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A tour to Donnerbach Siphon, Hirlatz H?hle
Dates: Wednesday 31st October, Sunday 4th November
Present: Wetti Wielander, Peter Hu ?bner, Katharina Bitzer, Georg Bitzer,
Tanguy Racine
Aim: To support a diving excursion to the Donnerbach Siphon, to survey two canyons in the vicinity of Pendler pitch and Sprengstelle bivouac respectively.
Wednesday 31st October
Wetti and I met at the caving clubhouse in Obertraun by the Hallstatt lake on the Wednesday in the evening. The plan was to wake early the next morning and meet the rest of the cavers, Peter, Katha and Georg at the parking spot near the entrance to Hirlatz H ?ohle. The cottage, a converted workers? home was well heated, spacious and comfortable; it was alo well furnished in reading material, in short the perfect place to meet other cavers, and while away the evenings discussing past caving exploits.
Thursday 1st November
A good night?s sleep was had, which was all to the good considering the long trip ahead: four days and three nights inside Hirlatz cave. Four days and three nights in near freezing temperatures. When the morning dawned, we repacked our bags, whereupon Wetti passed along the diving gear I would have to carry to the pushing front. With the tackle sacks filled to the brim, we departed Obertraun for the meeting point with the other three, stopping on the way at the Hirschsprung source, one of the resurgences of the system, where Wetti had previously dived.
We drove to the outskirts of Hallstatt proper and parked near a small hy- draulic power station. Barely a few minutes had passed that a blue caddy pulled up and parked next to us. Out jumped Peter, Katha and Georg; we shook hands, greeted each other and proceeded to get changed into our caving gears. Some final repacking ensued to spread the weight more evenly between the two divers, Wetti and Peter and the porters, Georg, Katha and I. Wetti pointed to the towering limestone cliffs to the south, at the base of which it was possible to spot the main entrance of the Hirlatz cave system. Some photos, and we were off for the steep approach climb.
We passed the Simony memorial, entered the forest and started our winding way up, first on mats of fallen leaves, then on scree from a gully, halting under beech trees to pick up their fruit and eat their nuts. Finally, we ended the slog uphill by traversing a grassy slope to the foot of the cliffs. Right across lay the first of many ladders we would climb during the extended weekend underground.
Peter led the way, into the draughty entrance, past the first gate and into the very first chamber where Wetti filled up the exploration logbook. For my part, I followed Peter up the entrance climbs of the Zubringer?, the introduction to Hirlatz. We hopped and climbed over deep potholes, including the ?Bathtub?, a particularly clean, deeply circular hole Peter and Wetti had once bathed in. The rest was a slog up muddy slopes sometimes aided by a handline, sometimes by a ladder which led to a draughty labyrinth of dry passages and eventually, at the end of Zubringer, a downclimb into the larger passages of the ?Alter Teil?, the old part of the cave.
The next objective was to climb up into the middle levels of Hirlatz, via the longer ladders of Schachthalle, gaining 60m in height before the Pendler pitch. There, a metal walkway bridged only half the shaft and was immediately followed by an inclined ladder, which gained access to an upper gallery where we stopped for the first time. Wetti showed me the plan of this part of the cave and indicated that a small canyon she and Peter knew existed needed surveying. There was probably 50 m of passage to add to the cave.
I was given some blue chalk to mark survey stations, while Peter, with tablet and laser disto drew the survey and Wetti took photographs. We plunged into a small, drippy side passage that immediately led to a small, but rather lovely vadose canyon taking a relatively large volume of water. A few twists and turns downstream, the water plunged over the lip of a pitch, rebounded on a ledge to spray the entire shaft, and disappeared in the darkness of the Pendler pitch. This was the end for us, but overall, we had gained a little over 100 m of new passage, some of which decorated with flowstone and in some places hosting bean ore. Quirky. In the meantime Katha and Georg has proceeded to explore every nearby crevice to keep warm.
