Leben Was Geht

hi extreme death mountain paraglider wannabe’s.
last saturday and martin and me we drove to grünau im almtal for checking out a new discovered cave from martin – the “toagschmied höhle”.
we climbed up the sepp huber steig to the röllsattel and hiked without any path to the cave.
martin and and abseiled down about 12m to the ground. unfortunately that was the end. but that can happen while discovering caves.
then we hiked through a great karst land scape.
at the neuner kogel we did a small rest and then i tried to start my parachute 50m’s down from the summit. i made everything ready but then the wind ran off.
so i decided not to start and so we went down to the almsee which was not my favourite ending of this tour…
ok next time i will be earlier at the starting place.
when you want to start a parachute the best time is until half past 2 in the afternoon according to the local leo.
but with some beers and debreziner everything was forgotten 😉
cya at the mountains
bernhard

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Hi extreme Cave seekers!
Yesterday Martin, Joachim, Christoph, Gregor and me we drove to Altausee to the Loser for exploring the Kaninchenhoehle. first i had to cow the car from christoph because his car ran out of gasoline. that was a good start to wake up in the morning (5am). but with our ropes in the trunk we were possible to reach the next gas station with a speed of 60km/h 😉 …
We needed one and a half hour to the entrance from the parking lot. we took the 161d entrance which is not so easy to reach because of the mountain pine zone(its only 3metres to go! 😉
30m’s after the entrance we saw a black bat hang around on the side wall in mothshag. we could not identify it because we are not really big bat men…
then we had to climb and crawl very narrow gangways and we had to take care of the muddy stone blocks when we crossed them. so one fault and you will have big problems for sure!

we saw here really amazing stalgtites curtains – wonderful! nevertheless we reached then our goal for this day the knossos chamber which is a really great hall inside this cave with 50ms diameter. we had to abseil to this hall in a 20m pitch. there was one really great looking but very dangerous wedge block which will fall downwards in the direction where we had to abseil. we recognized this when we had to climb up this back.
we did some nice photos at the star wars section and then we went to the waterfall chamber where my digicam suddenly fallen down 8m because it was on a steep and narrow place. we climbed down beside the big block and could only grab the destroyed digicam. Shit happens! bette the camera got destroyed than me. but that was a good sign too to get a new camera 😉
we walked 1100m inside the cave on direction -thats far for a one day trip!

so we went back to the entrance and reached the entrance at 4pm. that was important to reach the karl stöger steig in the daylight otherwise we could have get really big orientation problems in the mountain pine zone… at 7pm we reached the parking lot at the loser alm one of us suffered from a hypocylycaemic episode. but with a power gel and some apples we managed this problem too. at the parking lot we drank the most important beer forever…;)
so thanks a lot for this great weekend. it was a pleasure to walk in such beautiful nature with well committed people. big up!
cya on the mountains bernhard

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Hi Cave Seekers!
Yesterday, Mathias, Jonathan and me we drove to Altausee to the Loser for Caving the Schwarzmooskogeleishöhle.
We slept near the Car outside with our sleeping bag. What a wonderful clear stars night.
This day we stood up early in the morning and walkd 1:45 hrs to the entrance Elefanteneingang from the Schwarmooskogeleishöhle.
We had a nice narrow entrance into this wonderful cave.
After some ice climbing we went to the schneevulkanhalle. thats the bigged ice hall from europe. what a big delay.
Then we were happy to had a really great phenomen.
between 10:40 and about 11:00 the sunlight came into the hall over the elefanteneingang and we needed no lamp for this big cave.
What a nice mood.
Then we walked little bit further an icewall upwards and than little bit downwards until there was too much water, where you need some neopren suit to cross this passage.
at 2pm we walked back to the car.
Then i ran up to the Loser and had some really great speedflying down to altaussee.
Thx for this great weekend.
Autumn can be so fine.
Cya on the mountains
Bernhard

