was pushed down to 320m before we had to return home. This year it had been decided to concentrate exclusively on Gowling from the beginning so when I got out to Austria two weeks after the beginning the cave had been re-rigged to the previous depth and pushed another hundred metres or so.

However off the main route were several leads which hadn't been looked at properly. As a warm up the newly arrived team of four including myself went to ‘drop' these. The pitches were off a chamber called the ‘Darkside' which followed two pitches known as ‘fear' and ‘anger'. The Darkside is about 200 metres from the surface, and the deepest cave in England is only 220m so reaching here didn't exactly mean an easy trip, especially when you have to carry bags full of kit in and out. However I wasn't going to miss the chance of dropping virgin pitches on my first trip so with little resting time we headed off to climb the 300m of none existent path to the entrance. 

The cave was pretty much as I remember it, icy cold and with a chilling draft. I was soon back in the swing of things and quickly reached the last point I'd been to the year before. We pushed on quickly and after another twenty minutes we entered the large ‘Darkside' chamber. With barely a pause to rest we raced off to look at the leads we'd been given. At the top end of the chamber on top of a pile of boulders were two inviting holes. We looked down into the dark and threw rocks off the edge, counting the seconds before they hit the bottom and getting more eager all the time. Rich volunteered to tackle the Right hand pitch whilst I set to work on the left.

Descending a new pitch takes more time than people might realise, especially when you're relatively new at it and you have to put all the bolts in by hand. We weren't too bothered about the time though and when you're bolting it keeps you warm, it's when you're standing about waiting when you really suffer. Unfortunately I had to take my turn doing this and let someone else have a go with the hammer and I soon began to wish I had an extra ten jumpers on!

Finally though we finished and I dropped down the rope into virgin cave, rocks never seen by any living thing before. This always feels awesome and the first thing you want to do is run around and look at everything, peer down every hole and into every possible way on. I quickly ruled out the passage in front of me when it turned into a small waterfall coming from some unknown place higher up. However behind me was an enticing hole through some boulders and it seemed I could hear Rich closer than he ought to be. With some difficulty we figured out that his route was also coming down into the chamber I was looking at. By now we'd been underground for quite a while and I was very aware of the two hundred metres of vertical caving above us. Quite pleased with ourselves we turned around and started out. This was when our lack of sleep, the walk up to the Weisberghaus and dehydration began to kick in. Our trip out seemed to take for ever and we eventually emerged to the night sky after a respectable ten hour trip. 

With our day off to recuperate we planned to try a viaferrata higher up the mountain. The path leading to it passed by another mountain hut the Simony Hutte before heading off to the bottom of a sheer cliff and we refreshed ourselves at the Hut before setting off across the limestone in search of the via ferrata. Viaferrata's or Kletisteig's are literally metal cables stapled into rock on which you climb. In case you slip you carry cow's tails, a piece of rope with two tails and Karabiners in the ends which can be clipped to you and then the cable. The points where the cable is attached to the rock are passed by clipping first one then the other tail round the obstacle. In this way you are always attached to the cable. However with about five meters between the anchor points if you did slip it could be a fall of about four a half metres until you cows tails catch you. This means you really don't want to slip and so your cow's tails are more of a psychological reassurance than calculated safety measure. 

After about half an hour we reached the viaferrata and saw the metal cable snaking upwards over the sheer vertical cliff until it disappeared out of sight. Suddenly several people who had said they'd be doing it changed their minds and it was left to three of us. Rich had done one viaferrata before so we decided he was the expert and set him off first. I followed next as I didn't want to be last and that only left Ian Burnell. We climbed with about two anchors between us as being on the same section of cable as someone else was rather disconcerting, with the cable being tugged and pulled above or below you. The climb was about 200m up a sheer rock face with the occasional slightly overhanging bit and looked pretty daunting from the bottom. However once we were half way up we decided it hadn't been as difficult as it looked and began to relax and enjoy ourselves. Rich even paused to taken a few pictures of me and the scenery. After about twenty minutes we reached to top and could enjoy the view before we walked back down the long way round.

We were all back at the Simony Hut a few hours before dark and decided to have a beer and some food. We sat under their porch and looked out down the mountain as we waited for our food. As we did so we watched it get darker and darker, not as the sun went down but as a massive cloud moved overhead. Ian didn't have waterproofs and wisely decided to leave immediately in the hope of getting back before the storm broke. This provided an excellent diversion whilst we waited for food. A sweepstake was quickly arranged to bet on how long it would take him to reappear in the valley opposite after walking down the hill we were on. As he was hidden from sight until the last minute this proved very difficult to predict and we all entertained for about five minutes until the sight of a small figure hurrying back appeared below.

