Expedition Name (& Club): Cambridge Austrian 2011 Expedition (CUCC)

Destination country: Austria
Region:

Lat: 47.7175 Long: 14.0642 Elevation: m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Christopher Smith

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

Continue exploration and surveying of the Schwarzmooskogel ridge caves Kaninchenhöhle, Steinbrückenhöhle and Tunnockschacht, with the ultimate aim of connecting these systems. Resume surface prospecting in the area north of Tunnockschacht, and to explore 2010 finds.

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 Schwarzmooskogel cave system is the most extensive cave networks below the Loser Plateau (Styria, Austria), with an explored length of 55 km and depth of over 1 km. The 2010 CUCC expedition focused predominantly on the continued exploration of Tunnockschacht; efforts were split between closing down remaining leads in the upper levels of the system (‘Dubious Pleasures’ and ‘The Marconian Empire’) and pushing beyond the deepest know point at the bottom of the ‘String Theory’. The lateral distance between Tunnockschacht and Steinbrückenhöhle now stands at less than 40 m, with both systems overlapping in terms of their depth profiles. This year we plan to continue exploring a number of open leads in Kaninchenhöhle, Steinbrückenhöhle and Tunnockschacht, with aim of connecting these systems. Explorations in the upper levels of Tunnockschacht, specifically the ‘Stone Monkey’ and ‘The Marconian Empire’ series were ultimately unproductive, as the prominent leads closed down, becoming impassable due to immature passage development. However, leads around ‘Dubious Pleasures’ were more productive, with over 100 m of high level passage leading to ‘Blind and Broken’ and ‘The Thin Red Line’. Of particular note in this passage were a number of well preserved bat remains (including skin and fur), and clusters of needle-like crystal formations. Pushing beyond the reaches of the 2009 expedition at the bottom of the ‘String Theory’pitch yielded over 1.4 km of new passage, as well as increasing the maximum explored depth of the cave system from 263m to 344 m (‘Sandy Balls’), leading to a promising category ‘A’ un-descended pitch. The 2011 expedition will see CUCC carry out further work in Tunnockschacht, including the descent of the un-descended pitch in ‘Sandy Balls’ and the continued exploration of horizontal passage at the bottom the ‘String Theory’. Over the last several years we have observed a steady retreat of the snow fields to the north of Tunnockschacht and Steinbrückenhöhle. The retreating winter ice has opened up a number of new entrances and shakeholes which had previously been buried under the ice. In 2010 we surveyed and tagged two new entrances along the plateau ridge and hope to find additional caves this year. The nature of Austrian alpine karst is such that despite more than 30 years of expeditions to the same area, there are still hundreds of open leads to explore both above and below ground. In 2009 CUCC began to trial the Troggle software, written by expedition members, with aim of keeping an accurate record of the various cave surveys, descriptions, logbook entries and database of open leads that are produced each expedition. During the 2010 expedition Troggle underwent a series of modifications to improve its interface, which have helped to simplify the data logging and storage process. This year we plan to continue work on Troggle to further enhance its operability and input the 2011 entries.

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.

CUCC has been exploring the area since 1976; an expedition has been held every year since then, except in 1986. We have explored large parts of the Schwarzmooskogel system, including its highest and lowest known points, as well as the entirety of Steinbrückenhöhle and Tunnockschacht. All CUCC data including surveys, descriptions, photos and logbooks are available on the Expo website, http://cucc.survex.com/expo/. Successive expeditions have allowed CUCC to develop and maintain a good working relationship with other caving clubs, in particular the ARGE Grabenstetten from Germany, which holds regular expeditions in the adjoining Kataster area on the Loser Plateau.