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Hi Caveseekers!
Last day, i walked with two friends to the eislueg in hinterstoder for visiting the icecave eislueg!
first we had to hike up 850 metres of altitude with all our equipment. and that was a lot to carry…
from the entrance of the cave there came a lot of cold wind out of it.
than we had to put on our crampon. we had to avseil down 60m to the icelake. first i thought, we had no chance to cross the lake but i throwed a stone we saw, that under 5cm of clear water, there is good ice..
so we were lucky to cross the lake and then there were nice ice formations in the hall. look at the pictures.
we climbed further inside the cave and abseil down 25m into a slot.
on the other side we climbed up a 30 years old wood ladder. some scion were destroyed. then we climbed further inside the cave and ende after 2 ladders, because we had to be back at 6pm. that was our alarm time – you know.
we climbed back to the 25m slot.
then we had some little orientation problems because we needed 3 attempts to find the correct way back to the ice hall. every time we ended at the 25m slot. crazy. the way back looks so different then the way in.
but we were lucky to manage this problem too.
we came out at 5pm from the cave and unfortunately we got a nice welcome with thunderstorm and some rain.
but we get used to it after a while and ended at 7pm in hinterstoder.
thx for the nice day.
bernhard

Hi Batmen and Batwomen!
This day i drove alone to altaussee for visiting the kaninchenhoehle near the loser.
unfortunately martin felt not good and cliff thought, this action wouln’t be worth it 😉
first i had some problems with the icy street near the loser alm, i had to park my car beside the street, because my wheels had no grip…
but not a big problem, only some metres of altidude more – thats good for the condition training i thought…..
so i went with my gear in the foggy snowing weather to the karl stöger steig, where i lost my way sometimes…
i had only the gps coordinates and so i had to navigate with the garmin gps. it was really great to work in an alpine area with this tool. most of the time i followed the track of the chamoises. i had to cross through many worn-out shoes. therefore i cut many branches with a “fold saw”.
then the sun was coming, what a nice mood.
inside the cave it was sometimes really big rooms and corridors and sometimes very narrow too.
i used also my working cloves as a marker at the crossing points, because i didn’t want to lost my way in the cave. unfortunately the gps is not working inside a cave 😉
at 2:pm i went back to my car and had a really nice weather for hiking back.
the loser hut has got a really great panorama. wonderful.
have a nice sunday
bernhard

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Hi Caveseekers.
Last Day, Heli Steinmassl, Ralf Cassebaum and me (Bernhard Gruber) we went to Hinterstoder for exploring a “new” cave near the Eislueg.
We named it Scheissmauertichter because it is in the scheissmauer and the entrance looks like a cone.

first we climbed uphill with our equipment to the eislueg, we had a look some metres inside. we could not see a lot of ice in the entrance. perhaps after the winter the cave get more ice again.
then we went to the scheissmauer and abseil down to the cave entrance over a mountain pine. the firs abseil pitch is about 80m’s inside the cave on a 43° steep snow hill. the snow was not hard frozen, but we used crampons.

then we go climbed without any rope the left corridor about 250m with some narrow canyons and nice climbings with the back and footings method.
We saw many bats also mummies and carcasses from bats.
we also climbed down a hole but everyone ended for us. everyone said, thats good otherwise we had to carry all the equipment like ropes and so on over this “difficult” and hard and narrow corridor.
so we went back and did the measuring (length, horizontal and vertical direction) and drawing a map.

at the main hall we went to the right side there was a very flat ground with gravel. we explored here a corridor we we thaught to here a waterfall. i climbed in this really narrow corridor with the feet at the beginning and then there was such a big wind stream, but unfortunately the noise was the wind and not the water.
so we didn’t found any possibilities to continue the cave.
we could see also some stalactites and stalacmites.
after some photos we climbed uphill to the entrance.
we measured 455metres at all in this cave.
we arrived at 10pm the parking lot after a warm but hard hike through our loved mountain pines 😉
Wonderful cave, the access way is not the best, but perhaps the next time i can fly down with a speedglider ;))
have a nice week
bernhard