Next, we moved further up to a breakthrough point called Sprengstelle, where the first of our underground camps lay. In the large sandy passage we found spaces to sleep, lay the roll mats and had a quick hot brew before Peter, Wetti and I continued for some further surveying not far from camp.
Next to the water collection point, we ascended a muddy slope in order to reach to the apex of one of the large abandoned phreatic tubes, where a small water inlet had carved a small canyon within the layered clayey sediments. The actual lead Wetti wanted to survey turned out to be the upstream continuation of the small water inlet.
Peter went first into a small meandering crawl and disappeared for some time. When he reappeared he confirmed that the about 20 m of ensuing passage were both worth the survey and conclusively ?dead?. We followed, crawling over the mud banks; at the bottom of the passage a sheet of water was running over a flowstone. Eventually the mud and passage ceilings were to close together to allow any further progress, and it was clear no one had bothered digging this relatively minor inlet.
Back at the camp, before we settled for the first underground night, Wetti took me on another tourist short tour to some decorated pools further down the main Sprengstelle passage. On the way she showed me a plaque under which she lit a candle, in remembrance of a friend who had sadly died on a return journey from a tough trip, within minutes of the bivouac.
Friday 2nd November
This was more of a travel day: we got up in the morning some time after 8.00 am, repacked the bags slightly (the fins from Wetti?s bag, which Katha volunteered to take, were rotated to offer a more comfortable fit), and started the ascent towards abandoned passage we had briefly seen the day before.
This was my second big Austrian cave - and even though I have been caving for five years, there was something truly awe inspiring about the silent, sandy and not necessarily decorated, passages of the Hirlatz cave, these big palaeo- phreatic levels. First their size, the majority between 5 and 10 m wide and high head clearance, which make the caving more akin to hiking indoors than anything else. Then, their character, which changes every so often, and I?m not talking just of ascents and descents in quick succession, but the colour, texture and quality of the sediment underfoot which increases the allure of the cave. And then, it goes on for a very long time.
I think it takes time to adjust one?s expectations, but coming from a back- ground of exploration and sport caving in the UK where ?500 m? of walking passage is an often repeated joke, something to aim towards, the very real presence of not just 500 m but a kilometre or more of nearly uninterrupted walking passage was completely disorienting. It was certainly a relief when we approached a quick succession of landmarks, turns or stoops which were much more easily registered.
About an hour out from camp, we found a water refill point where a stream cascaded from the ceiling into a pitch (something Wasserschacht), and where a reflective bollard caught the attention. Some traversing later, we ended up going past a muddy but decorated chamber with flowstones and caramel coloured stalagmites, some slightly smaller sandy passages and a quirky passage full of ?Nougat?: a flat surface of slippery hard mud we could only cross through hands and knees crawling.
Then the silent passages resumed, we passed a Hermit stalactite and not too far beyond the small Elephant?s Graveyard, where blocks which looked like massive vertebrae littered the passage. Beyond that, we had to navigate our way through a boulder choke, helping one another with the bags, which ended with a slippery ascending pitch rigged with a traverse, an upwards squeeze through boulders, and a larger space: Drei Tor Halle.
Once at the top, we traversed a pitch, and continued onwards through a very potholed section requiring care to put one?s feet on the sharp and now mud-covered edges of sculpted rock, often switching between full body bridging and bouldering moves. All with quite heavy bags. But soon, this passage gave way to a smaller set of galleries where we seemed to corkscrew our way down for an age, never quite able to stand up. Eventually though, we emerged into more spacious passage again where a junction beckoned.
We opted for the downwards sloping passage to our right, which ended with a dug out squeeze in beautiful white sand: the way onto the New World. On the other side of the squeeze, we trod upon a high sand bank and further on, onto some dessicated clay where the cracks could be seen to extend further than 5 m down: impressive! The cave continued: ups followed downs followed ups, but overall, it was clear we were still going deeper.
