Expedition Name (& Club): Dachstein, Austria 2007

Destination country: Austria
Region: Dachstein Plateau

Lat: 47.5446 Long: 13.6289 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Phil Rowsell

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

To continue to develop the drainage plan of the Dachstein Plateau, with the ultimate goal of finding a connection to the 96km Hirlatz system below.

How can the GPF support your Expedition?:

Please explain the aspects of the trip which make it eligible for Ghar Parau funding.

The Dachstein expedition has run for over 30 years, in an area renowned for its cold, potentially deep and difficult caving. Originally these were regarded as NCC/BEC expeditions where only the hardest of the hard were welcome. While the cave conditions are the same, it has slowly changed (particularly under the Leadership of Joel Corrigan) to be more of a joint university student expedition (Cardiff, Southampton and Reading being regular participants), with a number of more experienced key personnel (“the die hard”) running and helping the students. Unlike most expeditions, there is no experience criteria to attend. It is hoped that personnel will both improve their caving ability and more importantly learn expedition methodologies etc, rather than just sport caving in Yorkshire or Wales, and thus be the future of British caving. Many of the current British expedition cavers have spent some time in the Dachstein. Since I joined the Expedition in 2002, the survey standard and documentation has progressively improved , such that now caves are being numbered properly, the correct data is being collected and entered into a database system. The new systems are being surveyed to a high standard and maps being produced during and shortly after the Exped. (See attached). It is a delight to see progressively more of the students each year enthused about surveying & keen to produce maps etc with their names on that they can be proud of. The benefit of this, has also dramatically improved relationships with the local cave club, and it is now usual for several of their members to attend too, with British members being invited on the Austrians winter trips in the Hirlatz. The expedition, however, has for a number of years been under-funded, with funds generally going to more high profile expeditions in more glamorous locations. Most of these expeditions require experienced (and more affluent) personnel. We are dealing with students. The expedition charges a flat rate of £60 to attend – kept to a minimum to ensure people’s enthusiasm. The money goes towards gear purchases and some food. All things like flights, travel, and accommodation are up to the members to fund – typically being between £100 – 150. All the university clubs involved provide their entire gear inventory to support the expedition (without this the Exped would be a none-starter). The Exped itself does have some gear (mostly rope and hangers), but this is rapidly being depleted with wear and age. Each year, there is a very delicate balance between the amount of replacement gear we can purchase Vs food etc to keep the additional costs down for the students. It gets more difficu lt each year. (Last year we had to enforce a weekly food supplements to make ends meet: didn’t go down well with the students! Furthermore, without the contribution of personal gear supplied by the older members (particularly Joel and myself) in the form of more specialist equipment, battery drills, dry bags , natural rigging gear, survey gear etc, again the expedition would falter. The situation is beginning to get to a critical stage, we need support of the caving community to continue the Exped and to train our future British cavers. We do appreciate that funds are scarce particularly with most of the Sports Council money being given to obtain Olympic medals, but we do need your help. For many years the Dachstein expeditions have been responsible for some very remarkable explorations and we are extremely pro-active in the promotion and training of a great number of new cavers. We believe that this is especially important in an activity that suffers from a lack of new blood… My apologies for the late application, but the last month has been very hectic, having been spent preparing for a 10 day bolt climbing project in the far west of the Hirlatz System in Austria, from which I have just returned. I did inform both Wookey and Brian Judd of the late application and hope the GP Committee will be accomodating.

Detailed description of objectives:

Give a more detailed account of the purpose of the trip, including any particular known caves you intend to visit, specific areas where you will explore for new cave, and scientific experiments you will attempt.

The main objective this year is to continue exploration of 1543-118 Pigpen 2, pushed last year to 732m deep. The cave has hit a phreatic level now but still has a strong draft and hopes are high for a possible connection to the Hirlatz. Underground camping will be required this year as trip were over 20 hours last year. If Pigpen 2 ends, then 1543-128 (T2) Gowling Hale will be ri-rigged and pushed. Currently left at 600m deep with a very wet waterfall pitch. There are many other caves (not regarded as so significant) that will also be explored and provide a good training ground for the less experienced people on the expedition. Prospecting for new caves etc will also be a big priority.

Previous work in this area:

Give details of any previous work in this area by your own and other teams. Include references to reports and articles published on the area, and the names of any local cavers or academics with whom you have discussed the Expedition.

British cavers have been caving in the Dachstein for over 30 years. There have been many reports and articles written about the exploration. The expeditions have enjoyed a varied relationship with the Austrians, the main sticking point being the forwarding of surveying data. In recent years we have made a concerted effort to correct this lapse and our relationship with the locals has become very healthy (we join each others’ teams on multiple expeditions throughout the year). The Austrian cave numbering system has been fully implemented; we have developed a comprehensive cave database, listing caves, cave numbers, location, brief description, survey status etc. The survey data is both scanned electronically and entered into spreadsheets for easy transfer, and to ensure this does not get lost (an issue that plagued earlier expeditions). The standard of surveying and map production is steadily increasing, with surveys being produced during or shortly after the Exped. All this information is captured and passed on to the Austrians. It is hoped that in the foreseeable future this data will be available on line.