As we ate and drank it continued to get darker and the others wisely began to finish their food and pack up whilst Rich and I thought we'd have pudding and another Beer. We left at a jog about ten minutes after them as the first bolt of lightning appeared in the sky. This didn't worry us too much though as the storm was obviously a few kilometres away yet and it hadn't started raining. However we kept up a good pace, practically jogging down the stony path. As we did so I was constantly counting the seconds between the lightning bolt and the thunder and calling out the answer to Rich in front. The worrying trend was that they were definitely getting closer together and that meant closer to us! Ten minutes later I gave up counting the seconds as thunder and lightning crashed around and lit up the air for a few errie seconds at a time. We sped along the path at breakneck speed in the pouring rain shouting out things to each other, mostly swearwords as I remember!

After what felt like ages the Weisberghaus finally appeared round the hill and we sped towards it, just as it appeared to be struck by lightning! The buildings all have lightning conductors up on the mountain so no harm would have come to anyone if it did but the rest of the group were sure it hadn't anyway. Soaking wet and still quite adrenalin filled we stood in the doorway with everyone else and watched the phenomenal storm breaking on the mountain.  

Fortunately for us the rain filters through the caves high on the plateau very quickly and the next day there was no obstacle in the way of going underground. We rose late, filled our stomachs and packed our kit and it wasn't until the middle of the day that we set off up the mountain. As we climbed the mist and cloud came down and the weather looked decidedly worse but we pushed on thinking that if we could get changed before it rained it wouldn't be so bad.

The entrance to Gowling is in a flat area at the top of a very steep slope and it was as we reached this sort of plateau that it started to rain. I cursed my luck and figured I'd be wet when we got underground but didn't think it'd be worse than that. However the rain got worse and the clouds got darker and then all hell broke loose above us as thunder and lightning cracked around us. Caught in a thunder storm twice in two days!! I couldn't believe my bad luck! A bit of panic started as we realised we were in the worst possible place and we ran across the top like headless chickens looking for a place to hide. We sheltered under some large boulders whilst pulling on our waterproof clobber until Rich told us we'd be more likely to get struck under the boulders and then we turned around and ran down the mountain.

We were back the next day and beat the weather to the cave. Today we had Ian Holmes with us and the plan was for me to go off with him past the ‘darkside' to a chamber called the ‘hanging gardens of Babylon' about 300m down and pick up some kit which had been left there. Meanwhile Rich would cave with Chris M and Laurence and they'd survey the new find whilst Rich rigged the next pitch. We caved quickly and after about an hour and a half we reached the Darkside pitches and pushed on down to the hanging gardens of Babylon. When we returned Rich was busy putting in bolts. He was going down the lead he had looked at initially but the water flow was significantly greater today and we would get completely trashed going that way. So after a quick consultation we opted to go through the boulders on my side. Though this was a smart move it meant Rich's work that morning was all a waste. About an hour later and two bolts later I dropped down the pitch and called Rich to follow me. There was a respectable sized triangular chamber and a pitch leading off on one corner. Knowing that it was going to take a while to get out and conscious of the extra water the pitches were taking we surveyed quickly and turned around. It proved to be a slow and unpleasant trip out as many of the previously dry pitches were wet and we both got extremely cold on the way out.

Over the next week we made more progress and our success granted us use of one of the drills. With this handy little toy we pushed deeper into the cave dropping two more pitches and the lead seemed to be going great. So well infact that Joel was heard to say he thought they might have picked the wrong route after the Darkside. It was because of this that Joel went on the next trip down here with a large group including Rich. They stopped just above a pitch and surveyed out after a massive 14-hour trip, just in time to see the sun rise. Things looked promising for this series but Mad Phil had been prophesising its connection with a later part of the cave since we started on it. So when the latest survey notes were put in he was not surprised to see that Joel and Rich had stopped just above a part of the known cave. Joel of course was fairly pissed off, especially as he'd spent lots of time putting in extra bolts to fix our 'exploratory' rigging. Whilst Rich and I had to content our selves with the knowledge that at least our surveying was accurate. As when we closed the loop we were delighted to find we had hardly any error at all.

Rich had to leave a week before me so on his final trip with me we closed the loop and de-rigged our section. Then in the final week of the expedition the remaining team de-rigged the cave ate and drink lots and did another Viaferrata. Overall it was a successful expedition adding another two hundred metres of depth to a difficult cave and personally I gained more important expedition experience.  

Note: None of these photos are actually mine - they have all been taken by various other people and friends. So firstly thanks and secondly if you want me to take them down, all you have to do is ask.