Eventually, we reached another junction between two big ways on: on the left, about ten minutes caving took us to Wolkenbivak, where we took some barrels containing dry sleeping bags, and a selection of roll mats, before turning back around. Our aim was to go right, to Fragenzeichenbivak (question mark bivouac), but before heading off, we picked up fourteen kilograms of lead which had been stashed at the junction. It put two in my bag, but immediately lost them to the ensuing crawl. These Wetti kindly picked up. The passage soon improved at the large Fragenzeichen passage, you guessed it: a descending, abandoned phreatic tube with lots of sand, and boulders to hop onto. On one of the downclimbs, Wetti decided to throw her roll mats down before downclimbing herself. It was a throw perfectly aimed at my head, which led to a string of swearwords being uttered in the silence of the cave.
At the bottom of the big Fragenzeichen - this had been a good six hours caving from our first camp, we realised we were actually quite close to our goal, but there were side passaged in all directions, so Peter and Georg went ahead to inspect one of the branches, reporting an SRT pitch ahead. This could not possibly be the way on. Further on the main branch, we found another junction. Peter disappeared again for some time, before completing a round trip and reappearing behind us.
Thankfully, he?d located the Fragenzeichen bivouac, so we followed him up and down, traversed around a pitch and found, in the middle of the passage several places where the mud was relatively flat. In total, the bivouac could accommodate six to seven cavers, but not many more.
We unpacked our gear, checked the time (mid afternoon) and decided to have a look at the passages beyond camp, both to collect water and reconnoitre the area. Only about fifty metres down from camp, the hitherto ubiquitous mud disappeared. We had just entered a beautifully sculpted, clean washed maze of passages, with photogenic potholes, scallops, fault breccia with striking shades of red and ochre against the grey rock, and here and there, some protruding Megalodont (large heart shaped mussel) fossils.
Peter, who had been there a decade earlier, tried to remember a short-cut from these passages to the Donnerbach series he and Wetti had planned to dive the next day. We somewhat adventurously found an SRT-free way to the head of 15 m pitch opening directly over a large fault plane. This Peter instantly recognised as being connected to Donnergang, but the way down eluded us. So we turned around and climbed back up to camp to fill water containers for the night. In so doing, we ascended up a narrow rift which had been a breeze on the way down. This took some time, not the least because one of my wellies got completely stuck under a rock overhang I?d used as a foothold. Much swearing and prolific sweating ensued, which eventually culminated in the release of the offending welly.
After this little touristic adventure, we ate some warm food before Peter announced the final part of the day?s caving would be to recce the other way down to Donnergang, the way we would use the next day to reach the siphon they were about to dive. Wetti elected to stay at camp, so Peter, Katha, Georg and I managed to extract ourselves from the comfortable sleeping bags and put our caving gear on again.
It took some searching and many wrong turns before realising the ?SRT pitch? was the actual way on. Peter went down, declaring that the rigging was also useful as a handline and climbed down the 6 or 7 metres that made up the pitch. Katha, who had brought her harness and a karabiner, abseiled down. Georg and I climbed down to rejoin them both.
Just beyond the pitch, a turning to the right fit exactly the description Peter had given us: we emerged at the top of a drop, which it was possible to circumvent by careful traversing on the left, and further down, the passage opened into a large, boulder filled hall equipped with handlines. From here on out, a low rumble could be heard: the Donnerbach.
We carried on down the handlined drops, found a descending passage which merged with the Donnergang series. The rocks were deeply scalloped and pot- holed and there were many megalodonts to be seen. After some wandering around, we made our way to the bottom of the fault controlled pitch we had so recently been contemplating from above. Some quick looks to the side re- vealed a small convoluted passage corkscrewing its way up through puddles and squeezes until we emerged on a ledge three quarters of the way up the pitch. Alas, there was no obvious way on from there, and deciding that we could well spend hours looking for the ?short cut?, without Wetti knowing where we were, opted to turn around and go back to the camp.
In no time, we were treading the now familiar passages back to the bivouac, eager to get to sleep.