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hi caveseekers!
last day, i went with heli steinmassl caving to the brotfall near the großer priel in hinterstoder.
first we walked uphill 1800 metres with the snow shoes and the tour skis and carried the whole caving equipment including a 200m dynema 8mm diameter rope.
at 12:45 we arrived at the cave entrance.

then we abseil down about 40metres in a snow cave and did the measurement and drew a cave sketch. there were some nice icecles but in 40metres depth there was the temporary ending because of too much snow inside the cave. perhaps of the last big snow falls 3 weeks ago. shit happens.

then we climbed around the overhang and explored another big cave with many entrances. this must be the correct entrance, where a missing mountaineer falled down in the cave some months ago.

the time was about 15:45 so i walked down with the snow shoes to the hut and enjoyed the beautiful sunset while heli was drawing the cave sketch. what an amazing sunset! after the prielschutzhaus it was dark and finally we went down together to the car. at 18:20 we arrived the car.

then i had a nice bath in the cold river because at 19:30 thomas huber was coming for presenting his slideshow im vakuum der zeit…
thx for the great day!

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Hi caveseekers!
This day Martin Fickert (from steyr) and me (Bernhard Gruber) we drove to windischgarsten and we visited the cave eiskapelle. there was no ice inside the cave left but nevertheless it was worth to have a look in it.
then we walked to the other side of the mountain and had a look to a big horizontal gap in the wall we could see from the parking lot. its called the reif cave. there we climbed about 30m’s inside and did some pictures.
then we walked down, and i was happy to find another cave entrance. i abseiled down about 15m’s then little bit climbing. there it was really narrow and here we saw a bat. then i abseiled down about 30m’s and i had to stop because of no more rope… i built there a carin for marking my exploration point. after consultation with the sierninger höhlenverein i get t know that this cave is the kohlenrutsche cave.
so we didn’t found any new cave. but it was worth it – for sure.
after the caving we drove to the wurbauer kogel and did the summer alpine coaster. i like the children stuff 😉
it was a nice exploration day. thats life!
keep it going!

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Hi!
This Day Matthias Mollner, Martin Fickert, Christoph Forster and Bernhard Gruber (That’s me), we went caving to the schwarzmooskogeleishöhle near the loser in altaussee at the “totes gebirge”.
We started at 7 o’clock from the top of the mountain pass. then we walked about two hours with the help of gps to the entrance of the cave. unfortunately it rained sometimes for a while but we said to us: there is no bad weather, only bad equipment…
at 10 o’clock we began to abseil down the first 70m shaft (1st:30m, 2nd:40m). at the beginning there were some rockfoll, but no problem for us.
it was a really great feeling to abseil down 40m into a free dark big hall – it is called “altauseerhalle”. amazing!
Then there were some nice ice pathes and canyons with yellow couloured walls and then a block of rock where we abseil down for about 4m.
Then we had to climb up a 10m heigh icewall, at the top we saw a inscription of “Hütter 1938”. so the first cave explorers where in the year 1938 here in this room. crazy!
then we had to abseil down for about 15m where we could see beautiful ice formations. after that there was an ice lake, it was inpossible to walk over so we had to climb up an ice wall and abseil down beside the sea.
then the last 7m height ice wall for ice climbing. we were lucky to had matthias in our group, because he is a very good iceclimber.
here we are!
the snow vulcano hall!
amazing!
thats the biggest ice hall in europe! one great big snow cone, many ice columns and many ice cones! here we took some pictures and then martin and me, we took the “elefanteneingang” to exit the cave, the others had to go back and bring all the mounted ropes outside the cave. we only had to walk back for 20minutes to the main entrance of the smk. the other need 1.5 hours more time ;)) so we could do some snack and relaxing. at 17:30 we went back to the car. at 19:45 we got the first beer at the looserhütte. there was a really great view to the the dachstein area and the altausseer see.
at half past 10 we arrived very tired in steyr.
nevertheless we had a lot of fun beside some troubles with the tblocks and a person who didn’t want to believe that we all have to wear crampons.
thx to all in the group for doing their best!

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