Samouse1
Well-known member
Expo 2026, 50 years of Expo!
Yes, CUCC (and many, many friends) have gone to the Loser Plateau for the last half a century! The 1976 expedition consisted of a grand total of nine attendees, but set the groundwork for a huge push to explore the vast karst plateau, forcing it to give up its wonderful secrets slowly over the years. In comparison, we currently have over 40 people signed up, with several never having been on expedition before, some having been on so many expeditions they should be chastised and told to leave some cave for the rest of us!
(Kit can be transported over the unforgiving plateau by WookMule, though he demands payment in Gösser and survey data to nerd over)
The overall goal
The Schwarzmooskogel-Höhlensystem (known to non german speakers as the SMK) is at time of writing over 140km long and 1114m deep, so only a small cave really, being the second longest in Austria. All of the CUCC expeditions have pushed and expanded the borders of the SMK, finding new caves and then connecting them in. The Austrian cavers haven't been idly watching us take all the glory of course, they've connected and explored caves on the plateau, as have the Germans. Just over the hill, a mere stones throw away, lies the the longest cave in Austria, the ~150km Schönber-Höhlensystem. With nothing but limestone separating the two, a connection is almost inevitable! We just have the matter of finding the blasted thing...
This years goals
In the 2025 expedition, a return was made to Kaninchen Höhle (KH - translates to Rabbit Cave), which had not been explored since 2014, and the cave quickly made itself a firm favourite amongst its new generation of explorers, so a return was almost inevitable. Many exciting leads were pushed and new ones discovered last year , leaving us with more unticked boxes than we started with. One section, the Enniskillen Toad series is tantalisingly close to another series much closer to the entrance, so a hope is that a connection can be made there to save time in the long run. Another good lead is an as yet unnamed pitch series, which ate up 100m of rope with no sight of the bottom, dropping down close to Razordance, a section of Steinbrückenhöhle which had many promising leads but was a swine to get to. A return is planned to a pitch named Somebody Elses Problem, where an incredibly strong draft was inexplicably lost in 1997. Hopefully the wonders of modern lighting shows us a lovely stomping phreatic that takes us for miles and miles.
Another firm favourite, Balkonhöhle, is once again on the roster for the year, though this may be its last hurrah for a while! We plan to tick off some final leads from our underground camp, and push what we can into the blank spots of the map.
On the surface, the Plateau gods still offers us many holes to go at. A find last year, Kaninchenjäger (Rabbit Hunter) could well give us a KH back door (Kaninchenhintertür), allowing for even more exploration. Prospecting will always be on the cards as well, cataloguing whatever holes we come across, in the hopes of finding the next piece of the great Loser Jigsaw. Attention will be paid to an area between the SMK and another cave, Fischgesichthöhle, in the hopes of finding something that goes in both directions to tie this exciting cave in with the rest of the system.
(Surface prospecting is a truly awful experience, no one ever enjoys the sunshine on the plateau)
Who and when?
We go out in July, and come back in August. Expo prides itself on being a very "beginner friendly" expedition, its a first for many, including myself back in 2018! We have many students coming out, as well as some of the old fogies telling us about the good old days when they used to drive cars off canyons ("tackle: written off"), and survey miles of passage with a demagnetised compass (bloody fridges).
I (and hopefully others), will give updates on our exploits on here, and for anyone more curious about the expo, all the information and the logbook can be found here: https://expo.survex.com/
Yes, CUCC (and many, many friends) have gone to the Loser Plateau for the last half a century! The 1976 expedition consisted of a grand total of nine attendees, but set the groundwork for a huge push to explore the vast karst plateau, forcing it to give up its wonderful secrets slowly over the years. In comparison, we currently have over 40 people signed up, with several never having been on expedition before, some having been on so many expeditions they should be chastised and told to leave some cave for the rest of us!
(Kit can be transported over the unforgiving plateau by WookMule, though he demands payment in Gösser and survey data to nerd over)
The overall goal
The Schwarzmooskogel-Höhlensystem (known to non german speakers as the SMK) is at time of writing over 140km long and 1114m deep, so only a small cave really, being the second longest in Austria. All of the CUCC expeditions have pushed and expanded the borders of the SMK, finding new caves and then connecting them in. The Austrian cavers haven't been idly watching us take all the glory of course, they've connected and explored caves on the plateau, as have the Germans. Just over the hill, a mere stones throw away, lies the the longest cave in Austria, the ~150km Schönber-Höhlensystem. With nothing but limestone separating the two, a connection is almost inevitable! We just have the matter of finding the blasted thing...
This years goals
In the 2025 expedition, a return was made to Kaninchen Höhle (KH - translates to Rabbit Cave), which had not been explored since 2014, and the cave quickly made itself a firm favourite amongst its new generation of explorers, so a return was almost inevitable. Many exciting leads were pushed and new ones discovered last year , leaving us with more unticked boxes than we started with. One section, the Enniskillen Toad series is tantalisingly close to another series much closer to the entrance, so a hope is that a connection can be made there to save time in the long run. Another good lead is an as yet unnamed pitch series, which ate up 100m of rope with no sight of the bottom, dropping down close to Razordance, a section of Steinbrückenhöhle which had many promising leads but was a swine to get to. A return is planned to a pitch named Somebody Elses Problem, where an incredibly strong draft was inexplicably lost in 1997. Hopefully the wonders of modern lighting shows us a lovely stomping phreatic that takes us for miles and miles.
Another firm favourite, Balkonhöhle, is once again on the roster for the year, though this may be its last hurrah for a while! We plan to tick off some final leads from our underground camp, and push what we can into the blank spots of the map.
On the surface, the Plateau gods still offers us many holes to go at. A find last year, Kaninchenjäger (Rabbit Hunter) could well give us a KH back door (Kaninchenhintertür), allowing for even more exploration. Prospecting will always be on the cards as well, cataloguing whatever holes we come across, in the hopes of finding the next piece of the great Loser Jigsaw. Attention will be paid to an area between the SMK and another cave, Fischgesichthöhle, in the hopes of finding something that goes in both directions to tie this exciting cave in with the rest of the system.
(Surface prospecting is a truly awful experience, no one ever enjoys the sunshine on the plateau)
Who and when?
We go out in July, and come back in August. Expo prides itself on being a very "beginner friendly" expedition, its a first for many, including myself back in 2018! We have many students coming out, as well as some of the old fogies telling us about the good old days when they used to drive cars off canyons ("tackle: written off"), and survey miles of passage with a demagnetised compass (bloody fridges).
I (and hopefully others), will give updates on our exploits on here, and for anyone more curious about the expo, all the information and the logbook can be found here: https://expo.survex.com/