Dates: Wednesday 31st October, Sunday 4th November
Present: Wetti Wielander, Peter Hu ?bner, Katharina Bitzer, Georg Bitzer,
Tanguy Racine
Aim: To support a diving excursion to the Donnerbach Siphon, to survey two canyons in the vicinity of Pendler pitch and Sprengstelle bivouac respectively.
Wednesday 31st October
Wetti and I met at the caving clubhouse in Obertraun by the Hallstatt lake on the Wednesday in the evening. The plan was to wake early the next morning and meet the rest of the cavers, Peter, Katha and Georg at the parking spot near the entrance to Hirlatz H ?ohle. The cottage, a converted workers? home was well heated, spacious and comfortable; it was alo well furnished in reading material, in short the perfect place to meet other cavers, and while away the evenings discussing past caving exploits.
Thursday 1st November
A good night?s sleep was had, which was all to the good considering the long trip ahead: four days and three nights inside Hirlatz cave. Four days and three nights in near freezing temperatures. When the morning dawned, we repacked our bags, whereupon Wetti passed along the diving gear I would have to carry to the pushing front. With the tackle sacks filled to the brim, we departed Obertraun for the meeting point with the other three, stopping on the way at the Hirschsprung source, one of the resurgences of the system, where Wetti had previously dived.
We drove to the outskirts of Hallstatt proper and parked near a small hy- draulic power station. Barely a few minutes had passed that a blue caddy pulled up and parked next to us. Out jumped Peter, Katha and Georg; we shook hands, greeted each other and proceeded to get changed into our caving gears. Some final repacking ensued to spread the weight more evenly between the two divers, Wetti and Peter and the porters, Georg, Katha and I. Wetti pointed to the towering limestone cliffs to the south, at the base of which it was possible to spot the main entrance of the Hirlatz cave system. Some photos, and we were off for the steep approach climb.
We passed the Simony memorial, entered the forest and started our winding way up, first on mats of fallen leaves, then on scree from a gully, halting under beech trees to pick up their fruit and eat their nuts. Finally, we ended the slog uphill by traversing a grassy slope to the foot of the cliffs. Right across lay the first of many ladders we would climb during the extended weekend underground.
Peter led the way, into the draughty entrance, past the first gate and into the very first chamber where Wetti filled up the exploration logbook. For my part, I followed Peter up the entrance climbs of the Zubringer?, the introduction to Hirlatz. We hopped and climbed over deep potholes, including the ?Bathtub?, a particularly clean, deeply circular hole Peter and Wetti had once bathed in. The rest was a slog up muddy slopes sometimes aided by a handline, sometimes by a ladder which led to a draughty labyrinth of dry passages and eventually, at the end of Zubringer, a downclimb into the larger passages of the ?Alter Teil?, the old part of the cave.
The next objective was to climb up into the middle levels of Hirlatz, via the longer ladders of Schachthalle, gaining 60m in height before the Pendler pitch. There, a metal walkway bridged only half the shaft and was immediately followed by an inclined ladder, which gained access to an upper gallery where we stopped for the first time. Wetti showed me the plan of this part of the cave and indicated that a small canyon she and Peter knew existed needed surveying. There was probably 50 m of passage to add to the cave.
I was given some blue chalk to mark survey stations, while Peter, with tablet and laser disto drew the survey and Wetti took photographs. We plunged into a small, drippy side passage that immediately led to a small, but rather lovely vadose canyon taking a relatively large volume of water. A few twists and turns downstream, the water plunged over the lip of a pitch, rebounded on a ledge to spray the entire shaft, and disappeared in the darkness of the Pendler pitch. This was the end for us, but overall, we had gained a little over 100 m of new passage, some of which decorated with flowstone and in some places hosting bean ore. Quirky. In the meantime Katha and Georg has proceeded to explore every nearby crevice to keep warm.
