Expedition Name (& Club): CUCC Exp to Austria 2 (CUCC)

Destination country: Austria
Region:

Lat: 47.7175 Long: 14.0642 Elevation: 0 m
MEF funding: none

Leader: Mr Alex Crow

Brief Expedition objectives:

List a short summary of the main Expedition objectives.

Continuing exploration and survey of the Schwarzmooskogel ridge caves in the Loser Augsteck Plateau in the Styrian Alps, Austria.
This year the main aim will be surface prospecting and pushing North and West of the existing system..

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 system is the most extensive cave system below the Loser Plateau. Last year CUCC had set out to connect the two longest caves in the area: Kaninchenhöhle (KH, 161), which is part of the Schwarzmooskogel (SMK) system, and the Tunnockschacht-Steinbrückenhöhle system (258/204). These were connected, creating a combined system exceeding 90Km, and 1Km of depth. As of this summer the Schwarzmooskogel system is the 24th on the world's longest (see: http://www.caverbob.com/wlong.htm).

Most of the SMK system extends underneath the 3 peaks that make the SMK ridge on the surface. The ridge and the cave system are oriented in the N-S direction: however to the West of this area there lies a large area of plateau where caves were found aplenty but never terribly well explored horizontally. KH has avenues of horizontal development that point straight towards the plateau: we plan to return there to discover more fossil passage. At the same time exploration (from a different Top Camp) will go on on in caves under the the Plateau: these represent a different challenge as they are mostly single entrances of pitch series with negligible horizontal development. We aim to explore plateau cases that point East towards KH.

The second most promising area of development into blank space lies at the North of the SMK system: we will further explore the norther reaches of Tunnockschacht (258).

Moreover we recognize the need to find new caves that hopefully will drop to right stratum of horizontal development, so extensive prospecting was undertaken last year and ~30 new entrances found North of 258. Again there is a tremendous potential for extending the system a great deal.

All our data, including surveys, descriptions, photos and logbooks, are available on the Expo website, http://expo.survex.com/ may be edited as a wiki.
In 2009 we began trialing a new piece of software known as Troggle, written by expedition members, which aims to keep an accurate record of the various cave surveys, descriptions, measurements, logbook entries and databases of open leads that are produced during each expedition. In the past three years the system has greatly aided us in being able to efficiently retrieve information from the past thirty years of exploration.

CUCC strives to encourage new cavers and cavers who haven't been on expeditions before to go to Austria. In recent years we have welcomed students from Cambridge University, Leeds, Durham and Bristol, and non students from various UK clubs. The more experienced members provide suitable training in surveying, prospecting, exploration rigging and more. We have a strong record in training cavers who have gone on to make major contributions to other cave expeditions, for example, recently in China and Antarctica.

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 in 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 points The ARGE Grabenstetten from Germany, with whom we have a good relationship, holds regular expeditions in the adjoining kataster area on the Loser Plateau.