Next, we moved further up to a breakthrough point called Sprengstelle, where the first of our underground camps lay. In the large sandy passage we found spaces to sleep, lay the roll mats and had a quick hot brew before Peter, Wetti and I continued for some further surveying not far from camp.
Next to the water collection point, we ascended a muddy slope in order to reach to the apex of one of the large abandoned phreatic tubes, where a small water inlet had carved a small canyon within the layered clayey sediments. The actual lead Wetti wanted to survey turned out to be the upstream continuation of the small water inlet.
Peter went first into a small meandering crawl and disappeared for some time. When he reappeared he confirmed that the about 20 m of ensuing passage were both worth the survey and conclusively ?dead?. We followed, crawling over the mud banks; at the bottom of the passage a sheet of water was running over a flowstone. Eventually the mud and passage ceilings were to close together to allow any further progress, and it was clear no one had bothered digging this relatively minor inlet.
Back at the camp, before we settled for the first underground night, Wetti took me on another tourist short tour to some decorated pools further down the main Sprengstelle passage. On the way she showed me a plaque under which she lit a candle, in remembrance of a friend who had sadly died on a return journey from a tough trip, within minutes of the bivouac.
Friday 2nd November
This was more of a travel day: we got up in the morning some time after 8.00 am, repacked the bags slightly (the fins from Wetti?s bag, which Katha volunteered to take, were rotated to offer a more comfortable fit), and started the ascent towards abandoned passage we had briefly seen the day before.
This was my second big Austrian cave - and even though I have been caving for five years, there was something truly awe inspiring about the silent, sandy and not necessarily decorated, passages of the Hirlatz cave, these big palaeo- phreatic levels. First their size, the majority between 5 and 10 m wide and high head clearance, which make the caving more akin to hiking indoors than anything else. Then, their character, which changes every so often, and I?m not talking just of ascents and descents in quick succession, but the colour, texture and quality of the sediment underfoot which increases the allure of the cave. And then, it goes on for a very long time.
I think it takes time to adjust one?s expectations, but coming from a back- ground of exploration and sport caving in the UK where ?500 m? of walking passage is an often repeated joke, something to aim towards, the very real presence of not just 500 m but a kilometre or more of nearly uninterrupted walking passage was completely disorienting. It was certainly a relief when we approached a quick succession of landmarks, turns or stoops which were much more easily registered.
About an hour out from camp, we found a water refill point where a stream cascaded from the ceiling into a pitch (something Wasserschacht), and where a reflective bollard caught the attention. Some traversing later, we ended up going past a muddy but decorated chamber with flowstones and caramel coloured stalagmites, some slightly smaller sandy passages and a quirky passage full of ?Nougat?: a flat surface of slippery hard mud we could only cross through hands and knees crawling.
Then the silent passages resumed, we passed a Hermit stalactite and not too far beyond the small Elephant?s Graveyard, where blocks which looked like massive vertebrae littered the passage. Beyond that, we had to navigate our way through a boulder choke, helping one another with the bags, which ended with a slippery ascending pitch rigged with a traverse, an upwards squeeze through boulders, and a larger space: Drei Tor Halle.
Once at the top, we traversed a pitch, and continued onwards through a very potholed section requiring care to put one?s feet on the sharp and now mud-covered edges of sculpted rock, often switching between full body bridging and bouldering moves. All with quite heavy bags. But soon, this passage gave way to a smaller set of galleries where we seemed to corkscrew our way down for an age, never quite able to stand up. Eventually though, we emerged into more spacious passage again where a junction beckoned.
We opted for the downwards sloping passage to our right, which ended with a dug out squeeze in beautiful white sand: the way onto the New World. On the other side of the squeeze, we trod upon a high sand bank and further on, onto some dessicated clay where the cracks could be seen to extend further than 5 m down: impressive! The cave continued: ups followed downs followed ups, but overall, it was clear we were still going deeper.
Eventually, we reached another junction between two big ways on: on the left, about ten minutes caving took us to Wolkenbivak, where we took some barrels containing dry sleeping bags, and a selection of roll mats, before turning back around. Our aim was to go right, to Fragenzeichenbivak (question mark bivouac), but before heading off, we picked up fourteen kilograms of lead which had been stashed at the junction. It put two in my bag, but immediately lost them to the ensuing crawl. These Wetti kindly picked up. The passage soon improved at the large Fragenzeichen passage, you guessed it: a descending, abandoned phreatic tube with lots of sand, and boulders to hop onto. On one of the downclimbs, Wetti decided to throw her roll mats down before downclimbing herself. It was a throw perfectly aimed at my head, which led to a string of swearwords being uttered in the silence of the cave.
At the bottom of the big Fragenzeichen - this had been a good six hours caving from our first camp, we realised we were actually quite close to our goal, but there were side passaged in all directions, so Peter and Georg went ahead to inspect one of the branches, reporting an SRT pitch ahead. This could not possibly be the way on. Further on the main branch, we found another junction. Peter disappeared again for some time, before completing a round trip and reappearing behind us.
Thankfully, he?d located the Fragenzeichen bivouac, so we followed him up and down, traversed around a pitch and found, in the middle of the passage several places where the mud was relatively flat. In total, the bivouac could accommodate six to seven cavers, but not many more.
We unpacked our gear, checked the time (mid afternoon) and decided to have a look at the passages beyond camp, both to collect water and reconnoitre the area. Only about fifty metres down from camp, the hitherto ubiquitous mud disappeared. We had just entered a beautifully sculpted, clean washed maze of passages, with photogenic potholes, scallops, fault breccia with striking shades of red and ochre against the grey rock, and here and there, some protruding Megalodont (large heart shaped mussel) fossils.
Peter, who had been there a decade earlier, tried to remember a short-cut from these passages to the Donnerbach series he and Wetti had planned to dive the next day. We somewhat adventurously found an SRT-free way to the head of 15 m pitch opening directly over a large fault plane. This Peter instantly recognised as being connected to Donnergang, but the way down eluded us. So we turned around and climbed back up to camp to fill water containers for the night. In so doing, we ascended up a narrow rift which had been a breeze on the way down. This took some time, not the least because one of my wellies got completely stuck under a rock overhang I?d used as a foothold. Much swearing and prolific sweating ensued, which eventually culminated in the release of the offending welly.
After this little touristic adventure, we ate some warm food before Peter announced the final part of the day?s caving would be to recce the other way down to Donnergang, the way we would use the next day to reach the siphon they were about to dive. Wetti elected to stay at camp, so Peter, Katha, Georg and I managed to extract ourselves from the comfortable sleeping bags and put our caving gear on again.
It took some searching and many wrong turns before realising the ?SRT pitch? was the actual way on. Peter went down, declaring that the rigging was also useful as a handline and climbed down the 6 or 7 metres that made up the pitch. Katha, who had brought her harness and a karabiner, abseiled down. Georg and I climbed down to rejoin them both.
Just beyond the pitch, a turning to the right fit exactly the description Peter had given us: we emerged at the top of a drop, which it was possible to circumvent by careful traversing on the left, and further down, the passage opened into a large, boulder filled hall equipped with handlines. From here on out, a low rumble could be heard: the Donnerbach.
We carried on down the handlined drops, found a descending passage which merged with the Donnergang series. The rocks were deeply scalloped and pot- holed and there were many megalodonts to be seen. After some wandering around, we made our way to the bottom of the fault controlled pitch we had so recently been contemplating from above. Some quick looks to the side re- vealed a small convoluted passage corkscrewing its way up through puddles and squeezes until we emerged on a ledge three quarters of the way up the pitch. Alas, there was no obvious way on from there, and deciding that we could well spend hours looking for the ?short cut?, without Wetti knowing where we were, opted to turn around and go back to the camp.
In no time, we were treading the now familiar passages back to the bivouac, eager to get to sleep.
